The Godfather

A brilliant unertaking by Francis Ford Coppola. A must watch movie for all ages and all races. Still extraordinary are the performaces especially of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. The natural flow of acting and emoting. Its length never disappoints you and you would want more.

And the quote “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” is voted the second best in the cinema history. Symbolism Wherever an orange appears in the film, a death scene follows…

The scene where a delivery is made of a pair of pants and bullet proof vest wrapped around a fish is explained to be an old Sicilian message, “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes!” This expression has made it into widespread American parlance.

And the climax scene is superb as Kay gets separated from Michael by the door being closed.

Ballistics – Tomatometer worst movie

Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas are opposing super-deadly secret agents who team up to take down the corrupt head of their agency in order to save a young boy who has been injected with a deadly weapon/virus thing — sounds like a can’t-miss setup, right? Well, you might have thought so if you were one of the folks responsible for this mess, but predictably, audiences were not fooled — “Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever” elevated “universally panned” into an art form. Or at least something more closely resembling art than this muddled mess of an action film. When a movie is widely regarded as being inferior to its own Game Boy adaptation, you know “worst movie ever” is not only apt, it might actually be an understatement.

MOVIE MISTAKES

Mistake #1

In the scene where Ecks is chasing Sever, you see Ecks put a shell into an open chambered shotgun. This means that there is only one shell in the gun. A moment later when he yells stop inside the building he cocks the gun again. Thus, he is holding up Sever without any shells in the gun.

Mistake #2

In the long shot of the sniper falling down onto the car, you can see that there is nobody standing next to it. Yet when the crash sends the tyre flying, suddenly some policeman is right beside the car getting hit.

Mistake #3

How does Ecks survive being buried under seemingly TONS of metal pipes without breaking any bones in the process? Also, the first shot of the falling pipes scene buries him completely, but when the henchman is looking for him, Ecks’s body is exposed from the waist up.

Mistake #4

Near the end in the train yard when everything was blown up there was a passenger train car still in tact with its windows still in it. The train car next to it was levelled.

Mistake #5

When Ecks, his wife, and Sever are driving to Severs lair you can see that the cut on Ecks’ cheek is just a sticker because there is a different reflection on his skin from the sunset.

CRITICAL CONSENSUS

Wall-to-wall action without a hint of wit or plot.

And it gets a Tomatometer rating of 0%

Rotten tomatoes – 102 in number

Handcuffing serving Hands

Educated and non-partisan group had always been a plank in the eye of the communists. In communist Kerala the one who has suffered this wrath most were the doctors especially government doctors. The recent protests by the government doctors for a judicious rise in the wages have been termed as an anti-government and anti-people protest.

If doctors strike, it’s going to affect the people directly. So they had been quenching this bitter juice for some time. But the limit has reached as the many promises by the government had not bear fruits. Even if the strike does not affect the common people directly it is termed as a non-humanitarian act against the most humanitarian government.

The salary hike was recommended by the revision committee and promised by the government many a times. But since the doctors could not go in to the extreme stance, the govt. thought it can be well delayed. The present wages of government doctors does not even stand with those of teachers, secretariat or KSEB employees considering the service. After 5 ½ (actually 6) years of study, 1 year hospital service and 1 year rural service with minimum stipend, they are labelling doctors not service minded.

These wages are one of the lowest in the country, and during the study time itself they are treated as bonded labourers due to lack of people joining government services because of this non attractive salary regime. If the doctors are not protesting now, there would be no revision and the condition of government hospitals would be pathetic without even one doctor for thousand patients. The way out is not compelling the students to perform service but to act with minimum humanitarian concern.

The doctors are ready to stop the private practice, if the government is ready to revise the salary moderately. At present few hundred doctors have given their resignation and voluntary retirement requests. If it is accepted the government would go into a crisis situation.
The teachers and secretariat employees union ridiculing the protests is extremely shameful. The same people were having a 1 month long strike even weighing the future of students by delaying the board exams. No one actually has the right to ridicule the protests.
The work load in the hospital is taking a great toll on the life of doctors who have lower life expectancy in the state. And in order to lead a life like the fellow doctors in private hospitals they have to extra work at home even till late night. They have to work in the pathetic conditions of the government hospitals and report to extra duties like escorting VIP’s and immunisation centres frequently. Still there was no complaint from them which the government took as granted.

The situation has to change and juggling the life of doctors is derogatory. The reason that others will also ask for salary revision is irony, when they are giving hike for those employees having partisan unions and political framework.

The Giant Hoax

National Geographic has the details on the hoax behind the picture above. It was first created for a Photoshop contest, and then quickly became the subject of various rumours. Here’s one:

An often cited March 2007 article in India’s Hindu Voice monthly, for example, claimed that a National Geographic Society team, in collaboration with the Indian Army, had dug up a giant human skeleton in India.

“Recent exploration activity in the northern region of India uncovered a skeletal remains of a human of phenomenal size,” the report read.

The story went on to say the discovery was made by a “National Geographic Team (India Division) with support from the Indian Army since the area comes under jurisdiction of the Army.”

The account added that the team also found tablets with inscriptions that suggest the giant belonged to a race of superhumans that are mentioned in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic poem from about 200 BC.

“They were very tall, big and very powerful, such that they could put their arms around a tree trunk and uproot it,” the report said, repeating claims that initially appeared in 2004.

If such giants actually existed, and were alive today, I have absolutely no doubt about the industry in which they’d be most gainfully employed: Porn. So instead of shuddering at the sight of nine-inch thingies, we average males would be fighting despair at the sight of nine-foot thingies. Horrors.