Books, Movies and Hillary Clinton.

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You know one of those books which you pick up from the shelf because they look terribly interesting and you flip page after page after page and nothing happens and the book ends and you realize you’ve just wasted four hours of your life reading something that didn’t make any sense and whether the author was really inspired enough to write the book or just plain bored as you were before you started reading the piece of shit?

James Frey’s “My Friend Leonard” is exactly that kind of a book. To a T.

I flipped page after page after page to hope something good would come out of the book, to hope some twist or turn or some semblance of a story would emerge out of a guy who’s been an alcoholic and a coke fiend (the basis seemed strong enough to expect a storyline) but unfortunately the whole book is one crass event after another until it ends and I am left with a sense of gladness that I never read “A Million Little Pieces” to which this was a sequel of.

The book apparently has gotten rave reviews including one that says,

 ”This book is fascinating. And if you don’t think so, fuck you.”

Well, alright. Fuck you too. The book is a waste of time.

Qurutulain Hyder’s “My Temples Too” is a fascinating read, even in English, that provides the reader with that intimate insight into the era that was pre-partition and the final divide between the subcontinent. A must-read, even though I’m still hoping to read the original in Urdu.

Barack Obama - a biography by Joanne F. Price is another complete waste of time, money and energy. As my husband is prone to say, wikipedia’s great for biographies. And he couldn’t be more right in this case since the biographer has added no personal insight, no angle, no feel to the book itself. It almost seems as if you’re reading a robotic memoir of a man who is perched at greatness (the book was printed before he became POTUS) and sucks all the fun out of the remarkable journey he’s taken.

Management: This is another movie that rambles in and out of the life of Mike who falls in love with Sue. They’re together, then they’re not together, he’s doing something with his life, then he’s not doing something with his life. Eventually it’s just a dull hour and a half with nothing redeeming except Jennifer Aniston’s portrayal of the repressed stoic character Sue Claussen.

The Ugly Truth: As far as rom-coms go, Katherine Heigl sure knows how to pick the unlikely ones. First with Knocked Up and then with 27 Dresses and now with The Ugly Truth.

The movie pits together two television personalities, a producer (Heigl) and a cynical, indelicate tv show host (Gerard Butler) who end up falling for each other in a typical case of opposites attract. The plot’s fine, the acting’s fine, the twists are fine. The film just couldn’t hold my interest despite Heigl’s huffing and puffing at the various indecencies of Butler’s character. Quite surprisingly though, Butler seemed to overshine Heigl (which is saying something) and remained the main watchable part of the movie.

The Proposal: Sandra Bullock is getting old. Despite facial lifts and botoxes, her eyes are still crinkling and her lips are still wrinkling. And since Ryan Reynolds is fairly young and plays her romantic interest in the movie, she just keeps looking older.

The movie however is hilarious and is a must-watch for all romcom fans. Old or not, Bullock can hold her screen presence still and my special favorite scene is when she dances and chants around some bonfire with Betty White to the words, “To the sweat drop down my balls”. The story isn’t original, it’s a typical formula flick – but with lots of laugh and a happy ending. What more can you want out of a chick flick, eh?

Star Trek: I’ve never been a Trekkie and I frankly don’t ever think I’m going to be one. But this movie, even for a non-Trekkie as myself, was pretty well-made and adequately interesting to watch. Plenty of explosions, lots of spaceships and aliens and oh yeah. You get to see Eric Bana like never before. Eye candy includes Chris Pine and his uncanny resemblance to William Shatner’s “Kirk” days of the yesteryears.

Ice Age III: I liked it the first and the second time. No arguments about how I liked the third. It’s quick, it’s funny and I love Sid the Sloth. And where has Ray Romano disappeared to? Not that he needs to make money again for the next five Romano generations but he really shouldn’t retire this early.

Public Enemies: Okay so it’s probably blasphemy to call a movie with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale boring but it very much was. John Dillinger is supposed to do something interesting to keep the movie on its edge but I’m afraid all his tricks and haps are as old as gangster flicks go. There isn’t darkness in the movie – just drudgery. There isn’t charisma (or hasn’t been exploited enough) in Bale’s character (there was a lot more in Gordon’s character, re. Gary Oldman in The Dark Knight) and Marion Cotillard is just plain playing the chick – except in that one scene where she is brutally interrogated by a police officer regarding the whereabouts of Dillinger in which she is without a doubt, splendid.

The Tale of Desperaux: What started off as a very interesting story ended up being very unoriginal. The kingdom of Dor loves soup. One day the king bans soup because of an unfortunate incident and we are now taken deep inside the world of mouse and men. Or mouse and rat, if you will.

The movie, despite being packed with a stellar cast and stellar animation, didn’t rise up to the expectations that were built in the first twenty minutes. The messages are strong and a little too complicated sometimes for a children’s book (upon which the movie is based on). It was one of those movies you wished were better – because if they were, they’d be very, very memorable watches.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: Harry is growing up, ending his multi-billion dollar ride and getting all ready to defeat Lord Voldemort.

A big fat giant treat for all Potter fans. I can’t talk about this movie objectively because I’m quite a Potterholic myself. So the only way I can talk about it is the way all Pottermaniacs talk about it. What was missing from the book and what we hope to see in the future.

We definitely missed Dumbledore’s funeral. The lighting of wands just wasn’t enough, sorry. We’re happy to see Daniel Radcliffe’s acting improving with time (took him long enough) and we are very much hoping to see something great done with Severus Snape’s story in the upcoming movie. Bellatrix Lestrange must be kept up front and centre (and that mainly because of what a kickass job Helena Bonham-Carter has done in the movies). The romantic triangles are well-played and well-portrayed.

If they can get away with breaking the last book into two VERY GOOD movies, I’d say that would be a job well done.

JK Rowling’s millions of pounds would be proud.

Upcoming/or already arrived movies I want to watch are:

1. Julie and Julia,
2. Funny People,
3. G-Force,
4. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,
5. Inglorious Basterds,
6. A Christmas Carol,
7. Where The Wild Things Are,
8. Couples Retreat,
9. Law Abiding Citizen
10. Up.

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It is amazing to see how completely thick Pakistanis can get sometimes. And I don’t know if the media does it on purpose or whether it’s just how we think – but callers keep dialing into shows and random people keep showing up on those street interviews stating the most bizarre of theories.

For example.

My personal favorite and the most popular one to date.

“Sab Amreeka karva raha hai.”
(It’s all America’s doing.)

Are you fucking psycho?

I don’t know where we get our roots of blaming people right left and centre. First it was the British. Then it was the Hindus. Then it was the Army. And now it’s America. Oh and let’s not forget the Jews. The Jews are all spending their time and energy and money on trying to eradicate Muslims in the world because they really have nothing else to do – let’s say, maybe save their own dwindling population from going extinct?

The Jews should get cable.

US Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan met with … exceedingly Pakistani reviews.

People complained about the protocol she was given (did we honestly expect her to roam around Islamabad like a hitchhiker with no guards to save her ass in a country where over 200 people were killed in random suicide blasts in the past one month?!) and that it ‘blocked traffic’.

Zardari, Gilani and all his other chailays (sidekicks) don’t?

They complained that she didn’t reach out to the common man (she’s US Secretary of State, not God, it’s not her job to reach out to the common man to solve problems, it’s her job to sit in high-profile meetings, give millions of dollars in aid to a war-torn country like ours and get the fuck out of here before someone shoots her in the head and we get blamed for everything from here to Antartica for the next seventy years) and didn’t do much to deserve thanks and appreciation.

I don’t know what Pakistanis wanted from her, really. A game of lukkachuppi (hide and seek) with the local greengrocer’s son? Or a cozy dinner with Sheikh Rasheed? Really, what?

The worst part is, while all this complaining is going on about Hillary’s visit, I cannot believe Pakistanis are still stuck in “America’s doing it for their own selfish purposes” … well, of course they are, you nitwits, wake the fuck up.

If you had a country that was powerful enough to bring down the economy, if your biggest buildings were bombed by passenger airplanes and if your army was stuck in two godforsaken countries trying to get the hell outta there, you’d do everything in your power to make “War Against Terrorism” your daily slogan and I don’t blame America for that for one second. If anything, I blame Pakistanis for not taking their country as seriously as America takes its own land of opportunities.

Even with the shadiest links they created between the 9/11 attacks and Osama bin Laden, they went to war on his ass and still haven’t given up. They’re losing money, they’re losing morale, and they’re pulling out of Iraq (which in all fairness had nothing to do with 9/11 – but we can thank Bush Sr. for being a redneck for that) but they haven’t given up. They are using everything in their power to make sure that ‘Islamic militancy’ doesn’t rise again – especially in their country and they don’t care if Pakistan seems to be whimpering about it.

And thanks to their free and independent media, no one shuts up about how the brewing of 9/11 was loosely linked to the proxy Soviet War for which America used the Taliban.

No one lets them forget that for a second.

Pakistanis like the whole blame tennis. We don’t want to see how we’re in any way responsible for groups like Lashkar e Jhangvi and Mullah Deisel. We don’t want to accept that whenever someone yells “Nara e Takbeer” we want to lose all common sense and charge into the field without knowing what we’re charging INTO.

So we elected the MMA (which Benazir often called the Military Mullah Alliance), voted for the Kitaab and called Musharraf a heathen when he talked about ‘enlightened moderation’ and hated him for what he did at Lal Masjid.

My question is – when do we stop hating and start figuring out what is really wrong with the attitude we have towards solving problems?

When do we stop blaming America for every small problem that happens in this country and start taking responsibility for all the nuisance we’ve created in the name of Islam?

Because if we do – then we begin to seriously look at our issues, we begin to then (and only then) begin to curse our leaders for what really is the problem … instead of cursing them of just kissing America’s fine hamburger-clad ass.

When do we realize – that our problems lie deeper than a US official’s visit and until and unless we stop supporting (even in our hearts) the bane that is Taliban, Islamic militancy and all this business about mullahs and their ulterior motives … we won’t go anywhere near a Zardari-free future.

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Filed under Books, Miscellanea, Movies, My vents, Referenced.

Tags: Movie Reviews, Pakistan, Ruminations, The Politically Correct