Random. Structured. Haphazard. All Me.
A Tangled Yarn of Thoughts Being Unravelled…
Apparently I have a fin and teeth fetish else why sharks over every other creature out there?
But since I have a need to express myself about movies many others wouldn’t watch, here are the movie reviews of shark-themed movies I’ve watched:
May they will bring you laughs, along with some groans and facepalms. Because of them are so bad, they’re goood!
I kept thinking of scathing ways to start off this review when all that comes to mind is, “Don’t watch it“. This movie was made for reasons only to known to the producer; actually scratch that, the previous one made money at the box office ergo a sequel had to be made.
I love creature movies. I love sharks. I even sat through the Sharknado series till my brain shut down and with this movie my brain never engaged right from the time TO and I saw the trailers while at the movies throughout this past summer. While I’m not entirely sure what is worse- the storyline or the wooden-faced actors, the former might win because it’s so bizarrely woven that you find yourself in a facepalm position the whole time.
Imagine this- Jonas is now a high seas vigilante who is on the tail of toxic-chemical-dumping bad guys. He is with an organisation which is doing deep sea explorations (again). The son of the previous CEO of the deep sea explorations done in The Meg is now part of the story. He of the dubious clicker which apparently has trained a meg from the time it was a pup, to approach and go away without killing. Yay. Nobel Prize time.
Anyhoo, illegal sea mining activities create a rift in the thermocline which was holding back deep sea terrors in the trench and 3 megs and what can only be called the kraken, escape and head for a place called “Fun Island” which is essentially meant to be a sea monster ‘eat-all-you-can’.
Jonas, new CEO, Mac and DJ and a new token female character along with a disobedient teen fob off shark attacks, tentacle tickling by said kraken and survive while taking out the bad guys and not losing any body parts in the process.
The characterisations are pathetic as is the script. Statham and his costars occupy the entire run time of 1 hour and 56 minutes of what can only be called Purgatory for anyone who isn’t a muppet. Given that TO enjoyed the heck out of the movie, the evidence points at him being a muppet as well. I’m still wondering why Steve Alten signs off on these travesties given how well his books are written. Oh wait…$$$
Bottom line: People around the globe should take the money they might have spent on the movie and resulting snacks into doing refresher courses for the script writers and the actors about the basics of their respective jobs.
It’s been a long time between rants, this one especially. Last time I grumbled about this was three years ago. And while this irritant has raised its annoying head on and off, there are certain days when the peeve gets elevated to a different status: in ALL CAPS, bold, italicised and underlined for good measure!
Let me put it out there again- I LOATHE wet towels, unless they are on a drying rack, on a clothesline soaking up the sun or in the final stages of the spin cycle in a washing machine. And wouldn’t you know it, gifts of wet towels (big and small) keep appearing on my bed, TO’s table, the headboard, in the hamper with dirty clothes and everywhere else it’s not meant to be.
During the monsoons a bunched up wet cloth gives off a musty, annoying smell which refuses to exit your nasal passage once it’s wormed in. My days are filled with sightings of such cloths across the house, in different degrees of mustiness but ALWAYS wet.
Living with a teenager who idles at angsty, eye-rolls and being defensive; giving a feedback about where things belong and how to put them back after they’re used leads to even more pronounced eye-rolls and utterances ranging from the secular, “JEEZ!!! what’s the big deal” to the infinitely more religious, “JESUS CHRIST!! what’s the big deal”. Rarely does it lead to learning that finding wet towels carelessly thrown on top of books, stationery on a study table no less, makes an already-irked mother descend very rapidly to homicidal-maniac levels.
But in the spirit of forgiveness or the calming effect of a second cup of caffeine, I will resist picking up a cleaver (yes, I have one. German steel and scary-looking) and instead be passive aggressive till the message reaches home.
I first colored my hair while in the fag end of my 30s. It wasn’t to cover up the greys (which am convinced are a sum total of the number of years I’ve been married and how old TO is) but to see if a different color was my thing. It was. And while my choices haven’t set the world on fire, it’s been fun to have a different look from time to time. Now comes the part where children see what their parents are doing and demand the same rights just because! TO’s no different in this regard either.
He asked to color his hair and on being told no, asked us quite seriously why not. The usual talk of chemicals, his age etc being cited as a reason; he asked how we were so sure that it *would* be harmful for him. And this is when Red called an audible and agreed to let the coloring of the hair proceed because A) the final exam grades hadn’t been all that bad B) we wanted TO to have some autonomy from time to time rather than tell him how things might play out in his life and finally C) if it all went down the drain, we could always shave his head and let it grow it back over the summer.
This is how it all went down: existing hair was cut into semi-mohawk/flat top in the style of Shimron Hetmyer followed by bleaching (not a huge fan as it turned out) and dyeing. After the dyeing it was a few days of strutting like a peacock till an encounter with a non-color-protect shampoo turned blue into a deep green. Surf, sun and sand bleached said green till it became light mintish; almost white at first glance. Finally, in deference to the school rules about grooming, a buzz cut ensued which replaced all the green. For now.
Plans are currently on for which color will have the spotlight on it for next year’s summer break. Ye Gods.
Everyone grows up with the lingo of their generation; usually ingrained in their youth. It’s a mix of slangs, colloquialism and often, as is typical with kids, some amount of neologisms as well.
TO and I have been spending quite a bit of time together in the last two months since his summer break started. It’s not always been a hoot but some incidents stand out for reasons which are so utterly hilarious but are also a sign of the times: kids growing up and teaching their parents a thing or two in the process.
I was playing a game on my tablet (which is often appropriated by TO for his games) and apparently I was taking too long with choosing the music I wanted to listen to while I played said games and it was cutting into TO’s leisure time way more than he was prepared to concede.
He got a bit testy and said, “C’mon on A..I need to start grinding soon if I want to win!” To which my reply was predictably, ” What do you need to grind?” The rest of the conversation went something like this:
TO: “You don’t actually have to grind anything, you have to do the grinding and get ahead!” Me: “I don’t think you’re using the word the way it’s meant to be used baby and if it is what I think it is, you’re WAAAY to young to be grinding!” TO: ” Everyone GRINDS! You’re SUPPOSED to be grinding! If you don’t grind you can’t get ahead!!” Me: “Ok now am sure you and I aren’t talking about the same thing!” TO: “Give me your phone! I want to show you how grinding is done. Me: “I know how grinding is done, it’s not something I want to watch with my teenager!
TO takes my phone from my hand, searches for grinding and finds the following meanings and visibly blanches at the final meaning and yells that it’s disgusting and is all wrong!
Ultimately we had to search for grinding+video games (see how keywords make a difference) and came up with the desired definition.
In the process of establishing what grinding truly is, I neither got to play my game nor did I get to listen to my songs and yet learnt two very crucial things: First, that it’s very important to listen to what the children are saying; these days even more so. Their world is very different from ours. Simple words and acts undergo changes and become something else entirely. And second: never get between a child who wants to grind their way up the points table on a stupid game!
