Bend It Like Ronaldinho

Late night action is all set to take a new meaning as football widows the world over take a backseat while an estimated 30 billion people would keep their date with the idiot box.
It really doesn't matter whether one is a regular follower of premier league games between the likes of Arsenal,Real Madrid,Chelsea and Manchester United, but once every four years, one has to keep track of the progress of their favourite team in the world's biggest carnival,which in my case,as for most of the world,happens to be Brazil.

I mean it's as obvious as saying America has been screwed up in Iraq, or that Shiloh Jolie Pitt would grow up to be a bombshell.The whole country seems to play football for God's sake, and there's so much talent that the biggest challenge for them is not who to select but the other way round.

Ronaldo and Ronaldinho have,in true Brazilian style, transformed the game into an art,with seamless dribbles,dodges and passes that are as smooth as a baby's butt.As if they were not enough,Robinho,Adriano,Cicinho and Kaka further contribute towards a team that is as perfect as can be.It would be a sheer disaster if such overwhelming talent couldn't lift the cup.

A brief overview of the various groups:

Group A:
Germany,CostaRica,Poland,Ecuador

No doubt about who's going to top this group,almost everyone expects Germany to have a smooth sail to the next stage.Key players being their striker Michael Ballack,the legendry Oliver Kahn and the guy who's replaced him as the goalie....Jens Lehmann.Though whether they reach the finals is yet to be seen,but as they say,"Never underestimate the Germans!"


Group B:
England,Sweden,Paraguay,Trinidad



Again pretty much a 1-sided group....the English talent is most likely to emerge at the top.With stalwarts like David Beckham,the much talked about 20 yr old "injured" Wayne Rooney,Michael Owen,Aaron Lennon and John Terry.Also my 2nd favourites for the Cup.

Group C:
Argentina, Netherlands, Serbia, Ivory Coast

Though Argentina are the favourites here,Netherlands are close behind.Major talent here is Drogpa,Crespo,Messi the "New Maradona" and Marco Van Basten.

Group D:
Portugal,Angola,Mexico,Iran

Portugal and Mexico are said to have some real good talent, and Portugal even said to have serious chance at the finals.The main portugese talent lies with Deco and Cristiano Ronaldo.(Yea another lucky chum)

Group E:
Italy,Czech,Ghana,America

Italy remains the favourite here with Czech a close 2nd, and best Italian talent in Luca Toni,Fabio and Nesta.

Group F:
Brazil,Croatia,Australia,Japan

Do i have to say the words ?

Group G:
France,Switzerland,South Korea,Togo

It's France all the way with the star Arsenal striker Thierry Henry and '98 star Zinedine Zidane.

Group H:
Ukraine,Spain,Saudi Arabia,Tunisia

Though Spain is the favourite here,Ukraine are said to have a good chance in this round.Alonso and Villa form the major Spanish talent.



So that's about it. This promises to be a long month of good late night sporting action.My personal ranking:

Brazil
England
Germany
France
Spain
Argentina

6 6 6

Now this is supposed to be my take on 1 of my 2 most eagerly awaited movies from Hollywood in recent times. Both belong to my favourite cinematic genre i.e. Thrillers, both have their roots in biblical literature and both have aroused public curiosity in their own unique ways. The other one I wanted to write about was The DaVinci Code, but already so much has been said about it that not much is left to be written. It’s not that I didn’t like it, but when you’ve read the book it’s impossible not to make comparisons between the two, and one should understand that it’s indeed a hard job to do justice to a 3-400 paged book in a 2 hour movie. In the case of 'The Omen', however, the movie was made first and then the script was novelised by it's author, and i found the movie so engrossing that i did read that book later.

So this would be a review of the cult Hollywood 1976 horror flick ‘The Omen’, often quoted as the best work of Horror from Hollywood and my personal favourite Horror movie cutting way above The Exorcist and even The Ring, and whose remake is about to be launched globally on the day that is associated with the mark of the Devil – 06/06/06.

“…From the Eternal Sea he rises
Creating armies on either side
Turning man against his brother
‘Till man exists no more”

The plot is based on this prophecy from the Book of Revelation, which is believed to point to the birth of the Anti-Christ, the son of Satan, who’s branded with the number 666 – the mark of the Beast, and who would receive his powers directly from Satan, and unless he’s stopped he would threaten the very existence of mankind, a plot brilliantly exploited by the scriptwriter David Seltzer.
Well no need of spoiler warning now, since most people would have seen the original movie, and even if you haven’t and you read on, trust me the movie(at least the original) still has the power to send a chill down your spine.
Robert Thorn (played brilliantly by Gregory Peck in the original) is a senior American diplomat whose wife Katherine who’s already suffered 2 previous miscarriages, undergoes a painful delivery in which their newborn child dies. The hospital priest presents him with another child born that night whose mother he says died during childbirth, and compels Thorn to present this child as their own to Katherine, to avoid any trauma for her. The child is named “Damien”.
Life for the Thorn family seems perfect and Thorn is promoted as the American ambassador to Britain and they settle in a mansion near London.
But soon events take an eerie turn, first with the birthday celebrations of Damien at a party in their lawns, everyone seems to be enjoying the upbeat mood, suddenly someone is heard screaming out for the attention of Damien, and to everyone’s horror his nanny is standing outside a window of the house, and with a terrifyingly lunatic smile on her face she says “It's All For You”, and jumps to hang herself from a rope.
Soon a new nanny Mrs. Baylock introduces herself to the family, whose credentials seem impeccable and her demeanour kind and soft spoken, soon followed by a mysterious ferocious Rottweiler, both of whom maintain a constant vigil on the young child.
Another weird incident happens when his mother drives the young kid to a zoo, and as soon as they enter all animals get freaked out and go berserk.
Events start taking a nasty turn and soon Thorn is contacted by a Father Brennan, who claims that Damien is the son of the devil, born of an animal and bearing the mark of the beast, and the only key to stop him lies with an old man called Bugenhagen who lives in Jerusalem.
Thorn refuses to believe and as soon as he’s gone, Father Brennan is impaled in a freak “accident” by a cross struck down by lightning.
Further down Damien becomes wildly hysterical when they try to take him for church, and then more and more people around him start dying in mysterious circumstances, arousing suspicion in his already scared mother.
Thorn is again contacted by a British photographer called Jennings this time, who shows him pattern of mysterious blurred pictures of all people who recently died, claiming this to be a clue to something much more horrendous.
They both now investigate the claim by Brennan of his real child being murdered by the hospital staff and buried in a cemetery, where they encounter a vicious attack by a pack of guarding dogs.

Does Damien succeed under the protection of the evil nanny and his mysterious guards ?

What happens to Katherine who has begun to openly doubt the origins of this child. ( Her end is among the most shocking scenes.)

Would Thorn and Jennings be able to contact Bugenhagen in Jerusalem and bring the evil to an end before it’s too late ?

Hehe …. this might sound like your average popcorn thriller, but trust me, whether or not you know it already, the movie (at least the original) was among the best horrors of all times. No ugly faced blood sucking ghosts, only a terrifying background music and the sheer impact of a story well told.

According to the the trivia by IMDB, there were a lot of freak accidents involved with the caste and crew while shooting for the original movie:

“Gregory Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer took separate planes to the UK...yet BOTH planes were struck by lightning. While producer 'Harvey Bernard' was in Rome, lightning just missed him. Rottweilers hired for the film attacked their trainers. A hotel at which director Richard Donner was staying got bombed by the IRA; he was also struck by a car. After Peck cancelled another flight, to Israel, the plane he would have chartered crashed...killing all on board. On day one of the shoot, several principal members of the crew survived a head-on car crash. The jinx appeared to persist well into post-production... when special effects artist John Richardson was injured and his girlfriend beheaded in an accident on the set of a movie.”

The spooky incidents seem to have followed into the production of the new movie as well. According to their official website, some prints of the movie were lost due to unexplained technical glitches, the visual affects supervisor when measuring a special shot realised that his meter read 666; a measurement it had never given before, one of the lights on the sets exploded mysteriously while shooting, then on Oct 6th (note the #) the whole crew came down with food poisoning, though no bacteria was found in the food on later tests, and the spookiest being when a still photographer developed a series of photographs, he found some images of the actor playing Father Brennan blurred with movements striking downwards, like a javelin.

Real spook or marketing gimmicks ? You never know, but one thing is for sure – come 06/06/06 and you get another opportunity to see some quality horror from Hollywood, and scare the hell out of yourself!

Related Links:

The Omen(2006) Website

The Omen Chronicles (Website for entire series)


Download the awesome Trailers from these links:(Right click and Save Target As)

Trailer 1 - Rarest of the rare trailer of the original 1976 movie (mov,23.69 MB)

Trailer 2 - 2006 -Damien alone in a swing(windows asf,8.41 MB)


Trailer 3 - 2006 - Scenes from the new movie(mov,5.91 MB)