My mom, the greatest film critic ever.

Hello… Is this mike working? Is there a rants tag in the VuTales blog system?

Excellent. Buckle your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen, because you're in for a long ride.

Now, I had just watched Slumdog Millionaire earlier this week, and thought it an interesting movie. If any movie could be forgiven for pipping the Dark Knight (which DIDN'T GET NOMINATED, a crime tantamount to murder), it was this movie. Powerful, gripping and a rather good insight into pre-development India, my rage at the Dark Knight was somewhat defused after watching this movie.

So imagine my rather great shock when my mom thought it civil to ask me over breakfast today what movie I had watched this week, and I replied, "Slumdog Millionaire". Her reply floored me.

"Oh, it was crap."

I was stunned. I asked her whether or not she had watched the movie. Her response?

"I don't need to watch the movie to know it wasn't good."

This just gets better and better, doesn't it? My mother, the greatest film critic in the world. Up till now, I had no idea. She must have been the fastest film critic ever, since she doesn't need to watch the movie first. See the title, deliver one word opinions such as "Bad. Crap." and move on.

Trying to remain coherent, I told her my opinion of it, and the fact that it probably deserved Best Picture ahead of the Dark Knight. If her reply just now floored me, this one tied an anchor to me and dumped me in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.

"No lah, the Dark Knight was juvenile."

Juvenile. JUVENILE? Right, I can take Slumdog Millionaire being passed off as crap. But the Dark Knight. THE DARK KNIGHT IS JUVENILE?

IT'S OFFICIAL. WAR IS DECLARED.

Voice slightly shaking, I asked my mom why.

"It's based on a cartoon, that's why!"

I wanted to curl up in a corner. I wanted to beat my mom with the biggest stick I could find. I wanted to curl up into a corner AND beat my mom with a stick. Wait, that doesn't make sense. See, I'm still incoherent with rage. RAGE.

My mother. My dear old mother has the audacity to live under the same roof as one of the bigger fans of Batman (if not one of the biggest) and not know what originated from what?

And she thinks Dark Knight is juvenile. To borrow a phrase from that Guy with the GLasses, "KIDS FROM EGYPT KNOW THE DARK KNIGHT WAS NOT JUVENILE!"

"Did you watch either of them?"

"Please la. Don't need to watch them. Hear can already."

I then expressed my not so humble opinion that clearly we must have been living in parallel universes, because SLumdog won Best Picture in the Oscars and the Dark Knight has drawn widespread praise as probably (read: definitely) the best Batman movie ever.

I also dared her to name a good movie, and to this point in time, she has yet to give a satisfactory response. (Btw, she's watched Titanic four times and some other romance movies TWICE. hinthint.)

And she's watched neither. I'm pissed. The only opinion I'll ever offer to a movie I haven't watched is "I didn't watch it, sorry." Period. Full stop.

It's like not reading LOTR and condemning it as crap. (If one more person tells me they've watched LOTR when I ask them if they've READ it, I will strangle them. After filleting.) Well okay, I've never read Twilight, not fully anyway. But I've read enough of the stupid quotes from the book "His breath made my mouth water!" to say it sucks, and with enough justification. And the whole non-retarded English-reading community will agree with me.

Stephanie Meyer may have been creative (sliiiightly) plot-wise, but she can't do exaggerations worth a damn.

A little debating always wakes up the mind, beautifully, though. I went from semi-concussed (try sleeping only three hours) to full-blown debating mood in about five seconds.

Ah well, this will be my first blog on the new site. If anyone wants to drop a comment, like this or hunt down my mom with chainsaws, please feel free.

Cheers,
Imppala