It's been a long, hot, summer, and my blogging inspiration has hit rock bottom. Today I felt chatty so just wanted to share a couple of updates. First up, food! The two pizza recipes are by Jim Lahey with the no knead bread technique I mentioned a couple of months ago. I'd been dying to try out a few of the recipes in his book (which all look delicious and easy btw) so since I was craving carbs a few weeks ago I decided on pizza. The Pizza Funghi (Mushroom Pizza) is to the left while the Pizza Batata (Sweet Potato Pizza) is below. Both pizzas were fantastic, more like an thin crust of bread with some insanely simple, unique and delicious toppings.

If I had to pick a favorite it's the Funghi while B's is the Batata which was a tad too sweet for me. The next time I make it I think I'll add some potatoes to the topping just to prevent it from getting overly sweet. I also made the entire batch of pizza dough in the recipe, froze it and made them 2 weeks apart and it turned out great. I love it when I can cut time in half by making a bigger batch and then freezing, so I can definitely say that the recipes worked for me on many levels.

What do you guys do for breakfast? I tend to keep it simple with oats and any fruit I have lying around. Once in a while I might get creative with honey & cinnamon. Last weekend, being bored with oats, I decided on making the Dutch Baby (pics below). The recipe I used was Alton Brown's and while it looked spectacular in the oven, it didnt rock my world much. Imagine an eggier, denser pancake ... and I dont much like pancakes. Anyway, we ate it drizzled with agave syrup and some lemon shown below and it was nice. I wish I had made a syrup (blueberries and lemon was the original idea) to pour over it, but I got lazy. It was ok for a taste, but has so much butter & sugar I'm pretty sure I'm never going to be making it again.

I just realised the last time I was at the movies was to watch the immensely disappointing Shutter Island, an entire FIVE months ago. I've been really uninterested with the summer movie fare this year ... but I think it's about to change now. I see a couple of interesting movies coming up, high on my list are Inception and Salt.

Anyway, so there I was trolling along on IMDB and I came across the Hollywood version of The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo. And Daniel Craig is all set to play Mikael Blomkvist!! I dont really know how to take this information, while I love Craig, Blomkvist's character and personality is bland and Craig doesnt fit that description by any means. It will be interesting to watch how he interprets the character ... I cant help but compare with the last Gary Stu character I watched on screen -Robert Langdon/Tom Hanks - and it was such a train wreck. I still shudder when IMDB or Netflix ambushes me with posters of the Dan Brown movies.

I did watch the Swedish version of Dragon Tattoo and loved it, the characters of Blomkvist and Salander played perfectly by actors Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace respectively. I really had no faults to find with the movie. But the sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire was awful. The book itself is quite rambling in scope, consequently the script suffered and it just comes across as a very confused movie. I hope Hollywood manages to get the Salander character cast right, I really dont see any of the current actresses as edgy enough for the role.

Also, I stumbled across this on IMDB and startled B by letting out a squeal of excitement. It's the page for a version of Diana Gabaldon's Outlander. As some of you might remember, I adore the book which is one of my favorite romance reads. Unfortunately the casting isnt up yet, so I cant obsess over the characters, but I am so excited to see it in development. I do hope it's finally made into a movie. On Ms. Gabaldon's FAQ pages is the question about whether she's working on a script and she replies with 'Right, which 40 pages do you want to see made into a movie?' which is accurate, Outlander is such a dense novel with so many interconnected plots it's going to be extremely difficult to come up with a movie which remains true to the book while also satisfying tons of fans worldwide. But, one lives in hope.

Any other movies I should be keeping an eye out for? And what's on your must watch list this summer?

Edited to add: I cannot believe I did an entire post about movies I'm looking forward to without including The One(Two) Movie That Beats Them All heh ... who else is looking forward to it? And did anyone else think that Harry looked like a hobbit in the last movie??

I know at least one of my readers is groaning right about now. It seems Jane Austen is mentioned on this blog every couple of months. I cant really help it, Austen's world is like my favorite comfort read/ watch/ food all rolled up into one.

Last month I found myself trolling Netflix for something light to watch when the mini-series 'Lost in Austen' (LiA) popped up in my queue. It was perfect, over 3 hours long I watched it over a period of two weeks, sometimes as little as 10 minutes when I had time to spare. Being familiar with the story did help with not losing continuity but this version does have enough originality to keep the Austen fan involved and satisfied.

Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper), of Hammersmith, London, spends far too much time with her copy of Pride & Prejudice as an escape from her dull job and unromantic boyfriend. Her idea of a perfect night is at home, pouring herself a glass of wine, curling up in her jammies with Darcy's voice and Austen's language running through her head. Her best friend and mom think she's too involved with Darcy, her mom even accusing her of holding all the men she knows to impossible standards.

But, as Amanda explains, she just loves Austen's England so much, the manners, the gentility, the courtship. So, she thinks she's hallucinating when one evening, as she's engaged in her favorite pastime, hearing an intruder in the bathroom, she investigates to find .... Elizabeth Bennett (Gemma Arterton)!

Apparently, Amanda has opened some sort of portal between 21st century England and the Regency period. And the next time Lizzy turns up, it's to push Amanda through the portal, into the attic in Longbourne. The idea being that Lizzy is visiting Amanda's folks in Hammersmith for an extended period while Amanda takes her place in the bosom of the Bennet family.

Amanda's original delight is unbounded. She arrives just as Mrs. Bennet is clamoring away about Netherfield Park being 'let at last' and with drop-jawed awe she exclaims

'We're right at the beginning aren't we??'

Unfortunately, for Miss Price, things arent quite so smooth-sailing after that. The Bennet family, accepts the strangely dressed girl given over to obscure statements 'Jane will marry Bingley, Lizzy will marry Darcy', with, if not enthusiasm, then fondness for Lizzy's sake.

But, as the days go on, Amanda starts forcing events in an effort at keeping things to Austen's timeline, coercing Jane (Morven Christie) into the rain so she can stay over at Netherfield Park, or strong-arming Bingley (Tom Mison) into throwing a ball at his place. But, these people unlike the 2D acquaintances she has lovingly spent countless hours with, have minds of their own and are not so easily maneuvered. And she comes face to face with the most 'disagreeable' form of Darcy (Elliot Cowan) yet, who as Amanda indignantly objects '... is no Colin Firth is he??'

She soon finds that all her well-intentioned meddling is leading to unforeseen consequences and when a disastrous event occurs (Lady Catherine decides to foist a trio of even more objectionable Collins' brothers on the unmarried Bennets for one, and others which I will not spoil) she ceases actively arranging things and decides to just go along for the ride. And funnily enough, things straighten themselves out, if not as Austen intended, then with a guaranteed happy ending for our heroine.

I'm one of those guilty of holding Austen adaptations to high standards. But, in reality, it's not the adaptations that I find outrageous, it's when someone takes liberties with the original itself (*cough* Keira Knightley's P&P). I thought LiA is well-worth the watch for a fantasy adaptation. It is a very romanticized version, not as real as Austen's world, but with that sheen of happy-endings-for-everyone (even poor forgotten Caroline Bingley) that makes up frothy mind-candy. I liked it for that. And all the actors did a great job. The mini-series is also going to be adapted into a movie by 2011.

If I had to find fault with it, I think it's that the film-makers do not push the envelope too much. When Amanda finds herself in the Bennet household, she's dressed in jeans, boots and a leather jacket with her hair untied and in bangs. No one does so much as raise an eyebrow at the unconventional attire or hair style.

Amanda is similarly very ill-prepared for spending time in Regency England for someone who has read about it for so long, she continually finds things surprising or doesn't understand how society behaves.

And it seems so weird for the Bennet family to accept that Lizzy has traveled alone to an unknown location or leaving all her clothes behind. Or to accept a stranger with no luggage of her own. Ahh, quibbles!!

Darcy follows Amanda into 21st century London at one point, and I loved the scene where she comes across his starched self, completely anachronistic in brocade waist-coat and top-hat blinking wide-eyed at all the commotion around him. He greets Amanda with relief, being the devil he knows, 'What is this infernal place, Miss Price?'

The best part of this adaptation, and one which in Amanda's words would have Ms. Austen spinning in her grave is Wickham (Tom Riley). The charmer everyone loves to hate has a great character arc here. In fact, I would have been much happier with this version if they had done away with Austen's original hero and come up with another in his place.

Now, I'm not certain if this desire to subvert the original isn't because I hated Darcy's character here (except in the scene mentioned below) and didnt think he was believable and thought Wickham was gorgeous (ladies, cast your eyes to the left), but, I'm sure that the film-makers were not looking to be too radical, they just wanted soft-focus romance which LiA does provide.

In closing, I have to mention LiA's nod to the original wet shirt scene. Made all the more sweet because LiA's Darcy doesnt know what it is Amanda's after, he agrees to dunk himself in cold water because he wants to please her. Awwwww!!

Of course, as hunky as Mr. Cowan is, no Darcy to my mind has ever compared to the '95 BBC adaptation, so I will leave you with the infamous clip (really, I'm surprised it took so long for Colin Firth to be embedded on this blog) ..... so, enjoy!!

So, we watched Shutter Island yesterday. Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Dennis Lehane's story (of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone fame) and a psychological thriller ... sounds great, right??? Wrong!

I HAD to post to warn people from spending 10 bucks of their hard-earned money on this big bore. The reviewer at the New York Times accurately described it

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/movies/19shutter.html

I just wish I had read it myself before heading out.

And you know what takes the cake! I fell ASLEEP!!!! In the theatre!!! A first for me, even Gamer didnt earn that dubious honor. Actually awfulness I can forgive, not pretentiousness, and this movie was all that ...

So yeah, if you worship at Scorsese's altar, I'd say wait for the DVD. Otherwise, don't say you weren't warned!

Summer holidays are almost at an end here. This weekend I was thinking nostalgically of my own short lived, much enjoyed summer holidays and of driving my mom crazy with endless refrains of I'm-bored and Is-there-something-to-eat when I remembered the simple treat mom used to make for us to shove into our gullets the minute we brought up the eating question.

You will need: Digestive (Marie) biscuits and some squares of bitter cooking chocolate (use milk/semi-sweet, whatever you like). Please ignore the interesting looking bottle of alcohol in the background - more on this later.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave (or if you are fussy use the double-boiler method). Spoon a largish blob on one biscuit and then spread all over the surface. Repeat for all. Harden in fridge and enjoy.

What I love most about this treat is it's potential, you can dress it up or down as follows:

The Sophisticated - First, spread a layer of marzipan on the biscuit, then add the layer of chocolate. Or else, spread the chocolate on the biscuit and layer some crushed praline/ sliced strawberries/ raspberries on top.

The Kiddie Version - Spread some peanut butter then spread the layer of chocolate. Thinly slice apples/ bananas and add over the layer of chocolate.

The Simple - Sprinkle powdered sugar/ cocoa over the chocolate covered biscuit.

However, due to my inability to learn from my mistakes I tried to add rum to the microwaved chocolate. It promptly seized and the resulting biscuits looked like they were covered with dog poop.

Hence, the intentional blurry image of what was meant to be the money shot. They taste great though, and since it's just B and me (or I) and our tummies we were all completely satisfied!!

The other fun thing we did last weekend was watch District 9. Produced by Peter Jackson, it's part sci-fi, part political commentary, part action flick and totally amazing!! Do watch if you enjoy the genre.

How was your weekend folks?

When the Julie and Julia buzz began making the rounds sometime last month I knew I would watch it. However, my reasons to watch it were because it was a movie about cooking, not because of any familiarity with Julia Child. The only things I knew about her are that were that she is a culinary icon, her cookbook is seminal in publishing and I had watched an episode of hers with Emeril Lagasse way back when on Food Network.
Julie and Julia- the book- is a personal memoir of Julie Powell who decides to cook all the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking over the course of a year and maintains a blog about it.

The movie splits Julie's experience with stories from Julia Child's memoir and so we get a charming story of two women separated by time and place who embark on a culinary voyage - Julia because she needs to find something to do after her husband Paul Child is transferred to Paris and Julie because she is an under-achieving, failed writer stuck in a desk job and nearing her 30th birthday and, again, needs to find something to do.

I'm not reviewing the movie, I just want to say it is perfectly charming. Julia Child and Paul Child are played by Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci respectively and they have an amazing chemistry - during the romantic moments or even when they are sitting quietly together. Julia's portion makes the movie, it's charming and vibrant with Streep's larger than life portrayal of Julia. Julie Powell and her husband are played by Amy Adams and Chris Messina and their portions, while not as vivid as the rest are quietly engaging proving a testament to Ms. Adams charm in front of the camera.

The movie is written and directed by Nora Ephron, so yes it's chick flick territory but largely unlike the regular fare. I guess the difference here is that the couples are already in love, Streep and Tucci especially, and while they have their spats they are still supportive of their spouses. And just in case it wasnt clear already, I loved the movie.

But coming to the point of the post - the food. The food was all that I had expected and more. From the first shots of a perfectly browned fish sputtering in butter sauce which is Julia's first meal in Paris to Julia's famous boeuf bourguignon the food was the unacknowledged star. Needless to say I was drooling and I dont even like stews much. Thank God for my BIG tub of popcorn, I doubt I could have made it through the movie without it.

While there's ample movies with Western food, J&J, the recent Catherine Zeta-Jones starrer, even the highly entertaining show Kitchen Confidential (why do all the shows I love end up getting cancelled??bah!) it's much rarer to see Indian food treated like the star in Bollywood.

So imagine my surprise when the opening shots of Cheeni Kum (the Tabu- Amitabh Bachchan starrer, a May-December romance) showed colorful spices being roasted, onions sizzling in oil, coriander garnishes, all exquisitely framed in a pristine kitchen with chefs in pure-white smocks and caps. The opening sequence was so enthralling, it made me realize that I've rarely seen Indian food presented so beautifully as it is here.

And my enjoyment of the movie was guaranteed once the Hyderabadi zafrani pulao made it's appearance, looking so perfectly saffron tinged I wanted to eat it- RIGHT away! Coming to the movie, Tabu and AB were amazing, AB especially wonderfully eccentric in the scene where he lists the ingredients of the pulao right before being slammed with the knowledge that it was made by Tabu. It's not a perfect movie by any means, melodrama taking over the latter half but I came away with positive thoughts about it all because of the first few scenes.

Watching these two movies recently has just made me realise that it's very rarely I absolutely dislike movies about food or based on food. I loved Chocolat, Like Water for Chocolate, liked No Reservations, even enjoyed Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle. Sadly, that's all the food movies I've seen.

How about you? Do you have a favorite food movie? And I'd love any recommendations, especially for Bollywood.

However right now, I'm going to go raid the piece of emergency dark chocolate I hide in my cupboard for just such occasions. All this talk of food has made me ravenous!!

Smita's comments got me thinking about this book again. Anyways, I'm less excited about the movie after watching the trailer, but I think the background music is to blame. And what's with the cheesy special effects for the disappearing!!!

How about you? Planning to watch?

Oh, and if you have not read this book, please do! It's excellent!! A review can be found here, but if you can read the version on That-Other-Site, it's far better than this one.

Having had ample experience with the preceeding Harry Potter films and my own reactions to them, this time I was completely prepared. Which means that I did not read the book right before I went to watch, doing this always seems to endanger my blood vessels, and so come Wednesday I was all antsy and excited to watch David Yates' latest version of my favorite fantasy series.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (HBP) starts out very strong. In a brilliant sequence, we see that with Lord Voldemort gaining strength and support, the war in the wizarding world has been brought even to the Muggles, innocents dying as the Death Eaters go on a rampage in London after kidnapping the wizard Olivander from Diagon Alley.

Even Hogwarts, with the greatest wizard as Headmaster, is to be affected. For the first time, the students see Dumbledore and their teachers take strong precautions against the Death Eaters. It seems that Lord Voldemort, with the rout at the Ministry fresh in his mind, has decided to lay low until he can get Dumbledore out of the picture. And, Harry is convinced that this part at Hogwarts is to be played by none other than his bete noire Draco Malfoy with the help of Professor Snape.

As Harry protests Draco's complicity to anyone who can listen (but wont), events at Hogwarts go on as usual. There is Ron's budding romance with classmate Lavender, Quidditch matches, Hermione's bubbling anger at Ron and a newly discovered love interest in Ginny. And at Potions, after finding a used text book singed ominously 'the property of the Half-Blood Prince' it seems that Harry turns into Potioner extraordinaire impessing the new Potions teacher Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent, brilliant!).

But, amidst all the confusion of a year at Hogwarts, Dumbledore has not forgotten the war they are fighting and after the lessons learned in the previous year decides to share everything he knows about Voldemort with Harry, ultimately uncovering the secret of how Voldemort was able to survive the curse on that fatal night. Voldemort used a rare magic called a Horcrux to split his soul into 7 parts and spirit them in hidden locations. Dumbledore has been destroying Horcruxes as he finds them - one is the book which Harry destroyed in the Chamber of Secrets and the second is a ring belonging to Voldemort's parents. Dumbledore takes Harry on a mission to unearth a new Horcrux and it is on this night that all the events run together leading to the final showdown at Hogwarts.

HBP is all that the Order of the Phoenix tried to be a year ago and didnt quite come close. It 's dark, grim and much suitable for an older audience than the first few movies targetted. And a very good thing is that the kids have clearly evolved into better actors with age. This movie was the first one where I didnt cringe at the anomaly between the dialogues and the emoting. Even Michael Gambon as Dumbledore getting into the skin of his character this time around and delivering a wonderful performance. And as I swore that this review wouldnt be a litany of -but in the book- I'm quite prepared to ignore all the plot elements missing (though I have to point out the prop FAIL over the ring Horcrux which looked undestroyed) and come out and say that I quite enjoyed it.

If there is any fault it lies in the pacing, the writers and director not quite getting the tension right; Rowling does this so well in her book, we are treated to tantalising glimpses of Voldemort, alongwith the atmosphere of menace at the school with all the attempted assassinations of Dumbledore and Malfoy's creeping all culminating in the final showdown. A showdown which left everyone reading the book stunned and numb and me reading in a haze of tears. Let's just say that the movie doesnt deliver any such climax. Expecting to bawl my eyes out, I was hideously underwhelmed. And I was so irritated with the last scene given to Snape, I wanted Rickman roaring out 'DONT CALL ME A COWARD' to Harry, no such luck (boo, script FAIL?)

Instead we are treated to numerous reels of Ron-won's adolescent hormones, Hermione's angst and Ginny and Harry mooning around each other. Maybe it illustrates that these are teenagers but I would have been happier if a lot of the other material relating to Voldemort (a spooky Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and creepy Frank Dillane, both amazing!) or even Draco (a wonderfully tormented Tom Felton) or the criminally underused Professor Snape (the always brilliant Alan Rickman) were included instead of being slashed away. I do not grudge Rupert Grint his few moments on screen, he is pretty hilarious. As for the climactic battle, probably there was no time, but I'm also tempted to think that the director didn't want another wand battle ala Phoenix. After all, there's only so much you can do with fighting by pointing a stick.

But, the movie finally alienated me with it's final lines. As Harry, Hermione and Ron mull over events of the year, and regret that things which didnt make sense at the time should have been better interpreted, Harry should have been filled with despair over the tragic loss that occurs at the end in this movie. Instead we fade out with the three of them laughing over the image of Harry and Ginny snogging in front of older brother Ron. Life does go on, but, amidst the levity it's obvious that the movie versions of these characters are just transparent shadows of their richly characterized and rendered written counterparts.

And that, dear reader, is just another way of saying watch the movie because it is Harry Potter but read the book for the story that people love - that is if you haven't done so already.

Rating: 5 / 5

Doubt (2008) is a movie adapted from a prize winning play of the same name written and directed by John Patrick Shanley.

As the movie begins with a sermon by Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) along the lines of doubt being a unifier 'Doubt can be a bond as powerful as certainty', the characters are all in place. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) is the rigid disciplinarian principal of the Catholic school, Father Flynn is the parish priest and Sister James (Amy Adams) is the naive, eager to please and enthusiastic history teacher.

When Sr. James goes to Sr. Aloysius with concerns regarding Father Flynn and the new (and only) black student in the school, she watches with horror as the crusading spirit of Sr. Aloysius, determined to prove Father Flynn's guilt in abusing the boy, quickly converts matters into a violent two-way power struggle. The movie is talky, dealing with matters of religion, racism, sexuality, authority, and most of the action consists of ambiguous confrontations between the principals - is Sr. Aloysius a true crusader in a male-dominated heirarchy or on a witch-hunt against a liberal priest? Is Father Flynn protecting a disadvantaged student or truly guilty?

Both Hoffman and Streep are needless to say highly effective and entertaining in their roles, the final scene between the two truly a pleasure to watch in terms of the duality of emotions shown - excepting a moment where Streep does a maniacal hand-flapping, cross-waving imitation of that evil character in the Grimm fairy tales. Oh, well. Mention must be made of Adams' rendition of the meek school teacher finally pushed to the boundaries of her control.

But, while the director does his best to give us effective framing and beautiful set pieces, I thought his cinematic real world complete with wind-swept autumn leaves, flying feathers and defective light bulbs impinged too much on what is a character based story of the cloistered environment that the priests and nuns live in. Note to self, watch it in the theatre sometime to see if the experience will be more rewarding than the movie.

Highly recommended.

Mankind has infiltrated the farthest reaches of space and the 'Verse is being ruled by the ’Alliance’ - an autocratic government-like entity. It is 5 years after the war between the Alliance and the Independents or the ’Browncoats’ which put the Alliance in power. The Alliance exercises control over the planets that form the central core but the planets that inhabit the outer reaches of space still try to resist it’s power.

Captain ’Mal’ Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), a disenchanted ex-Sergeant in the Browncoat army and still very anti-government, leads a raggle of space smugglers on his spaceship, a Firefly-class transport, ’Serenity’.

The crew on Serenity is a varied bunch - the peppy chief engineer, 'Kaylee' (Jewel Staite), the pilot and resident comic 'Wash' (Alan Tudyk), his wife, the soldierly career woman and second-in-command 'Zoe' (Gina Torres), the Man They Call 'Jayne' (Adam Baldwin), a mercenary thug and odd jobs man and the stunningly, beautiful 'Inara' (Morena Baccarin) - a companion (the world’s oldest profession gets another name) and thorn in Mal’s side.

Mal himself has a skewed moral code but is extremely protective of his crew whom he regards as family. Joining the crew as passengers are 'Shepherd Book' (Ron Glass) a preacher, and two fugitives, the prim 'Dr. Simon Tam' (Sean Maher) and his crazy little sister 'River' (Summer Glau), a psychic and child-genius who has been subjected to mind-altering experiments by the Alliance.

Firefly - the series (Rating: 5 /5)

The tv-series ’Firefly’ which aired in 2002 for a couple of episodes until it was cancelled is the brain-child of Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel).

’Firefly’ as a series is certainly very engaging. It is envisioned along the lines of a Sci-fi Western (anachronism, but there it is!) with characters carrying gun-holsters, rifles, Colts and riding horses well into the future. The rationale for this was that the inner core planets under Alliance control were well-developed but the outer planets were places where people were just dropped off with a minimum of water and food and forced to populate worlds in a Frontier-like existence.

The most precious commodity and contraband in this future is food, not the protein-synthesized stuff that can feed a whole family for a month, but real, fresh food, which is in short supply on the outer planets. The show depicted the two worlds beautifully, the very well-developed modern inner core planets (all steel and glass, tall buildings and modern gadgetry) and the ’Wild West’ outer planets (undeveloped desert-like terrain, mining planets etc). Sometimes the show got too Western for me, like one episode which featured a bordello (and wouldnt u know it - a Madame called Nandi and Hindi music playing in the background argh!) and a gun battle, but the drama and the characters definitely made up for it.

Whedon’s vision for the future was that there were only two superpowers left - America and China, the Chinese angle is woven into the script subtly. We have characters wearing Oriental clothing, Chinese characters and instructions everywhere instead of English and the most fun of all, Chinese phrases introduced into the language. The Chinese words and phrases are included for situations which do not really need translation (I'm sure people can think of several situations where) and this introduced a sense of authenticity into the script. However, for a future in which a remaining superpower is Chinese, there are hardly any cast members, even extras who are even vaguely Oriental - blatant oversight, I feel.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Whedon’s vision is that he doesnt subject you to the horrendous masked creatures, scaly lifeforms or little green men that science fiction generally suggests. There are no aliens in this world, the only evil is unleashed by or is human. The most evil are the ’Reavers’, people who cut their own faces, living on the outskirts of the 'Verse. To elaborate in the words of one of the characters

’If they catch you, the Reavers will rape you continuously until you die, cut you up and eat your flesh and carve your skin into clothing ... and if you are very lucky, they will do it in that order.’

Firefly worked for me because of the fantastic chemistry between the cast, fresh episode storylines each with an abundance of drama, humor and action and very decent special effects. Oh, and did I mention, I’m a sucker for spaceships :D

Serenity - the movie (Rating: 5 /5)

Even though TV networks unceremoniously pulled the plug on the series, it went on to gain a massive fan following with the result that Whedon wrote and directed the movie in 2005. The movie kept all the actors from the series, with a plot emphasis on the story of Simon and River. In an attempt to complete the story arc, the movie deals with some mysteries underlying in the TV series, about River, Shepherd Book and the Reavers. While River and the Reavers are dealt with in the movie, the resolution of Book’s character was very unsatisfactory.

In the movie, after picking up Simon and River, Mal and his crew soon realise that River is not who she seems. Apparently she is very valuable commodity to the Alliance who have sent a special agent known only as the Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to eliminate her and the secrets she carries. The Operative’s search for River forces Mal and crew to carry out their own investigations, leading them to a planet called Miranda and a hideous discovery about Alliance experiments.

With Serenity, Whedon has cut out some of the most irritating aspects from the show, the excessive Western-ness - he’s changed most of the music from the show, there are still the old-fashioned guns but a lot less horse riding and other dated elements - and he’s created a better science fiction movie adeventure. The movie assumes that people are familiar with the story of Firefly, but it doesnt really require it. A few of the initial scenes are a little confusing with characters and plot elements being introduced rapidly - but the attentive reader shouldnt be lost :)

I thought that he majority of the cast have handled the transition from TV to movie pretty well (and of course, I could forgive anything of anyone who looks like Mal). Perhaps the most striking actor, a new member, is Ejiofor as the Operative. The Operative knows he is evil, but believes in harnessing that evil for the greater good, which he interprets as the Alliance being in power. Ejiofor’s acting as the smooth-talking, emotionless Samurai assassin is perfectly effective in bringing an immensely scary intensity and sense of focus to his role. The end of Serenity and especially the resolution with the Operative is really silly but I guess it had to end it somehow.

Finally, this is a perfect DVD watch to while away a lazy Sunday evening when you are in the mood for a little space-action, gun-fighting, drama and humor. Dont read too much into the hype created by IMDB and you wont be disappointed. Even better is to get the DVD’s of Firefly, watch them and then catch the movie. That would be (in 'verse slang) shiny!

Rating:

When I first came across Philippa Gregory's 'The Other Boleyn Girl' on all the bestseller lists I must say I was intrigued. After all, it featured Henry the 8th and a tumultuous time in British history from the human interest perspective as well as the historical perspective.

I was thoroughly disgusted with the book which wasn't so much historical fiction as a means for the author to hash together an unwholesome mix of sensationalism and salaciousness in a poorly written story. Having washed my hands of the book, I wasn't interested in anything to do with it, until they announced the casting of the movie. Having often been brainwashed by Hollywood I thought, Eric Bana, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson in a movie couldn't be all bad could it?

Unfortunately, it's worse. The script writers took an already salacious book and spiced it up with so much more sex and wholly missed the intrigue that I might have to bite my words and say that Gregory's book is the lesser of the two evils.

If you are not familiar with the book, it tells the story of the Boleyn sisters in King Henry's court. Henry the 8th has suffered a severe disappointment when his wife Katherine of Aragorn fails (yet again) to present him with a male heir to the throne. The Duke of Norfolk, sees in the situation, a way to improve his fortunes alongwith that of his sister's family, the Boleyns. Presenting Mary to the king as his mistress, she provides him with a son and also falls in love with him. Unfortunately by the time her son is born, her jealous sister Ann has managed to draw the King's attention away from her so that the son remains unacknowledged. Henry manages to divorce Katherine and marries Ann, but their problems with having a male child persist, until the King's wandering eye and Ann's unpopularity with the people and in court lead to the end which a person familiar with British history would be all too aware of.

But, let me say that the sequence of events mentioned above, happen in the movie NOT necessarily what is historically known, excepting for the gruesome end. In this version, the courtiers are all pimps and the women of the court all conniving schemers. And, the screenwriters took all that made a little bit of sense out of Gregory's book leaving a convoluted story of a weak, voluptuary king, a harpy whom we are damned if we know why the king is bothered with and a mistress who apparently the king has 'respect', 'trust' and 'love' for after she has been discarded.

And I did think that since it was a period piece, because I knew the loathsomeness of the story beforehand I could atleast entertain myself with the costumes, locations, period detail etc. WRONG! I could go to any carpet upholstery store to look at the what comprised of materials the men were wearing and the women's costumes were uninspired and with the weirdest head-dresses. Yeah I dont think I dig 15th century fashion. Nor their morals.

The leads dont have much to do except look beautiful, the acting as non-existent as the British accents. The casting of the rest, except for Kristin Scott Thomas, is badly done especially the William Stafford character who looks younger than Johansson, and even more clueless.

The end is laughable because the movie states that an action which Henry performs in the movie changed the face of England forever. But, if you missed the nanosecond where this is referenced in the movie and didnt know the importance beforehand, you would be left wondering. And having the gall to add some sort of historical frame of reference to your movie when the entire is made up of insinuation and bad imagination really frustrates me. Atleast have the guts to call it fiction or a poor-excuse-for-making-a-raunchy-costume-drama and be done with it!

The success of this movie is no doubt due to the fact that it manages to push all the right buttons - a nod to current events by being set in Afghanistan, a TIC reference to pop culture (imagine all the MySpace junkies gushing at the mention), a forced romance, misplaced American jingoism and a hero with his heart (?) in the right place. And though you cannot fault the pacing or the special effects the resulting effort still seems like an amalgam of all the other superhero movies out there. Complete with a little brown kid instead of the obligatory white one with stars in his eyes, corny PJs, the admiring side-kick cum friend, the mysterious govt organisation and a Transformers-style face-off at the end. Oh, but with less action. I cant believe that Ang Lee got trounced for a splendidly artistically made Hulk and this movie which has even less action is current box office gold. And how about the supposed oh-so-smart dialogue here??!! Does anyone remember the scene between Paltrow and Downey Jr after their dance - 'That was weird. It was totally weird.' Errr ... yes, totally smart!

Robert Downey Jr. does as well as he can with a character forced to spend time making faces at the camera, Gwyneth Paltrow is just bearable, Jeff Bridges does a decent enough job as the Evil-Takeover-Guy and Terence Howard is totally forgettable. Unfortunately, the movie is too.

Someone got their books all messed up! SATC was never The Devil Wears Prada, but somewhere in the middle of an extended wedding gown fashion shoot in Sex and the City, the movie, you get the hideous inkling that this is where the movie is heading. The series always had fashion on the back-burner, all those Manolo's and Chanel's never intruding upon the story lines themselves. In the movie, fashion takes center stage, unfortunately, leaving a very hollow, soulless mess behind.

Given all the drama, conflict and time that went into the making of this movie, it was reasonable to expect something as wonderfully endearing as the show a lot of women love to love. SATC is anything but, endearing that is. Oh, watch it for a pleasant evening playing catch up with the girls, a whole lotta materialistic ogling (of designers and dudes) but dont expect sassy, witty and confident like the girls we knew all those years ago.

After all the relationship problems have been manufactured and resolved, the movie ends basically where the series ended. Life comes full circle, we are meant to see, but really, did it have to involve my wasting 2 and a half hours of that same life to find out? The movie has also altered the personalities of the women, making Carrie come out smelling of roses, if you can believe here it is she offering the sensible and mature advice to the rest of the girls. What a hoot!

Fans would be advised to stick with reruns of the TV show, and not attach too much importance to this candy floss of a movie ....