The Life of PI

"There is a man who can tell you a story that will make you believe in God."

Ang Lee's movie of Yann Martel's novel is technically astounding, but also works on an emotional level and I haven't had so much fun with a movie in a long time. I'd not read the novel - I've a phobia against books that win the Booker prize ever since falling for the hype surrounding Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses and finding the book a mind numbing slog. However after seeing this movie I am most certainly going to read The Life of Pi.

The first part of the movie concerns the early life of schoolboy  Piscine Molitor Patel who shortens his name to Pi after enduring taunts from his schoolfriends who call him, 'Pissing Patel.' Pi's father owns a zoo which gives the young child a pretty good lifestyle as well as some understanding of animal psychology. Pi is born a Hindu but he soon starts to become interested in other religions and is mocked by his family who tell him, that he can't follow three religions. This makes no sense to Pi who just wants to love God and sees no problems in subscribing to so many different doctrines.

The second part of the movie sees Pi's family decide to sell their zoo over a land dispute with the government, and they decide to sell the animals to various zoos around the world before emigrating to Canada. In the second part of the novel, Pi's family embarks on a Japanese freighter to Canada carrying some of the animals from their zoo, but a few days out of port from Manila, the ship succumbs to a storm and sinks, resulting in his family's death. During the storm, Pi escapes in a small lifeboat with a spotted hyena, an injured Grant's zebra, and an orangutan. And although we don't know it initially but there is a ferocious tiger called Richard Parker (after a mix up with the animal's paperwork when initially bought by the zoo).

From here on in we get an amazing movie that projects real personalities on the animals aboard Pi's ark while remaining true to the actual nature of such creatures. The hyena is a nasty creature and eventually attacks and kills both the zebra and the monkey, before Richard Parker attacks and eats it. From there on in the movie becomes a battle of survival on the high seas between the sixteen year old Pi and the man eating tiger. Some of the scenes are truly incredible - the humpbacked whale section took my breath away and the storm of flying fish during which Pi finally exerts his dominance over Richard Parker is absolutely beautiful.

I found myself glued to the screen and will most certainly watch this movie again - the ending is ambiguous and it is left up to the viewer which of the two stories told here that they chose to believe. It doesn't matter which though because this is a brilliant movie that delivers two hours of true cinematic magic.

Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 22 Apr - 28 Apr 2013 
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	245	306	208	245	224	212	247	1,687	241
Unique Visits	201	224	191	217	208	186	204	1,431	204
First Time Visits	190	213	178	197	196	176	185	1,335	191
Returning Visits	11	11	13	20	12	10	19	96	14

What writers earn

I've been a professional full time writer for a while now - You think I'd be minted, yeah. After all don't writers earn a fortune? There's an interesting article from Historical novelist Sara Sheridan that asks, just what do writers earn over on the Huffinton Post - find it HERE

Star Trek into Darkness - Cumberbatch is - CAUTION MAJOR SPOILER

DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT SPOLIERS BUT THIS POST REVEALS WHO CUMBERBATCH IS PLAYING IN STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS.

Into Darkness has now opened in Australia and advance news is mixed - there are those who loved it but also those that feel Star Trek's been turned into a dumb action movie. We can also reveal that Benedict Cumerbatch is actually playing Khan even if he does go through much of the movie using the name John Harrison. And that this movie is a thinly disguised re-make of The Wrath of Khan.

Expect a full Archive review in the fullness of time.

John Carter movie review

Initially I'd been eager to see what Disney would make of the pulp classic which Edgar Rice Burroughs penned around the same time as his better known Tarzan series. That's not to say that his Mars series are not known because they have a large readership, but whilst everyone has heard of Tarzan it is only students of the pulps and science fiction geeks who have heard of John Carter, the character who created in the Mars series. The first book in the series was Princess of Mars and it this book that the makers of the movie used as the source material for John Carter.

However I missed this film on its big screen release, and after so much negative press I ignored it when it came out on DVD. Recently I came across the film in a bargain bin  and thought I'd finally give it a try.

It's not such a bad movie as the reviews would have you believe, nor does it deserve to have been the costly box office flop that it was.

Yes it's corny and often predictable but throughout it remains true to its pulp origins.The script is driven by the derring-do of the great adventure writers -men such as Jules Verne, Rider Haggard and of course Edgar Rice Burroughs. And it times on reminded me of the old Saturday morning adventure serials that used to play when I was a kid. John Carter then is an old fashioned movie only in the sense that the original Star Wars is an old fashioned movie - since both are heavily influenced by the episodic science fiction of the likes of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and others of that ilk. It is family entertainment first and foremost and looks quite spectacular with the multi-armed Martians being perhaps the finest celluloid aliens since those in Avatar. It was padded out in the middle and could have done with a little trimming but I still enjoyed it even if its two hours plus running time seemed far too long. This could have been a fantastic ninety minute adventure but as it is the beginning is far too slowly placed and the jump from Earth to Mars seems a little forced - mind you this is not the fault of the film and I felt the same thing while reading the original novel a year or so ago.The book is in the public domain and available freely and I first read it on my Kindle, I had of course heard of the character and I've read a few Tarzan novels in my time but Burroughs' Mars books were known to me only by reputation. I'd heard of them but never read them.

I'm glad I've seen the film now -it's not as bad as some would have you say, and indeed at the budget DVD price represents extremely good value.

Tainted Stats

Weekly Stats Report: 15 Apr - 21 Apr 2013 
Project: THE TAINTED ARCHIVE
URL: http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/

Summary

	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun	Total	Avg
Pageloads	284	305	173	240	224	228	260	1,714	245
Unique Visits	241	258	155	191	197	204	228	1,474	211
First Time Visits	224	241	144	172	183	193	206	1,363	195
Returning Visits	17	17	11	19	14	11	22	111	16

The best TV show ever is...

This weekend I found myself sitting in the dentist waiting room and to pass the time I checked out the pile of magazines on the small table - among the mags were several issues of Cosmo, a dozen or so People's Friend's,a few comic books and a copy of Empire magazine from 2009. I picked up Empire and an article that caught my interest asked what was the best TV show ever? The magazine seemed to think it was a two horse race between The Wire and Battlestar Galactica. Both are great shows but it got me to thinking that if the magazine ran the same article today would shows like The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones be in the top spots? And what of older classics like Deadwood, Lost and The X Files? And of course there is the original Star Trek as well as Doctor Who, The Avengers and The Prisoner (the original not the short lived remake).

I wondered what I would consider the best TV show ever, and I found I was unable to come up with a single winner. I've still got a fondness for 1970's cop shows like Staskey and Hutch (for sheer entertainment value), Kojak (for everything about the show), Hill Street Blues (for its gritty realistic feel) and The Rockford Files (because it was mostly awesome). And of course there are many western shows that I think were excellent - Rawhide, Wagon Train, High Chaparral, Deadwood. And does Lonesome Dove, a mini-series, count?

There are also many comedies that would be in any top ten - Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Soap and current hit, The Big Bang Theory will likely feature on future lists.

So what is the best TV show ever?

Beats me.