Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs

The characters from “Ice Age” are back and this time around they have dinosaurs for company. Not just that, they enter Dino-land for an adventure that is far better than what one saw in the first two installments, courtesy a new character called Buck, who perks up the story.

To add to that, the film is presented in 3D, something which gives an edge to this animation flick that keeps viewers of all age groups happy.

“Ice Age 3″ entertains, and how! The scenes are even more lovable this time around, one liner has that punchy humor to them and characters are much more identifiable. Even for those who may have missed the earlier installments of “Ice Age”, it’s a no pain situation. This is because the writers draw up their character sketches well and present them all over again without making audiences restless.

So we have the members of the ‘mammals’ gang, the mammoth couple, getting ready for the delivery of their first baby. They have their friendly tiger for company who gets into a little depressions that he is ‘losing his edge’ and may lose his friends once they move on to parenthood.

It’s a different matter though that he gets into form once he heads out with his friends to search for Sid, who has been transported to Dino-land, courtesy his sudden love for parenthood that has made him look after three baby dinosaurs.

The fun only continues with the arrival of Buck who is their guide, guru and philosopher, all rolled into one. He has a sole ‘Dino tooth’ as a weapon that he earned as a savior, courtesy his near death experience in a fierce battle with a dinosaur a few years back.
Fun and action move at a great pace and are enhanced with some cool 3D animation that brings in a unique movie-watching experience. Volcanoes erupt, rock slides happen, dinosaurs strike, bridges collapse, trolleys snap and laughing gas makes them all uncontrollable even as Buck entertains them all through his high-on-action flashback.
In this almost perfectly packaged entertainer, what lets the film down a little is an extended end. Just when you thought that the film was over, “Ice Age” goes on to continue for some more time.

This is done in an attempt to ensure that the story of each and every character comes to a logical conclusion. However, it becomes a little boring and unnecessary.

Leaving aside this minor blemish, there is something else worth pondering over. Ten minutes into the film and you end up telling yourself that all said and done, Indian animation has a long way to go before it matches up to its Hollywood counterparts.
The problem is not just with the quality of animation but also the fact that we have seldom come up with a storyline that is imaginative, expressive and entertaining enough to cater to all segments of audiences.
Yes, we do have an occasional “Hanuman” but ever since then, we have only come up with countless rehashes of mythological tales like “Bal Ganesha” and “Dashavatar”. Also, when we have tried combining animation with live action like in “My Friend Ganesha” and “Maruti Mera Dosst”, the results have been clearly sub-par.

No wonder, audiences continue to love the likes of “Shrek”, “Ice Age” and many more and the trend will continue until we get the storyline right. Till then, we would love to go back to the sequel, which is pretty much on the cards as clearly indicated in the way “Ice Age 3″ ends.

The Informers

“The Informers” is exactly as bad as you’ve heard.  While a lot of raves came out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, no film was as maligned as the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ “The Informers“.  While it sometimes has the kindness to veer into “so-bad-it’s-good” territory, most of the time it just remains a chore as you watch paper-thin characters mope about their lives.  It has nothing to say, no story to tell, no ideas to discuss.  It just happens and you find that you’re checking your watch not because you’re wondering how much of the film is left but because your watch is more entertaining.
 
What makes “The Informers” so unique in its badness is that it’s not just one terrible movie.  It’s a bunch of smaller terrible movies complied together with characters loosely related and all sharing the same time and place of Los Angeles in 1983.  I know it was Los Angeles in 1983 because the film made sure to remind me every two minutes.  ”The Informers” never met a 80s cliché it didn’t want to fuck to death and it murders every hairstyle, fashion choice, music cue, and cultural reference it can find.  I can’t decide which is worst: if director Gregor Jordan wanted to make the setting into a character and couldn’t even manage a grotesque caricature but merely a cartoon version of what others have done to far greater effect, or if he just thinks his audience is so stupid that we’ll forget where and when we are and start shouting in our finest retard-voice, “Hey!  Why are people wearing such odd clothes?!  What’s this bizarre music?!  How come it never rains in this city?
 
But we’re too bored to even ask those questions.  That can happen when your narrative has nothing of value.  There are real characters in “The Informers”. There are just hapless actors who have to go through the motions that range from banal (Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger are a couple who don’t love each other) to the mind-blowingly stupid (Mickey Rourke engineering the world’s laziest and least dramatic child kidnapping while Brad Renfro freaks the fuck out).  As I said before, the best you can hope for is the laughably-terrible and the film deceives you into thinking you’ll get that as in the first five minutes, a random cliché 80s guy is mowed down by a car.  We don’t know this guy from Adam but his death is made all the more comic because it happens in the background. [Note to all filmmakers:  if you hit someone with a car and they're in the background of the shot when it happens, it will be comic.] His funeral is equally comic and it almost seems like Jordan may be treating us to a satire.  But then the film starts thinking these are real people with real issues and any notion of parody or commentary disappears and then it’s just pale white people fucking and doing drugs interspersed with bad dialogue and incoherent motivations.  Even elements which can typically escape unscathed from a bad movie like cinematography, music, and editing, seem to cry out “Hey, we’re just as incompetent as the rest of this film!”  Well, at least everyone’s on the same page.
 
I found myself wondering if any of the stories in “The Informers” could work on its own.  If instead of having to jump from awful plotline to awful plotline, the film could just take the time to develop any of these characters and their stories into something worthwhile and thoughtful.  Even accounting for the lousy technical aspects, abrasive reminders of setting, and laconic acting, if it just developed one or two of these stories and put even a modicum of thought into their meaning, could “The Informers” at least be a tolerable movie?
 
And then Amber Heard contracted and died of AIDS within a week and I realized, no; no, it could not.

Sons of Anarchy S02E02 Small Tears HDTV XviD-FQM

Small Tears

Aired: September 15th 2009
Gemma finds herself unable to tell Jax and Clay about a traumatic event. Meanwhile, Luanne may be put out of business by a rival porn producer. Clay takes exception to the hasty decision making exhibited by Jax.

Sons.of.Anarchy.S02E02.Small.Tears.HDTV.XviD-FQM
Sons.of.Anarchy.S02E02.720p.HDTV.x264-SiTV

Links: TV.com, TVRage, Homepage

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