Avatar (2009), Kalyug (2005)
(IMDB) - In the future, Jake, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race with their own language and culture. Those from Earth find themselves at odds with each other and the local culture.
Maybe it was the crazy amount of hype that this got, or maybe because I didn’t see it in 3D and get distracted by fancy special effects – but this really fell flat for me. It may have impressive special effects, but the story itself was nothing original.
It’s basically Dances With Wolves, but on another planet. Pick any film that features the ‘evils of technology’ and ‘white guy goes native’. Put that in space with blue kind-of-cat-like-people and you have Avatar.
I personally can’t see why it swept the Golden Globes. It’s nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. I’ve seen District 9 and Inglorious Basterds but none of the other ones nominated. I don’t think Avatar should win. District 9 was good, but I felt like I was getting hit in the face with a textbook on morality. Inglorious Basterds was solid all around for me, and I’m cheering for it.
Anyways, I did get a kick out of the asshole General though. He reminded me of Colonel Guile from Street Fighter – complete with cheesy video game dialogue. I did (half)jokingly suggest that Jean-Claude Van Damme should have been the General, but I got frightened looks from everyone else in the room…
Rating: 3/5
(IMDB) - The film deals with a newly married couple caught on camera at a hotel during their honeymoon. The video is released on the Internet and the bride ultimately commits suicide. The husband, in pursuit of revenge, delves into the world of underground pornography, eventually traveling to Amsterdam and Switzerland to seek out the criminals of the underground pornography industry that profited from the film.
Recently I purchased a handful of DVDs from the $1 bin at Nehaflix.com. I feel no guilt about buying bad movies when they’re $1 each.
And this film was bad. It started off okay, then quickly featured a whirlwind romance. The whole process of becoming friends to being in love in film time was seven days, but it was crammed into one five minute song montage.
They quickly got married, and when the plot really started to unfold – that’s when it really started going downhill.
As the plot synopsis says, his trail of the porn people sends him to Switzerland. The stereotypes were aggravating at first, but after about an hour I just resorted to laughing and shaking my head.
What I got from it is that anyone who has any of the following: multiple piercings, tattoos, dyed hair – is either a pervert, child molester, alcoholic, cocaine addict, or a lesbian (being a lesbian is a BAD, apparently), or a combination of any of the following.
On the lesbian front it is also implied that being a lesbian was because of the nasty Western influences as a result of growing up in Switzerland, and if she had been raised in India she would have been the perfect straight child.
Also, a large generalization on the porn industry – everyone is forced into it! No one actually enjoys it.
It had a message at the beginning and at the end about how human trafficking is widespread and needs to be stopped. That’s a message I can get behind, but upon watching it that’s not the message that I got. Like I said, I got more of a ‘the Western influences lead to being a pervert – India is great and will result in perfect children!’ feeling from it.
But hey, on the upside (probably the only real upside) I did enjoy this song:
It’s so awesome that in the DVD set I got (again – $1!!) it comes with a bonus feature DVD (which I’ll never watch), and a bonus audio CD. All the other songs are just kind of ‘meh’, but this one was awesome.
Also, the actress who played the evil chick behind the whole plot? Amrita Singh, aka Saif Ali Khan’s ex-wife! I dunno, I just found this to be hilarious.
Rating: 1.5/5
Extra hilarious random thing – The other guy in the movie (sex shop worker!) had an eyebrow piercing that was hilariously glued onto his eyebrow. One of the balls actually was pasted on his eyelid. Hahaha.
