Avatar - Not Worth The Hype

Avatar. I heard this word from my brother first who, by the way, is freakishly up-to-date with all the movies that have ever been made, being made, will be made, were planned to be made but didn't get made, were made but didn't make it to the theatres, well you get the idea. I heard this word everyday for the past 60 days. My brother would say an assortment of the following dialogues, just to be true to his motto "Variety is the spice of life".


"Hey, did you know Lord Vishnu has 10 avatars? Speaking of avatar...."

"Man, DasAVATARam soooo did not need those many avatars!"

"I will do a submission move(Undertaker) on you if you don't take me to that movie..."

"Eh? What hour?"

and so on and so forth. But as luck would have it, I was destined to get that long overdue submission move, as I had decided to watch the movie with my friends in Aamchi Bombay(Yes, I still call it by its old name). Anyways, we waited with bated breath, clutching our 3-D glasses oh-so-tight as we entered the cinema hall. Glasses on our eyes, popcorn in our mouths, we were ready to embark on a journey of a lifetime - or so we thought.


The concept is fairly simple and I'm very lazy. Which is why I've copy-pasted it right from Wiki.

"Avatar is a 2009 American science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron, and starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver and Stephen Lang. The film is set in the year 2154 on Pandora, a fictional inhabited Earth-like moon in a distant planetary system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, while the Na'vi — the sapient race of humanoids indigenous to the moon — resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandoran ecosystem. The film's title refers to the remotely controlled, genetically engineered human-Na'vi bodies used by the film's human characters to interact with the natives."


Blah Blah Blah. Now, for the review. I liked this film in parts. The visuals were stunning. The story unfolded beautifully when coupled with the amazing graphics. Kudos to the whole team of Avatar. What I like most about James Cameron's story was it was brilliant to watch on screen. The beauty of the movie was the simplicity of the story. Ah, but this is where the movie fails, too. The narration was straight out of those magical books we used to read as kids. The story was so predictable. I mean, at every point of the movie I was like "DUH!". The actors were okay. They don't deserve more mention than that.


I loved the whole concept of the trees communicating as a network and I agree with Jake Sully when he says "I'm in love with your forest.". The forest is something out of this world...oh yeah it is actually out of this world :P
The trees, the Ikrans, the forest, Pandora....everything was nicely created. But the story, the actors, the irritating 3-D glasses just fell flat. Although I still would say that you should go for the movie, just for the graphics, but not expect much in terms of story, and don't get carried away by the hype!

P.S.: A very entertaining moment in the movie was when the name of a Na'vi "Tsu'tey" was modified by the gujju guys in the front row to "Su Chhe"-means "What you want?" in Gujrati :P

New!!!!!

Oh well, a new template calls for a new post, eh homie!?! Well, I was just watchin the TV and suddenly this advertisement comes on, and I was like "Couldn't they have chosen a better tagline!?!". Anyways the ad was for a very popular shampoo(which I'm not going to mention but hopefully the smart ones will figure out from the tagline) and their tagline was:


"Making heads happier"

Now, THAT leads to twisted thinking ;)

The Big Fat (South) Indian Wedding - Part II

So we're finally here. In the village(unlike the Shyamalan movie, this one is a bit less interesting, which doesn't say a lot about it). We manage to get 4 autos and fit 20+ people into them. To sum this ride up in one word, the word is: PAINFUL. I do NOT wish to expand on that *shudder* word.

Yay! We've reached. My brother gets scoldings in very clever ways devised by my mother. Check this out:

• Wow! I don't need to iron my sari because you've done it by sitting on my lap!!
  

This statement means: "My sari has so many freaking creases someone might as well use it as a rag!!".

Man, the moment you enter the hall you're seeing yellow everywhere. That's because of the excessive gold ornaments. Not only that. Every female family member starts comparing by weight the jewellery. It's a horrifying experience. What's worse, I've absolutely NO interest(see how I put "no" in caps!?!) in such crap. But all the EDMs want to see something dangling on my neck because "I'm a girl", so I gotta.

Numerous sub-functions take place in the marriage. Something where the groom goes out of the hall and the bride's father needs to bring him back and convince him about the "pleasures" of married life, hope you catch my drift ;) And one where the bride and groom sit on a swing and all the EDMs sing songs. But all said and done, I do enjoy all this stuff. It's nice and mushy :)
A typical south indian marriage has a lot of delicacies to offer. I love the vadas(the Indian Doughnut, if you will!), puli inji(Tamarind and Ginger and Chillies in a gooey, spicy liquid), payasam(sweet). But that's about it. The rest of the stuff isn't really appealing to my taste buds. But it's "not manners" to leave food on the leaf, so I gotta eat everything. I've got a policy about food I don't like to eat. I'll eat it, BUT it'll be the first thing I eat. I finish it off at the earliest because I don't want to see it sitting on my banana leaf menancingly. This is where my dad comes in. He's got a policy about food I don't like to eat. He knows I don't like it, SO I've got to have it atleast twice. So by the time I finish one serving of avial(any vegetable you find in the kitchen, throw it in some coconut milk and *ta-dah*) I've got another waiting on my leaf. Ah, the joy.

There's this particular sub-function I would like to mention called nalungu. After all the smiling and marrying that the bride and groom have to do, it's time for fun and games. Now, there is this one game where a ring is thrown into an urn containing milk. Both bride and groom put their hands into it and the one who finds the ring wins. Now, it's amazing that almost every time the bride finds it first and, get this, she lets the groom win. Why!?! Why would anyone do that! Because they want their husband-of-few-hours to win, showing that they're a subservient Indian woman. Sheesh! Everyone present at the function now sings songs, and it turns into a competitive antakshari(Indian musical game) between the bride's side and the groom's side, showing that though both families have spent time and money on an event that will make us one big family, we still want to kick each other's ass when it comes to singing songs from forgettable movies.

Finally the marriage has come to an end. The bride and groom go off happily with the various gifts that they've received. And the other families go off happily thinking about who's gonna get married next and when the whole family can get together again. Hmmm...maybe I like marriages after all :)

The Big Fat (South) Indian Wedding - Part 1

I hate attending Marriages- no really, hear me out! Every time my dad opens up an envelope that's got kumkumam(not the "very" educative weekly magazine, mind you - I'm talking about the red powder that signifies unavailability/marital status of a woman) and the Indian God of Prosperity on the rich creamy white background, I, for a moment, am blinded by the very thought of the garish outfits and gravity-defying jewellery adorned by paatis, maamis, perimmas, cousins. Not to mention the thought of my mom and other perimmas, paatis...(refer above) holding out heavy ornaments and chanting "JOIN USSSSS...". That seriously is straight out of a scene out of an alien invasion movie or something!


Anyhoo, this time it was my cousin X's wedding. Now, to get to the "town"(when I say town, I mean village) where she was to get married, we had to travel in an unbelievably stinky, slow train, which I love as much as the next guy, really.
Now as you know, in a train there's the lower berth, middle berth and upper berth. Along with this you have the side lower and side upper. My personal favourite is the side lower, for the obvious reason that I can orient myself in two directions. The lower berth is okay because that way I'm closer to my luggage. You see, stories of train thefts have freaked me out to such an extent that I cannot bear the thought of tearing my eyes away from my luggage. I usually prefer to get one of the above mentioned berths and not the complement of this set.
Considering we were travelling in a pack, this is how the berths are divided(for the sake of simplicity, most male and female family members shall be referred to as "Maama" and "Maami"):

EDM(Extremely Dominating Maami): Aiyyo(Uh-oh), ennaku(for me) back pain irruku(is there). Ennaku(for me) lower berth thaan(only) venum(want)!

ARM(America Return Maama - went for bout 6 months to visit his "look Indian but act American" kids): Oh very hot la(isn't it)? AC-la(in) book panneerkalam-o(should have booked-o)?(all this including the tamil words with a put-on accent!).

I always wonder about these put-on accents. Many thoughts regarding these wander in my mind in a nomadic manner when ARMs are talking to me.

• Firstly, how do they develop these accents? I mean they've stayed in India all their life and then in a matter of years, nay, months, they are, how do I put this, "American-ized"!
• Secondly, they name random places to show that they've "Been There, Done That". For the love of God!

So between all the EDMs and ARMs all the good berths are taken, and the kozhanthaigal(children) are left with the crappy ones. Again among the children there's the tedious process of assignment of berths. With respect to age and all that, the older children get to select the berths they want. Being the second youngest in the family, the worst one usually comes to me - like a side upper. Damn, I wish my parents had planned my date of birth better!

Travelling is usually the time I catch up on my reading. Reading is considered a "boring" habit by my other cousins, bless their ignorance. This is the time they catch up on playing cards. I personally have nothing against card games, but I have the worst memory ever! So if I ever play with them, they need to explain the game before I join in(which has lead to me being called "Ass" while playing, whaddya know, Ass). Funny thing is, I usually end up winning at the end :D(which has lead to me being called "Bluff" too ;) ).

Time to eat. Now I'm expecting to buy at least three of the, oh I don't know, how many ever Lays flavours that exist. But Noooooo....EDMs have pre-planned and brought along puliogarai(tamarind rice), thair sadam(curd rice) and even naarthangai(extremely sour pickle whose ingredients I've no idea about). Right about now, my expression is one of disgust.

Me: But amma, I HATE curd rice!

Amma: Okay, just have the -

ERM(cuts in): Ennadu(What)? Ponnu-aa(girl) irundhundu(being) stubborn-a irrukai(you are)?

I do not understand how gender has anything to do with food preferences, but that's how it is at home. At this point I'm like "Fine...Whatever" and I take the curd rice in a banana leaf, pretend to eat it for a while, and then finally just eat it. Ewwww infinity.

Finally, night falls. Gonna take another 6 hours at least to reach, without including the delay, that is. I climb onto my side upper berth and descend into a disturbed sleep. Oh god, I'm so tired and this is just the beginning!