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Kill Bill, Vol I

Review By Gokhra

CAST
The Bride: Uma Thurman/ Bill: David Carradine/ Elle Driver: Daryl Hannah/ Budd: Michael Madsen /Vernita Green: Vivica A. Fox/ O-Ren Ishii: Lucy Liu/Hattori Hanzo: Sonny Chiba/ Alburt (Da Moe): Michael Jai White / Pai Mei (Crazy 88 Fighter): Chia Hui Liu/ Go Go Yubari: Chiaki Kuriyama/ Sofie Fatale: Julkie Dreyfus/ Organ Player: Samuel L. Jackson

Kill Bill is Quentin Tarantinos latest exploitation of his arsenal of cinematic masterpieces. It is an action film with one major difference from all other movies. All of the major characters except Bill are women, the men having been emasculated right out of the picture. Well, at least in this first part.

Story:
The story is short enough to be written on the corner of a napkin. In fact that may have been what the writers done. It is about one woman's revenge for brutality against her. Uma Thuran plays The Bride. Why the Bride? It's because that's exactly what she was form the start of the movie. The brief, startling opening is a close-up of the Bride after she's been brutally assaulted on her wedding day. The story is more about how it is told rather than an actual storyline.

The intro is shot in black and white. It shows Bill killing off all the guests of her wedding along with her bridegroom. She is left for dead and wakes up after a 4-year coma by a mosquito's buzz. That was an interesting detail.

Not much is revealed about the lead character. Even her actual name is bleeped out repeatedly by what's made to sound like malfunctioning sound equipment. All you can infer form the movie is that the Bride used to be a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (snake nickname: Black Mamba). As an agent she was somehow intimately involved with ringleader Bill (David Carradine) who instigated the killing. Your guess is as good as any as to why Bill is doing al the killing.

When she awakens, the Bride writes out a list of her five betrayers and sets out to cross them off one by one, ending with Bill. So the question is never what she's going to do but rather how.

The movie is interspersed with a touch of humour and a lot of boastful one liners. Take for example when The Bride arrives in Tokyo, she stops off to obtain a sword from Hattori Hanzo who has been retired for years and is done with killing. He manufactures a sword for her and tells her "This my finest sword. If in your journey you should encounter God, God will be cut."

An unusual part of the movie centres around an extended sequence in anime which is set in Tokyo and supplies the history of O-Ren. It deals with a Mafia kingpin's paedophilia.

The movie ends with a massive sword battle that sends fountains of red spraying through a Japanese nightclub and a stunning shot in which the carnage-filled nightclub's doors open to reveal a tranquil winter garden.
The story revolves around crossing off five names from a hit list, and the lead character gets to only two of them leaving you wondering what will happen with the rest of the three.

The movie has a stunning fight sequences with Uma Thrumans lanky frame perfectly suited for the kicks. Enjoy the movie with complete suspension of belief.


Malaysian Superstar

Michelle Yeoh

Michelle's background
Born on August 6, 1962, in the mining town of Ipoh, in Western Malaysia, Yeoh's ethnically Chinese parents taught her Malay and English well before she learned Cantonese. She began ballet dancing at the age of four, and, inspired by "Fame" (1980), she enrolled in England's Royal Academy of Dance, where she eventually earned a BA. Though a back injury ended her career as a ballerina, she returned to her home country to be crowned Miss Malaysia of 1983. From there, she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan, which caught the attention of a fledgling film production company called D&B Films.

Her rise to fame
Taking the stage name Michelle Khan, she acted in bit parts in a number of forgettable films until her breakout role in the girls-with-guns action comedy "Yes, Madam!" (1985), alongside noted kung fu femme fatal Cynthia Rothrock. Though she did not know any martial arts before signing on to the film, Yeoh reportedly spent nine hours a day in the gym, working out and learning to take a punch. She had come a long way from the Royal Academy of Dance. Within the first five minutes of Madam, Yeoh emasculates a flasher and wastes a quartet of thieves. Yeoh immediately became one of Hong Kong's biggest female action stars and was soon appearing in films at a dizzying rate. Always performing her own stunts, she teamed up again with Rothrock in the kung fu fest Royal Warriors (1986), and she starred in a violent 'Thomas Crown Affair' remake 'Easy Money' (1987). While making the Indiana Jones-style action epic 'Magnificent Warriors' (1987), she got engaged to department store tycoon and studio head Dickson Poon (the D in D&B Films). Taking the lead of earlier martial arts divas such as Angela Mao, Yeoh retired from the movie biz in 1988 and retreated to a life of quiet domesticity. It didn't last long. The marriage was not a happy one (the Hong Kong press reported (falsely it turns out) that Poon suffered two broken ribs after a well-placed kick) and it ended in divorce in 1992.

The comeback
Yeoh's career came roaring back after her show-stopping performance in Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992), where she matched the notoriously fearless Jackie Chan stunt for jaw-dropping stunt. At the beginning of the shoot, Chan was sceptical as to whether women could fight, preferring them to look pretty and to sit on the sidelines. By the end of the film, Chan was legitimately concerned that he might be upstaged. Yeoh's hair-raising high-speed motorcycle jump onto a moving train (she learned how to drive the motorbike the day before the stunt) was bested only by Chan's death-defying leap from a minaret to an airborne rope ladder hanging from a helicopter hundreds of feet above Kuala Lumpur.

Action superstar
The film was a massive success, making Yeoh the highest paid actress in Asia. Now being billed as Michelle Yeoh, she starred in a string of popular action flicks, including 'Heroic Trio' (1992) opposite Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui, 'Tai Chi Master' (1993) along with kung fu phenom Jet Li, and 'Wing Chun' (1994). Her career of high-flying stunts resulted in many a dislocated shoulder and broken rib, but in 1995, while shooting Ann Hui's Ah Kam, Yeoh managed to seriously injure herself. She misjudged a jump off an 18-foot wall (an easy stunt according to her) and landed on her head, cracking a vertebra. Yeoh was put in traction, and it was feared that she would never walk again. Yet within a month, she was back on the set as if nothing happened.

Success in the US
The American release of Supercop caught the eyes of western producers, and soon she was cast opposite Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond-epic 'Tomorrow Never Dies' (1997). Once again, Yeoh's natural charisma, along with her effortless ability to dispatch bands of baddies, threatened to outclass the male lead. That same year, Yeoh was named one of People magazine's 50 sexiest people of the year. Back in Hong Kong, Yeoh received accolades not for her kung fu abilities but for her acting skills in her role as Soong Ai-ling in the widely praised historical melodrama 'The Soong Sisters' (1997).

Worldwide superstar
Michelle then went on to star in the martial arts epic, 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000). It became the highest grossing foreign film of all time by overtaking "Life is Beautiful". The film was a massive success winning many awards including 4 Oscars making Michelle a worldwide superstar.

Quote: "The most important thing is that you have really good friends and family, and when you go back to them, it's like 'what?' You carry on as who you are." -Michelle Yeoh

Nickname: Choo
Languages: Cantonese, Malay, English,
some Mandarin
Personal Information
· Date of Birth: August 6, 1962
· Place of Birth: Ipoh, Perak (Malaysia)
· Nationality: Malaysian
· Current Residence: Hong Kong
· Hair Colour: Black/Dark Brown
· Height: 5' 3" (162cm)
· Weight: 100lbs (47kg)
· Religion: Buddhism
· Chinese Zodiac: Tiger
· Astrological Sign: Leo
Professional Achievements
· Occupation: Actress, Producer (Mythical
Films)
· Martial Arts: Tai Chi and improvised
kicking style
· Education: BA in Dance, Minored in
Drama at the Royal Academy of Dance in
London
· Awards Won: Miss Malaysia in 1983,
1997 People Magazine's 50 Most
Beautiful People, 2001 BT Ethnic
Multicultural Media Awards Best Actress
(Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), 2001
ShoWest International Star or the Year


The Eclipse

By- Synergie

The dusty ground was bright, reflecting light from the sun above. Squinting, Jack scanned the curved horizon. There: a smooth spot in the distance. "Perfect," he thought as he bounded toward it, bunny-hopping Apollo-style.

"OK, Jack," the radio crackled after a while. "You better stop now and get ready. The eclipse starts in a few minutes."

"Dad... I know what I'm doing," he radioed back, his 14-year-old voice gruff. To prove it, he took one more hop--then stopped. Jack didn't want to miss anything.

Grunting, he reached behind his back--not so easy in a pressurized space suit--and tugged at some Velcro straps. A little fiddling and he had it: his great-grandfather's camping chair. Nearly 100 years old, made of green canvas and aluminum tubes, Jack's family treasured the old thing.

Jack pressed the chair into the moondust, maneuvered around and wriggled the bottom of his space suit between the narrow armrests. A button on his glove, pressed, sent an electrical current surging through his visor, which darkened like welding glasses. "I love these advanced materials," he grinned. Staring straight up at the sun, his eyes felt good.

For the next hour he patiently waited, watching the sun's disk glide behind something big and dark: Earth. From the moon, Earth looked three and a half times wider than the sun. Sometimes Earth was amazingly bright, blue and cloudy-white.

Today, though, the planet's night side was facing moonward.

Finally, the sun vanished. This is what he had been waiting for.... Lit from behind, Earth's atmosphere began to glow around the edges, ringing the dark planet with all the colors of a sunset. And from there sprung the Sun's corona: pale white, sticking out like Jack's sister's hair when she rubbed her stockinged feet on the carpet back in the lunar habitat.

Jack cleared his visor to enjoy the view.

The ground around him wasn't bright any more. It was dim and deep red--aglow with sunlight filtered through the edge of Earth's atmosphere. All at once every sunset on Earth was shining down on Jack.

"I bet he would love this," said Jack. He was thinking of his great-grandfather, Don Pettit, the science officer of the first International Space Station. Don had loved to watch sunsets and the red edge of Earth's atmosphere from orbit. When his tour of duty in space was done, he used to sit in this old chair by the campfire and tell his boys all about it, or so Jack's dad claimed.

The radio crackled again: "Jack, are you seeing this?"

"I sure am, dad, thanks." He completely forgot to be gruff.

The astronomy in this story is real. The rest is science fiction--at least for now.

One day, lunar colonists will stride outdoors to enjoy such eclipses. They happen about twice a year whenever Earth passes directly between the sun and moon. Our planet's shadow darkens the moon, while sunlight filtering through the edge of our atmosphere turns it red.

How dark and red the moon appears during that interval depends on what's floating in Earth's atmosphere. Dust storms and volcanic eruptions can fill the air with particles that redden sunsets and eclipsed moons alike. Sometimes the moon is so dark it's nearly invisible. Other times it's a lovely shade of bright copper.

Naturally, eclipses are not visible from the Moon, but that's only because there's no one there to see it ... not yet.


Chevy Sledgehammer

world's fastest car

The formula1 cars are the fastest racing cars in the racetrack. But outside the racetrack there is a car, which is the fastest car in this modern era. Yes, I'm talking about the Chevy Corvette Callaway Sledgehammer, the fastest car in the world. To some people it seems that the fastest car in the world is Bugatti EB 16-4 Veyron 2003 model. Indeed the EB 16-4 Veyron is one of the fastest cars around. It's not the fastest one. This car is currently the 2nd fastest in the world. And this Bugatti is the production one which is almost like the prototype EB 16-4 2002.

Chevrolet is the top car manufacturer company in USA and this company always attracted people by creating innovative designs like Corvette Z06 and Camaro SSR. Last year Chevy Corvette celebrated their 50th anniversary by lunching all new Corvette Coupe, Corvette Z06 & Camaro SSR Convertible. Z06 is the best Corvette ever made by the Chevy and to buy one it will cost around US$56,400 & almost Tk40, 00,000 (excluding tax & vat) in Bangladesh. This car has 202 mph (limited) top speed, which earned itself the nickname of 'super car'. Chevy knows very well what a car enthusiast wants and Chevrolet designed their cars exactly that way throughout the last century.

As an advanced design of the super car Z06 the Corvette Callaway Sledgehammer is the fastest V8 engine designed car with a massive top speed of 254.7 mph (409.9 kmph) with a beautiful traction control. Manufactured in the year of 1988 it's amazing to believe that this Callaway Sledgehammer is leading the world's fastest cars' list for the last 15 years. This fifteen feet car has a gigantic 48 Valve, V8 Twin-Turbo engine that makes it to go 0-60 mph within 3.9 sec. With a speed limit chip this car can easily do 250 mph and that is really fast. Standing in 9.5-inch wide tyre and 17-inch classic alloy this front engine RWD car has better traction control. Its engine has a massive 880.0 bhp @ 6250-rpm power and the displacement of the car is 5733 cc. The 6-speed manual transmission is the normal design like other cars but it has a different taste to change the gear ratio.

This super car exists only one in the world and this one stand in Chevrolet Callaway main office in United States. Although the Chevrolet says that if any customer wants to buy this car it will cost to build a new one almost US$4,00,000 & almost Tk240, 00,000. But within these 15 years there has not been a single customer. Upsetting isn't it?

After all this I believe no one is going to say that there is an even faster car in the world. By the time this article is published it may so happen that any car manufacturing company may produce swifter car but the actual fact is in this advanced world automobile companies are now thinking about more advancement in aerodynamic system for swift acceleration, more advancement in design for safety and better traction control. There are fewer comparisons regarding the top speed, luxury or price in this modern age where these are seen as secondary objective.

Ps: Information and data - supercars.net

Bangla rock downloads

Mohammad Hammad Ali

Hello folks ! Once again, I am here to let you know about another Bangladeshi website that you might like to check out. It seems that new deshi websites don't come forth at the same pace at which I exhaust the ones that already exist. So I am afraid there won't be too many to write about today. However, I will mention one really cool website that I happened to come across over the last few days.

www.amarthikana.com is using a formula that so many other Bengali websites have tried and found to be successful-- offering download of Bengali songs as well as all the latest info on popular Bengali bands and solo artists. It can be difficult for any one site to collect all the songs that are coming out every now and then. So if you want to download songs, you will often have to browse through a lot of sites before you get the particular song that you are looking for, which is why it is always good to have quite a number of websites that offer this facility. This website has a very good collection of songs and is among the few websites I have seen that offer songs not only by the big names but also by bands that are not so well-known yet. Besides rock music, they also offer download of modern Bengali songs, folk songs and remix, and by remix I don't mean the Hindi pop variety. This is the only site I have seen so far that actually offers remix of folk songs by DJs in our own country.

However, several other sites now offer song downloads, and that alone would never have been enough to keep the rankings for this site high. So they do offer a lot more than that. They have a software section where they are supposed to allow download of some commonly used software. This is so that users can find some of the more useful software at one address and don't have to go through all the hassle of browsing through several websites before they can fine the software or the version that they are looking for. I did give the software section a try. Unfortunately the links did not seem work properly. Either the software download facility is not yet ready, in which case they should have had a notice saying so, or the links have not been coordinated properly, which is something that they should to try and take care of as soon as possible I hope they take note of this problem and fix it at the earliest.

They also have chat rooms in this site. You just have to register and then you can login to the chat window. I haven't tried their chat facilities, mainly because I don't really like chatting so much, but the pages have a very cool do and I suggest that you give the chat room a try. The chat window comes in a light version (without java script) and a full version.

One aspect of this website that really makes it unique is the literature section. This is where they put up stories and poems in Bengali and English. Even the visitors are free to submit samples of their own literary endeavors. Due to lack of material, this section has not started its operation as yet. Which reminds me of a very important thing. Usually, if any section of the site is not under operation, the webmaster should put up banners saying so. Otherwise it can cause a lot of hassle for the visitors. If that is not the case, that is if the sections are ready but the links are broken, then their should be a way for the visitors to inform the webmaster of their complaints, so that these problems can be taken care of. It can get really annoying when you click on one link after another only to see the same old error message over and over again. By the way, you can also register for an e mail account from this site.

That was all about what sort of facilities this site offers, as well as some of the problems that should be taken care of. One thing I would like to mention with extra emphasis is the design and layout of this site. There might be several other sites that offer the same facilities, but I have seen few other Bangladeshi websites with the cool design and color selection that this site can boast of. It has some of the best transition effects I have ever seen in any site, and by that I mean not only Bangladeshi websites. While these effects may cause greater loading time, they certainly are a treat to the eyes. After all, that is the true idea behind a website. Not only does it have to be useful, but it should also present the material in a well-decorated manner, and this site lives up to those standards. Once the few problems with the broken links have been taken care of , this site might well out turn out to be the best Bangladeshi website I have ever used.


Waltzing the Web

There are some things in human nature that can't be explained (hmmm… now that was a classy quote!). Like the fact that the emergence of the month of Ramadan somehow sets me to peace. It's all starts actually just before Sabe-barat. People seem to become so nice, pleasant and friendly. Perhaps it's the reason that during Ramadan we are a extra bit precautious of what we say and do. Pity that it lasts only a month.

It's a pity too, that some people don't know that 'Yahoo! Messenger' can be downloaded for free from the net. Just go to the yahoo.com site and look at the upper right-hand corner for the icons that are labeled mail, messenger, etc. Click on the icon labeled messenger and the rest will be a piece of cake. It may come to some use with msn having decided to close down its chatrooms.

Well, for quite a few issues now, I haven't given addresses that swagger free software. To tell you the truth, there aren't actually very many worthwhile gratis software left to mention. But the effort must go on:

20/20 (www.hotfreeware.com)
Image editors aren't actually what you may call cheap. Well, in our country this may not be wholly true, but nothing compares to f-r-e-e-e-e! This program lets you perform anything you would expect from an image editor- cropping, resizing and converting as well as a good number of filters and effects.

Easy Password Manager (www.passwordmanager.co.uk)
Trying to remember all of the passwords you set up for the sites you use can be a major pain in the neck. This program lets you store them all in a convenient, secure location. It also contains a online form filler as a bonus.

K-Meleon (http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net)
If you find yourself in a hurry and need to maneuver through the web as fast as possible, then this browser is your savior. It may not have much in the way of spare features, but that is perhaps what gives it the extra hype of speed.

Browser Pro (www.browserpro.com)
Checking out news sites often leaves you browning in a sea of unwanted information. This program gives you the main section of popular pages, including headlines, pictures and content. What you won't see is banner ads and undesirable menus cropping up. In essence, it cuts the c#@p- which surely can't be at all bad.

Shockwave/ Flash Player (www.macromedia.com)
This player doesn't do much other than play Flash files. But flash is still the best way for Web Gurus to place rich multimedia contents on their site, which makes a Flash player almost essential.

Any questions, comments, queries, complaints can be directly mailed to: [email protected]

Since the season is in change, watch out for virus attacks and have a good week.


 
 

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