2012: The Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen

 

11/15/2009 2am: I just got back from watching 2012. It was arguably the worst movie I have ever seen in my life so far. I thought it insulated the audience at so many levels that it was beyond mindlessly funny. Clearly this review is not as much a complete, thought out commentary, and more of a rant – I need to get this stuff off my chest.

 

So there is this Indian scientist (with an inexplicable name – I have never heard of that name in India), who is one of the main people involved in collecting data about the end of the world. Jimi Mistry (the actor) has barely 20 lines in the movie – and 3 of them are in Hindi. His Hindi is unbelievable!!! They basically had an American (or British… I don't know this guy) play the part of an Indian scientist, and when he spoke his Hindi lines, it sounded terrible. I am amazed that they couldn't find a half-decent 2-bit Indian actor to play the role of the scientist. Why the hell do Westerners have to make movies about India with Western actors? Are our actors so bad that they can't even play Indians!!!!??

 

Then there is this scene where this woman is at the threshold of the life-saving ship, the doors about to close, and she is busy trying to get her doggie's attention hoping that it can also get into the ship and be saved from catastrophe. Did we need this 3 minute sequence to extend the 2h38m movie?

 

The President is plain lame. I didn't know Danny Glover could be so bad.

 

They did spare us some headache by not really explaining the science bit in much detail, because it wouldn't have made any sense anyways.

 

The high point of the movie was Woddy Harrelson – that man is genius in any role he plays…

 

Alright, I need to watch some sane TV before going to bed…

 

Why I can’t stand TV in India

I have returned to India after eight and a half years, and am absolutely repulsed by television here. If I thought media in the west went overboard trying to capture audiences' senses, TV in India is pure sensory overload. Here are ten reasons I just can't stand watching TV here:

 

1. There are at least five channels on each theme in each language (movies, religion, sports, soaps, news…)
   
2. Every channel has at least two lines and most channels have three lines of scrolling teletext. What's more – none of the teletext actually corresponds to the actual program going on – which means you can't even watch it with the volume muted.
   
3. "Till the cows come home" carries a new meaning with our news channels. Every topic is repeated, squeezed, analyzed, and chewed until the cows really come home. Be it the postponement of IPL, Slumdog's Oscars, or that two-headed dog that was spotted in Ichalkaranji.
   
4. Half the screen in most programs is covered with cartoons, advertisements, animations and other distractions – which are designed to ensure that just in case we wish to divert our attention for the 0.35ms when the host is not speaking, we have something else to look at.
   
5. Over 50% of the programming is based on some sort of a stage contest. Singing, dancing, stand-up comedy, and several other ways for participants to make fools out of themselves.
   
6. Soap operas – where to start. I'll leave the obvious complaints aside – and refer to the background music. Every word, every line comes with its own tune. Here is an example:
   

   Actor 1: "What are you doing here?" <suspicious music>
   

   Actress 2: "Who are you to ask?" <angry music>
   

   Actor 1's mother: "Come on – it is after all her home too…" <loving, tender flute music>
   

   And so on.
   

   Someone has got to talk to those music directors…
   

7. The better a program is, the longer and more frequent the ad breaks. By "better" I am not talking about watchable – it is all relative to the other terrible programs there are. There have got to be rules about how long and frequent ad breaks can be.
   
8. Everything is so loud and high pitched. Ads, soaps, those "You're watching … TV" jingles… So loud. And no channel can get its audio leveling right – you would need to increase the volume to be able to listen to the dialogues in the movie – just to get your ears blown off by the sudden commercial break.
   
9. I am going crazy with the number of times each commercial (advertisement) is repeated within each break. The same jingles, same words, repeating over, and over, and over, and over again ARE SIMPLY DRIVING ME NUTS!
   
10. Who said Americans were after sex and nudity – Film songs and clips on Indian TV are far raunchier than anything I have ever seen in network television in the US in all my years. Add to that, the whole time the IPL postponement was being discussed, the only clips in the background were those of the Cheerleaders. I suppose after all, IPL is only about scantily clad women who know nothing about cricket dancing in front of salivating audiences.
    

 

Gosh – I love those new LCD TVs – but I can't stand the programming. I think I am just going to buy one and not subscribe to cable – and watch digital photographs to admire the display.