film review: war of the worlds

CRAP!

really, really bad. do not pay money to see this film. if someone offers you a free ticket - refuse it - or better - accept it, then burn it so noone else has to go and see it.

steven spielberg should have his directing license taken away. he should be banned from coming within 100 metres of a camera.

what could have, should have been a good movie - basically a human drama set against an amazing backdrop of interplanetary invasion by invincible, faceless aliens - turns into a two-hour weep session as the poor audience is reduced to tears begging "please, PLEASE aliens - kill tom cruise quickly so we can go home". but of course, they don't.

so we sit in the theatre, not walking out, thinking - well, it may be a crap movie, but there's gotta be some good actions scenes coming up - they spent a hundred million or so on this movie, there's gotta be some better action than just tom cruise running away...but no. they sem to have spent the entire action budget in the film on destoying the center of tom's town in the first scene where the aliens are revealed - leaving nothing for a climactic action scene later. in fact - most of the fighting of the aliens takes place "over a hill" so we can't see it. in any good film, this would be an interesting and clever cinematic technique - increase the mystique and power of the bad guys by NOT showing the good guys getting clobbered trying to fight them. but the human characters in this film are so annoying - the audience is begging for some good cg fight scenes to justify the money spent on the ticket.
'cos when it comes down to it, in a human drama, you have to like - or at least be able to relate to - the main characters, right? i thought tom's character was an annoying asshole from the first scene. and it doesnt get better. he stays annoying all thru the film -in fact - he gets worse.

*here's a spoiler for anybody who is still gonna go and see the film:
and then in the end, when he finally does arrive at his ex wife's parents' house in boston with his kid (you know he's gonna - i haven't spoiled anyhting by telling you) - his stupid wife's family come to the door (unbroken glass in a clean door in a clean perfect house after the aliens have pretty much destroyed everything else in the world) they are clean and nicely dressed as if they've just finished the wine and were about to move on to coffee and port!

There are 6 billion interesting stories that could have been told to the backdrop of the martian invasion of the war of the worlds - spielberg doesn't give us even a taste of any of them except the poorly-scripted and badly acted (unless tom's choice was to be an annoying asshole with no redeeming qualities - if so he did it well) story that is his movie.
i can't believe that anybody likes this movie - i can't believe the reviewers didn't warn me to stay away.

rating:

because speilberg was true to the original images of the tripods and they look kinda cool

all my friends are getting married

the penthouse garuda, home to the international man of leisure and playspot for the internationally fabulous has produced a first - two friends who came to visit got engaged during their "garuda whirlwind" tour of south-east asia.

strange thing though, i got all fluffy and excited when i thought that there was going to be a wedding. yes, even the swamp, who rejected all pushes for a 'proper' wedding from all corners, fought of a sneak attack from father-in-law, and saved life from the one day when relatives rule completely and man and woman become slaves to family; yes, even i got all teary at the thought of the blushing bride and groom...

some deep part of me is really weird...

if there is a wedding to be planned, there could be no better place to plan it than this establishment spotted in Thonglo in bangkok:


where else would you plan your wedding?

doesn't love just make you feel all good inside? like a great big fluffy bunny...

No Sex Please, We're Divers

Koh Tao - Diver's Paradise

One of the things you come to notice about Thailand is the sex tourists. They are everywhere you go - especially the islands. But on Koh Tao, diving paradise in the gulf of Thailand, they are most noticeable by their complete absence.

Yes, that’s right – there seem to be no hookers on Koh Tao, and hence, no sex-tourists. After travelling through most of the islands in Thailand, this comes as a shock. In fact, to the seasoned Thailand traveller, even more noticeable than the beautiful island itself and the colourful fish frolicking amongst the coral in the diamond-clear water, is the lack of semen-stained bald white men. Instead, the Swamp was impressed by how beautiful all the foreigners are.

In fact, Koh Tao wins the Swamp’s ranking for the title ‘Island of Beautiful Foreigners’. I don’t know what it is about diving that makes people so fit, but I only saw one white belly on the whole island that was bigger than mine! And not only are they fit and attractive, but stylish too. Generally, most foreigners to be seen taking a walk along the beach dress in cheap brand-name rip-offs thrown together to make some sort of bodily covering, but on Koh Tao – it is beach fashion taken to a casual extreme. Not pretentious, but classy. I felt not only out of shape, but under-styled.


sexy, sexy people on Koh Tao

Koh Tao’s location is probably the main cause of this. It is a two-hour boat ride on the fastest boat from Koh Samui to Koh Tao. And once you get there, there is nothing to do but dive and snorkel. There are no beaches worth swimming on. There are bars and restaurants – nice ones, stylishly set up overlooking the beach, or funky tapas bars and bakeries set back on the road that wouldn’t be out of place in Tokyo or Sydney – but there are bars on the more easily accessible islands for those who want to laze around on the beach all day. The bars on Koh Tao are diver’s bars. If you don’t dive, it’s probably best to pretend you do…to avoid any possible uncomfortable situations.

Not that we felt unwelcome on Koh Tao. You’re never unwelcome in Thailand if you have money – even just a little. A few of the dive shops mocked us mildly when we asked if they arranged snorkeling tours – but to them snorkelers are just low-class divers, so we were good naturedly accepted as simple unenlightened divers-in-the-making.

It has to be said that the snorkeling on Koh Tao is pretty good. I saw my first spotted grouper and was attacked by my first trigger fish. We saw colonies of red, green and blue polyps that hid in their shells when we swam too close. There were reef sharks to swim with if we had been prepared to get up at 5 am, and leviathan whale sharks are common in the deeper waters – again, a privilege reserved for people who go on the real dive boats – even if they are merely common snorkelers.


Mae Haad Harbour

Koh Tao means “Turtle Island”, but that’s because the island is shaped like a turtle, not because the waters are awash with turles. We saw no turtles, apparently most of them packed up and moved when the island got too popular – it seems turtles are divers with attitude who only want to be seen in the most chic of locations.

So would the Swamp go back to Koh Tao? Definitely. The lack of a good swimming beach is a drawback, as I am a beachgoer who likes to snorkel, not a diver who snorkels when he feels like slumming it, but overall, Koh Tao is in my top 4 snorkeling spots so far visited. The island is beautiful, the people are friendly, prices are South-East Asia reasonable and a good time was had by all.

got opium?

peace and love in the golden triangle

apparently, kun sa was a really nice guy.

we all remember kun sa as the druglord who controlled the golden triangle with his private army. but to ask a local in chiang sen, the nearest town to the thai bit of the golden triangle (well, the easiest to find bit - where the borders of thailand, myanmar and laos meet), he was a humanitarian leader, who only supported the opium trade 'cos it was the only way to ensure the safety and strength of his people.

but there aint hardly no more opium to be had these days. i suppose you could probably come across some photogenic poppy fields if you were trekking in laos or myanmar, but i was offered lots of souvenirs and not a toke of opium when i went north last week. nobody shot at me, and i saw not a single ak47. in fact, it was a beautiful holiday spot - bring the family kind of place.

in fact - we took a two year old (a friend's).

there's something kinda special about standing in one country and looking at two others. Especially for someone from australia - where you'd have to super-power-like damn fine eyesight to see another country from anywhere. so standing under the relaxing gaze of the giant golden buddha statue the thais have put up on the border and looking over the mekhong and seeing both laos AND myanmar was a satisfying experience for me. i think i stood for 15 minutes or so looking left to right saying to myself "that's myanmar, that's laos, that's thailand. that's thailand, that's laos, that's myanmar. myanmar, laos, thai, thai, laos, myanmar".

simple things for simple minds.


thailand, myanmar, laos...

we also rented a jeep and did a bit of a countryside cruise. there is a so-called "hilltribe village" on the road we drove along. we stopped and walked through it - looking for some traditional thai outfit photo-ops. the hilltribe village was not set up for tourists - which was good because it was real, but bad, 'cos it meant that everyone was wearing chinese track pants and t-shirts. a national geographic film crew would have fled in disgust.

there's something insanely voyueristic about hill-tribe trekking that made me very, very uncomfortable. we walked through these people's village - looked through doorways into their homes - frightened their chickens and annoyed their dogs. i wondered how people would feel back home if i brought a bunch of thais to come wandering through people's backyards in coogee...


would you mess with this guy?

but we made them some balloon animals, so they forgave us.

i had the best lesson i could ever have wanted in thai politics when the guy who drove me back to chiang rai airport turned out to be a local poltiical candidate. got the inside scoop on the intricacies of vote buying and political intimidation through the police and hired gunmen. i feel very happy not to be thai sometimes.