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A movie and book review blog

  • Reading films, watching books,....
  • Mind candy in the dark
  • All the books left to read...

Jul 25, 2003

  • 7/25/2003 12:17:00 PM
Is it with me or is it with Japanese Movies? In all the Japanese movies I seem to lay my hand on, I have noticed certain similarities. I wonder whether it has to do the with the hand that chose them(which in this case is me) or with Japanese movies as a whole.
1. All of them are minimalist in conversation and facial expression of emotions.
2. All of them have girls wearing dark sunglasses, round in shape (is Yoko Ono still a big name in Japan?).
3. Cinematography has a 'montage' quality, cut-snip-past-paste-cut-paste-cut-snip-paste.
4. Most of them tend to confuse the story and the viewers by talking less or not talking at all, if you ask me, lot of problems wouldnot have become problems at all, had the main characters talked openly to each other. But then where is the movie, eh?

Yesterday I saw Angel Dust, a Japanese thriller. Story idea is good, so is the cinematography. Conversation is minimal, maybe to increase sense of mystery. Its about a serial killer who always strikes on Mondays at 6pm. Reminds me of one of those artsy type movies, where people look at each other or faraway for a long time, but don't speak, then there is sudden spurt of energy, then again silence, then a phone rings....trrrrrrrrrrrilllllllllllllllll. I should say understanding Japanese culture is not easy.

Jul 24, 2003

All Quiet on the Western Front 



Paul is still the ultimate hero for me. He is the protagonist of Eric Maria Remarque's 'gigantically influential novel' (this is a borrowed phrase from someone else) , All Quiet on the Western Front. Paul is no superman, he is just a teenage German soldier in WW1, as human as they come. For me, this Remarque novel is the greatest piece of fiction I have read till now, none other has come anywhere close. I borrowed it from the local library and read it when I was thirteen, I had a diary(no I didn't have a computer back then) in which had jotted down passages from this book, which I re-read every once in a while. This was one of those books which makes you want to stop every passerby and thrust this book into her/his hands and plead them to read.

One of them goes like this, "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction that I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony. Forgive me comrade; how could you be my enemy?"

I saw the movie (the 1930 version, haven't seen the other two) a while back. It was a good movie considering its age, but all the dialogues that makes the book the classic it is, were cut short in the movie - otherwise we'd have had a movie 5-6 hour long. So as usual with books turned into movies this one also fails to standup to its printed version. For all those avid readers, who are yet to read this book(not many I guess), I urge them to do it ASAP.

Jul 23, 2003

Dan Brown's Two Novels 



DaVinci Code and Digital Fortress. Read DaVinci Code a few weeks back, thats Dan Brown's latest offering. Digital Fortress is a bit older and deals with the security issues on the WWW. Good reads, both. What I found similar in both stories are,

1. The whole story takes place over 24-48 hours.
2. There is an American in Europe, footloose and running for life, while trying to protect some undecipherable secret.
3. There is a strong woman character, extremely intelligent and beautiful (the rare species)
4. There is a code to break.
5. Tackles a contreversial topic. (In DaVinci Code it was the Jesus's bloodline which still exists?!!!?!!! and in Digital Fortress it is NSA's ultimate snoop dog machine on the internet.)

I can happily go on reading Dan Brown, glad I am not in Liberia. Hope Peace Will Prevail Soon.

Jul 22, 2003

The final shot still haunts me, a picture of eternal hope, the demise of which is certain to us- the viewers, the haunting melody that accompanies, signifies the futility of all wars. What we see is not a movie in which millions die at the hands of evil invading armies, but just a handful of deaths, which will throw you off course for the rest of your day and make you question, "Why?" That is No Man's Land, the award winning (it has got a bunch - Oscar,Cannes etc etc) movie by director Danis Tanovic.

This movie is about a war that was going on in former Yugoslavia while most of us were watching TV in our homes, studying, fishing or doing a million other things people usually do if they donot have a war at their doors. Ok, the UN was there, but what were they doing? Anybody cared to ask? Well, the war didn't wait for any questions, it just raged on. No Man's Land captures a snippet of life in Bosnian-Serbian conflict and takes it down to the level of a few individuals involved. There are the Bosnian and Serbian soldiers trapped in the no man's land, the UN Peacekeeping Officer whose hands are tied down by ineffective bureaucracy, the news hungry TV journalist, all of them make up this remarkable movie. It has its faults, but overall I consider it one of the best movies I have ever watched.

Jul 21, 2003

  • 7/21/2003 11:47:00 AM
This is an Iranian film by Jafar Panahi, which reminded me of Majid Majidi's 'Children of Heaven', so much so that at one point I double checked on the cover whether director's name was indeed Jafar Panahi. This movie revolves around a small incident in the life of a little girl and her brother living in Tehran and the timespan of the whole movie is 2-3 hours before the Iranian New Year compressed into an eighty-five minute film.

The little girl is bent upon having a new goldfish for the New Year inspite of having a whole tank full of them in her courtyard, she reasons that the one she has in mind is fatter and prettier with a whole lot more fins. Her mother gives into her pleadings after a while and gives her the money, to buy the goldfish. The rest of the movie is how the girl loses the money and her encounters with the adult world and the world in general in her attempts to retreive the money. A good movie scattered with nuances of life in Tehran, the children's ingenuity in retreiving the money, the naturality of various characters in the movie, makes it worth a watch. The one thing I didn't understand was the title of the movie - 'the white balloon', the only time the white balloon features in the movie, is tied to the end of the stick which the children use to retrieve the money. I don't think it had higher importance than the stick, which was 'the' instrument, neither did the children seemed to be aware of its existence at the end of the stick. Maybe some metaphorical edge that I failed to recognize, eh?!?!!

Jul 19, 2003

  • 7/19/2003 03:06:00 PM
Kamal Hasan's latest venture. If you know about Indian sub continent and its movie industry, bigger than Hollywood, if you take the number of releases per year or the number of people employed or the number of tickets sold, you should have atleast an inkling who Kamal Hasan is. Well for the unintiated, he is one of the superstars of Tamil(a widely spoken Indian language, although its spoken in countries like Singapore,Malaysia etc etc) movies, who insists in film after film that he is a modern day Renaissance Man a.k.a the jack of all trades. He is a good actor, makes some very 'different' movies which are really good and watcheable, ghost directs most of them, a versatile make-up man and has many others feathers in his cap, which I am not mentioning right now.

Anbe Sivam (translates as 'Love is God') is Kamal Hasan's latest offering, in which he stars with another young superstar of Tamil, R.Madhavan. The movie is different from the usual run-of-the-mill 'boy meets girl' stories, a breath of fresh air, both the actors have given good performances, all in all in my filmometer I'd give it a B+. It could have made it to an A, had Mr.Hasan not insisted on doing the courting and running around trees with his heroine, who is atleast a good twenty years younger than him. The joke is Mr.Hasan himself is portraying a person who is a twenty years younger than his real self, and he really s***ks at it, inspite of his extraordinary make-up skills. But he is extremely good as the disfigured older man and the his cynical, wise-crack dialogues keep up with the character.

Jul 18, 2003

A really funny movie. Takes a shot at everyone from Martha Stewart to George.W, hilarious dialogues without going overboard. I wonder why it didn't make it big at the box office. Then I read that its realease was postponed due to Sept.11 and came out at a time when people were not in a mood for such comedies. Makes me want to read Dave Barry's books, I haven't read any yet. Lots of fun quotes in the movie, hope to get them somewhere in the internet, so that I can use it as signatures, hihi.

Jul 9, 2003

Steve Martin's ShopGirl 


I didn't know that actor Steve Martin wrote, before I saw his name somewhere in Amazon.com. Today I finished reading one of his novels, ShopGirl and I have his newest one with me, which is called "The Pleasure of My Company", the reading pleasure of which I am yet to enjoy. Coming back to ShopGirl, it is an easy novel, centers around a twenty eight year Niemen's counter girl, who lives a not-so-happening life in the fringes of Hollywood. There aren't many twists and turns in the novel, it moves fluidly along without the usage of a lot of literary jargon. Thats what I like about authors as Steve Martin, who are not very 'reputed' literary personas, they talk at your level, there are no long winded sentences which could take fifty or more words just to describe the moss in the fish tank. Sprinkled throughout the book are sly and witty observances about life in LA. There is not much of a story involved, as the whole books centers around one affair the ShopGirl, Mirabelle has with a fifty year old gentleman, but then its not a long novel either, maybe you could finish it off in an hour or two.

Jul 8, 2003

  • 7/08/2003 12:37:00 PM
I don't know what's the state of main stream Iranian cinema, but what I know is Iranian director Majid Majidi's films are good, reminds me of Malayalam movies when they used to be good and were not trying to blindly ape Bollywood. Majidi is one of the younger crop of Iranian film directors, I guess, I haven't seen the films of his more famous predecessors. But I have seen two of Mr.Majidi's movies, 'Children of Heaven' and 'Baran'.

Children of Heaven is an unforgettable experience, its about two kids, brother and sister, and a lost pair of sneakers. The world of childhood, where we all had some secrets, kept well hidden from the eyes of adults has been successfuly portrayed in a heart rendering way. How kids set to undertake unachievabletasks, all by themselves,with only their sweet innocence and their bottomless faith in each other as their only aids, is remarkable. The camera work and direction is excellent. Its a must watch.

Baran, the second movie I saw was about two young people who fall in love, they must be teenagers. I wonder whether these two are part of any trilogy or something of Mr.Majidi's, because one has a story set in childhood, other has a story set in teenage, and maybe there are others that I haven't seen. Baran is also poignant and simple like the other movie, his way of story telling will keep people interested in one small incident in life, without a feeling of boredom. If you get a chance to watch any of his movies, don't waste it, thats all I can say.

Jul 7, 2003

This Barry Levinson movie deals with anti-semitism, raciscm and growing up in Baltimore. Part of his Baltimore trilogy, actually this is the fourth film of his set in Baltimore, not exactly a trilogy. I have seen one of the other three, The Diner, awhile back. Liberty Heights is seen thru' the eyes and ears of baby boomer generation, right after the war, at the time when other movements like civil rights were coming to the forefront. If you love those tales where adults narrate their stories while they were kids or while growing up, you'll like this one.
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