(Just Another) Inglourious Movee

Saw The Inglourious Basterds yesterday. What a crappy movie!! I mean, what's wrong with Quentin Tarantino, post Kill Bill? No spoilers here, but its a kind of story we all wish we could do in reality - as an Indian, I would so wish we had a crack team of vigilante type commandos killing Aurangzeb or some of the terrible tyrants that ruled us. So much for wishful thinking, but wtf? A movie that shows the clinical, ruthless Nazis and Gestapos as clumsy duds who could not wipe out a rag-tag team of American soldiers? While its true that there were some serious security breaches during the final years of the Reich, they were carried out by some of the most trusted members of such organizations as the SS, the Abwehr and the like. During the War years, even his close confidantes could not access Hitler - he was always in one of his hideouts such as the Wolfsschanze. And here you have him moving around as if he was a puppet despot of a banana republic or more a mafiosi. A Nazi movie - and without some samples of their atrocities? Not done. You cannot help but think of the Nazi's as bumbling fools.

But Christoph Waltz is such a fine actor. Wow! The whole movie hinged on his character and he played it to the T, as Tarantino himself admitted. Diane Kruger looked strange - quite old, but could have been the make-up. Brad Pitt's role was fairly small. It is basically Waltz's movie through and through...hmm, a damp squib. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Back from the hiatus!..Lots of tooning these days..:)

I am back after a two month break! Had been a rather busy time - moved to a new pad, got it painted and renovated, went to Delhi and bought some decorative stuff to spruce up the place. Thanks to Shveta, the place sure looks good! The last 10 days also saw Putun becoming a ma and we becoming uncles and aunts. While every married man automatically gets addressed as an uncle or an aunt in India (which is so irritating and unflattering), it feels rather nice to be a real uncle.

Nilu gave me an amazing dump of videos, games and utilities this time. I spent the last weekend watching some of those movies: a hilarious Will Ferrell starrer called the Land of the Lost made my day last Saturday. Very funny and also quite a fresh take on sci-fi concepts, with Mr Rick Marshall, the "quantum paleontologist" going places... a must watch! And then my favorite toons from the same Hanna Barbera - Iwao Takamoto stock: The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. With those rollicking Anthill Mob, their sidekick car Chuggaboom , the idiotic duo Bully brothers and one of the funniest villains in toon-dom, Sylvester Sneakley aka The Hooded Claw. Paul Lynde's dubbing of this funny guy is just too amazing. What actually puts these old cartoons in a very different league is that they used to tap the funnybone really well with the funny voices and really absurd storylines. So, be it the wheezy laughs of Muttley or the sniggers of the Hooded Claw, they made you laugh. Anime and Hentai/Manga toons are cool from a visual perspective - they are too smartly done and are serious, but there are times when you just want to put your brains to rest and become a kid - nothing beats the old Hanna Barbera stuff....hmm, back to work!