10 Most AWAITED FILMS OF 2012

Thanks to CBSE, and the CBFC, I haven't seen a good chunk of 2011 in movies. A very good, fat chunk, so I don't think I'll be justified in making a best of '11 list. So, here's a best of '12 list, because I haven't seen ANY of these movies and won't be seeing them until next year, and this list, below, is totally, absolutely and positively justified.
Also, there's a lack of world cinema. Why? Because they don't bloody market their movies like Hollywood does, so there are probably hundreds of movies that I should be looking at that I'm overlooking.
So here's the list. For better or for worse.
I haven't included a synopsis for most of them. Check out the trailers instead. Synopses are boring.
And a Happy New Year. 
This year will be a boom-boom.


10. John Carter (Of Mars)

The John Carter Books by Edgar Rice Burroughs are one of the most influential books of all time.
Every scifi movie ever made has been inspired in some way or the other by this series. Especially AVATAR. AVATAR ripped the hell off these books. So, of course they've got to go for a story that is different from the original source.
But here's the reason why I want to watch it (besides the fact that it's a John Carter movie) : Andrew. Stanton. Guy made Wall-E, Ratatouille and wrote Toy Story 3 and he knows how to tell a good story.
It isn't going to be the John Carter I want, but it will be a good John Carter nonetheless.
I've written more about the series here. And here's a trailer (one of the better ones. Don't worry it's in English mostly) :






9. Argo
To save hostages held in a 1979 Iran, the US government concocted a ridiculous, ballsy plan: They decided to go to Iran, and pretend to make a goddamn science fiction movie. They hired directors, writers, lightmen, actors and even Comics legend Jack Kirby to help make this pretend-movie.
Now, it's being made into a movie. The writers are first timers and Ben Affleck is directing.
And why is this movie on my list? Because it's about the ballsiest most ridiculous hostage rescue mission ever.
You can read more about the movie here.

8. The Avengers
Iron Man! Hulk! Captain America! Thor! Black Widow! Hawkeye! Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury!
Always been a comic book nerd. And seeing all these characters together, in one movie... feels like a goddamn dream. I can't wait to see what Joss Whedon (of Firefly and Buffy fame, but just consider Firefly for the time being) has cooked up with this one. Loki is the villain. And there's reportedly someone else, too. Some say it's Thanos. Well, if it is Thanos, then the world will explode from the nerdgasm I'll have when Avengers opens next year.
Avengers has released. Here's my review. 
Here's the trailer:







7. Frankenweenie
A few decades ago, a young Tim Burton made a short film. It was awesome. But Disney hated it, because they are completely bollocks (this is after Walt Disney passed away, of course), and they didn't want to make it a movie.
Now, it's getting made into a movie. And Disney has finally sucked up to Mr. Burton and is obviously financing it.
Here's the original short (No trailers are out, yet) :








6. The Grey
Joe Carnahan isn't a bad director. He just gets sucked into making no-brainers. It's just his luck. So, yeah, people from the geek community hate him. A lot.
But then he makes a movie. Writes it first. Calls it the Grey. Casts Liam Neeson, who has lost his credibility as a serious actor and has become more of an action movie star. Then he releases the first trailer and it's Neeson fighting Wolves with broken glass on his nuckles.
The trailer is one of the most misleading trailers of all time.
I just read the script and it's brilliant. Not in an action movie sense, mind you, but in a very serious sense. It's a survival story. One with great depth and told with much creativity.
The trailers for this can be somewhat compared to the Drive trailers. They are advertising a different movie, to draw in the lameass redneck hillbilly crowd who really don't want to watch a movie unless it has robots and explosions and no semblance of a story.
The script is NOT an action movie script. It's got plenty of action, but it's more like a character study. A study of men under an unbelievable and extremely stressful and damning situation. Someone described it as that SS Indianapolis story from Jaws with wolves and snow instead of oceans and that's a very, very apt description.
It was shown at BNAT film festival a few days ago and the attendants were pissed that this wasn't coming out in December. They say that the movie is so good that it deserves Oscar noms for Neeson's acting and the Script and the fact that it's coming out in January NEXT year, totally obliterates that notion. They won't have enough time (or money) to campaign for Neeson's nomination then. And they won't be able to push for noms in 2013 either because the movie's coming out in January.
Sad. Would've been awesome if Neeson got a nom this year.
Grey has released. Here's my review. 
Here's the (extremely misleading) trailer:






5. Gravity
"Father, I have a confession to make."
"What is it my son?"
"I...I have sinned. I have committed a sin worthy of hellish encampment."
"There is no sin but that of murder that can commit you to such a hellish punishment. Tell me, son. Tell me fearlessly."
"Father... I have only seen one Alfonso Cuaron movie. Please forgive me."
"You scoundrel. You infidel. You dare call yourself a fan of cinema?! Tonight, you DINE IN HELL!"
George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are two astronauts stranded in Space. The whole movie is about them. In space.
Here's a teaser trailer:







4. Django Unchained
When I read the script for Django Unchained for the first time, it felt like piece of shit with a few good bits. But I read it again, and it was brilliant. It felt like a very, very different kind of western. And now, it's got a brilliant and appropriate cast, too (Can't wait to see DiCaprio as Calvin Candie mouth off some foul language).
I've spoken more at length about this movie here.
Django Unchained is about a freed black slave/bounty hunter played by Jamie Foxx on a quest to rescue his beloved wife from an evil Plantation owner (DiCaprio). Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, bitches. 

3. The Dark Knight Rises
Batman Begins was the pledge. The Dark Knight was the turn. This is Nolan's Prestige, boys, it's his final act. The greatest thrillgiver since Hitchcock is completing his masterpiece. There's Bane and Catwoman and most probably Talia Al Ghul. Based on Knightfall and No Man's Land. And, if the trailer is any indication, this is going to be one helluva movie. And it will definitely NOT end well. Also, this is the most scifilike of all the parts, so it'll probably be a bit more Batmanny.
Can't bloody wait.







2. Prometheus

Ridley Scott's Alien is one of the greatest horror science fiction films ever made and gave us one of the greatest female characters ever in Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley. Scott is one awesome director. He gave us the masterful Blade Runner, Gladiator, and now he comes up with Prometheus, boasting of an amazing cast of Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba (you should check out his Luther right NOW), Guy Pearce and Micheal Fassbender.

"It's got the same [Alien] DNA", he says. Wrong. This is an Alien film. Or, rather, a prequel to it. And it not only takes us to the beginning of the Xenomorphs, but, if sources are to be believed, also to the beginning of time itself.
It is THAT ambitious. 

Here's a lookie. And I'll be damned if that doesn't look like the trailer for Alien.

1. Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey

When I read the Hobbit for the first time, I deemed it unfilmable. You simply can NOT make a good movie off the Hobbit. It's too cheerful, and although it is as poetic as Lord Of the Rings, it is simply a tad too kiddish. While Lord of the Rings read like an epic, the Hobbit read like a fairytale, and definitely not movie material.

Guillermo del Toro's inclusion gave me some hope, because, well if there's anyone who can tell a good fairytale, it's him. Well, nobody does it better than him. And then he left production. And Peter Jackson jumped back in. I was a bit apprehensive after that, but then, I saw this:

What Peter did there, is he took most of the elements of the book, added some bits that weren't in the book but were in the Annotations at the end of Lord of The Rings, and kept all the humor, but he changed the bloody tone. He's being faithful to the material, but presenting a very different version of the material. A more movie-ish, epic-er version, and screw you guys I can't wait to get back to Middle Earth. I left a piece of my brain and a sizeable chunk of my heart back there.
Also, it will be a technical revolution in film making. They are shooting it on Red Epic cameras that shoot in 3D, 5k theaters (bigger than IMAX) and in 48 frames per second. Normal movies are projected at 24 fps, while a human eye perceives images at 62 fps. Hobbit, being at 48 fps will be more closer to this number, and thus will be more lifelike and epic than anything on screen next year.

Your thoughts? Did I miss something? Should I have missed something?
Honorable mentions (IMDB them NOW): Luc Besson's Lock Out, Flowers of War, Neil Blokamp's ELYSIUM, The Secret World of Arriety, Rurouini Kenshin, Skyfall, Bourne Legacy, Haywire, Chronicle, World War Z (it would have made the list but I don't trust the director much), RIPD, (Ralph Fiennes') Coriolanus.

On the importance of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.

Frank Frazetta's cover illustration for 'A Princess of Mars'.

A war veteran is transported to another planet where he meets eight feet tall warlike aliens and falls in love with a princess and decides to help her people. Also, there are horses with four limbs and psychic connections with animals and people. 

Does that sound like Avatar? You bet it does. That's because James Cameron (director of Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens, True Lies and Titanic) ripped off everything from this little book by Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan and Pellucidar fame) called 'A Princess of Mars'.

This one little book that spawned a series has had more influence than any other material of literature ever since the early ninteen hundreds. Hell, the only original story/concept/whatever since the advent of ERB's Mars books has been the Lord of the Rings series, which, itself is ripped off by thousands and thousands of other scifi/fantasy stories and games and whatnot.

And it's really unfair what happened to it.

Men wrote books influenced by it. Men wrote and directed movies influenced by this.

And never acknowledged its significance.

Nobody tried to make it famous, because by the time it was remembered again, it had been ripped off a billion times in film and television. The story and the idea became so grounded in the public consciousness that the story of John Carter, if made known to the public, would have been heavily derided as a rip off.

And that's exactly what's happened now.

Tars Tarkas (As played by William Defoe in the upcoming movie)

The John Carter movie has been in development hell since thirty-twenty years. It's been passed on from production house to production house over the years and finally took shape at Disney an unfortunate MONTH before the release of Cameron's 3D "epic", AVATAR.

That it would be hailed as an Avatar rip-off was fairly obvious, and I was wary of that as I browsed through Youtube comments, AICN threads, ComicBookMovie comments and all that, but darn, I'd be damned if I didn't tell that it hurt.

ERB's book is an amazing explosion of action sequences, shocking heroics, and amazing ideas, all supported by the known scientific fact of the early twentieth century. That's the funny thing about ERB's book. It's filled with the weird and the wonderful and every creation is given a scientific reason to exist. In that way, it somewhat makes more sense than Avatar. That's why, to have it be called "A poor man's Avatar" by a commenter just retches my heart.

I admit it. This movie is coming out thirty years too late. It should have been made in the eighties' with a hulky He-Man type of guy in the lead, with aliens animated by Ray Harryhausen.

But hey, Harryhausen's dead. And so is the school of stop motion animation. There's CGI and motion capture and all that. So we have to accept the John Carter that we're getting. Even though it won't be faithful to the book, it's a goddamn John Carter movie. You can't help but want to see it.

Another Frazetta Illustration (for Gods of Mars, book II in the series)

You can't help but love these books, you see. These little penny dreadfuls, or pulp fiction as we know call them were the blockbusters last century. And these were brimming with ideas. Publishing houses had these amazing editors who would hire the best of the crop, force them to go with the best of the concepts and push them to their limit.

That's why we got awesome stories in the early twentieth century, because of these penny dreadfuls. You can blame all that Pulp Fiction material for amazing stories of characters such as Conan, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger, Zorro and last, but definitely not the least, John Carter.

No book has influenced so many since the John Carter series. It's influenced EVERYONE. From Arthur C Clarke to Akira Toriyama. You can find shades of the books in almost every scifi/fantasy ever released since. That's because it's such a great idea, such a great concept that people just want to devour it.

Original cover to A Princess of Mars

So it's really sad to see it being torn apart and lambasted and being called a poor-man's-Avatar. Because it isn't.

In fact, Avatar is a poor man's John Carter.

Avatar is a fat, jell-o eating man-child's John Carter.

Avatar is a cynic's John Carter. A moron's John Carter. A cheater's John Carter. 

That's what it is. 

The first book in the series, 'A Princess of Mars' is more nuanced, more poetic and more beautiful than Avatar will ever be, or any other movie for that matter. Although so many have copied from it, there is no outmatching the book. I don't know why. Neither does anyone. Maybe it's the wonder that is encompassed in this book. Maybe it's the magic of discovery that most other stories lack.

Or maybe it's just one helluva book.

John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, Daryl Sabara, Polly Walker, Bryan Cranston, Thomas Hayden Church, Willem Dafoe, and will be released on March 9, 2012.
The book "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs is in the public domain and can be downloaded here. 

On Django Unchained. And why I can't bloody wait.

Quentin Tarantio.
Heard of him? He's done a few good movies with a few good actors and wrote a few good scripts for movies like KILL BILL, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS and PULP FICTION.
Educate yourself.
Done?
So here we go, if you are a Tarantino fan you will very well be aware that this guy's a sucker for Westerns. He's a sucker for that Sergio Leone music and that wide shot panning across a desert landscape, and a Tarantino western has been a long time coming.Yeah, Kill Bill had some western tones, but it wasn't a full-on guns-a-blazin' horse ridin' western worthy of someone as awesome as Tarantino.
So here we get Django Unchained; the story of a freed slave who sets out on a quest to rescue his wife who is held captive by a plantation owner in Southern America, starring Christoph Waltz as Doctor King Schultz and some other people in various roles here (but that really doesn't matter, it's Christoph's movie). And yes, the script got leaked. And yes, Miramax tried getting rid of it, but what the hell, it's the goddamn internet. You can't get rid of stuff from the Internet. That's where I got the goddamn Thor screenplay a good three months before it released.
The first time I read the script, I didn't like it that much. It just seemed like a wrong choice for Tarantino and felt like a mere Oscar vehicle for Christoph Waltz's bounty-hunter/doctor. Yes, there were awesome bits, there were funny bits, but cohesively, it wasn't very good for me. But that was the first time. When I reread it, I finally got it. This wasn't a bad script with a few good moments anymore; it was a BRILLIANT script with very few bad moments. It's actually very, very good. It may not be Tarantino's best movie yet, but I'll be damned if it doesn't turn out to be a freaking brilliant film and an amazing western.
What I really like about this film is that tackles an aspect of American history that no one has the balls to tackle: the rapes, the torture and the slavery. Tarantino gets to use his favorite N-word a lot given the period of the film and the subject matter it deals with and he handles it in style.
Boy, is this script violent. There's just a lot of blood. It's fucking bloodier than Kill Bill and more brutal on the senses than that BDSM scene from Pulp Fiction. If this movie gets made the way its written on the script, expect this to be Tarantino's most brutal film yet.
It's fucking violent. But what stops it from turning into a gorefest are two things : the humor and the story. This is by far, the funniest script Tarantino has ever or will ever write. It's just ripe with humor, from making fun of bumbling Hillbillies to slaves who gape at Django's ubercoolness. And it also hits the right emotional beats as expected of a Tarantino movie. The best thing about this script is that it's got a message, and how it will be delivered to the audience is brilliant. On the surface, it's an out and out Western that shocks and entertains, but what it wants the audience to remember is the message.
 It's a history lesson, people, and it's history rewritten by Tarantino himself.
And I can't fucking wait.

\m/

The Adventures of TINTIN review

Tintin taught me English.
No joke. Seriously, that's how I learnt the alphabet, that's how I learnt to read. It was Tintin all along. Little four year old Bob, holding a Tintin book in front of him, slowly turning the pages, absorbing the illustrations, trying to decipher those letters, yes, that was me. And I deciphered each and every letter (with some help from my grandma, ofcourse) and learnt the language. And after that was learnt, I sought out each and every other Tintin book and soon I had all 24 in my collection, and I read and reread them and I still do, and I love each and every one of them. So yeah. Tintin is special for me. Very special.
And so is Spielberg. If Tintin infused in me a love for the comic art form, Spielberg made me love movies. Jurassic Park was the first movie I ever watched, and I've watched all his movies since. Indy, ET, Close Encounters of the Thrid Kind, you name it.
And Moffat. Oh, what a wonderful creation of God he is. I loved his Jekyll, loved his Doctor Who work and got absolutely bowled over by that wonderful episode of Sherlock that he wrote. Heck, I'd go so far as to call him the greatest screenwriter the world has ever seen.
And he was working on Tintin. With Edgar Wright. And Joe Cornish. And Andy Serkis. And Pegg and Frost. And Peter Jackson. And John Williams. And Spielberg.
Now THAT is a perfect team, isn't it?
Yeah. I was freaking excited.
So, here we come to the million dollar question : Does it disappoint?
Somewhat. Yes, it does. But it's not a bad film. It disappoints because I expected so much more from it.
What it doesn't get right is surprisingly (or unsurprisingly if you believe in that proverb) the script. It's just a messy script. And it's obviously written by brilliant, brilliant writers because there are so many good moments, but it's problem lies in its confused tone and style. Moffat, Cornish and Wright are, no doubt, brilliant writers, but their styles are very different and unique. Moffat wrote the first draft and it's quite obvious, because the storyline is cleverly (very cleverly) mashed up from three books. And there are moments that are pure Moffat, especially the ending which is sure to delight Tintin fans and belay their fears that Professor Calculus' character wasn't done justice. That's him, that's Moffat's writing. Even my little brother could point that out. But after his first draft was done, Cornish and Wright worked on it and brought their fast-paced style to it, and that's where disaster struck. The result is a convoluted, confused screenplay that doesn't even know what it's style is. The tone, though, is consistent, and there are many moments when the screenplay shines, but we don't dwell upon those shining moments for enough time to make them magical. It's all a bit too rushed.

The Cinematography is PERFECT

But everything else is absolutely perfect. Everything. Spielberg directs the best action piece he's ever directed, thanks to the amazing motion capture technology. Motion capture shows its brilliance here and it's as if this technology was waiting for this movie, and Spielberg exploits it brilliantly. He takes the camera to places cameras have never been before, pulling off absolutely impossible shots, especially during the brilliant action scenes. I had seen some of the behind the scenes material from this movie and what they had done was create life-size models of the sets...in WIREFRAME! And Steven had a virtual "camera" in his hand that he could take just about anywhere and get absolutely any angles he desired. And oh, how he exploits that is nothing short of brilliant. You've got to see the movie to believe it.

Spielberg and Jackson with the virtual "Camera"

I could find no flaw in the acting. Every character is pulled off perfectly (Although Haddock is a bit too Scottish for my taste), and Jamie Bell shines as Tintin. Thomson and Thompson are pulled off well, but have very little screen time than they should have had. But every minor character is treated seriously, from Alan to the guy who sells Tintin the model ship in the flea market. I love the seriousness on display. Why can't we have more people like them acting in the movies, I wonder.
I bet these guys thought Haddock would steal the show with Andy Serkis at his bumbling best, but they were wrong. Tintin's loyal furry companion, Snowy steals it. Watching Snowy protecting his master, dodging bullets, jumping on cars and chasing eagles is an absolute charm. Expect him to win over your kids, your wives and your girlfriends, because this one's an absolute charmer.

And the action pieces are just brilliant. Micheal Bay should learn a thing or two about staging action scenes from Spielberg because with Tintin, he's proved himself a master of action. And I bet Peter Jackson directed a few shots because there are some moments of desperation and comedy that are pure Peter Jackson material. And they're brilliant.
Animation : Flawless. Except for a few scenes. The closeups on Tintin during the last few scenes look a tad unfinished and there's a shot were a woman looks as if she's made of plastic. But they get Herge's style right, it feels like Herge's universe. Even the animals look Herge-esque : in one of the shots, a camel looks as if it just burst out of the pages of a Tintin book. So big kudos to Weta for getting that right.

And finally, the score. Oh, the score. This is pure John Williams. This is him scoring the Indiana Jones, or the Star Wars, this is John Williams in top form! It's as if you're watching Spielberg's most unique film yet and the score just reassures you that it's still classic Spielberg. Although it's a tad reminiscent of the Indiana Jones score, (not that I'm complaining, though some of you will) it's still right, it's still brilliant. And it feels like a Tintin score, that's the best thing about it.


All in all, The Adventures of Tintin : Secret of the Unicorn is a good film. But not a great one, and that's what makes me sad. But I liked it nonetheless, because the direction, the animation and the music are so damn good. Also, the fact that it felt like an old-school Spielberg movie done with brilliant technology helped.
With a better script, this one would have been an Oscar Winner. Without it, it's not. But don't let that discourage you from watching this. And check it out in 3D. The 3D's brilliant on this one. No gimmicky-things-thrown-at-you stuff and darkened screens for a change. (Also, it's somewhat funny that a comicbook using Herge's Ligne Claire style would inspire such a beautiful 3D film, given the flatness of the comics.)
Expect "Red Rackham's Treasure" to be released in two years' time (or more, Jackson's working on Hobbit at the moment).

Final thoughts: GO WATCH IT. NOW. 

So, what do I rate this one?
A solid 7/10. And that's mainly because of the technical feats that they've achieved with this movie and the love and respect they've shown for the source material here, while adapting three books into one 109 minute long movie. With a more slower, solid script, this would have been a definite Oscar winner.




Also, Tintin fans, be very, very observant. There's Easter eggs galore. Even Cutts the butcher makes it into this movie! And the opening credits are PURE fanservice!

So, I just finished Arkham City

How do you not love a game as beautiful, as amazing, as spectacular as Batman Arkham Asylum?
In 2009, Rocksteady made the Batman Begins of videogames. While other Batman games let us control the character, define his actions and lead him in directions, this one made us actually feel like him; whether it was facing off against Bane, beating up Joker's thugs, or scaring the living shit out of a bunch of armed criminals. Yeah. Asylum truly was a triumph that it let us actually feel like the protagonist.
And Arkham City just turns up that feeling a thousandfold.
Arkham City is 9 hours + of fanservice, amazing gameplay, beautiful graphics and Batman. I love how it gives you the illusion of being in a city, roaming a map larger than Arkham Asylum, when actually, the map is, if not as big as, smaller, than Arkham Asylum. Yet, it does a wonderful job of setting up that illusion, due to highly detailed environments and too many easter eggs to keep count off.



The combat stays, more or less, the same, with many added animations, a few more quick combos and a better response time than the earlier game. Batman's fight mechanics have been perfected by this new system, but I can't say the same for Catwoman. Her response time is not as great as Batman's, but she's got some pretty slick moves, so that makes up for it.


The movement mechanics have also improved greatly. Here, you have to jump from rooftop to rooftop, guide over buildings and can even divebomb into a group of thugs. As Catwoman, the movements feel very reminiscent of Spiderman; clinging to ceiling walls, scaling tall buildings.
Catwoman, while not handling to well during a fight, handles near-perfectly while in motion. She's quick. She's fast and flexible and nimble. So playing as her when roaming the city is an absolute treat.
Once you perfect the gliding mechanics, you'll no doubt spend hours and hours soaring over rooftops and singling out thugs, because it's absolutely wonderful. There's this amazing bit you can do while gliding : you divebomb into the streets, and if you get your timing right, and soar up, you'll accelerate farther and even achieve a greater height. It looks and feels brilliant and comes in very handy during a certain sequence (involving Ra's Al Ghul, bytheway).
The stealth mechanics, as usual, are brilliant. Batman's stealth sequences are quite different from Catwoman's, and they handle very, very differently in this case.And Detective Mode feels more realistic this time. And we are forced to use our normal vision as well, because these thugs aren't dumb. They've got signal jammers, laserscope snipers and thermal imagery and you'll need to make use of your normal sight to beat these guys.
Remember those Scare Crow sequences? He's not there in the game, but there IS something reminiscent of that and it doesn't deserve spoiling.
A bossfight involving Mister Freeze makes great use of these mechanics. This fight challenges you to vary your techniques, plan and strategize in more ways than one. I remember trying to fall asleep while thinking, 'I've got to beat this guy next. How do I do it?' and a thousand ideas popped into my head. The Mister Freeze fight is one of the most innovative and unique boss fights I've ever fought. Brilliant stuff.


The story, by Paul Dini, is, unsurprisingly, brilliant. Well, except it is predictable for Batman fans. When Hugo Strange mentions that there's some greater force behind him, you instantly know who this greater force is, if your Batman mythology is proper. What I hate about the story is most definitely the ending. You get something so crazy to be true, and so removed from Batman's continuity, that you simply can't believe it. And that, by the way, is the only major flaw in the game. The ending. I don't love it. I'm just okay with it, because something really clever happens before it. A very, very good third act twist. Also, the entire third act is brilliant. You just faced off against Joker and his thugs. You're standing on a crane, looking at Arkham City as it burns and crumbles to the ground. There's helicopters all over the place, shooting missiles, killing people, and you're helpless. You get a very The Dark Knight vibe off this and the amazing score helps as well.


The score is simply amazing. The way it builds up to a crescendo in the moments that lead up to the final battle, as you take on six-seven snipers off the rooftops is absolutely thrilling and feels like reliving the last moments of The Dark Knight where Batman rescues hostages dressed up as clowns from the building.
Darn. I wish we had more of that.
Also, besides the main story, there are side missions involving villains from Batman's amazing Rogue gallery. Of course, there's the Riddler, but then there's Deadshot, there's Mad Hatter, there's Azrael, there's Ivy, there's Zsasz and there's Hush. And I bet, they're going to release a Maxie Zeus Side mission as DLC soon. And I can't wait to buy it.
There's another side mission that involves helping "Political Prisoners". There're guys in Arkham who've been put in just because they picked a bone with Strange and you've got to save them from being eaten up by the Arkham thugs. A nice addition. After all, he's Batman. He's got to save people.
Another thing I absolutely loathe is that the thugs keep on calling Catwoman a "bitch". I mean, I can stand some foul language, but there's a limit and they cross it. But, then again, it keeps me on my toes. Anytime someone's about to say that, I kick him in the face.
The voice acting for most part, is very good. Daphne voices Catwoman, bytheway. A brilliant, brilliant choice. Penguin's accent is weird, but then it grows on you and you start liking it. Kevin Conroy fits Batman like a glove. Freeze, Strange, Joker and Harley Quinn are absolutely spot-on. Who I don't like is Ra's Al Ghul. The guy voicing him sounds too young to voice a psycopathic mastermind who's 600 years old. Two Face is also a bit off for me.


Some of the character designs didn't sit in with me, either. Deadshot looks like that fat Rebel guy from A New Hope and Penguin and Mad Hatter are too tall for their characters. Ra's is another character that felt too overdone. He's got tattoos and shit now. WTF. Tattoos? On Ra's Al Ghul? Are you freaking serious? Talia's costume has also been sexed up more, but I could stand it. Can't say the same about Harley Quinn, though. Wish she had the BTAS costume on.
But, let us not forget, that these are but minor quibbles in an amazing game. Just go and fucking buy it. Support the game industry. BUY IT.

Remember how hyped The Dark Knight was, and then it came along and exceeded expectations? That's what happened with Arkham City. This is a serious game, for Batman fans, of Batman fans, made by Batman fans that even non-Batman fans can enjoy. It's a fucking brilliant marvel of a game.
9.5/10

Why YOU should watch Doctor Who?

Doctor Who is the fucking most awesomest thing of all time. I'm Serious. It's so fucking awesome that it makes every other damn TV Show feel like trash and renders them unwatchable and it deserves more recognition than what it's getting at the moment. Forget Dexter, forget House, forget those pathetic Medical Dramas and Criminal investigation shows and just fucking watch Doctor Who, and I give you 5 reasons why you should.
5. The show has been going on since the sixties
You know, Doctor Who has been on air since the sixties. Well, not exactly, because it was discontinued in 1989 before being renewed in 2005 under the guidance of Russel T. Davies. Well, any show that has been around since the sixties HAS to be fucking great, otherwise why the hell would it even be around.
4. Everything can happen and everything can fucking make sense. 
The Doctor is a Timelord. He can travel through space and time and he is virtually immortal due to his regeneration ability. So you've got Eleven different actors playing the same Character and it totally fucking makes sense. So you can put in any fantasy story and explain it as an alien invasion or something and it will totally Make. Sense. For me, that's the best thing about Doctor Who. Anything is possible and every fucking impossibility can be made possible.
3. The best of Britain are hired for each episode
Since Doctor Who's been around since the sixties, many writers of fantasy, drama, whatever, there's a 99% chance that they're a Doctor Who fan and are willing to write episodes for the tv show. So every season (except for season two of the 2005 renewal) is fucking great. And most episodes are of amazing quality, be it acting, writing, directing, special  effects (for a TV show, at least) are fucking great. Just watch one episode of the latest series and you'll understand what I mean. The actors are HIGHLY talented individuals who are absolutely AMAZING in their parts. It's like watching a forty minute Oscar winning movie everytime you watch it.
2. The newest seasons are a MINDFUCK
The last two seasons of Doctor Who had my brains rattling. And this one, oh don't get me started on this one, its like watching a Christopher Nolan movie with Kubrick-esque puzzles. And the twists and turns...wow. The producer of Doctor Who at this moment is Steven Moffat. Just click on the link, go through the credits, look at the work he's done. Every fucking bit of it is EXCEPTIONAL. Absolutely EXCEPTIONAL! Steven Spielberg FORCED him to write for the upcoming Tintin movie. And when Spielberg forces someone to write for him, that guy HAS to be very fucking talented. (Micheal Bay was a misfire. We forgive you, Spielberg)
1. The Companions. 
If the previous four reasons didn't convince you, then you probably are a guy who wanks off to porn every day and night and satisfies himself by watching lowres Bible Black episodes. You must be that kind of motherfucker who watches Tv shows to ogle hotties. Fear not, Doctor Who has something for you too!
He must be getting lonely in his spaceship, right? So he is accompanied by "Companions" and each one is hotter than the other. Here, we go... (from the 2005 renewal)
1. Rose Tyler

2. Martha Jones




3. Amy Pond (my favorite :D)

WONDER WOMAN #1 is BRILLIANT.

Wow. Just wow. Wonder Woman #1, along with Swamp Thing and Animal Man, may be one of the best things to come out of the DCnU stable. And I love it. I absolutely love it. I've read it three times already, it's that good. I love it that they've made one of the most iconic characters of the DC universe so badass again, especially after the crap that JMS pulled before this relaunch.
First off, the writing is brilliant. Very clever writing indeed. Reading it the first time, you'll be left bored, uninterested, but somehow unwilling to stop, and then BAM! The cliffhanger/revelation/plot twist hits you and then you finally realize what a brilliant piece of work this is. The artwork is pure Cliff Chiang. I love the pencils and the inks, but the color makes it feel like reading a Fables comic (or maybe that WAS the aim).
Also, Wonder Woman ain't a total slut here, unlike the rest of the women of the "new" DC universe (More on that later). She's still strong, she's still got the class and she's still badass. They've nailed it. Chiang and Azzarello  have totally nailed her character. THIS is the Wonder Woman we know from Kingdom Come, this is the Wonder Woman we know from the Dark Knight Strikes Again, this is the Wonder Woman from the Justice League animated series. She's strong, can act a bit like a jerk, but she still wants to help people. She loves helping people, actually, demonstrated by her willingness to help a certain Zola, who finds herself surrounded by amazing, terrific circumstances.
The only problem with the book is the first reading. It will leave you uninterested, UNTIL the last page. But you have to bear with it until you get to the revelation, unfortunately.
And the cliffhanger. Oh what can I say? It's brilliant. Also, it's very obvious. We should have seen it coming, but we don't, actually. And if I even speak a word of it, I risk spoiling it. It's just, absolutely, amazing. You have to read it to find out.

4.5/5

On Nolan.

--------------UNDER CONSTRUCTION------------------------------
Nolan has made a different character out of Batman and Gotham. I love it, but is it perfect (to me)? Nope. I love the movies, but they don't really feel like Batman movies, they feel more like tributes. Every exchange between Batman and Joker was awesome but it felt at times, they were just dialogues reflecting upon Batman's relationship with the Joker and not like they are these two characters, these two opposites who are yet so similar, which Batman and Joker really are. Even in Begins, it felt as if they were just building up to his legend and explaining that he is destined to be a legend. The Nolan films feel more like a reflection of Batman rather than Batman himself. But I love them. I freaking love 'em Nolan flicks.
And continuing my long critical appreciation of the Nolan films, let me add that in my opinion, the Batman animated series, helmed by Bruce Timm, Alan Burnett and Paul Dini, had the perfect Batman and the perfect Gotham and the perfect Rogues gallery. (Until Season 4 atleast, then it went totally bollocks). So I love those series even more. It had the right amount of gothic darkness, right amount of tragedy and the right amount of wackiness. It was just...perfect. But they screwed it up when it came to season four and by the time that Batman joined their "Justice League: The Animated Series" roster they had screwed the character up. But the first three seasons were GOLD.

13 simple steps for making a successful Bengali TV serial.

I am from India. Yes...ugh... Yup. Now that you have finished retching and...no I don't live in slums...no I haven't met Jamal (I don't think he exists)...no, Shahrukh Khan sucks...OKAY LET ME SPEAK! See, since I am from India, I have my grandparents living with me. And what do Bengali grandparents watch? Bengali TV show. Bengali TV show has flourished into a multimillion rupee industry, sprawling of rehashes of old tv shows, with each season longer than the entire run of the Simpsons, and not even half as funny. These shows are so bad that you can't even laugh at them. Each episode is like a shortened version of Twilight minus the entire Vampire-Human-Werewolf love triangle thing. Well, its worse. But hey, its a multimillion rupee industry and even YOU can make it big in there. All you need to do is follow these instructions:

1. If you are making a drama, it HAS to be set in olden times.

2. If you are not making a drama then it HAS to be set in modern times.

3. If the drama is set in modern times, everything HAS to look as if its olden times, with huts and straw houses, but all the characters need to have iPhones or some cellphone that runs on Android OS. And the only cars that are to be shown are yellow cabs. But the iPhones are more important. Even the slum dwellers who can't afford clothes should have iPhones.

4. In the drama, if there is a villain, the villain HAS to talk in english with the most pathetic accent possible while the others will speak in bengali only

5. The story has to be shit. Or cow shit. All dialogues should comprise mostly of monologues in which the character will mock other characters.

6. If the serial is not a drama, it should be a copy of CSI, House, Dexter or an extended Slumdog Millionaire.

7. Every serial MUST use the Dark Knight soundtrack and/or the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack without obtaining the rights. 

8. The Dark Knight soundtrack MUST be played at inappropriate moments.

9. At least one character should have a spoilerific psychic premonition, which makes almost every other bengali dude psychic. 

10. The people watching the show must NOT be entertained. They should be tortured.

11. God should be a character in it.

12. The twists should be un-fucking-believable.

13. No sex. Not even the slightest mention of Sex. 

Congratulations, now you can be a part of the multimillion rupee industry that is Bengali TV!! 

Do NOT forget the Dark Knight soundtrack. You HAVE to HAVE it.

I am breaking up with Hollywood :'(

Dear Hollywood, 

There was a time when I loved you, when your touch would send chills up my spine, when your body lying next to mine would fill me with warmth and wonder. You gave me so much happiness, so much sadness, but I loved you for your beauty. But now, I love you no more. I know that you stole from my bed to sleep with another. Where did he touch you, Hollywood? Which hole did that bastard put his cock in that you were so infatuated with him? Oh and then I found out HE wasn't the only one you laid with. I got pictures of you fucking the hell out of Micheal Bay and his dog, then McG and then Joel fucking Schumaker. You are a slut. You are a whore. You make me sad. I know what you did with M Night Shyamalan. Such a nice kid. You betrayed him. You made him sucky. And then you forced him to do the Last Airbender and now he's depressed and contemplating suicide. Final Destination, while not being flawless, was extremely watchable. But you HAD to reduce it to pathetic shit levels. And its director? You subjected him to torture and made him ruin my childhood. I know this is all a pathetic revenge plan you fucking slut. You raped Dragonball and reduced it to utter shit levels. I hate you. I fucking hate you. And now, you are torturing Universal Studios. You are making them do a movie about cards and monsters. Based on a fucking anime. A fucking pathetic anime known as Bakugan. Bakugan, of all things? Baku-fucking-gan? And that too you're getting one of the most pathetic directors of all time to do it. I know you won't stop torturing me. So you will make a Naruto now, or a Bleach or Death Note starring that Justin Bieber bitch and then maybe we'll get a Pokemon movie as well. 

You sadden me. I hate you. And I am breaking up with you. 

Your jilted lover

Bob Uzumaki