Story: Circa 2154. The US army lands up in Pandora, an earth-sized moon in outer space. Their objective: to extract the much-needed minerals from Pandora’s soil. But before they can do that, they must fight the peace-loving indigenous inhabitants of the alien world, relocate or destroy them with their spies and bombs.

Movie Review: And we thought sinking the Titanic was a titan task! Well, this time round, James Cameron chooses to play god and creates a whole new world with such exquisite finesse, aesthete and eye for detail, he almost takes your breath away. In terms of sheer technology, Avatar marks the coming of age of both CGI and 3-D cinema with its art house special effects and its shock and awe treatment.

On the one hand, it’s the sheer iridescence of the canvas and the never-before contours of the creatures, the flora, the fauna flying across the screen that makes you marvel at how computers can augment creativity; on the other, it is the umpteen times you jump back to avoid the arrows, the guns or slide away from the floating dandelions and fierce raptors that leaves you completely mesmerized with this brand new cinematic experience. Truly, Cameron’s vision of Pandora is pure art, with its tall, wide-eyed, slender, blue Na’vi people, its post-modern creatures and its verdant greens. But more than all this, it is Cameron’s cry against war and violence that makes Avatar an eloquent testimonial to the present. Mercifully, the film isn’t visual extravaganza alone; it has a meaningful story too that could end up making this magnum opus a modern-day parable for pacifists, climatologists, humanists, globalist… For the film-maker openly indicts American for its 9/11 expansionist policies and clearly states: when people are sitting on shit that you want, you make them your enemies. That is the only way you justify taking the stuff away from them!” Stuff? Minerals, here. Oil, in the real world.

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The basic idea behind Tropic Thunder looks something like this: A big budget war movie is being made by a first time director and a tough, heartless producer staring three big name actors. The problem is the film isn’t going so well. The producer is furious, the actors are hindering the process and the director is at his wits end. In a desperate attempt to give the movie gritty realism, the director drops the actors in the middle of the jungle, but unknowingly drops them in the wrong country — and although they think they’re secretly being filmed for the movie, they’re actually in the middle of a fight for their lives.

Tropic Thunder makes you laugh. It’s just that simple. They aren’t the smartest laughs; they aren’t high brow laughs, but they are laughs nonetheless. This is a funny flick.

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Democratic National Convention soon after Obama was elected to the US Senate, author Jerome Corsi began researching Obama’s personal and political background. Scrupulously sourced with more than 600 footnotes,

The Obama Nation is the result of that research. By tracing Obama’s career and influences from his early years in Hawaii an Indonesia, the beginnings of his political career in Chicago, his voting record in the Illinois legislature, his religious training and his adoption of Christianity through is recent involvement in Kenyan politics, his political advisors an fundraising associates and his meteoric campaign for president, Jerome Corsi shows that an Obama presidency would, in his words, “be a repeat of the failed extremist politics that have characterized an plagued Democratic Party politics since the late 1960s.” In this stunning and comprehensive new book, the reader will learn about Obama’s extensive connections with Islam and radial politics, from his father and step-father’s Islamic backgrounds, (more…)

Bapsi Sidhwa, the famous author of Ice Candy Man, has written the story of the plight of women in tribal areas in Pakistan in the heart rending novel, The Pakistani Bride was originally published in 1982 in England and India; and then republished in 1990 in the US. Almost 26 years later, the book is still up to date as the situation of women in these areas remains the same. Bapsi Sidhwa has based this novel on actual event that she heard of when she visited the Karokarm range with his husband. A girl who had run away from her husband had been killed by him to avenge his honour. The story had such a deep impact on Bapsi that she transformed this incident into a novel. The novel is set in the time before partition and begins with the story of Qasim, a ten year old tribal boy, who is married to a girl many years older than him.

Many years after his marriage, he loses his wife and all his children including his favourite daughter Zaitoon, as a result of the hardships faced in the mountain areas. Broken hearted and detached, he moves to the plains of Delhi. During the partition, he gets on a train for Lahore, but the train is attacked by Sikhs and a huge massacre follows. Bapsi Sidhwa has captured the vivid scenes of bloodshed during the partition with precision, which do not fail to have an impact on the reader. Qasim jumps of the train and runs to the forests, but a young girls about four years old clings to him calling him abba, Qasim is reminded of his daughter Zaitoon and he takes her with him giving her with him giving her the name Zaitoon. The years after the partition are marked with a friendship between Qasim and pehelwan (wrestler) named Nika. Nika’s wife and Zaitoon form a mother and daughter bond and are quite attached to each other. Although Qasim is settled in Lahore, his nostalgia for the mountains keeps on growing. As a result, he promises to marry his daughter to the son of a tribal. Nika and his wife try hard to persuade him against the match but Qasim is bent on reuniting his ties with the tribals. From there on their story entwines with the story of Carol, an American married to a Pakistani army personnel Furrukh. She is not happy with him and the attention of another man major Mushtaq flatter her and they have a brief affair. When Zaitoon and Qasim reach the cantonment, they take a lift in an army vehicle and stay with the army office for one night. A young army personnel Ashfaq develops a likeness for Zaitoon and tells her that if she ever needs any help she should come to the major.

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About

They watched True Romance and wondered what would happen if Brad Pit’s stoner character was the focus of that film. From that little ‘what if?’ question, the idea for Pineapple Express was born. Two members of Apatow’s pack – Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg – crafted the screenplay, which was very loosely used in the film, and came up with a new stoner comedy (one that doesn’t involve those Harold & Kumar dudes). Pineapple Express is dopey fun with its pot jokes and lowbrow humor, and the film’s target audience should walk away feeling pretty high about this crazy action comedy from the Apatow crew.

The Story

Seth Rogen plays process server Dale Denton, a man of many disguises who loves the gotcha moments when an unsuspecting doctor or husband or whoever finds his or herself on the receiving end of a Dale-delivered subpoena, Dales’ not bad at his job, he’s got a pretty 18 year old high school senior (Amber Heard) as a girlfriend, and his pot dealer, Saul (James Franco), keeps him well supplied with weed.

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