Stay Away!

My rating of Max Payne (Yahoo! Movies page): D- (Truly awful)
Directed by: John Moore
Cast: Mark Walhberg, Mila Kunis, James Bond’s Monkey, Ludacris
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox Retards

The movie Max Payne (went to see it today) seems to have been made with just one intention in mind and it excels at it: cause the max amount of ‘payne’ to those conned into watching it. I’m even more disappointed because I was looking forward to this movie for a long time, and it really disappoints. The Writers’ Guild strike has taken a very serious toll on the number of good movies coming out this year (at the last count, practically none). In retrospect I now realize why I was looking forward to this movie: it was the Marilyn Manson song in the trailer which hooked me in - and nothing else. (There’s no doubt about this fact - the trailers awesome.)

I had read reviews of course (mostly from people who’d played the eponymous game) saying that it had nothing to do with the game. As a person who hasn’t played the game himself I hoped that it wouldn’t come in the way of enjoying the movie. It turned out that there was nothing to enjoy. Mark Walhberg has an expression on his face throughout the movie which says, “Man. How did I con myself into doing this movie?!” It works out in his favor though, because he is supposed to be a tortured soul.

The problem with Max Payne is very simple - it’s a good action movie. Except for the action bit, of which there is nothing at all. I kept on praying till the end - “maybe they’re saving everything for the climax” - but that wait was in vain.

OK. I expected no story (the usual case with video game adaptations). Check. I can even (grudgingly) accept no action if the chicks are worth watching. Unfortunately, the movie stumbles on that count too. First, they bring out Olga Whatsername - better known as the latest Bond bland girl from Quantum of Shoelace - in a cute little red number and make her undress on screen. So far so good. (Basically, I don’t like her because she looks like Jennifer Love-Hewitt - who’s so hot - with her head shrunk disproportionately to her body. James Bond probably doesn’t care because “the only blid that matters to him is Jewish blid”.) Walhberg, still thinking of how much he can sue his agent for making him do this ‘movie’, asks her to leave. Then she’s killed a few seconds later - no gore at all (the killing isn’t even shown). Jesus tap-dancing Christ, why do they think I paid to watch an A-rated movie?!

The only hope left was in Mila Kunis, as hired assassin Mona Sax. By this time I was my hands were so trembling with rage that I was showering popcorn on anyone within a 5 metre radius. From what I saw in the trailer, I expected I could at least watch her while chanting “Leather! Leather!…” (Actually, I believe the correct term is ’spandex’, but it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it when it comes to chanting.) I got as far as saying “Leath…” before she went off screen. Seriously, she practically less than 10 minutes on screen in an almost-two-hour movie. Her only useful role is to appear out of thin air - literally - in a scene towards the end to kill a security officer about to gun down Max Payne.

Strike one - no action. Strike two - no chicks (in measure of on-screen time). Strike three - no story. Really, the story goes nowhere. No action for a full 60 minutes into the movie. Just a whimper towards the end. Seriously, in a movie like this people come to see the gore and the women - not lectures. Why bother spending so much time explaining everything? Give a complimentary booklet containing the backstory to moviegoers and get on with the action! So Max Payne blows of numeric padlocks using a revolver, never mind that every other movie (and real life) try to bypass it using less direct and more plausible methods. Then, towards the end he gets shot multiple times directly with a machine gun. Our brave hero doesn’t feel a thing (the scene would make even Superman cringe on seeing a guy shot in the crotch without feeling a thing) - and proceeds to gun down the baddie. The said baddie had it coming, because he goes to drown our hero in a freezing river but leaves approximately 10 seconds after Payne jumping into the river saying “He’ll freeze to death”. Silly villian. Obviously he hasn’t read Being A Movie Villian For Dummies, which clearly mentions:

Thou shalt wait at least two minutes on screen post-throwing a person into a freezing river. The hero will still survive, but the good karma earned by waiting longer ensures a much more ‘exciting’ death.

‘Nuff said. Watch the trailer, play the game, download a few Mila Kunis wallpapers - and give this trash movie a pass.

This has to qualify as the most ‘innovative’ website idea ever. Something tells me that it well be quite successful too. I’m talking of Chickipedia - an ‘encyclopedia’ for…chicks. I mean not for them, but about them. It mistakenly calls itself a ‘wiki’ when it not *actually* user-editable - but I, for one, am not complaining. Seems like someone has put a lot of effort into making this site, because believe me their content is exhaustive. ‘Exhaustive’ means I was quite surprised to find some obscure ones too (that’s how I stumbled across this site - while I was doing ‘research’ for Code Wars 2008). And the ‘Similar Chicks’ feature on the detail pages made me ROTFLMAO (go there, you’ll be able to figure out how it ‘works’ ). Photos, videos, details, news items - even the ability to track your ‘favorites’ - this site has it all. I think Chickipedia is probably the most unique encyclopedia in existence.

Code Wars 2008 is firmly on schedule now - on 21st November 2008. It was earlier supposed to happen on 14th (Google search still gives the old date)…but due to a few circumstances and popular demand it was thought it would be best to shift it back). That would make for one hectic week, with WarP (DPS Mathura Road’s), CORE (DPS Dwarka’), our event Code Wars, and DPS MUN happening back to back (and soon followed by Exun). Seems like DPS Society schools are hogging all the space this month!

It was a difficult decision to distill Code Wars 2008 down to one day, but it was done to retain the standard of the event. The economic recession did hit us badly with almost all companies cutting down on their advertisement budget. Thankfully, Renew Information Systems and NIIT pitched…and we had an event. The interest shown to support the event by MapMyIndia - started by Code Warrior alumnus Rohan Verma - at a stage when the CW team was in dire straits gave us confidence to go ahead with this. Continuing with tradition, Code Wars 2008 is an open invite event, i.e., in case your school hasn’t got an invite through postal mail yet, then you can download the invite and rules and come for the event anyway (the downloaded versions are equally valid). Remember to register your school online - it’s mandatory.

By cutting it down to a one-day event, we decided to raise the difficulty level across all events. That should keep the excitement up. (Or maybe we’ll just have teams sobbing they couldn’t answer anything.) I’ll be conducting the quiz and crossword and I can vouch this for my events at least. I’m sure a lot of people who’d be coming read my blog so this is my message to them: you still have about a week left. Start preparing. Broaden your horizons and read up stuff like crazy. If you don’t, you won’t know what hit you in the quiz / crossword. Similar to last year, I’ve tried to incorporate knowledge of multiple fields (beyond tech / computers), so be prepped to think outside the box. To make life easier for everyone I’ve decided NOT to include any acronyms (’mini Ankit Sud’ from DPS Dwarka will be dejected). It pains me when I see kids frantically flipping pages through Babel minutes before an event. Range of topics covered? Everything (except for a slightly less focus on tech, more of trivia; although you may say that there might be a slight bias in covering more of stuff. I. like.) Crossword will be a ‘monster’ crossword with a LOT of clues.

Code Wars 2008 has also had some format changes. Since every event can’t be fitted into a one-day fest, it was decided that we’d hold web designing and digital imaging online. Details are there on the Code Warriors website. I sure look forward to some creative entries!

There’s a funny anecdote here regarding a company which was approached for sponsorship for Code Wars 2008. This kind of stuff is not something I’d discuss generally, but the kind of hypocrisy displayed was so astonishing that I feel I must share it. Among the companies the current CW members approached was Virgin Mobile; their corporate office is in Vasant Square Mall, darn close to our school. So our guys met this woman who was in their marketing department about Virgin Mobile sponsoring us. I gave them the idea about approaching them since it makes perfect sense for Virgin to sponsor us - after all, their brand is targetting the youth segment and an event like Code Wars would give them valuable exposure without Virgin having to pump in a lot of money (unlike college events). Seems like DPS RKP had approached them too because at first she mixed up VK and RKP. Anyway, she heard the team out and in the end she said they won’t sponsor us because

…DPS schools have a slightly shady reputation when it comes to cellphones…

I mean, really? That was ages ago. And this is a lecture on propriety coming from a company which releases ads like the hospital nurse one. I don’t object to the ad which was good, but I do find it ironic that someone from Virgin Mobile’s marketing department said this. More ironic when you consider that Richard Branson owns the company. Maybe this Virgin Mobile lady wasn’t there at the launch of Virgin Mobile (this video, BTW, was put up by Virgin Mobile India’s own marketing department). Talking of ‘reputation’, Airtel has sponsored Code Wars - twice - in the past. Admittedly a company with much greater reputation. CW’s sponsor list has had Microsoft, Intel, Lenovo et al - a veritable who’s who of top tech companies. Virgin Mobile India must be kidding to throw away the marketing opportunity we gave them on those grounds.

See you at Code Wars 2008. soBIG.g. It’s on.