Big Kingdom, Small Kingdom

This past week and few days have been hectic as hell, which explains the lack of updates here. I've missed out on a few things, such as the Iron Man trailer, which features really stupid and cliched rock music, the Incredible Hulk trailer which nothing more spectacular than Ang Lee's version, the My Sassy Girl remake which features annoying acting and annoying music, and a few other things, including a bunch of stuff about John Woo's Red Cliff. I'm not going to link any of these things here, since they're old news now and you can find them practically everywhere on the Net.

This week, despite the full schedule that left me no breathing space, I did catch a couple of films. First up was Three Kingdoms: Resurrection Of The Dragon. Real stylo title, real stylo film. The posters are neat, and you'd expect the neatness to be matched by the film's overall quality. But Three Kingdoms turned to be a rushed affair, with the filmmakers trying to cram as much as they can into a two-hour film. The action is shot closely, resulting in a lot of blurry action, and they are not particularly exciting for the lack of any build-ups. They've got a bunch of very able stars but all of them are wasted on an adaptation that can't seem to find a foothold on any emotional or excitement quotient.

Then there's Horton Hears A Who, which, very surprisingly, is far more entertaining. But it's nothing really great, partly because I'm so tired of these very "talky" American animated films. The characters just cannot shut up. That's why the most memorable sequence for me is the nighttime escapade by the Mayor of Whoville's son as he goes up to the town's observatory. Quiet, no dialogue, just music. Nice.

This is one very weird movie. I don't really know what to make of it, except that it's not really a kid's movie, despite it being a Dr Seuss affair. It's so damn subversive! There's the weird, loopy mindtrip about how each world is just a speck in a bigger universe beyond, and the insistence on the belief that "if you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist," and some stuff about how children, if allowed to use their imaginations, could become anarchists.

I told you it's weird.