Movie review: The Host (2013)

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel, Diane Kruger

Directed by:  Andrew Niccol

Written by: Andrew Niccol (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)

Release date: April 19, 2013

Rating: 1.5/5

The Host is the misconceived result of Andrew Niccol and Stephanie Meyer deciding to make a movie baby together. Niccol is known for directing insightful and memorable films such as Gattaca (1997) and Lord of War (2005), while Meyer is famous for her Twilight movies about sparkly teenage vampires. Why the two chose to collaborate with each other will puzzle film historians for many years to come. The movie is primarily created for young girls to take their boyfriends to the movies with them. If this is you, prepare for an intense session of eye-rolling. 

The Host is set in a world where a parasitic yet benign alien species called Souls has taken over the planet by possessing human bodies. It’s a premise we’ve recently seen in the Nicole Kidman-starrer The Invasion (2007) and the many Invasion of the Body Snatchers adaptations that came before it. There’s no more war, poverty or suffering, but there are also barely any people left to experience this paradise. We follow the story of Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) who is captured and inhabited by the one of the aliens. However, the host nicknamed Wanderer soon finds out that some of Melanie’s old self still lingers around thus leaving it with a condition we here on earth call a multiple personality disorder.

It’s pretty hard to be entertained or interested in a film where the first half consists of placid-looking aliens speaking to each other in monotones. The only human element is the petulant, bratty inner voice of Melanie who regularly throws temper tantrums chiding her host to flee her captors. When Wanderer finally meets up with Melanie’s former human companions, the film descends into a bizarre four-way love triangle, much like Twilight’s Edward and Jacob who fight over Bella. The two male leads Jared (Max Irons) and Ian (Jake Abel) display little acting ability and it’s obvious they were picked to make the film’s target audience coo. The only thing The Host has going for it are its stunningly shot desert and cave locales, otherwise the film is dull, overly sentimental and flubs as a teen sci-fi romance.

-          Gautam Kagalwala

My romance with a B-movie

Death Warrant has been doing the rounds on HBO lately. And for reasons unbeknownst to me, I can't help feel a pleasant glow whenever I find it on television. I experience this numb sensation where all my worries just wash off me. I can let the TV remote slip out of my hand because I've found what I was looking for. Normally, intense meditation is required to reach this mental state. But, I attained it by watching Death Warrant. I reckon this is what prozac feels like.

Death Warrant released in the year 1990, but it has all the makings of a classic 80s action B-movie. In fact, I was surprised not to see it mentioned on the Ruthless Reviews website. The trailer gives a good feeling of what the movie is like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vPgSMhItZk - I like my popcorn with lots of cheese.

I must also note that I love how the film poster has no connection with the movie. It's just Van Damme randomly striking an aggressive stance against a white light. You can add any film title from his filmography and it would just make as much sense.

The movie is basically about a guy being sent to prison. But you don't have to worry about the guy being subjected to abuse, humiliation or rape. Why? Because that guy is Van-fucking-Damme. This is what endeared me to the movie. In Shawshank Redemption, the protagonist is subjected to all those unfortunate things. But in this movie, you can be rest easy knowing that Van Damme will flip kick his way out of every troublesome situation.

Both movies share similar characters and elements too. They've both got the: the friendly old black guy, the sadistic prison guard, the transvestite club among other things.

Death Warrant employs an unusual tendency to use jump cuts. In the beginning, the district attorney's office tries to convince Van Damme to go undercover in prison to find out why inmates were mysteriously dying there. So being the bad ass that he is, he dashes their hopes by telling them, "I'll let you know". But in the very next scene, he lands up in jail dressed in prison overalls. I was expecting to see the character carry out some preparation before his descent. But, I guess Van Damme needs no preparation.

In the movie Office Space one of the characters espoused some wisdom about surviving prisons that I recollect here. He said, "The trick is kick someone's ass the first day or become someone's bitch. Then everything will be okay." And Van Damme certainly kicks ass on the first day when he saves the friendly old black guy from being shivved. On a side thought, what's the deal with having friendly old black guys anyway? Thanks to these movies, if I ever landed up in prison, I would instinctively go and be friends with the black guy. And in Indian prisons I would probably find a Nigerian smuggler or drug carrier. Do I really have to be friends with that guy?

"Hi there friendly black guy"

Two other characters I found interesting besides Van Damme is the Priest and the Whiz kid. Priest is the lord of the prison underworld. He's so well connected that he even has access to hormonal pills for his transvestite mistresses. But otherwise he's got a cordless phone. Imagine that - A cordless phone! The other character worth mentioning is Van Damme's hacker friend. The whiz kid hacks into prison records for Van Damme after being contacted by Van Damme's lady friend. But besides this, we also see his fumbling fingers reach for her. He gets rebuffed even after delivering his ace pickup line, "So, do you want to go inside and watch Star Trek?" Now Death Warrant maybe a cheesy 80s action movie, but it can still take the piss out of nerds.

"I can be friends with the black guy, but not the Mexican"

This being an 80s action movie, there are plenty of fights. Van Damme does well with the Afro-Americans, but not so much the Hispanic crowd. You can't win em all I guess. Every time they spot him, they ferociously bark at him with threatening words such as "Puto" "Vato" and "Ese". In the fight scenes, Van Damme and his opponents deliver a lot of fancy flying kicks. But in every move, they leave themselves vulnerable to attack for a good amount of time. So by the time they execute the maneuver, they would've already knocked down midway. If I can spot something like this, the martial arts crowd whom this film is made for must have thrown their hands up in frustration over this.

"Prison life can be a riot"

The movie does boast of some talents that do very well in Hollywood today. With a movie like Death Warrant, you'd think that the makers of the movie slipped into obscurity and died lonely deaths. But, no! The director went on to direct episodes of prime time TV shows such as Lost, CSI and House M.D. The writer of the movie went even further and wrote the scripts of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

In many ways the year of this film marked the end of an era. The 90s made Death Warrant look like a dinosaur gasping for breath. It's time had come to an end. And all it could do is sleep the sweet slumber of doom.

P.S: To end this on an optimistic note, Van Damme starred in yet another prison movie In Hell (2003).

Got me some free time on my hands...

I return after a year!

With the sudden amount of mind space I've freed up recently. I've wondered what I could do with my newfound free time. Learning French, Photoshop or Kickboxing were always the recent options. But for becoming a flip-kicking martial arts master, I would need to get in shape first. Whatever will I do...

I recently traveled to Cologne and Bonn city in Germany. This would be my first trip abroad. So yes, my international travel virginity has finally been lost at the tender age of 25. I would have expected my 1st foreign trip to be very exciting, but there was none. The four visits to the German consulate were enough to kill my enthusiasm. The (Indian) consul people really treat visa-seekers like trash. Are they Indian government officials in disguise meant to make us feel bad for leaving the country? Or are they just plain frustrated with their job? They rudely send you back, for even the slightest discrepancy. No quarter. So finally the frustrated folk gave us a 6-day visa to Germany - yipee? I think not...

Germany is a very beautiful place, (probably like every developed country). The streets and air is clean. The citizens have a good civic sense, no pot-holed roads, the advertising is very modest and constrained, there are no ugly political party banners 'welcoming' you to their turf and I hear corruption isn't a part of daily life there either. In my weeklong stay there I debated with myself whether I should make plans for working and living in a developed country. Surely they have none of the aforementioned crap that irritates me on a daily basis.

Alas the counter-argument shows up "Anywhere else, I would be an outsider". But should I be bound by such thoughts? As an individual shouldn't I be able to choose a place for myself to live? Why should I limit myself by man-made notions such as nationality? Of course, if I were to consult the ultimate truth of man's existence on Earth, such a debate would become a non-issue. We don't even know why we've been put on this planet in the first place. So why should we assert that only Point A on planet Earth is meant for us and none others?

Brownie the kitten

The helpless Brownie kitten mewed for her parents on the busy street. She mewed and mewed for hours, like a baby human who could do nothing else but cry to communicate his plight. There was no help at hand, mama was too busy getting high and papa was on the lookout for more pussy.
Things looked morose until all of a sudden, Brownie saw a giant figure clad in white trudge towards her. He clutched in his hand a bowl of milk - that ominous-looking figure was Gautam. The kitten chose to sit still and continued mewing, until the beast towered above her. With her innocent eyes, she paused to glance at his grinning face, she could not fathom the reason for his smile, was it benevolent or devious?
Gautam picked Brownie up by the scruff of her neck, like her mommy would. He carried her for a distance and dropped her in a garden leaving behind the bowl of milk. Brownie was delighted, she had found momentary happiness as she frolicked about in the garden - could this be heaven?

Ad mad

The most commonly used angles in ad films (at least in Indian ones) is the angle of using the opposite sex. The reasons for this, be they, their effectiveness or the film maker's banality is unknown to me. I see it in ads of toothpastes, cars, watches, cell phones and even sanitary pads! However one ad that I spotted a month ago deserves particular mention as it continues to baffle me. It's an ad by Hidesign designer bags which decides to display their bag atop a woman's breasts in her moment of intimacy with her lover. The blonde woman has this vacuous look on her face as she stares into the camera (probably wondering what the bag was doing there) while her lover who couldn't be bothered by the bag's presence is lustfully grabbing at her. You can find this ad on the back page of newspaper magazines. I get that this pink coloured bag is for women, but I don't understand what kind of message is being put across. I don't view it as arty either. I'd be glad, if anyone could explaid the concept to me.
I haven't done much reading on the subject of advertising per say. But, I certainly find ads to be an interesting medium of communication between the product and the consumer. Since they're so short in duration everything crammed into the ad is done for a purpose. The people portrayed, the dialogues, and the environment it was shot in... They're all employed for a reason. A point to note is the ad's treatment of characters which is done in accordance to their intended audience. While a motorcycle company like Bajaj Pulsar brings out ads that portray their male characters as masculinity personified, a soap brand such as Lux has their male character...Shah Rukh Khan gently caressing himself in a tub of roses boldly proclaiming his metrosexuality! Whatever the ad maybe or however it is shot, there is one basic underlying message. To put it forward crudely; "Buy our shit."

So I've begun blogging...

I really never thought that I'd ever blog. But, here I am. Blogging seems like a good avenue to exercise those literary muscles. Especially for those of us that depend on the pen...or keyboard for a living. I work in the print media. However, I haven't written doodly squat of late and that's something I want to change.
My earlier impressions of bloggers was not a very optimistic one. I thought blogging was for teenage girls. Girls, who use blogging as a medium for them to pour out every miniscule detail of their uneventful lives. Silly things like 'the cute boy in the neighbourhood' or why they think 'their parents are uncool'. Writing about routines is pretty pointless. Everybody has routines to follow. Unless there's something of value for others from your experience, you're just wasting bytes of server space. A blog is a place where you share your thoughts after all...