ILLUMINATI

American Tabloid is about bad men doing bad things to ensure that the history turns out just the way they want it to. And they are not afraid of doing sordid, dreadful, despicable, immoral (if not often contradictory) things to shape up history to their vision. Theirs is not the glorious pages of the history: the made-up moral conflicts, the glamorization or the idolization of the meek. They linger in the grimy shadows that helped lead history to its overblown glamorization. They don’t make the headlines. They exist between the lines, always ensuring the existence of the next one. In this world, there is no room for loyalty and every character abandons/kills/ maims/ exploits/ betrays at one point or another. But while they tend to exploit everyone around them, they must realize that there are some people who are hard to exploit; who got to their places in life by exploiting and not by being exploited. And they will realize that however competent the manipulation is, however pre...

To those who have already read Sandman by Neil Gaiman and are accustomed to his writing style, American gods won't be much of a disappointment. It is standard Gaiman: good plot, good writing, a mostly poor execution with a deus-ex-machina ending. American gods is guilty of the same format. The idea of a war between old gods vs the gods of technology is admittedly intriguing and cool. If executed precisely, it could have been a thought provoking exercise on society's reverence & mad zeal for both and the profound implications it has on society as a whole and on individual people. But what we actually have is a shadow of a story(pun intended) which could have been great if it could have been treated much more seriously. Even the deus-ex-machina ending, which could have been made interesting with proper execution, feels like a dud and can be seen coming from a mile away. Provided, Gaiman has always been accused of using deus-ex-machina in a lot of his stories, most notably...

One of the important reasons that I was so excited about this game was for its purported story and the subject matter it chose to talk about. Which is, needless to say, a road less traveled. Every Batman story tries to talk about him at his peak, his most badass awesomeness of being Batman and the cool use of gadgets and the secret thrills of soaring the skies of nighttime gotham terrorizing street punks. The previous Arkham games have been guilty of the same. They were fun-filled games with heavy emphasis on the gadget/stealth/terror part rather than on the actual story of Batman and what made him to be what he is. When one emphasizes on the fun part of being Batman, he clearly forgets what it is to be Batman and what the highly demanding, soul destroying cost was to become Batman. Sure, Batman is amazing and at his best while he takes down thugs sneakily, but one has to understand that after all that is done, he goes to brood in a cave filled with nothing but bats and ...

  The plot: When a terrorist plans to kill an oil heiress and destroy the pipelines using a nuclear bomb, it is up to Bond to save the day. I've always had a feeling that Brosnan had the misfortune of not having good directors nor a tight script and his films often suffered by miscasts leading to wasted potential. And this film would be a great example. Denise Richards as Nuclear physicist in a Tomb Raider costume equipped with her terrible acting is a great example of a miscast that was so abundant in the Brosnan era... but not the worst. That would go to Jonathan Price as Elliot Carver in Tomorrow never dies in which he ruined the movie as a very very meek villain of what could have been one of the most memorable. And for that matter, one of the villains Renaud of this film, is such a disappointment too. Much build-up for nothing as he turns out to be nothing but a pawn. But getting back to Denise, she serves as an eye candy and she does exactly just that. She does not ev...

புத்தகத்தின் ஆசிரியர்/ ஓவியர் சத்ரபி (Marjane Satrapi) Persepolis கதையின் மூலம் பிரபலமானவர். இவரது ஓவியங்களில் குறைந்தபட்ச தகவல்களே இருக்கும். சிறுசிறு கோடுகளின் வழியாகவே கருப்பு வெள்ளையில் கதையை கண்முன் நிறுத்துவது இவரது பாணி. A minimalistic art style. சோகமானவொரு கதையை நகைச்சுவை கலந்து தரும் நுட்பம் இவரது சிறப்பம்சம். இக்கதையை சமீபத்தில் தமிழில் இன்டர்நெட்டில் காண நேரிட்டது. அதை இங்கே டவுன்லோட் செய்து கொள்ளலாம். http://www.mediafire.com/download/3261k0jc05n2dcj/Chicken+With+Plums+-+Tamil.cbr Chicken with plums பற்றிய முழுமையான விமர்சனங்களை இங்கே படிக்கலாம். http://illuminati8.blogspot.com/2013/02/chicken-with-plums.html http://kanuvukalinkathalan.blogspot.com/2010/02/blog-post_14.html Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended. This post is only intended for promotion and will be removed if asked to. Buy it from the publishers, if  you like it.

“The Big Sleep” by Raymond Chandler is about a private detective who gets caught up in the sordid affairs of a wealthy family involving blackmail, pornography, seduction and of course murder. After struggling through "The Big sleep", I can safely say that Chandler is all about atmosphere and he tries to smother you with the feel of the place while oblivious to the fact that the best stories are about people and not places. It is obvious that he loves the environment and he wishes that he was the detective. But trying to force feed one's love through a story is tantamount to raping the story for petty pleasures, which , here, is the similes like "she looked as attractive as a stray dog". Who gives a shit. Get on with the story and try to develop the characters rather. On which regard, Hammett, with all his faults, is a master. Pretty prose is always a good attribute but ultimately it is the story that matters. Reading the story it is apparent that Cha...

Secret agent Frank Horrigan is a man of his past. His past being the assassination of John F Kennedy, of whose protection he was in-charge of. After his failure to prevent the assassination, he is only a former shell of himself. He does odd jobs, regarded by his colleagues with scorn and has nothing to look forward to in his life, until an assassin called Mitch Leary threatens to kill the President. Now Frank finds himself reliving the past with the heavy burden of his failure, the mistrust of his fellow agents, his guilt and the inevitable doomsday in which he must outsmart the energetic and cunning assassin. If so much of what you've read so far seems oh-so-familiar and predictable, it's because it is familiar and done to death. As is to be expected of such suspense thriller films, the plot involves the aging, disgruntled, insecure hero; the alluring fellow agent heroine; the cunning assassin who comes so close to killing the president but is stopped at the nick of ti...