Jan 4 2007 - StormBreaker

OPM*
Presents – Storm in my Baby Bottle



The columnist who writes this column is, thankfully, on vacation. Since he is one of those adults, who likes giving young people a chance he let me do this week's preview. He tells me that it makes him feel good, but I think he is just taking time off to buy his wonderful wife some unimaginative presents for her birthday.

Anyway I’m only one year old, so I'm starting really young. Before I turned one recently, I’m guessing I was zero. I have many names. Mama calls me booboo and Cutchupie and Arun depending on the time of day. I have noticed that she calls me Arun when i do stuff I am not supposed to do, so I’m guessing that is a bad word.
After some consideration I’ve realized that I must either be Cutchupie or Booboo. You can call me whatever you like as long as you don’t call me Arun.

This week’s release is a movie called ‘Storm Breaker’ which, I’m guessing, is about someone very like me when I’m breaking toys. Somebody in the movie is definitely breaking storms, though I don’t know what a storm is. Mama says I’ll have to look up the dictionary to find out about storms. Problem is, I don’t know what dictionary means so I don’t know where to start looking. On another note, it is my Mama’s birthday today and I wish her a very happy birthday though I can’t buy her anything, as no one will pay me to break toys or damage nappies, and those are the only things I know to do very well.

To preview ‘Storm Breaker’ I’ll really need to know what all these complicated words like complicated mean. Also, young children like me don't see the world the same way as adults (it helps that our idea of war is GI Joe, while happiness is a stash of chocolate). We usually see things from a lower angle, have difficulty seeing things as a whole, and concentrate only on parts of things - usually the parts we're looking at. So I’m going to sit in a time machine and grow up to write the rest of the preview. (This is easy for us toddlers as we can imagine almost anything. Why!? I once imagined that everyone on earth had become nice, even George Bush! )
Whoosh! (That’s the sound a time machine should make. ‘Swish!’ will also do)

Well, that does it then! I’m 29 years old in the year 2035 and I can do that preview (though not technically as the movie released 28 years ago), without using words like ‘like’, ‘guess’, ‘very’ and ‘so’ so many times.
Presenting then, for your special relish, plump English words stewed and stuffed in the right quantities to add that garnish of silly stupidity to your life: The Storm Breaker Preview

Based on the 1st in the series of books by Anthony Horowitz, Storm Breaker starring Ewan McGregor, Mickey Rourke, Andy Serkis of LOTR ‘Gollum’ fame and that fantastic author/actor Stephen Fry, is the story of young Alex Rider who doesn’t even own a bicycle.
He spends his time thinking up bad humour (much like the author of this column) based on the Matrix movies:

Ex:
The One. Neo. NEO is anagram of The One.I, Alex, will be the new anagrammatic superhero, ENO.
As Eno I will surf the gastroenterical tracts dispelling Agent Acidity and company to oblivion. I will guard the gateways to the intestinal Zion; fight tooth, nail and Smithy etc etc

OR: Other Matrix fantasies gone wrong like -

I will not be The One.
I will be more than that.
I will be The Two.
Buy one get one free.

But when his uncle Ian Rider dies mysteriously while watching an Indian Television channel on board a new airline called the Storm Breaker, Alex is drawn into a terrific ride which shows him unveiling secrets unknown to humanity in ancient 2007. He discovers the great secret of the airline industry and of flight in general. The revelation unfolds, as he reads a painfully slow book called “ Atlas Shrugged and said ‘So what?’ ”, that “flight” of any form on Planet Earth is a great myth.
Birds do not fly.They stay stationary in the air. It is the earth Spinning which causes the illusion that they are flying. The whole flapping of wings routine is to ward off insects, mostly flies.
Consequently, it is also revealed that all the airline industry has ever done is build anti gravity aircraft, which can stay stationary in air and use the Earths’ spin to cause the illusion of having travelled. All delays are caused due to storms as the pilot, whose only job is to ensure that the plane faces the right direction as the earth spins, can’t see which direction to turn the plane. Storm Breakers are a new kind of plane that can see through storms while beating gravity. The problems arise when Storm-Breaker’s promoters decide to reveal the truth about flight to the general public and there is a cry of outrage from the publishers of important journals like the Superman Comic.

Does Alex manage to solve the mystery of his uncle’s death on board the Storm Breaker? Does he find out which daily soap on Indian TV killed him? Will Anti-Gravity Man comics beat Superman sales to pulp?
Watch!

* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release

Dec 28 2006 - Misc.

OPM*
Presents – Message in the Cans



Ever since the birth of cinema, Great Film Directors have provided us insights and visions that have affected language, culture and the human condition in progressive ways. Some examples are listed below:
Stanley Kyon-Brick who questioned the usage of bricks in construction, opened people’s eyes to paper homes. The Japanese, in a rare instance of precognition, have been building paper homes for centuries, which in turn protect them during earthquakes. Earthquakes occur due to movements in the Earth’s tectonic plates, which to humanity are as obscure as the innards of a washing machine or the actions of the left footed stillbat (virendrus sehwagum). It has been debated (by very boring geologists with no social life) that the tectonic plates of the earth could be called something else. All of them know that their argument has devolved into a semantic debate, but no one wants to put an end to the endless stream of conferences and conference calls that serve as a platform for free lunches.
Woody Allen gave the world the practise of saying ‘knock on wood’ which can mean different things in different circumstances, for example: if one were buried alive in a casket versus if one were a carpenter. He also gave us the All American term for teenagers falling awake: ‘woody’.
Ingmar Bergman gave us a delightful Swedish name.
Alfred Hitchcock, of course, cannot be discussed here, as this is a family paper.

It can be argued that lesser-than-great and much-lesser-than-great directors can teach us valuable lessons about Life, The Universe and Obesity too. (To get into a debate on the veracity of this statement, please find some boring geologists)
I will illustrate by giving you a sneak peek into three movies that release this week:


Kudiyon ka hai Zamaana is a fantasy, set in a world where hormonal impulses of the sexes are reversed because of a freak accident involving George Bush and some nuclear weapons. This is a world of wide and expansive heterosexual zones where women scout for men in the evenings. A world which enables women hunting in packs of two and three, looking for innocent men and boys to pick up for the evening. Oh Israel! (Forgive me that burst of emotion!)
Rekha, Vasundhara, Kim and Mahima are four friends living in a world that has been recently altered. They come to terms with their surging basic instincts (albeit, later than Sharon Stone) and have just begun revelling in checking out men at the workplace, in restaurants, hardware shops and traffic lights. They are though, very upset as men, who’ve been hormonally altered too, are now playing hard to get.
Suddenly everything in the world changes as Wars are called off and Sport on television takes a TRP nosedive. Greeting card companies have to alter their entire range, as do manufacturers of most other goods since women aren’t interested in shopping for long hours anymore.
Economies are completely shattered due to these changes, before marketing managers around the world figure out that all they need to do is target men in their advertising. Soon men are well informed about bargains on shoes, cosmetics and handbags and drag their spouses out on Sundays to these monstrous ‘Big Sale’ events across assorted malls around the world. The mini-trouser and the backless shirt are invented and there is a big hue and cry over the Big Bee exposing in his next movie. Men take a sudden shine for Italian cuisine, except in Italy where Japanese food is the flavour of the month. Pornography finally becomes an equal opportunity employer and male porn stars have affairs with famous women politicians like Condoleeza Rice. Three million cases of husband beating are reported in Haryana and Punjab.
What happens to the four friends? Will they fight monogamy? Will they manage to catch a few beers during the weekend? The movie helps us examine gender issues and finally decide that monogamy is a sin.

I See You: Arjun Rampal, a great pal of a guy called Ram (very popular in the Ayodhya area), is a doctor who specializes in the Intensive Care Unit or the I.C.U. The rest of the plot is pretty inconsequential the movie only serves to remind us that some models shouldn’t try acting.

I leave you with the poetic message that the third release of the week, Anwar, preaches:
An-war, is bad grammar for One war,
And one war is going just too far,
Like the film itself,
And Santa’s twelve elves,
I’d like to tell you boys,
To order some naughty toys,
And make love, not war.


Happy Holidays!



* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release