Good Year
Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe pair again, for a gentle stroll. A mechanical man always after money gets to spend a week in a French chateau - after discovering the joy of a deliberate country life and the prospect of a budding love he ditches his high-speed London life. A feel good movie that really feels good at the end.
Hot Fuzz
The IMDb rank for this movie misled me - a slim plot and slapstick comedy can only help a screenplay so much. A gang of villains disguised as innocuous villagers try to clean up miscreants (read: kill em all) so that they consistently receive the best village award. This movie is about 1 hour long. Recommended for insomniacs.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I curse myself for making an entry for this movie in the Mini Review category. A magnificent love story without any cliches at all. A shy and introvert Jim Carrey (think about that for a couple of seconds) and the crazy out-going Kate Winslet fall in love, fight, break-up and then .... The genius of Charlie Kauffman's screenplay is in his daring originality.
The Pianist
A story that must have been very personal for Roman Polanski, the Polish director who escaped the Nazi camps. The journey of a pianist through the tough years of occupation told with deceptive simplicity without any manipulation. Adrien Brody in the lead role adorns the story with a magnificent performance.
Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe pair again, for a gentle stroll. A mechanical man always after money gets to spend a week in a French chateau - after discovering the joy of a deliberate country life and the prospect of a budding love he ditches his high-speed London life. A feel good movie that really feels good at the end.
Hot Fuzz
The IMDb rank for this movie misled me - a slim plot and slapstick comedy can only help a screenplay so much. A gang of villains disguised as innocuous villagers try to clean up miscreants (read: kill em all) so that they consistently receive the best village award. This movie is about 1 hour long. Recommended for insomniacs.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
I curse myself for making an entry for this movie in the Mini Review category. A magnificent love story without any cliches at all. A shy and introvert Jim Carrey (think about that for a couple of seconds) and the crazy out-going Kate Winslet fall in love, fight, break-up and then .... The genius of Charlie Kauffman's screenplay is in his daring originality.
The Pianist
A story that must have been very personal for Roman Polanski, the Polish director who escaped the Nazi camps. The journey of a pianist through the tough years of occupation told with deceptive simplicity without any manipulation. Adrien Brody in the lead role adorns the story with a magnificent performance.
Labels: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Good Year, Hot Fuzz, Mini Reviews, Pianist
Final Destination 3
This is the point: A young woman has a vision that the roller coaster that she has just boarded is about to crash; makes a scene and gets out with a handful of others. Those who escape the ride (yes, it crashes!) die one after another in a pattern captured through a series of photographs. See this movie only if you're drunk.
Die Hard 4
This is classic action stuff. A frustrated cyber-security guy cripples the national security and routine functioning by hacking into every governmental system. McClane (Bruce Willis) with the help of a whiz kid bring him to knees amidst bombastic crashes. Doesn't generate enough adrenalin and some lines make you chuckle.
Salo
This movie was banned in a few European countries (think about that for a second). The dehumanizing nature of human beings takes the form of extravagant sexual torture. With a flimsy story, ludicrous screenplay, bad acting and heavy nudity, some people call it art but I find it nothing more than instantly disposable trash.
Cinema Paradiso
A typical European feel-good movie. An uncommon friendship between a young boy and an old man, a cinema theatre that plays a touching role, a tender love story that ends in a tragedy - all for the price of one ticket. The Italian version contains an extra 40 minutes which develops the protagonist as an adult making his character arc complete.
This is the point: A young woman has a vision that the roller coaster that she has just boarded is about to crash; makes a scene and gets out with a handful of others. Those who escape the ride (yes, it crashes!) die one after another in a pattern captured through a series of photographs. See this movie only if you're drunk.
Die Hard 4
This is classic action stuff. A frustrated cyber-security guy cripples the national security and routine functioning by hacking into every governmental system. McClane (Bruce Willis) with the help of a whiz kid bring him to knees amidst bombastic crashes. Doesn't generate enough adrenalin and some lines make you chuckle.
Salo
This movie was banned in a few European countries (think about that for a second). The dehumanizing nature of human beings takes the form of extravagant sexual torture. With a flimsy story, ludicrous screenplay, bad acting and heavy nudity, some people call it art but I find it nothing more than instantly disposable trash.
Cinema Paradiso
A typical European feel-good movie. An uncommon friendship between a young boy and an old man, a cinema theatre that plays a touching role, a tender love story that ends in a tragedy - all for the price of one ticket. The Italian version contains an extra 40 minutes which develops the protagonist as an adult making his character arc complete.
Labels: Cinema Paradiso, Die Hard, Final Destination, Mini Reviews, Salo
Hazaaron Khwashein Aisi
The title means 'a thousand such dreams' and it comes in a song along with the line 'the mind has gone insane'. This is a movie about the political/caste tumult in the 70s which made the young blood to want to change the world. Two guys from college branch out - one becomes a fixer for politians and the other goes to Bihar to revolutionize the social system. Before long, they both know that they're unhappy with the way they conduct their lives and realize that they have to pay for their wishful thinking. Sudhir Mishra's fluent direction and a scintillating performance by the debutante Chitrangda Singh are the dazzling jewels of this crown.
Shooter
A classic story where the big brother sets up a pawn piece and the pawn comes back resoundingly to teach a lesson. Swagger, a retired sniper is asked by the FBI to do a job which involves an assasination plan and after the execution, he is promptly set up. When he is chased, he outruns them, get behind them and kills them. The novel by Stephen Hunter (one of the two film critics to win a Pulitzer) is a well-above-average thriller and this movie upon which it is based is a just-above-average thriller. Mark Wahlberg is quite solid at the top and the music holds the movie.
Pulp Fiction
There are interesting things to discover on repeated viewings of any great movie, like this one. But more than the joy of such discoveries, it is the sheer pleasure of listening to those dialogues that keeps offering invitations to the audience. Circular screenplay dealing with seemingly separate stories intersecting at interesting points have been tried many times after this movie, but this is the one they talk about. The restaurant robbery at the beginning and the end is one of the many statements on executing with style. The confrontation between the mobster Wallace and the boxer Butch is a cool way to twist things around.
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Seeing this movie after more than a dozen years of my first viewing made me realize that this is a proper kids' movie - meaning that adults can smirk at the thought of how kids will enjoy this movie forgiving some of the bad acting and poor script. A scientist invents a machine that can shrink objects to abnormal levels; his kids and his neighbours' kids fall under the focus of that machine and they're shrunk and forbidden to the backyard. A chronicle of their journey back to the house and the travails of their parents looking for them with a few sprinkles of family values and love - you have a safe Disney movie.
The title means 'a thousand such dreams' and it comes in a song along with the line 'the mind has gone insane'. This is a movie about the political/caste tumult in the 70s which made the young blood to want to change the world. Two guys from college branch out - one becomes a fixer for politians and the other goes to Bihar to revolutionize the social system. Before long, they both know that they're unhappy with the way they conduct their lives and realize that they have to pay for their wishful thinking. Sudhir Mishra's fluent direction and a scintillating performance by the debutante Chitrangda Singh are the dazzling jewels of this crown.
Shooter
A classic story where the big brother sets up a pawn piece and the pawn comes back resoundingly to teach a lesson. Swagger, a retired sniper is asked by the FBI to do a job which involves an assasination plan and after the execution, he is promptly set up. When he is chased, he outruns them, get behind them and kills them. The novel by Stephen Hunter (one of the two film critics to win a Pulitzer) is a well-above-average thriller and this movie upon which it is based is a just-above-average thriller. Mark Wahlberg is quite solid at the top and the music holds the movie.
Pulp Fiction
There are interesting things to discover on repeated viewings of any great movie, like this one. But more than the joy of such discoveries, it is the sheer pleasure of listening to those dialogues that keeps offering invitations to the audience. Circular screenplay dealing with seemingly separate stories intersecting at interesting points have been tried many times after this movie, but this is the one they talk about. The restaurant robbery at the beginning and the end is one of the many statements on executing with style. The confrontation between the mobster Wallace and the boxer Butch is a cool way to twist things around.
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Seeing this movie after more than a dozen years of my first viewing made me realize that this is a proper kids' movie - meaning that adults can smirk at the thought of how kids will enjoy this movie forgiving some of the bad acting and poor script. A scientist invents a machine that can shrink objects to abnormal levels; his kids and his neighbours' kids fall under the focus of that machine and they're shrunk and forbidden to the backyard. A chronicle of their journey back to the house and the travails of their parents looking for them with a few sprinkles of family values and love - you have a safe Disney movie.
Labels: Hazaaron Khwashein Aisi, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, Mini Reviews, Pulp Fiction, Shooter
Pink Panther
I haven't seen the original Peter Sellers' versions. But it definitely can't have been as bad as the new Steve Martin's portrayal - there's no wit, no slapstick, no punch. An inane supposedly funny story about how a French police inspector, Jacques Closeau, solves a murder case. This movie is like Hollywood insulting the French comedy genre.
Hollywoodland
Two very good character developments make this watchable: the vacousness of an out-of-work Hollywood actor (Ben Affleck) and that of a private investigator (Adrien Brody) who has forgotten his life. The screenplay isn't gripping & the supporting cast ain't great (except for Diane Lane). The dialogues are reflective of the Hollywood lifestyle: "I sleep with her because she makes me feel young", says the actor when he ditches his elderly girl friend for an immature aimless girl. Partly interesting.
Breaking & Entering
Minghella, who adapted & directed the immensely likable war romance 'The English Patient' comes up with a contrived screenplay here. So, the viewer never fully feels for any of the characters or rues about the themes dealt in the movie: love, family, fidelity, crime, immigrants, etc. If only had they gone the extra mile, rewritten some parts of the screenplay, gone for a retake of some of the intimate scenes, worked on more meaningful camera angles...
I haven't seen the original Peter Sellers' versions. But it definitely can't have been as bad as the new Steve Martin's portrayal - there's no wit, no slapstick, no punch. An inane supposedly funny story about how a French police inspector, Jacques Closeau, solves a murder case. This movie is like Hollywood insulting the French comedy genre.
Hollywoodland
Two very good character developments make this watchable: the vacousness of an out-of-work Hollywood actor (Ben Affleck) and that of a private investigator (Adrien Brody) who has forgotten his life. The screenplay isn't gripping & the supporting cast ain't great (except for Diane Lane). The dialogues are reflective of the Hollywood lifestyle: "I sleep with her because she makes me feel young", says the actor when he ditches his elderly girl friend for an immature aimless girl. Partly interesting.
Breaking & Entering
Minghella, who adapted & directed the immensely likable war romance 'The English Patient' comes up with a contrived screenplay here. So, the viewer never fully feels for any of the characters or rues about the themes dealt in the movie: love, family, fidelity, crime, immigrants, etc. If only had they gone the extra mile, rewritten some parts of the screenplay, gone for a retake of some of the intimate scenes, worked on more meaningful camera angles...
Labels: Breaking and Entering, Hollywoodland, Mini Reviews, Pink Panter
An Inconvenient Truth
The title of this documentary is just about perfect. It's really discomforting for us to forego some of the daily pleasures which we've come to take for granted. The temperature of our planet has been accelerating due to mis-managed industries & a lack of political will. If we allow this to continue, Al Gore says, the results could be alarming, very well within our lifetime. The message is very clear: for a cleaner, safer & healthier future, we need to evaluate our lifestyle. Watch this important documentary with your family & then discuss about it.
Notes on a Scandal
Deliciously acted by two delicious actresses. Well, delicious, after all, may not be the right word to describe a drama involving improper sex. But when Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett deliver their lines with exquisite naturalism and contort their faces that absolutely matches their characters, one can't ask for more. A simple story about a mis-aligned friendship, loneliness, betrayal and immaturity based on a novel by Zoe Heller is very well written & directed.
The Queen
This is a movie about the interactions between No.10, Downing Street & Buckingham Palace in the aftermath of Diana's death. While the queen thinks of it as a personal tragedy and wishes to keep her feelings to herself, the whole country drowns moaning and wants the queen to join them, which forces the newly elected Tony Blair to pressurize the monarchy. Brilliant acting by Helen Mirren as the queen; subtle directorial touches by Stephen Frears make it a good watch.
Andrei Rublev
I'm doing an injustice by writing a mini-review of this visual masterpiece. Andrei Tarkovski's tale of the 15th century painter Andrei Rublev is epic in it's scope - both visually & thematically. Although many chapters digress from what initially appears to be the subject & some of the metaphors about the artiste's views are very abstract, I enjoyed watching it. Some time later, I'll try to honor it with a complete review.
40-Year Old Virgin
Andy has a clean social life (read the title again). When his friends come to know his state, they try to help him. After some good-bad drama, the movie has a happy ending. Steve Carrell is picture-perfect in the lead role & the supporting cast isn't bad either. Sometimes slapstick, sometimes raunchy - some lines work, some scenes click. This is a semi-comedy which I recommend for insomniacs.
The title of this documentary is just about perfect. It's really discomforting for us to forego some of the daily pleasures which we've come to take for granted. The temperature of our planet has been accelerating due to mis-managed industries & a lack of political will. If we allow this to continue, Al Gore says, the results could be alarming, very well within our lifetime. The message is very clear: for a cleaner, safer & healthier future, we need to evaluate our lifestyle. Watch this important documentary with your family & then discuss about it.
Notes on a Scandal
Deliciously acted by two delicious actresses. Well, delicious, after all, may not be the right word to describe a drama involving improper sex. But when Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett deliver their lines with exquisite naturalism and contort their faces that absolutely matches their characters, one can't ask for more. A simple story about a mis-aligned friendship, loneliness, betrayal and immaturity based on a novel by Zoe Heller is very well written & directed.
The Queen
This is a movie about the interactions between No.10, Downing Street & Buckingham Palace in the aftermath of Diana's death. While the queen thinks of it as a personal tragedy and wishes to keep her feelings to herself, the whole country drowns moaning and wants the queen to join them, which forces the newly elected Tony Blair to pressurize the monarchy. Brilliant acting by Helen Mirren as the queen; subtle directorial touches by Stephen Frears make it a good watch.
Andrei Rublev
I'm doing an injustice by writing a mini-review of this visual masterpiece. Andrei Tarkovski's tale of the 15th century painter Andrei Rublev is epic in it's scope - both visually & thematically. Although many chapters digress from what initially appears to be the subject & some of the metaphors about the artiste's views are very abstract, I enjoyed watching it. Some time later, I'll try to honor it with a complete review.
40-Year Old Virgin
Andy has a clean social life (read the title again). When his friends come to know his state, they try to help him. After some good-bad drama, the movie has a happy ending. Steve Carrell is picture-perfect in the lead role & the supporting cast isn't bad either. Sometimes slapstick, sometimes raunchy - some lines work, some scenes click. This is a semi-comedy which I recommend for insomniacs.
Labels: Mini Reviews
Chennai - 600028
Where the story is the hero, there can't be many villains. The movie marches strongly on the fetishes of a niche crowd - people who speak the language of cricket. The script is nothing more than a series of episodes stitched together in the lives of a bunch of guys who are pretty much aimless. A self-proclaimed competent team losing to school kids is the icing.... Pure fun.
Good Shepherd
A wonderful, intricate screenplay which takes us from the late thirties to the early sixties, giving the details of the growth of the counter-intelligence department of the CIA all seen through the eyes of a man. A magnificent blend of solid drama & genuine thrill. Matt Damon sparkles but it's Angelina Jolie who takes away the prize. De Niro, the director blows us away with his control over story-telling.
Curse of the Golden Flower
Zhang Yimou, the most popular Asian director living today once again proves that when it comes to blending colossal sets with rich costumes & eye-popping photography, he's next to nobody. A complicated relationship drama revolving around a Chinese royal family ends bitterly; but then sweetly too. Action scenes, though good-looking don't stand up to his reputation.
The Last King of Scotland
Riding on Forest Whitaker's impressive performance, Kevin MacDonald tells an inspired by true events story of the paranoid, brutal & charming Idi Amin who plundered Uganda. A talented but immature doctor finds himself in the grip of Amin & realizes his foolish adventures before it's too late. I don't think this movie will have any historic significance in the future because it feels contented to entertain the audience (which it does very well) & hence cooks up events.
J.F.K
Top-notch film-making. Based on a book by Jim Garrison, an attorney in Louisiana at the time of the assassination of J.F.Kennedy, Oliver Stone, the master director chronicles the efforts by Jim in bringing to daylight the obvious mishandlings of security arrangements & bungled up administration. Though some shady high-profile figures come under pressure, I can't help but feel that a common man is no more than a pawn in a governmental chess. A movie for every season, every country.
Where the story is the hero, there can't be many villains. The movie marches strongly on the fetishes of a niche crowd - people who speak the language of cricket. The script is nothing more than a series of episodes stitched together in the lives of a bunch of guys who are pretty much aimless. A self-proclaimed competent team losing to school kids is the icing.... Pure fun.
Good Shepherd
A wonderful, intricate screenplay which takes us from the late thirties to the early sixties, giving the details of the growth of the counter-intelligence department of the CIA all seen through the eyes of a man. A magnificent blend of solid drama & genuine thrill. Matt Damon sparkles but it's Angelina Jolie who takes away the prize. De Niro, the director blows us away with his control over story-telling.
Curse of the Golden Flower
Zhang Yimou, the most popular Asian director living today once again proves that when it comes to blending colossal sets with rich costumes & eye-popping photography, he's next to nobody. A complicated relationship drama revolving around a Chinese royal family ends bitterly; but then sweetly too. Action scenes, though good-looking don't stand up to his reputation.
The Last King of Scotland
Riding on Forest Whitaker's impressive performance, Kevin MacDonald tells an inspired by true events story of the paranoid, brutal & charming Idi Amin who plundered Uganda. A talented but immature doctor finds himself in the grip of Amin & realizes his foolish adventures before it's too late. I don't think this movie will have any historic significance in the future because it feels contented to entertain the audience (which it does very well) & hence cooks up events.
J.F.K
Top-notch film-making. Based on a book by Jim Garrison, an attorney in Louisiana at the time of the assassination of J.F.Kennedy, Oliver Stone, the master director chronicles the efforts by Jim in bringing to daylight the obvious mishandlings of security arrangements & bungled up administration. Though some shady high-profile figures come under pressure, I can't help but feel that a common man is no more than a pawn in a governmental chess. A movie for every season, every country.
Labels: Mini Reviews
