Well, the euphoria of being on HP is wearing off and I am back to what I usually do. Blog about my weekend. I am guessing that I got to HP because my post was something to do with rains. Just thinking. Rains seem to have left Mumbai and it has been dry since almost 10 days now. A pity really, considering I was so excited about the rains and all. The poor folks in Bengal are getting flooded because of heavy rains and we in Mumbai ..”taras gaye”.

 Last week was a “happening” week for me. First, I get invited to a Premiere show. I am an avid movie watcher and have got free passes to movies in the past. But Premiere show on Thursday was a first for me. An invite to a Premiere show at PVR, Juhu for the movie “Incredible Hulk”. I would probably have not gone and watched the movie had it not been for a free invite.

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PVR, Juhu is very posh and has great interiors. The Premiere was attended by some celebs, a few actors and model types. There was the CNN IBN movie critic, Rajeev Masand. I found this experience quite thrilling. Cocktails and snacks were served before the movie screening. I had a nice mojito. Only regret was that I was there alone. I wish I had company. It was a family - invite and I had no family to go with me. So, felt sad a bit.

Anyways, the movie started soon enough. Its your usual super hero type of movie. The scenes in Brazil were awesome. I think Edward Norton didn’t quite suit the role. I preferred Ang Lee’s Eric Bana as the Hulk [Incredible Hulk (2003)]. The movie has some great special effects. The high point of the movie is the fight between two Hulks. I found the movie too noisy, but still quite OK. We all know that comic book and comic book heroes are for kids. Still there is some kind of fascination for super heroes. That is why I watched all the Spiderman movies.

I finally managed to see Dasavatharam (with subtitles) this weekend.

I went to watch Dashavataram probably because of the hype. “The most expensive movie in India. Took two years in making and all that jazz”. Of course it had the Southern superstar, Kamal Hassan. Surely one of the most talented actors in India. With due apologies to all KH fans, I came out of the theatre with disappointment and a headache. I wonder what KH and the producers and director of this movie were thinking. KH is a great actor no doubt, but couldn’t they have found a better way of showcasing his talent? Act one character, but do that with integrity and KH could create onscreen magic. But instead of that , you go and try to portray 10 characters that end up looking like caricatures. I always thought that make-up was the art of trying to make things look good, look real. Make-up that looks “made-up” is a failure. What I saw on screen was obvious rubber masks and make up. The characters did not look natural. They looked fake. You could have gone and made an animation pic instead. I could go on and on. I hear this movie was made at a huge budget and I am sure that a lot of this money must have gone for special effects. But here again, SFX is sloppy. The purpose of SFX is to make unbelievable things look real. In this movie, you could make out that it is computer animated. In a scene that had a car sinking, you could see clearly that it is computer graphics. The music by Himesh Reshammiya was dull at best. Perhaps it is because the man himself couldn’t sing in his characteristic voice. Usually HR music is quite peppy, though I am not a fan of that. But HR generally has very catchy numbers. None of the songs in Dashavataram had a punch. The bombshell Mallika Sherawat also failed to set the screen on fire. She looked very tacky. I heard she charged quite a fee for this role. All in all, movie was a waste of time and energy for me.

Thats about how my weekend was.

P.S. Thank you all for so many comments and GB entries. I am overwhelmed.