Da Vinci

So, I watched the much famed "The Da Vinci Code" yesterday after all. A free ticket made me more than enthusiastic to go watch it. I had intially planned to watch it first day first show. However, fortunately or unfortunately, I was enjoying myself wild in San Francisco the day of its release, so plans of fdfs down the drain. Anyways, a hot Friday evening yesterday was well-spent indeed.

I must mention at this point that this is the FIRST movie ever EVER that I have watched alone. I have never watched a movie alone.. Normally, I would prefer to sit at home and crib about the world being unfair than going to watch a movie alone. But I really didnt want to miss watching Da Vinci in a theater (its already more than 3 weeks from its release I think), and I really didnt want to waste a free ticket on a Friday evening.

I am one of those who have already read the book before watching the movie.. and after watching the movie, I am now one of those who think that the book was better than the movie. No, dont get me wrong, the movie is very entertaining indeed. But I'm not sure how entertaining it would be if you went and watched it without having an idea about what the
fuss is about.

One thing that I liked tremendously about the movie is that the settings, the mood, the buildings, are exactly as that what you'd imagine while reading the book. E.g. the descriptions of Sauniere running in the gallery, Silas in the church with the Rose Line, Teabing's estate, the bank, the vault mechanisam, etc. felt like I'd seen them before, only that I had imagined something very similar during my journey through the book.

Some of the surprising moments, e.g. who the "Teacher" is, the characters of the butler and Silas, seem to be played down in the movie. But Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou have played their parts very effectively indeed. As are the characters of Bezu Fache (I like saying that :) ), Teabing, and others that come and go.

I really cant think of anything else to write. Perhaps because its almost 3 in the morning, and I need some sleep. Good night!

Fanaaaaahh.. dont do it

I'm just back from watching Fanaa.. Whew.
I'm not a very pessimistic sort of person; trying to find things wrong in everything... but.. I think I have wasted a good 3 hours and 15 minutes of my precious life watching this.. this atrocity. If I was to torture someone, I would make them sit and watch this movie over and over and over again. I can go on and on and on about things I found unacceptable in the movie, but I wouldnt want to fill up this post with each and every detail that incrementally made the movie worse. I would run out of space availability.
The first hour is spent trying to create romance between the two characters.. which I didnt think came out very effective. An HOUR spent establishing the fact that they love each other.. An HOUR. After that, theres some movement in the plot with this guy turning out to be not what he seemed to be (I wouldnt want to spoil the surprise (however slight it is) to those who havent watched it yet (which I wouldnt recommend anyways.)) Theres some hope of some movement in the plot.. but after an abrupt and quick spike, it relegates itself to being dragged along for another hour.. In the mid of the second hour, theres a kid who is introduced. He seems cute for a while.. but he has this obsessive compulsive disorder of using the third person to refer to himself.. which is extremely irritating after a while, to say the least. There are some characters whose character development is stunted at infancy. Some are completely unnecessary and irrelevant. The others do/say such things that do not befit the character that they portray. This one person wants to "rule the world" (I'm not saying what exactly he wants to do, since I dont want to spoil it for those who havent seen this blunder.) There is a delay of more than a week to get this one thing that can enable him to "rule the world".. But postpones going to pick it up to the next day because of bad weather. Ohh please!! A little rain and snow couldnt stop you if you were that close to ruling the world! Gaaaah. Punctuated with periodic wailing in the background, the entire 3 hours seem dreadful. Theres a lot of shayari, but theres only so much that you can listen to and tolerate. You start praying to these characters to stop their shayari, stop their senseless singing and dancing, stop the crocodile tears, which spring occasionally, stop the irritating kid, blow some sense into their heads, and get on with the story, which in itself, isnt very much either. I've seen a couple of movies with very sensitive topics.. but none were handled this badly.

I'm sorry to all those Fanaa fans out there if I've hurt their sentiments, but I really really disliked this movie, and I'm going to go ahead and add this to one of the worst movies I've seen. In fact, I would place this above Khushi on my worst movie list. (Dont get me started on Khushi.) I would not recommend this movie to anyone. DONT WATCH IT. Please dont. Go learn a new language. Build a mud castle. Do not spend your time and money watching this. Trust me.. You'll regret if you dont. Have a great day!