"King" sized movie

What do you get when you cross Titanic, Cannibal Holocaust, Jurassic park and The Lost World? You would find a humongous ape jumping out of the pot right into your face! That is what Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is all about. You find yourself trapped in the theater waiting for the first one and half hours of this 3 hour long epic waiting to capture a glimpse of the great ape but alas! By the time you actually get to see the huge primate half the movie is over. The story moves at a fast pace once Kong makes an entry. The movie is staged in the depression era (late 1920's) with a movie director trying desperately to make it big. With the movie producers deciding to cut his finances he manages to get aboard a steamer along with his crew to shoot the remainder of his movie in an uncharted island somewhere in the pacific. The heroine is a theater artist who lost her job thanks to the closure of the theater because of the depression. We also have a writer in the crew who falls for the heroine. The initial scenes look as though they were inspired from Titanic but the CGI is a lot better. Once on the island we have a very fearful looking aborigines (They would make the Ogres from Lord of the Rings trilogy feel good about their looks!) who take a peculiar liking to the heroine and want to offer her as a sacrifice to the Kong. Rest is all about how the writer rescues her and how the crew capture Kong and take him back to New York. Dinosaurs keep popping in and out of the scenes interlaced with giant slimy bugs who eat away people. Kong even does Kung-fu! (A choreographed action sequence between the King Kong and three T-Rexs). Jack Black, who plays the director in the movie provides some comic relief with his efforts to keep the camera and the reel intact through the film. Adrian Brody and Naomi Watts deliver good performances even though the movie is not supposed to be an actor-based one.

I could never figure out since I first saw the 1970s version of the King Kong on TV as to why there was only one King Kong! Was the great ape looking at the heroine like a doll to play with? I wonder if the Kong being protective about the heroine was just getting angry at anyone who wanted to his doll away. The movie could have been edited to stretch just over a couple of hours. The cinematography was excellent. The back ground score took its hints from the emotional weight the scenes carried. Adrian Brody was perfect and none else could have been a better choice for the role of Ann. But at the end you just get a feeling that you are watching a montage of various movies and not an original. I saw the movie specifically because it was a Peter Jackson movie. Peter Jackson, in my point of view has been the most successful director in recent time who made a trilogy, the best in recent times, where each part was better than its predecessor. I expected better story and logic from this New Zealander but sad to say he disappointed! If you forget about Jackson's previous track record and feel that movies are just for entertainment and defy logic and you are supposed to see things in the movies which you don't get to see in reality then King Kong is for you!

Some of the best scenes of the movie: The ship running ashore, The encounter of the film crew with the aborigines and the subsequent sacrifice scene (The most terrifying scene of all), The dinosaurs running helter skelter with the Raptors chasing them, Heroine performing her act in front of Kong, King Kong chasing the taxi near the climax and finally the scenes where King Kong beats his chest atop the Empire State Building. Everything about the movie is large ... The characters, the animals, the canvas and finally the ape itself!

Tanzania

No, I didnt go on a trip to Tanzania! This was the source for the cover story for Eenadu's sunday special this week (Tanazaniaa ... Choosi Teeraalayaa ... ). There was a time when Eenadu sunday special was one of the reasons to look forward for a sunday morning. Though not the prime reason anymore it still stays on the list of reasons to look forward for a sunday. There is nothing to beat the feeling you get you complete all your house hold chores in the morning and slump down in the chair with a copy of that book. It is still one of my favorite pastimes for a sunday. The fervent interest that I used to exhibit waiting for the newspaper on a sunday morning has waned over the years but the feeling I gain from reading those articles has no match. The 'Telugu' you get when you read Eenadu is quite different from the other newspapers. No wonder when people get hooked onto it they want it wherever they are in this world. The literary quality and the number of pages on the sunday special was on the wane since the last few years - Barring a few volumes most of them were devoid of quality matter. The concentration was more on the 'novelty' factor. 'Tidbits' dominated the proceedings with the special being reduced to a tabloid. The stories being published in the short-story segment have become rather short :)) and most of them are endowed with a predictable story line. Perhaps this was also one of the reasons for the position of Eenadu sunday special dropping a few places on my sunday 'to-do list'.

The main reason I observe was that there was a dearth of good writers who used to contribute articles to this wonderful magazine. It has been ages since I have seen 'Ajay Santhi' (Who used to be a regular contributor and my favorite) on the book. I wonder what happened to him. Not that the stuff they are churning out these days is bad but I think these nexgen writers need some serious training in keeping up with old values that the magazine stood for. These new age articles carry the gen-x flavor in Telugu which I can get anywhere else (Other telugu mags). If Eenadu's Telugu wasn't what it was it would have lost its identity in this sea of mags long ago. Enough about the fall in quality now. I think today after a long long time Eenadu featured an article by famous writer and actor Gollapudi Maruthi Rao.

Gollapudi describes his journey into the heart of East Africa, to Tanzania. Unlike the cover stories these days which were either rich in illustrations or literary content, this article was rich in both. There were loads of beautiful pictures through out article. The content was pretty good too. It was interesting to read. The wasy it was written gave me the same exhilaration it used to get previously. The writer tees off the essay by quoting a conversation with his son who argued that it was perilous to visit Tanzania. On the contrary it turned out to be a delightful experience for the writer. As an icing on the cake it was refreshing to know that there were around 300 Telugu families living in Tanzania! He details his journey in chaste telugu that took him across Dar-U-Salem, Serengeti and the Khilamanjero. The encounter with the pride of lions in mountains of Khilamanjero was nothing short of hair-raising! (Incase you trash it as lies - there is photographic evidence to back it up!). It is nice to see someone breaking the mould and venturing out to tour an African destination unlike many who tour the US or Europe.

Pune

It was refreshing from this daily routine. A welcome break from this rush hour traffic and extra large roads. A really recuperating 2 day trip. I expected the city to be a center of bustling activity like any other modern metro in India (Especially the ones with software firms dotting the skyline). What I saw was exactly the opposite. No hurry, No jams, No nearly placed traffic lights. The roads were not the usual smooth ones that you would come to expect. They were rough. Even roads inside KPHB would definitely give them a run for their money! They were a little bit narrow for a big city. The hoardings that dotted the skyline through out the 10 kilometer long drive to my brother's office were only that of real estate ventures unlike Hyderabad. The atmosphere was cool. My brother complained about suspended particulate matter being high in the city which is why driving 2 wheelers was inconvenient. I found that the center of the city was under a state of reconstruction with lots of fly-overs coming up. I stayed at my brother's place which was an apartment inside a sprawling complex which overlooked a vast array of farm land - Quite a rarity in a city. Probably it was possible because they were living in Aundh (outskirts of Pune). I was quite surprised to see that there was a 3-hours-a-day power cut! After coming to Hyderabad the word "power cut" seemed to be from another world. Pune to an extent seemed to be like a extra-large town rather than a city. I don't know if my observations hold good for the entire city because I didn't have the time to venture out into the city center. But I felt a certain comfort level in the city which I enjoy in my home town. I would love relocating there if need be.