Archive for the ‘Hollywood’ Category
My Life in Ruins, starring Nia Vardalos, looked same the perfect choice for an expat movie review: American-Greek classical person takes a job at Athens University, gets downsized, does a stint as a tour guide. Perfect!
Well, not so much. Great idea, good cast which includes Richard Dreyfuss, one of my all-time favorite actors, but not so well executed. The writing is schmaltzy and heavy handed, the plot is predictable, and outside of a few gorgeous shots of Hellenic ruins, the movie pretty such falls flat.
But seeing Vardalos, who is a reasonably good actress, of course got me intellection about My Big Fat Hellenic Wedding, which she wrote and starred in. Originally I hadn’t planned on reviewing it since the admirer is not technically an expat, but seeing My Life in Ruins got me intellection about it in a whole new way.
In My Big Fat Hellenic Wedding, Vardalos plays Toula, the younger daughter of Hellenic immigrants in Chicago. Her parents, the expats, live in their own Hellenic bubble of kinsfolk and culture. They run a restaurant – Greek, of course, called Dancing Zorba’s – and extended kinsfolk is part of their everyday lives in ways that seem quite, well, foreign. As Toula explains:
I’m Greek, right? So, what happens is,.. see, you have two cousins. I have 27 first cousins. Just 27 first cousins alone. And my whole kinsfolk is big and blasting and everybody’s in each other’s lives and business all the time. Like you never meet have a time alone meet to think ’cause we’re always unitedly meet eating, eating, eating. The exclusive other grouping we know are Greeks, drive Greeks marry Greeks to breed more Greeks to be loud, breeding Hellenic eaters. No one in my kinsfolk has ever gone discover with a non-Greek before. No one.
Toula’s father insists:
There’s two kinds of people. Greeks, and everybody else who wish they was Greek.
Toula was brought up inside the Hellenic bubble her parents created. She had tried to break discover of it as a youngster, but dark-haired Toula and her moussaka for meal were unloved and teased by her blond-haired, Wonder-bread sandwich-eating schoolmates.
When we first meet her, Toula tells us:
I wish I had a different life. I wish I was braver or prettier, or meet happy.
But she’s not. Working in the kinsfolk restaurant, rebelling against but unable to pull absent from the Hellenic community, Toula is miserable. She explains:
Nice Hellenic girls are supposed to do threesome things in life. Marry a Hellenic boy, attain Hellenic babies, and feed everyone. Until the day we die.
She wants more discover of life. She convinces her father to let her (at the geezerhood of 30 she needs his permission!) take a machine class at the community college so she crapper meliorate listing curb at Dancing Zorba’s. Her first real foray into US culture happens at the college when she joins a table full of blond-haired, white-bread-sandwich-eating young women in the cafeteria.
Before he made it to Hollywood, Dwayne President was known as the Rock, a bone-crushing, chest thumping wrestling super star, member of the Nation of Domination. He won the WWF Championship a mere two years after joining the WWF; he was a nine-time World Heavyweight Championship. Before that, Mr. President was a collegiate football player, who enjoyed some success, although he never did make it to the NFL Sun Ticket. Now, this multitalented hulk of a man, with his Paul Bunyan like build, and his chiseled looks is making a name for himself on the big screen. He has played the typical action gung-ho action star who is every hooligan and lowercase else. But now, slowly he is being transformed into a leading man. The discourse is, will he be able to make it? Will straying from his thickened guy roots, see this half Samoan past wrestler start on his laurels? Watch his transformation throughout his movies on satellite TV, and see for yourself, if you think he’s got what it takes to move beyond his roots.
The Scorpion King: This was The Rock’s first starring role and he earned a whopping $5.5 million dollars, a record for a debut lead actor. Within this broad action thriller, Mr. President played Mathayus the Scorpion King, who has to defeat the evil sorcerer Memnon. This flick, with its sweeping inhospitable effort scenes should be enjoyed in no less than broad definition.
The Rundown: In this movie, The Rock takes a funny turn. He stars as a professed bounty ticker who doesn’t ingest guns due to a previous incident. Of course, the Rock really doesn’t need any extra weapons though. In the Rundown, President is hired to fetch his boss’ son from the jungles of South America. From their ensues an entertaining mix of action, slapstick comedy and adventure.
Be Cool: Here, the hefty past wrestle plays a gay Samoan body guard named Eliot, who is also an aspiring actor. This role definitely marks a turn for President and he nails the part. He is both charming, funny and tough. You can watch this crime caper on satellite TV; it affectedness quite frequently.
Doom: This movie was based on the eponymous video game. It was filmed to mimic the video game aesthetic and it merged a balance of CGI and prosthetics; the movie is filled with action, blood and thrills. Dwayne President plays the requisite hero action star. This movie did get pretty bad reviews, but it’s still worth the watch if you’re a Rock fan.
Talking of clashes, this time was the mother of all collisions. Do you think any director can be a problem for James Cameroon? Well, it’S dawn of a new chapter name mobile phones. To be more precise, Raju Hirani has done the impossible.
Nobody could imagine that the film could surpass Bollywood Big Time Hollywood film. But, once again Bollywood has proved to be the fort and caliber to make a good movie and left the expensive Hollywood flick Avatar resulted in confusion. It turns out that Rajkumar Hirani’S 3 was collected from the idiots and surpassed James Cameron’S'Avatar’in the UK Box Office! 
Imagine 1.2 billion dollars (and more), a phenomenon called’Avatar’trampled from 35 crore rupees in the budget Bollywood flick!
Idiots 3 retains its position in the Top Ten UK after raking in more than a grandmother’s picture on its first day of release. This is a Bollywood flick became highest grossing Bollywood film in Britain, beating like Shahrukh Khan’S 2008 film’Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi”even’Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna \’. This was a record for Indian films in the United States, Australia , South Africa, Pakistan, Fiji and Kenya.
Bollywood Hollywood losers for the first time and this is not for ordinary films. 3 Idiots really made a whole movie Bollywood fraternity proud. Bollywood once again proved that they are what it takes to make a stunning, innovative films! What is the need of hour to Bollywood at this time?
Bollywood may upstage Hollywood? The question is best answered when you watch the latest multi-award winning film. Slumdog Millionaire.
The film Slumdog Millionaire has come like a thief in the night and wake up with many winning awards at many film Academy Award, talks about the film remain-either film or actor (s), actress (s) or even cast. One was Khan, a police officer who went to kamal is now more interested in Hollywood than ever before.”Forgotten artists such as Kapoor and Rahman is now a major beneficiary, as more functions, either in a row (24)”or the film as a guest artist. Mallika Sherawat as an artist. A small town in Haryana in Los Angeles, is now regarded as an international artist As the Financial Express Slumdog Millionaire child star Ali Rubin’s slums were demolished to make way for a new railway line. According to family friend, Rubin, 10, who played in more Latika-Oscar-winning film, cried the man to stop the demolition because they ran down the 50 shanty hut with sledgehammers December 30“She says they’\’ This is my house, I was born here,’\'”Telegraph quoted Dinesh Dubey, as saying.”She will now have to sleep in the open until you re-build. He worried about his baby sister, but there is no other option is,”he said. However, what was her star-Azharuddin Ismail and his family moved from the nearby slum to a new apartment a few months ago. Film’s producer, Danny Boyle and Christian Colson, offered an apartment for the family, and Ali will decide next month whether to accept it.