Machine and Magician

First things first - the tennis world has just been witness to a shock of the most ridiculous order. Roger Federer, that man/machine who has been known to make the Roddicks and Hewitts of this world look like dazed amateurs, has been defeated, twice in succession, by somebody called Guillermo Canas. No, I did not just make up that name - Canas is actually a tennis player, a reasonably proficient one, in fact, and has been in the news recently in connection with a doping scandal. Now, however, he's got a unique, possibly never to be repeated distinction - that of having beaten Federer in two consecutive matches that were NOT tournament finals, and that too in the scary era of Total Federer Domination. I guess Federer has simply got tired of winning - and I also strongly suspect that he doesn't want Rafael Nadal to be spoken of as the only player who has a statistical advantage over him. Maestros have all kinds of quirks about them - don't ask me to give a reasonable explanation for Federer's bizarre behavior. Let's just rejoice, instead, at the prospect of a second consecutive Masters tournament in which the likely champion's name is not something that you can give mechanically if asked to in the middle of your deepest slumber.

Moving on to less shocking things, West Indies went down to Australia in the first game of the Super Eights that was spread over two days because of unfortunate weather. And for what seemed like the millionth time, Brian Lara was the only top order batsman who showed any kind of resistance to the ruthless Aussies. His innings today was typically sublime - under immense pressure, having to undo plenty of the damage inflicted by his startlingly lethargic teammates, he rose to the challenge as magnificently as only he can, standing tall amongst the miserable ruins. Sigh! If only he'd been blessed with a marginally better team, we'd have been privileged witnesses, for the last 16 years, to the unadulterated wizardry of possibly the most talented batsman to have ever walked this earth. Instead, we've been saddled with a contradictory, disturbed genius, who's probably never known what it feels like to score a scintillating double century in a match AND win the match. Greatest tragedy of our cricketing time? Without the slightest doubt.

Tragedy and Then Some More Tragedy

I don't know about you, but the fact that the last week has been such a harrowing time for the ICC has certainly made me splendidly delighted. Those arrogantly untouchable bullies desperately needed to be brought down by more than a peg or two, and happily, the first round of the World Cup has just about been their worst nightmare. The one face-saving move that they could have made, which they promptly did make, was to stoically insist that things haven't yet gotten so disastrous that a cancellation of the tournament altogether was warranted. Yes, I would've almost started hopping around in uncontrolled glee at this chastening fall from grace of the ICC snobs if the extremely tragic death of Pakistan's coach Bob Woolmer hadn't been the cause of it all.

There have been very diverse reactions to the unfortunate demise of the pioneer of 'laptop cricket' - some furious, some grief stricken, but almost all horribly shocked. And the conspiracy theories began to fly around before anyone could even register the cause of the death. As of now, things stand at a poignantly murky position: it has been well and truly established that Woolmer was in fact murdered; former Pakistan players have come out with allegations that the crime was a well-plotted result of the enigmatic connections between the ICC, Pakistan cricket and bookmakers; and the Jamaican police have managed to drum up a flurry of suspicious whispers by announcing that only 'diplomatic problems' prevented them from detaining the Pakistan team in Jamaica in connection with the investigations. Just how many dreadful rumors such embarrassingly ill-advised statements are going to provoke is anybody's guess, but the stories have already started to border on the supremely ridiculous. One thing's for sure: things have now gone so bad that the terrible cliche "cricket is a gentleman's game" is never even going to cross anyone's mind in the future.

No matter how tragic Woolmer's death may have been though, the Indian cricket fan was struck by insufferable misery only after Bangladesh's not-entirely-unexpected victory over Bermuda. A lot has been said abut how fickle sub-continental fans are, which is why the seemingly never-ending stretch of bitter brickbats and, rather regrettably, some choice abuses and profanities shouldn't be wholly surprising. Along with painful disappointment, however, there has also been a sense of disbelief and incredulity about the Great Calamity among the fans. The Indian team does NOT crash out of the World Cup in the first round: that just doesn't happen. It hasn't happened in the discernible memory of anyone, at any rate - 1979 was many many years ago. For me, certainly, things do seem a bit surreal right now; I can't even begin to imagine a World Cup without India's presence for such a large chunk of the tournament. Ah well, I guess I'll just be brought back to happy reality by some strong performances by my favorites Australia and the West Indies. It feels so good to support reliable teams (Australia are, anyway). Meanwhile, we should brace ourselves for some heavy-duty slashing and chopping in the Indian team - and judging by the comments that have been morosely exchanged all over the country, there's going to be a lot of cheering at the merciless dumpings. Let's just hope there are no tears shed. Of sorrow OR joy.

Getting back to the actual cricket action, I've got to say that the Australia-South Africa match was one cracker of a match, even if it was a bit too nerve-wracking for the first half of South Africa's chase. These two teams are clearly streets ahead of the rest of the pack, and if South Africa don't manage to reach the finals this time either, as I'm predicting they won't, there'll only be yet another legend added to the 'Mysteries of South African Falling-Apart-at-Crunch-Times' collection. Maybe this is the tournament in which we'll finally know for sure just how much of Graeme Smith's aggression and apparent gumption is real and how much of it is merely pretentious/pathetic-counter-to-Aussie-arrogance. Brian Lara's West Indies, on the other hand, seem unsure as to exactly how much confidence and aggression they should be putting on display, which has resulted in three consecutive victories in the 'Group of Death' which have alternated between the furiously brilliant and the disinterestedly lacklustre. But the two teams that deserve our admiration most of all are Bangladesh and Ireland, who have ruthlessly sent the two Asian heavyweights India and Pakistan packing from the tournament. Objectively speaking, the rise of these two teams was the best thing that could have happened to the Cup, sparking, for the umpteenth time, bemused mutterings of the disgusting cliche (cricket does seem to have a lot of these, doesn't it?) 'cricket is a game of glorious uncertainties'. Seriously, if at all the ICC guys want to make themselves remotely useful, they'd do well to revamp the cricketing lexicon, it's getting more ignoble by the day.

A Real Laugh Riot

What do you do when you go out to watch a movie expecting it to be something of an epic cross between Gladiator and Troy, at least in terms of class, and instead get an apology of a movie that alternates between downright hilarious and painfully taxing? Curse the voters at www.imdb.com, that's what. I know the ratings system at the "earth's biggest movie database" can be a little quirky at times, but a rating of 8.2 for something as crass as 300, spearing it into the list of the top 250 movies of all time is pure scandalous. And the movie's making all the big bucks too - having scythed a rollicking opening in the US, it's on its way to becoming one of the most successful war movies ever. Seriously, Hollywood needs to be rescued, and fast.

The problem with 300 is not so much its actual quality but its over-ambitious intent. All the makers had to do was make a big budget, visually attractive movie that did NOT pretend to be anything more than a regulation comic book adaptation. Instead, they chose to aim for Lord of the Rings-style glory, which, predictably enough, makes it laughably over-dramatized. And don't even get me started on the liberal helpings of gore and violence, which, coupled with the noir-like brown tinge present throughout like some kind of sympathetic haze, gives you a right splitting headache. 

The film starts off dreadfully, with some kind of barbaric ritual meant to give superpowers to the privileged citizens of Sparta that only makes you fear for the sanity of the incredibly hot-headed Spartans. And things don't get better from there; in fact, they get progressively worse. The focus shifts to a blood-thirsty king who foolishly challenges the mighty Persian army to battle the specially-designed Spartan warriors. There's a queen too, who perpetually seems to be itching to deliver some powerful lines. Cut to a scene showing a savage bunch of morally-challenged priests and a very apoplectic Oracle-girl, and the king is advised not to go to battle. If only the king had heeded the good priests' advice, we would have been spared some really wasteful shots that are filled with nothing but blood and severed heads.

Instead, the king sets out to pulverize the almost-invincible Persian army with a puny band of 300 people, because he can't engage in full-scale battle. And here's where the real comedy starts. There are so many problems with this crazy suicide warring that it seems amazing that the legend of this ludicrously impossible episode has lasted so long. The 300 warriors, all of whose profession is apparently 'Hoo hoo hoo!' (at least, that's what it sounded like) go forth with no bodily armor, and indeed, practically no bodily clothes either. 

They then embark on a series of loud yells and excited pronouncements of the word 'Spartan!'. In fact, the words 'Sparta' and 'Spartan' are used so often in the movie that towards the end I was tempted to keep count. Everyone mentions one of these two words in nearly every line - the king continually insists that they should all die for Sparta, the warriors keep chanting that Sparta stands for freedom, and even the queen addresses her husband, not as 'my dear', 'my lord' or even by his name, but as, you guessed it, 'Spartan'. Clearly, the makers have a passionate obsession with all things Spartan.

The appearance of horrendously mutated and unpleasantly disfigured humans and all sorts of other creatures is something of a fashion in the movie. And some of the shots showing exactly how the 300 warriors enthusiastically butcher all of their adversaries, in very graphic terms, are too gruesome to describe. I still can't get one shot, where the king stabs the eye of a particularly nasty human-demon, out of my head - it was that grisly. Meanwhile, the king's ear-splitting yells and incessant spitting-in-the-face antics seem constantly in danger of driving his followers into raging madness. Instead, they get more violent by the minute, choosing to break into demented laughs every time they seem likely to be overrun. 

The Persian king Xerxes, looking very much like a vengeful bride and adorned with nearly ten kg of jewelery, makes some exuberant appearances too, and in fact, his sequences are among the funniest of the movie. Eventually, after an exasperating sub-plot involving the queen who is deceived with astonishing ease by a lecherous Councilor, the movie draws to a close, with the Spartans in exactly the same position that they were in at the start of the movie: on the verge of going to war with the Persians. Talk about a pointless plot.

The acting is bad, the dialogues embarrassingly childish, and the central idea of the importance of freedom is lost amidst the gallons of blood. The only area where the movie scores is the cinematography: the visuals are truly spectacular, and the graphic detail has to be seen to be believed, though that's one of the main reasons why it turns out to be so horrifyingly macabre. 300 is, quite simply, a disaster. But hey, if you can stand the gore and violence, you should definitely go for it: it will give you some really good laughs. And if you want to make your experience really memorable, watch it with around 10 of your friends; the comments will never stop. 

If only there wasn't the small matter of a hundred bucks being spent entirely on joking around with your friends; normally, joking around comes free.

The Million Dollar Minnow Matter

How infectious is cricket fever? Infectious enough to want to skip work and watch TV all day, if you ask me. And it's a different matter altogether that my work timings and the Caribbean match timings don't really clash. Ah well, did humankind ever need a reason to want to stay home from work? It's the same sad story with everyone - the early morning 'waking up' dread, the mid-morning dejection from looking at the perfectly useless but positively humongous pile of work, the afternoon frustration at realizing that yet another bunch of six hours has gone down the filthiest of drains and the evening exhaustion from, well, all the other negative thoughts that flitted through your mind all day. It's a vicious, vicious cycle.

Alright, enough of such depressing talk. Let's focus, instead, on the main subject of my post. The one word that has been on everyone's lips these first few days of the World Cup is 'minnow'. The first three days it was all about minnow-walloping and today it has been all 'minnow topples heavyweight' drama. I blame Ricky Ponting for starting this disturbing trend of social conversation. If he hadn't found the need to equate the minnows with some kind of annoying flies who do nothing but buzz and irritate, then we wouldn't have had the momentous discussions that followed about the advisability or otherwise of minnows playing in the World Cup. Barely had the disastrous comment escaped his colorful tongue than indignant minnow captains erupted out of nowhere claiming that they could 'spring a few surprises here and there' and cricket 'experts' began their drones about how the minnow matches prolong the World Cup beyond tolerance levels or conversely, how the unfortunate babes need all the big match practice they can get. Yawn. Somebody should put a gag order on the imaginative Mr. Ponting.

Moving on to more important things, South Africa's pummeling of the dazed Dutch yesterday had to be seen to be believed. Enough has been said about that over in which Herschelle Gibbs decided to check whether a bowler would break down in heartbroken sobs if forced to suffer too much violence, so I'll talk instead about the innocent-looking massacre inflicted by Mark Boucher and the composed ransacking antics of Jacques Kallis. I don't quite think I've ever been witness to a more sumptuous feast of runs. It felt like the boundaries would never stop - they kept getting bigger and bigger as the morale of the hapless Dutch bowlers kept getting smaller and smaller. That match, together with Australia's murderous assault on Scotland and Sri Lanka's clinical slaughter of Bermuda nearly vindicated Ponting's path-breaking statement, making him sound like an accomplished clairvoyant. Thankfully, however, today's events will have done enough to prevent Ponting's ever-present supercilious smile from widening further. That's because, as I write, Ireland seem to be on the verge of prompting full-scale riots in Pakistan, having dismissed them for a barely-believable score of 132. And Bangladesh seem to be on their way to inflicting some acute embarrassment on Dravid and Co., with India huffing and puffing mightily to reach a quite miserable score of 191. Bangladesh have been really robust in their reply so far, rattling away to 109 for 3 after 25 overs, and I sense that some really dark times are about to engulf the sub-continent. Don't be surprised if a few cricketers' homes are vandalised tomorrow. And Mr. Chappell, Mr. Woolmer, I think the pair of you should be packing your bags painfully soon.

Honestly though, these first few days have been really really entertaining. Barring the one languid game between the boringly efficient New Zealand and the woeful England (I guess they're back to their dark days), all the other matches have been real crackers, nasty shock or no nasty shock. I mean, come on - it was seriously good fun to watch the rampaging Gibbs clobber the poor Daan van Bunge with such remarkable disdain. And the Ireland-Zimbabwe tie, which literally turned out to be a tie, was fairly engrossing too. So things certainly are looking bright for this to end as the best World Cup ever. And that, in spite of all the garbage talk about minnows. I've always wondered though, why does everybody refer to the inexperienced teams as 'minnows'? Surely someone's got to have a better word to use? Any ideas, Mr. Ponting?

Time For Celebration

A boisterous din of trumpets and drums, an admirable assembly of cricketers - excellent and ordinary, retired and playing, and a flurry of hopeful, diplomatic statements. The start to this year's World Cup in the West Indies has been something of a study in contrasts; while the media has been drumming up a maniacal frenzy, the crowds in the Caribbean seem somewhat bemused by all the seriousness and sensationalism being attached to the Cup. And the players themselves have been all grace and dignity, with every captain talking up his team's chances while admitting, very generously, that all the other teams have equally strong chances of lifting the Cup. The ICC officials, meanwhile, have been lurking surreptitiously in the background, ensuring that the Cup is actually referred to as 'The ICC Cricket World Cup' and hoping that if anything goes wrong, they can distance themselves from the entire thing and blame everything on the West Indians. Sounds like a fun party, doesn't it?

The tournament has been marred somewhat by a few unsavory comments flying around the cricketing world like nervous dragonflies. The Ricky Ponting-Sunil Gavaskar altercation has already involved physical brawls and whacks on heads, and it's only a matter of time before these two gentlemen start pulling each other's hair while screaming frantically, "YOU started it!" Come on now, I can allow Ponting a few mischievous quotes here and there - he's young (at any rate, a lot younger than Mr. Gavaskar), at the peak of his batting powers, and he so perfectly embodies the arrogant, sweep-everything-before-you Aussie mentality. But I would've expected Gavaskar, a senior statesman and one of the most respected cricketers in India, to show a little more maturity and level-headedness. Pakistan, on the other hand, have had the audacity, yet again, to inflict embarrassment of a fairly injurious degree on the cricketing world and especially the ICC, by allowing Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif to get away without undergoing dope tests. And we thought Akhtar's career couldn't possibly get any more controversial. All is not well within the West Indian cricket community either, with former greats Viv Richards and Michael Holding continuing their noble battles with the 'corrupt' Caribbean cricket bureaucracy. Hopefully these sordid situations won't spill over and affect the organisation of the tournament, because that would really be tragic.

Thankfully, not everything is in disgraceful disarray, with Brian Lara in particular exuding wonderful warmth and composure and playing the part of the host skipper with remarkable poise. Among his many well-chosen comments, the one that brought much happiness to legions across the world was his statement that he will continue playing Test cricket for at least around 2-3 years more. So I guess we shouldn't hang our heads in despair just yet; maybe, just maybe, we'll get to witness some more gems of indescribable glory from his masterful blade. In the first match against Pakistan though, he wasn't quite at his disdainful best, but did his part anyway, partnering Marlon Samuels (who made a brilliant 63) in a 91-run stand that ultimately proved crucial to the match. Pakistan never really recovered from the onslaught by the West Indian batsmen in the last 5 overs, and even the vastly experienced Inzamam-ul-Haq and the prolific Mohammad Yousuf couldn't stop them from sliding to a potentially damaging 54-run defeat. Ponting, meanwhile, seems to have been properly fired up by Gavaskar's lavish comments, hammering his way, as I write, to a frenetic 113 against a quite unfortunate Scotland side as Australia racked up 334 runs in the first innings. And while Australia have been guilty of being rather daft at defending huge totals in the recent past, the chances of them not winning by at least 150 runs today are pretty slim, don't you think?

So another 48 matches and a month and a half of this magnificent spectacle to go. Predictions of the probable winners have been flying thick and fast all across the globe, but I'd still put my money on Australia coming up trumps. And I'd give the West Indies a fair chance too. And while I'm predicting things, I'll also predict that Brian Lara, Michael Clarke, Kevin Pietersen, Shaun Tait, Shane Bond and Dwayne Bravo will be the stars of this tournament. And oh, one more thing - something will go wrong with the organisation of the tournament at some stage; I don't really trust the carefree Caribbean crew to go through 45 days without bungling anything. So let's hope I don't end up with egg on my face at the end of the extravaganza. And let's also hope that it'll be a rollicking World Cup!

The Much-Ignored Genius of J K Rowling

Some people are just so abominably stupid. Take my unfortunate friend, for instance. Now HE, in my humble opinion, has been cursed with the horrible wretchedness of a lifetime of mulish idiocy. Alright, I'll elaborate a little. Obsessive Harry Potter fan that I am, I tend to keep going around lending my Harry Potter books to the less fortunate of our brethren who haven't been introduced to Potterverse yet, and I make it a point to painstakingly convince them of the sheer brilliance of books 1 to 6. So you can imagine why I nearly passed out with rage when my friend, in response to my noble attempt to bring him to the light and help him enjoy J K Rowling's peerless classics, shrugged me off with a disdainful, "I don't read kiddo books". Seriously, if I was even half as impulsive as Sirius Black, my friend wouldn't be alive today.

Okay, I know I sometimes cross the most cringe-worthy limits of exaggeration when talking about Harry Potter, but certainly, I do believe that the Harry Potter books are more than just fun reads for the children. I agree that a lot of people love them as purely escapist enjoyment, but the discerning few who love to discern things will tell you that there's never been a more entertaining message of the importance of goodness, love and pluck. The thing about social messages is that they often get insufferably boring, and an insufferably boring message can never really be even remotely effective. What J K Rowling has managed, on the other hand, is to tell the simple story of a bunch of school kids who just happen to be forced to confront complex questions of morality and integrity in an increasingly torn world. And it doesn't take earth-shattering brilliance to realize that Ms Rowling's way is far more effective than any intricately crafted sermon can ever hope to be. If only the literary critics who like nothing better than to rip apart J K Rowling's work as 'crowd pleasing bilge' could recognize this.

I've always felt that there are just too many thought-provoking parallels between the happenings of Potterverse and our real world to ignore J K Rowling's intent. Racism is a much-discussed evil in the Potter books, as is the revolting nature of politics (the Ministry of Magic is one heck of a PR-crazy government, don't you think?). The lust for power, as embodied by Lord Voldemort's thoroughly vicious acts which seem perfectly justified in his own twisted mind, runs as the common theme of the books, and its portrayal, to me, serves as a terrific lesson in behavioral psychology and the causes of evil. Then again, Harry's fortuitous run down the memory lane of the mysterious Severus Snape tells us how little in this world is completely black or white: James was as much the brutal aggressor (as opposed to Harry previously believing him to be a saint) as was Snape a victim of barbarous bullying, something which he (Snape) learns to practise with great efficiency in his later life. Speaking of Snape, I hardly think there's ever been a more enigmatic character. His unhappy childhood, tortured school years, confused and contradicting adulthood and agony at being forced to kill the one person in the whole world who didn't flinch with distaste every time he looked at him (this is, of course, assuming that Dumbledore ordered Snape to kill him) can make for some heavy-duty intellectual talk.

Love and friendship have been given great importance in the books. When Horace Slughorn, the Potions teacher, declares to his disbelieving class that unnatural or forced love can be the most destructive power on earth, one can't help but appreciate how nicely this fits in with the story of Voldemort's mother and her unfortunate struggles that may have been crucial to Voldemort becoming such a monster in the first place. On the other hand, the friendship between James, Lupin, Sirius and Pettigrew, the unrestrained and at times wicked camaraderie that existed between them and the subsequent betrayal by Pettigrew serve as a heartbreaking reminder of the fallibilities of human nature.

The tragic life of Sirius Black, at the end of which there was a lot of profuse, anguished sobbing in all corners of the world (the real one, mind you), qualifies as a brilliant example of the injustices that the world can sometimes sentence its people to. Sirius was forced to suffer a lifetime of disgrace and imprisonment, all because of the wretched treason of one of his best friends, and yet when in his later life he rightfully grieves about Dumbledore's oddly stifling orders, we tend to dismiss him as nothing more than a pathetic whiner. So much for 12 years of unspeakable misery. Another thing of Rowling's that has always stood out for me is the way she has tried to make some measure of sense out of Time Travel. There have been a lot of books and movies that have mightily struggled to get this totally impossible idea across, but none has been as successful as Harry Potter in synchronizing the phenomena of Time and Destiny so beautifully: when Dumbledore explains to Harry that the only reason he was rescued from the Dementors by his own powerful Patronus Charm was that it was pre-ordained that he would travel back in time, it becomes almost impossible to pick any loopholes in the ludicrous episode. It's another matter that not many people understood this particular point, but Rowling certainly did try her best.

And in all of this jumble, I think I'm quite forgetting the immensely tortuous character of Harry himself. One of the main reasons why Harry Potter has been such a phenomenal success is, I think, the ease with which one can identify with the protagonist. Harry is so not a regular superhero; he's an ordinary, unfortunate, not-so-gifted person whose biggest strength is extraordinary courage. In other words, his greatest power can actually be possessed by every common person who reads the books: there's nothing divine or hereditary about courage. Fantasizing about being a superhero was never so easy. In the midst of all this, of course, there are numerous storytelling masterstrokes - the revelation that the Defence Against the Dark Arts job was actually jinxed, the development of Ginny Weasley's character and the whole saga about Snape's worst memory are clearly wonderful examples of genius at work.

All of this makes me wonder why Ms Rowling is so often pummeled by the intellectual sorts who consider it to be something of a fashion to trash all things Potter. Okay, the books may just be a tad over-dramatic or stereotypical at times, but hey, they are so obviously not meant to appeal to the sensibilities of forty-year-olds. People should learn to appreciate Harry Potter for what it is: a stirring tale of good versus evil told through the eyes of a teenager. It is not a Lord of the Rings-style epic, nor is it a frothy, candyfloss Enid Blyton fable. And if you're still not convinced by all of this, then I've only got a few words to say to you: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

Ultimate Classic Not So Classy

How do you prepare yourself to watch a movie that many consider to be the greatest of all time? Don't read the book that the movie was adapted from, for starters. And definitely don't raise your expectations so high that you anticipate a Steven Spielberg movie to look something like a cross between Dhoom 2 and Fanaa in your forever-enlightened future. Sadly, I didn't follow any of these two sacrosanct commandments before watching the supposed ultimate classic Gone With The Wind. This may sound shocking to many, but I didn't really think the movie was any great shakes. And considering the fact that Victor Fleming, the director, was also the man behind The Wizard of Oz, my unhappiness with Gone With The Wind puts my plans of watching all the movies of 'Hollywood's Golden Age' in serious jeopardy.

The real trouble with the movie, I thought, was the fact that the book written by Margaret Mitchell was simply magnificent. Scarlett O Hara was, and will remain, the most consistent, charming, enigmatic and electrifying character ever created. It would have been humanly impossible to portray all the facets of the character on screen convincingly enough, which is precisely why I thought Vivian Leigh doesn't do justice to Scarlett, and this, may I add, would have been the fate of any other actress who would've attempted the role. Very often, the screen Scarlett comes off as nothing more than a silly little bimbette, and while Scarlett was supposed to be a 'spoilt child', she was always a very smart spoilt child. Leigh certainly looks as bewitchingly beautiful as anyone could have imagined Scarlett to be, but towards the end of the movie, with every 'Ohhhh Aaashleeeyyy' in that exasperatingly overstrained tone of hers I was increasingly wishing for 'Aaashleeeyyy' to turn around and give her a resounding thwack on the head. There are moments when Leigh manages to do brilliantly, like the scene when she learns of her father's senility or the one with Ashley's birthday party, but those are quite evenly balanced by her unsatisfactory acting in the 'God is my witness' outburst or the botched up climax.

There are faults in the direction too; Scarlett's Herculean struggles after returning from Atlanta just aren't depicted adequately enough, nor is the undefinable change that comes in her after her episode with Ashley at Tara that steels her enough to make a fortune out of enslaving convicts. I could accept the scriptwriter leaving out Scarlett's first two children from the movie - they were hardly important to the story; but giving Will Benteen, a significant part of Scarlett's evolvement a complete miss was very nearly a critical mistake. Alright, I know the movie is already nearly four hours long, but that's the problem with reading the book first: you just cannot forgive certain deficiencies in the movie, no matter how reasonable they may be. The climax, save for the legendary 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' line by Clark Gable is highly disappointing. And speaking of Clark Gable, I can't really believe that he didn't win an Oscar for his performance. I simply cannot imagine anyone other than Gable in the role - he is, there's no other way to say it, stunningly perfect. So is Olivia de Havilland as the unbelievably sweet Melanie. In fact, the two people that did win Oscars for acting from the movie, Vivian Leigh and Hattie McDaniel (as the irrepressible Mammy) aren't really the best performers in the movie. Leslie Howard as the whimsical intellectual Ashley is really good too, but failed to get even a nomination. Ah well, I suppose you can't really argue enough about the strange ways of Oscar juries.

A movie adapted from a book will always be a little iffy; there'll always be legions who completely despise the movie even if it is a cinematic masterpiece. While I certainly don't despise the movie version of Gone With The Wind, I do believe it could've been better. And since I haven't watched any of the Godfather movies yet, my opinion that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is the only instance where the movie adaptation turned out better than the book (for the record, I found J R R Tolkien's epic tremendously boring) remains unchanged. So I wouldn't mind Hollwyood doing a remake of Gone With The Wind, with perhaps Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman in the lead (though I suppose it would be really difficult to show Winslet as a 16-year-old village belle). OK, I know what I just said may seem outrageously scandalous to most people (since, for the uninformed, most people worship Gone With The Wind as the greatest thing that ever happened to a trashy thing like Hollywood), so I think I'll wind things up here. And hope against hope that Godfather, which I'm going to watch tomorrow, doesn't turn out as disappointing as Gone With The Wind. Alright alright, stop thinking about the rotten tomatoes now. There's no way they can come through a computer screen.