Pirates, gangs and enigmas

Spending It

A look at what's playing in the halls reveals that viewing options are far better than they were a few weeks ago "" and that's even without counting the ongoing film festival.

On the mainstream front, there are two epic films (both over two-and-a-half hours in length) with gloriously hammy performances by their lead actor.

That's where the similarity ends though. Pirates of the Caribbean is a swashbuckler with modern-day sensibilities, best exemplified by Johnny Depp's hilarious, deliberately over-the-top turn as the swaggering Captain Sparrow.

It's a defiantly entertaining movie, full of the genre's many staples: swordfights punctuated by repartee, damsels in distress and leering, yellow-toothed pirates.

And holding it all together is Depp, tongue firmly in cheek, making sure that the film never takes itself too seriously.

An epic of a wholly different kind is Martin Scorsese's latest, Gangs of New York, a multi-Oscar nominee that has finally made it to our screens a year after its US release.

The scenery-chewing performance in this one comes from veteran Daniel Day-Lewis "" as Bill the Butcher, leader of one of the many gangs that battle for supremacy in a primitive, even barbaric, New York, circa 1840.

Leonardo Dicaprio plays Amsterdam, the son of one of the Butcher's victims, who returns years later for revenge.

Yes, that script does read like one of Manmohan Desai's more melodramatic ventures.

But ignore the story and concentrate instead on the Scorsese trademarks: haunting visuals, richly drawn out characters and brilliantly shot bursts of violence that will have you reeling in your seats. (Also, incidentally, ignore all those pseuds who tell you this isn't a patch on the director's past classics, like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. It's better than most of the other movies we'll get to see this year).

To crown it all, there's a sleeper too: the very enjoyable Down With Love, starring Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger.

This is a take-off on the Rock Hudson-Doris Day comedies that were popular in the late 1950s, though it never quite makes up its mind whether it wants to be a homage or a spoof.

Still, it's eminently watchable on its own terms, with a couple of brilliant, inventive sequences "" like Zellweger's five-minute expository monologue at the end, which plays like something out of James Joyce.

About the much-publicised Adam Sandler-Jack Nicholson starrer Anger Management, the less said the better. Our desi icon Amitabh Bachchan has been savaged for his recent choice of film roles, but what about the revered Nicholson?

His turn as an anger management counsellor who takes over poor Adam Sandler's life is unlikely to be remembered as a career highlight.

This is a shabby, lazily made comedy with one admittedly delightful scene "" Nicholson and Sandler singing "I'm so Pretty" from West Side Story on a jammed flyway. But the rest is depressingly humdrum.

A rather lacklustre month for music lovers [and reviewers!] with not much to choose from. Yes, Enigma are back with their latest album, Voyageur.

For followers of their brand of ambient electronica, the CD comes with a video CD featuring five psychedelic music videos, most of which have not made their way to the music channels so far.

Whether Enigma manage to hold on to their own today, when lounge brands like Budhha Bar and Karunesh are the newest rage, remains to be seen.

But rest assured, fashion show choreographers and documentary film makers will find enough 'inspiration' for their next production.

Iron Maiden's Dance of Death greets you with terrible artwork on the cover [understandably no one stepped forward to claim credit in the listings] and has lyrics like "....I ran like hell faster than the wind but behind I did not glance..one thing that I did not dare was to look just straight ahead...." from the title song.

But then again, who went looking for logical consistency from heavy metal icons like Maiden who gave us classics like "Revelation". Hardcore acid rock lovers might swallow even this dose of mayhem, but we didn't.