I admit I haven't watched 4 of the best picture contenders, i.e. 127 hours, Black Swan, The Fighter and Winter's Bone. But from what I hear, these 4 are mainly platforms for the actress/ actor categories. The Best Picture fight is going to be between The Social Network, The King's Speech and True Grit. Having watched all of these, my money and hopes are on The King's Speech. It is the most holistically satisfying of the 3 films. The Social Network will run it very close in terms of quality and may just lose it only because the subject matter may not be seen to have sufficient 'weight' by older Academy voters. As far as True Grit is concerned, this is a film that I wanted to like as I am a big fan of the Coen Brothers. However, I have to admit, it was less than satisfying...lesser than the sum of its parts. Charles Portis' novel did not give the Brothers the opportunity to showcase their flair for black comedy nor their panache for violent set-pieces. Even Jeff Bridges' characterization of Rooster Cogburn left something to be desired...I preferred John Wayne's take in the 1969 version.
Well, all will be known in a few hours. Let's sit back and enjoy the show!

I have just self-published my first short story online, using the excellent Figment platform. It is part science fiction, part horror. It was fun writing it. In fact, I wrote it a year ago for myself and it was just sitting on my computer. When I came across the Figment website this morning, I signed up for it. This evening, I revisited my story, edited it and published it...all in 45 minutes...just like that!
Here's the link.
http://figment.com/books/39012-2022-The-Artemis-Abominationweeblylink_new_window

Fans of Star Trek know how Gene Rodenberry made teleportation seem so simple using the Transporter. Go and stand in your designated spot and get zapped out to a planet surface or another spaceship. When you're in trouble, you just say "Beam me up, Scotty" and you're back in the comfortable environs of the Starship Enterprise. So the Transporter frequently plays the part of a Deus ex Machina, getting our heroes out of tight situations at the last possible instant. One could argue that teleportation would be the ultimate, safest form of short distance transportation invented.

But if you watch Christopher Nolan's 2006 thriller "The Prestige" adapted from Christopher Priest's 1995 novel of the same name, you will realize that the consequences of teleportation can be quite chilling. 
*SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER BEGINS*
In the film, the magician Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman) commissions inventor Nikolai Tesla (played by David Bowie) to build him a teleportation device so that he can perform a magic act called The Transported Man, wherein he disappears from a booth on the stage and reappears in another part of the auditorium. Tesla builds the machine and we see it tested successfully. At the end of the film, we realize the macabre side-effect of the teleportation - the machine doesn't exactly teleport the object, but in fact creates a duplicate of the original object. So, each time the machine is operated, you end up with the original plus an exact copy. In order to hide this 'dirty secret', Robert Angier arranges for his original self to be dropped through a hidden trapdoor in the booth into a sealed tank of water, while his 'new' self reappears elsewhere in the auditorium to thunderous applause. The original Angier drowns in the tank and later the tank is covered and moved to a warehouse. In the closing scene of the film, we see the warehouse filled with the bodies of scores of dead Angiers!
*SPOILER ENDS*
A similar concept is tackled in China Mieville's supernatural-modern-day-gothic-whodunnit "Kraken". 

*SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER BEGINS*
The key premise in Kraken is that modern day London has an thriving underground community of people skilled in magical arts. One of the minor characters learns the art of teleportation. He doesn't realize that each time he teleports, he is creating a duplicate and that his original self is simultaneously obliterated. This seems to be less complicated than Robert Angier's situation in "The Prestige", as there is no original body to get rid of. But the complication here is that his death creates a ghost, one who is so unhappy with his mode of death that he starts haunting his duplicate rather than slip away quiety into the afterlife. Every time he performs a teleportation, he creates a new ghost and in the end goes mad as he is haunted by scores of ghosts of his own self. The heroes of the story then have to bring in a lady with special powers to exorcise him of his own ghosts, which she manages to do over a period of time.
*SPOILER ENDS*

Interestingly, Rodenberry reportedly created the concept of teleportation via the Transporter beam in order to bypass production costs of showing spaceships/ shuttles taking off and landing on planets each time the Enterprise crew had to visit a planet. Imagine if the script writers in Star Trek had to deal with that...the galaxy filled with copies of Kirks, McCoys and Spocks!

Just watched the trailer for Atlas Shrugged: Part 1. I must say that the trailer is edited to make the movie look like a fast-paced dramatic thriller, with the film itself possibly eschewing large parts of the heavy philosophy of the novel for the sake of pacing. After nearly 20 years chasing various parties in Hollywood to help make the film, John Aglialoro took matters into his own hands and put the film together with other independent producers at very short notice, because the movie rights would expire if the film was not made before a certain date. Ultimately, it was not possible to get any big names to act in the film (at one time, various A-list actresses were courted to play the lead role), but the absence of big names has also allowed the producers to bring the picture in at a reported budget of just USD 10 million, an impossible task had the film been made within the Hollywood system. The film will be released in the US in April this year. Let's see what the critics have to say about it closer to the release date.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is my favourite French director (my next favourite is probably Francois Ozon, but more about him on another occasion). Interestingly, my first Jeunet film was Alien: Resurrection, his English language debut in 1997. It was a pretty good movie (more watchable than Alien3 at any rate!) and it prompted me to read up on Jeunet. Upto that point, Jeunet had directed only 2 full length feature films, in fact, co-directed with Marc Caro - they were Delicatessen (1991) and The City of Lost Children (1995). I managed to get hold of The City of Lost Children soon after, but it took me a while to find a copy of Delicatessen. By that time, Jeunet had become famous world-wide for Amelie, released in 2001, a critical and commercial hit.
These 3 films - Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children and Amelie - so far constitute the best known and most critically acclaimed parts of Jeunet's body of work. They are filled with sight gags, quirky flashbacks usually designed as character development devices and of course, memorable characters populating fantastical plots. Not to mention, the presence of one of my favourite French character actors, Dominique Pignon, who has acted in all 6 of Jeunet's feature films.
Last week, I finally got my hands on the latest Jeunet film "Micmacs", meaning "jiggery-pokery". The film features a newcomer to the Jeunet acting troupe, Dany Boon, one of France's most well-known comedians. In fact, Dany Boon himself is a director, having released 2 films, one of which "Welcome to the Sticks" is the most popular French film in history. 

Just a quick post to say I have seen it and I love it. Michael Fassbender who had a breakout role as Lt. Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds is 'magnetic' (terrible pub, couldn't help it) as Magneto/ Eric Lehnsherr and James McAvoy as always is convincing in every role he plays. But the trailer itself - including the settings, the other characters, the music - feels eerie, dark and intense...very much in tune with the Cold War tension of the '60s. This is going to emerge as a 'sleeper among blockbusters', a piece of 'intelligent superhero film' counter-programming vs. the more mainstream action adventure films like Captain America and Green Lantern. Can't wait.

A belated post to explain the meaning behind the name of this website "Chronophlogiston"...and in doing so, to acknowledge that I have borrowed it from the term "Katachronophlogiston" from China Mieville's modern-day gothic whodunnit/ adventure novel Kraken. I had just finished reading Kraken when I created this site. When I had to come up with a name for the site, the only term that popped into my mind was "Chronophlogiston", a shortening of the afore-mentioned term from Kraken. The term refers to a kind of magical fire created by a character in the book, which has the ability to destroy a person or a thing...not just in the present, but to destroy the very thread of its existence, so that all memory or influence of its existence is wiped out along with it. I decided to drop the "Kata" prefix, which means "down", or in this case "backwards" referring to the ability of the fire to burn all the way "backwards through time". So, one can then imply that "Chronophlogiston" is a combustant that can burn in both directions through time...in other words, remove all trace of a person or thing ever having existed and also remove all possibility of a person or thing ever coming into existence in the future. Not sure if this is a grammatically correct interpretation, but in the heat of the moment (pardon the pun) when having to come up with a website name, I didn't want to spend too much time over-analyzing Ancient Greek.
If someone were to ask me why I chose such a 'negative/ destructive' name for my website, I have no ready answer, except to say, "It sounded cool and this term was top of mind having just read an entertaining and highly inventive novel by one of my favourite fantasy authors, the great China Mieville".

As a post-script, I must add that when I mentioned this term to my wife, she pointed out that Robert Jordan had come up with a very similar concept called "Balefire", which was employed by Rand al'Thor and Moiraine to irrevocably kill some of the Forsaken in a way that they could not be resurrected. Not sure if Mr. Mieville's concept is influenced by "Balefire" or created independently.

Interestingly there is a Facebook page called "Rand Al'thor could Bale Fire Harry Potter's ass" !!! The page is described as follws - "This is dedicated to the awesomeness of Wheel of time. And the bashing of Harry "douchebag" Potter". It was active from 2007 to 2008.

Just checked out the Captain America, Super8, Thor, Pirates4, Battle:LA and Cowboys&Aliens, Transformers3 commercials from Super Bowl. The one I was most eagerly awaiting was the Capt. America trailer. It turned out to be the most disappointing, but that's a good thing. In recent years, too many blockbusters have given away all the plot points and money shots in their trailers. I am relieved that Marvel haven't done that with Capt. America.
The new Super8 trailer was as intriguing as the first teaser and frankly doesn't throw much extra light on the plot...which is also good.
The Thor trailer was more of the same...just developed the dynamic between Thor and Natalie Portman's character a bit more...although the brief snippet of dialogue between the two of them was surprisingly lame.
The Battle:LA tralier was also more of the same and frankly almost unnecessary except to keep the wheels of the hype machinery turning. The look of the movie is great and I really think Aaron Eckhart is going to shine in this role.
The Pirates4 trailer was the most pleasant surprise. It really looks like they are bringing the fun back into this franchise. Focus is back on Johnny Depp. Ian McShane as Blackbeard and Penelope Cruz's Angelica character look like really interesting additions.
The movie that has the studio execs worried is Cowboys & Aliens, going by the crowd reactions to the first teaser trailer. At least with the new trailer, they have been able to make it clear that this is an action-adventure film and not a comedy/ spoof. One of the 'money shots' of the alien flying machine was spectacular. 
The trailer I was least interested in watching was for Transformers:Dark of the Moon. The 2nd film had none of the humour and human element which made the first movie such fun to watch. The trailer for Transformers3 seems to be more of the same, in spite of claims to the contrary by the filmmakers. Got to wait and see how this turns out.
Another intriguing tralier was for Matt Damon's new film The Adjustment Bureau. I have a feeling this is going to be positioned as this summer's equivalent to Inception - a smart scifi thriller. Fans of the Bourne series know that Matt Damon does "man vs. establishment" very convincingly.
Haven't yet checked out the trailers for the animation films - KungFu Panda2, Rango and Rio. Will do that later.

Jan 6th, 2011. OK, I've officially published this website. Now gotta figure out what to write about. Let's start with the movies I have been watching the past few days. Just finished The Mosquito Coast this evening. It took me 3 viewing sessions spread over as many days to finish the film. Just wasn't in the mood for something so slow and meditative. Was relieved to read the reviews and see that I am not the only one who thought the movie was paced too slow...watching it was like trying to walk through molasses. I usually like Peter Weir movies, but not this one. It was also strange to see Helen Mirren play the role of such a submissive wife...so different from her other on-screen personas.

After dinner, I was surfing and came across an episode of The Walking Dead on Fox. Don't know which episode this was. Have been hearing about the show (anything produced by Gale Ann Hurd is worth watching). I watched one episode, but when the next one came along, I decided it was too much stress. Never cared much for Zombies anyway (same goes for vampires)...my bad luck that most of the post-apocalyptic and fantasy fiction coming out of Hollywood and the US TV stations these days centres around Zombies and Vampires. Why can't we have Werewolves or good old-fashioned nuclear holocaust or more alien invasion stories?

So, now I have picked up my laptop to start watching "A Place in the Sun", the 1951 drama starring Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. Obviously, I am not going to finish that movie tonight, since I am so busy writing this. Earlier today, I finished watching the 1947 film noir "Out of the Past", starring Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas...considered by many as one of the best films noir, featuring all the standard elements of the genre - the anti-hero trying to escape his past, the femme fatale, the innocent heroine coming to terms with the fact that the man she loves is not who she thought he was...; I read in Wikipedia that "Against All Odds" from 1984 is a remake of this film. I also felt it was thematically similar to David Cronenberg's Viggo Mortensen starrer "A History of Violence".

Been watching a lot of movies this entire week courtesy the Chinese New Year holidays. Included 2 Buster Keaton flicks, "Our Hospitality" from 1923 (this joins The Hunchback of Notre Dame as the joint oldest English language film I have watched) and Sherlock Jr. from 1924. Also watched my first ever W.C. Fields comedy, called "It's a Gift" from 1934. The above 3 films all had fantastic, intelligent sight gags...a step above the "pure slapstick" of Charlie Chaplin. Also watched the amusing "Topper" starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett about a high-living couple who die in a car accident and become ghosts unable to go up to heaven, as they haven't done any good deeds in their lives. The decide to 'improve' the life of a business acquaintance named Cosmo Topper, leading to various high jinks.

Tomorrow morning I will be up early (I hope) to check out all the Super Bowl commercials, especially the first trailer for Captain America and the new trailer for Super8.

First posting: Jan 6th, 2011. Just playing around with the weebly editor which popped up as an option on my chrome browser this evening. So, I've gone and created my own page.