Thursday, January 15, 2009

Review (Berardinelli): Chandni Chowk to China + Blogging

I have always enjoyed the reviews of James Berardinelli; he is an IT dude, who started doing reviews more than 10-15 yrs back, guess just for kicks; he isn't technically an 'academician' or anything but is extremely passionate about films and also opines on the issues of the industry. He would put his reviews on a Web site, which now has become a huge database.

Today...on the most checked-out online reviews...he regularly ranks at No.2; sometimes even No.1; the man above is USA's leading critic (legend), Roger Ebert. In its own way it's quite a staggering achievement - all the top reviewers of top magazines, news sites, rank below him. He IS now a respected figure in the field; goes to show what you can do (on your own) thanks to the power of the internet.

I usually relate a lot to his reviews. I think i even mailed him thrice, some dope and...he got back twice. Anyway, today i read something, which really impressed me: his (pretty exhaustive) review/thoughts on Akshay Kumar's CC2C. Of course I haven't seen the flick and don't plan to either (!), but he might be bang-on (for my money.)

He gives it 2.5 stars out of 4, which is decent I would say; another guy who got into india-china fusion et al tanned it (i just browsed through the opening bit); i would suspect that they have been 'fed' a lot of info on Akshay, as both hit the mark on that, but it's interesting to see their views and how:

ReelViews
While I departed the theater with reservations, I will admit to liking this more than many of the painful American films opening during the same time period.

http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1447


VillageVoice
Kumar's devotion to the Chinese martial arts is apparently sincere. Yet it is CC2C's central failure that Advani and company barely interact at all with the culture they supposedly set out to celebrate. There's no possibility of China-India fusion because the twain barely meet.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-01-14/film/bollywood-goes-east-mdash-far-east-mdash-for-chandni-chowk-to-china/



Good News - I will soon be 'freeing' everyone of the load I mail time and again! One of my resolutions of the year I intend sticking to - shift to blogging; everything remains online, which is easy for me to access and...if anyone is (really!) interested he/she knows where to go. I realize that everyone leads a pretty hectic life, so I shouldn't overload them! There are 11 more months to go this year, but hopefully I will break the chain this month.

Thanks to my New Jersey pal, Sachin...i created the following blog; i wonder if I should create more for better management, but at least for a while I shall stick to one.


http://maibaap123.blogspot.com/


Good luck...

No comments:

Post a Comment