New Series!

right.. so since i'm here today haha... here's an overview of the new shows i'm currently busy watching!

highly recommended cos it's so damn good are Blue Bloods and The Chicago Code... both are cop dramas.. first one being about a family of cops starring Donnie Wahlberg, Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynahan, n Jennifer Esposito amongst it leads while the second one is set in Chicago with Jennifer Beals, Jason Clark and Delroy Lindo, where the new superintendent is fighting corruption on all ends while trying to clean up the streets.

awesome stories, great styles, superb performances are enough to get me high on a weekly basis.

another one is the re-boot of Hawaii Five-O... now this was was launched with some skeptism as certain famous reboots didn't fare too well (Knight Rider anyone?) but has come out with some excellent ratings and with it's reputation intact. with Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim(yes he of Lost fame) and Grace Park as the team.

critical acclaim follows The Walking Dead... who gave zombie genre lovers it's first tv series... finally a good show about zombies. and it's apparently gonna get better as the story continues. nice!

a couple more dramas are making the rounds this 2011, like new med-drama from creators of Grey's Anatomy, but this time set in the jungle of some south american outback...looks alright for now... but the ratings don't look good...same goes for Sarah Shahi starer Fairly Legal.

comedies on the other hand have some new stars in the house!

call-center comedy Outsourced is crazy funny, same as Shit my Dad Says.. with William Shatner spewing cynical wisdom. guaranteed funny.

there are two ex-friends stars facing off over the ratings.. with Matt LeBlanc's Episodes seem to be doing better then Matthew Perry's Mr Sunshine...time will tell if both survive to a 2nd season.

another one that's just 2 episodes old is Mad Love with Jason Biggs (american pie), Taylor Labine (Reaper), Judy Greer(arrested development etc) and Sarah Chalke(scrubs) in a hilarious outing as a pair of dating couples.... although orthodox as they are.

HOLY COW

yeah that's all i can say...

after all the months of being primarily lazy while totally using my physical state of cross geographic change in address as an excuse ..... i have been slacking from here tooo long.

it's not to say that i've been totally away from watching movies... now THAT would have been sinfull. So here i am... back!!

what better time then the oscars eh? haha.. since i got here, i managed to catch a few hindi movies cos there's a new one here every week! but als caught the much awaited Harry Potter 7 Pt 1! bouyah! on IMAX!! yeahaa! so worth it....

for the rest i watched .. ahem.... either online or downloaded....here's the list i can remember over these past months (categorised as usual)

A for awesome!

Machete

Despicable Me

Megamind

Predators

Rajneeti

Rakhta Charitra 1

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

Toy Story 3

Bad for boleh la..!!

Jonah Hex

Faster

Grownups

The Joneses

The Kids Are All Right

The Messenger

The Other Guys

Salt

The Twilight Saga Eclipse

Unstoppable

Unthinkable

Valentines Day

Wall Street 2 Money Never Sleeps

C for can i have that time of my life back please!!

Hot Tub Time Machine

I Spit On Your Grave

Killers

Resident Evil - Afterlife

Skyline

The Last Airbender

The Switch

phew....

prob forgot a few here n there.... oh well.... here's to hoping a reboot of this blog is a foot!

Prince of Persia

Director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco, HarryPotter 4 n Pushing Tin to name a few) sets out to bring us a new video-game-to-screen attempt. With previous efforts (not Mike's) like Doom, Street Fighter, Mario Bros n Mortal Kombat failing to even reach the shadow of their original games' glory, i was apprehensive about catching his flick.

I mean in defense of the genre, a lot of stories in video games are absurd, with weird and crazy characters and moves, action and mind-blowing graphics almost impossible to match. But where there have been some respectable attempts (see Lara Croft, Final Fantasy*, Resident Evil (1st one only) and Max Payne (well i liked it!) I was still cautious about expecting much about it.

Surprisingly, well pleasantly though, i truly enjoyed this movie. Jake Gyllenhall managed to pull of the role of Prince Dastan who gets entangled in a time-skipping adventure with new 'it' gal Gemma Arterton, along with Sir Ben Kingsley and the awesome screen presence of Alfred Molina. Action packed, with some very cool CGI, good one liners and slick swordplay (well it's set in a loong time ago, no guns!) makes for a truly entertaining fare just short of 2 hours.

Story goes a little like this: an orphan is adopted into the royal family, but grows up to be the roguish hero of lot, and is always eager to please his brothers. As part of a campaign for their father the King, the princes lay siege to a holy city (after some dubious reasoning by their uncle {sidenote: very Mahabarata-ish this part}). This sets off a chain of events that leads thru an ostrich race, some Hassansins, sandstorms, snakes, and swords! Loads of swords!

* it was animated, but was damn realistic CG that one

verdict : nice one!

Series Finale(s)

This weekend marks the closing of the past 6 years journeys of two of my favourite TV shows. From the concepts, writing, acting performances, strength in story telling (no matter how absurd they seemed), thrills, action and downright woah-shocker-twist-dang it-wtf-b!@tch!! moments over the past 6 and 8 seasons respectively, Lost and 24 will both face their final curtain call this Sun and Mon.

How will it turn out for the remaining survivors of the ill fated Oceanic flight 815? And how will it end for the downward spiral Jack Bauer finds himself trapped in now? How??

All answers will be revealed. And since it's not live here in Bolehland, you'll be sure that i'll be downloading em to watch, while staying clear away from the blogs, reviews, yahoo etc. Nooo spoilers for me.

Housefull

it's been awhile since my last hindi flick outing, and i guess 3 Idiots had satisfied that thirst enoug. But now, with an interesting trailer, and an attractive (both in performances and being visually appealing) cast with much to promise peaked my curiosity enough to make a trip down to the neighborhood cinema to catch this one. Why not right...

OOh wrong. First half hour had me cringing at the bad acting, lame script, very rehearsed slapstick, and even poorer comedic timing. I thought i had duped myself into believing that it couldn't have been that bad. But it was. Bad. Very bad. first 30 minutes.

But then it took a small twist in the plot, and additional characters were introduced, mainly Boman Irani (yeay!). A couple of entertaining (read lyrically funny) songs, some great one liners and we were off. Some measure of relief. Maybe.

So all in all Akshay Kumar pulled off his role well, aptly supported by current hit gal Deepika Padukone, Ritesh Deshmukh(he had the best lines in the movie), Lara Dutta (after Blue, you'd thought she'd bounce back, but hasn't gotten the right roles yet), Jiah Khan, and a bunch of cameos.

simple story, some foot tapping songs, but great one-liners, and some hilarious situations all in all barely saves the flick.

verdict: um... watch it if u have a free night, but leave ur brain in the car for this one

Robin Hood

Ridley Scott teams up again with his Gladiator star Russell Crowe to bring to us an awesome retelling of the famous folk lore of Robin Hood. This realistic and almost historically accurate depiction enables us to enjoy the tale from a totally different aspect.

We join Robin as an archer in King Richard's in the Crusades, who makes his way back to England with a few fellow deserters at the end of the war. Bent on completing a task, he heads to Nottingham where he meets Marion (Cate Blanchett) and seems to find his place back in civilization, until Sir Godfrey(Mark Strong)'s forces (he's working with the French) start to create havoc in the north and eventually happen upon Robin n his pals.

From there on it gets all action with the lords joining forces to drive out Sir Godfrey and the French, ally with a King they despise and then drive off the marauding forces of King Phillip on the shores of England, in front of the picturesque Seven Sisters.

However, the King then goes against his word, and outlaws Robin Hood and his men, who then seek refuge in Sherwood Forest... and hence begins the tale.

While there were a lot of mixed criticism from many quarters, i enjoyed the storytelling in this form. It seemed more real (Costner's version was always very romanticised), and more believable. Crowe is spectacular as usual, and while not as good as Gladiator, he does a great job wielding the longbow. Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Marion is nothing like the damsel in distress in earlier versions. She's equally apt with sword n bow, and while the chemistry is not entirely convincing, she was superb in her role.

Mark Strong is coming up with better performances with each movie he is cast in, but he may want to start looking for other roles other then the typecast baddie. as in Kick-Ass, Strong is utterly good playing bad!

The soundtrack i felt was a little let down, maybe this could have been what let the overall experience fall a little short.

verdict : Value for money, but could be much more

TV Show Update Pt 2

So here's the latest, based on the previous post

CANCELED/ENDING
FlashForward (ABC) - NO SEASON TWO

Heroes (NBC) - WILL END AFTER CURRENT SEASON

Nip/Tuck (FX) - WOW didn't see this one coming 7 seasons

Trauma (NBC) - Damn shame about the damn ratings.

24 (Fox) - Thanks Jack! for 8 great seasons!!
Dollhouse (Fox) - saw it coming
Eastwick (ABC) - ditto
Lost (ABC) - Thanks Jack (nope not Bauer)
Scrubs (ABC) - couldnt replace the magic from before