Padma Lakshmi

Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi has launched her new cook-book. It is tantalizingly titled 'Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet'. The former super-model has previously released an autobiographical cooking-manual named Easy Exotic which was well received. Hope the second book too will be equally successful.

movie review : 2012

My teenaged cousin recommended this movie, so I went to watch it though I have an aversion for such movies. The previous disaster-movie I watched in theatres is Armageddon way back in the 90's. Then I almost fell asleep , bored of watching the destruction & mayhem. This time I managed to ward-off falling asleep. Infact the movie 2012 is throw back to 90's style of film-making. But one often gets the feeling that this style has run its course and is fast getting out-dated.

Undoubtedly 2012 is treat for special-effect fans. The whole experience is similar to that of playing a video-game , or taking a joy-ride in a theme-park. There is a feeling of instant-high which will fade sooner or later. And apart from the special-effects there is nothing else worth noting. None of the charactors stuck in the mind. The screen-play ( if such a thing exists) is shoddy. The dialogues are cliched and artificial. The back-ground score is predictable. The story-line has an uncanny resemblance of H.G Wells' short-story The Star (which deals with a star that is heading towards earth , causing many natural disasters in our planet) though Wells does not specify any particular date for the event. Like a typical Hollywood blockbuster, 2012 also has Us vs Them theme - only difference being Them is not an alien but nature's fury.

Many similar movies have released particlarly in last decade are from the same director but 2012 shows his prowess are on decline. Neveretheless the director succeeds in highlightinging the impact of world-end on different individuals according to their attitude towards life which he potrays satirically. For example, in one such scene where the fast impending disaster being watched by a pessimistic, lonely radio-jockey and the ever-optimistic hero . The first man smiles and even laughs at the dreadfull sight of nature's fury while the hero - a family man with a wife and 2 kids - wore a dump-founded expression , a la Kate Winslett of Titanic.


So if you are a die-hard special-effects fan , then go for it. Or if your idea for a perfect movie-outing is a small,quiet Woody Allen kind of movie , then ignore '2012'.

Jason Scott Lee

THEN & NOW ..

notable movies :

Blind Fury (1989) Uncredited, Bruce Lee's Brother
Back to the Future Part II (1989) Whitey
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) Bruce Lee

The Jungle Book (1994) Mowgli
Soldier (1998) Caine 607
Arabian Nights (2000) Aladdin
Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (2004)
The Prophecy: Forsaken (2005)
Nomad (2006)
Dance of the Dragon (2008) Cheng