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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...

Mar 28, 2005

Ram Gopal Varma is the best director to come out of Bollywood in recent times. If Shekhar Kapoor can get Hollywood films to direct, it is high time Varma got a chance. Bhoot is an excellent cinematic composition, taut, no-nonsesnse, a ghost story with just the right amount ghost in it. No Hindi movie I've watched recently comes anywhere near the technical perfection, acting and overall quality of Bhoot. Urmila Matondkar and Ajay Devgan deliver excellent performances, the rest of the cast is also good. Hats off to Ram Gopal Varma

Mar 27, 2005

This is the perfect movie for a saturday/sunday night with friends. In the simplest terms it is the story of three friends who go searching for a treasure in the Cascades National Forest following the clues left behind by a dead fourth member of their childhood gang. They leave their real life jobs behind and embark upon a journey none of them are familiar with. Its a fun trip.

Mar 26, 2005

Another one for all the fans of Dave Chappelle. It is a not so new movie(1998) which is an A-Z about weed and weed smokers. If you are offended by the overwhelming onscreen presence of marijuana, you should stay clear of this movie. Dave Chappelle as usual is funny, as he is in all movies he co-writes. It is a stupid, full length funny movie about Dave and his three friends on loose and high.

Mar 25, 2005

This must be the only documentary in which the entire hijack(of any kind) has been filmed live and clear anywhere in the world. If CNN's live broadcast(of shooting flares and dim gun totting figures and tanks) of Kuwait War of 1991 was a major event in TV history, Bus 174 is a major milestone in documentary film making.

Better than a crime thriller, it keeps you on the edge of your street for the whole two hours because you know that the Bus 174 is hijacked for real, the trauma the passengers undergo when one by one each one of them is paraded by the hijacker at gun point is real, there is no hero waiting in the wings for the right moments to kick the living lights out of the hijacker, only the incompetent Brazilian police.

More than an action movie, Bus 174 is also a sociological statement. The hijacker himself a victim of the police cruelty, the inhuman treatment of street kids and the justice system in Brazil turns his wrath on a group of bus passengers on Dec 12th 2000. He wanted to be in the world's eye for one day and wanted to take revenge for the 1993 Candelabrian street kids massacre(he was one of the survivors), hijacking Bus 174 was his fifteen minutes of fame, though it went on a lot longer than 15 minutes. The entire hijack episode on live TV is interspersed with talks with policemen, hijacker's friends, relatives, the hostages(at a later point in time) and the review of the police system, society, favelas and the social treatment of street kids. A very serious, must watch, mile stone documentary.

Mar 24, 2005

The travails of immigrants in the New World - this time it is the Chinese immigrants before WW2. An arranged marriage, the bride comes over to the US and the troubles begin. But wait, it is not a serious film as the issues involved may make you believe. Shot in a funny vein, it is a light look at the serious problems faced by immigrants.

Mar 23, 2005

Since Matchstick Men didn't make any box office ripples, I didn't expect much from it - but I was in for a surprise. It turned out to be a good one! One doesn't expect this kind of low key movie from Ridley Scott, who is 'prone' to epics. But in my opinion, he did well.

Matchstick Men is the story of two con artists, Roy(played by Nick Cage) and Frank(Sam Rockwell), one of them has Roy has a severe case of OCD. Midway thru' the movie Roy's 14 year old daughter(Alison Lohman) turns up and this changes the flow of the whole movie. It is a very intriguing story, a con with a twist at the end. A good one.

Mar 22, 2005

It is a funny, satirical Hollywood entertainers, much in the lines of Stepford Wives. Death Becomes Her stars Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis(in a very different role)in the three main roles. The movie makes fun of the Hollywood's obsession to stay young forever and its repurcussions if someone happens to succeed in doing that, all of course, with a pinch of humor. An entertainer to the core.

Mar 21, 2005

For anyone who is interested in the making of movies, it is fun to watch a movie which is about the movie world. In my knowledge there are not many films about the Bollywood of the sixties and the seventies although a lot of Bollywood's best films came out during this period.

Bombay Talkie provides an insiders view of Bollywood, through the lives and times of the young actor called Vikram, played Shashi Kapoor. His real life wife Jennifer Kendal/Kapoor has the role of a western writer who visits Bollywood and falls in love with the married actor, he's married to the beautiful Aparna Sen. Pak, later UK actor Zia Moyinuddeen plays another important role in the movie as a writer of Bollywood movies, and a companion of Kapoor and Kendal.

Unlike the usual Bollywood masala stuff, this 1970 film from Merchant Ivory trio is natural, earthy, informative and revealing. We see rare glimpses of old actors and singers going about earning their daily bread - we can see Helen as Helen doing takes and retakes of dance numbers, Jalal Agha (remember Pan Parag ad, "aur mere liye?") as a young budding actor by the name Jalal Agha, Usha Uthup as the upcoming western singer(the only one at the time) with her maiden name Usha Iyer - for Bollywood afficianados this movie is an unforgettable walk down the memory lane. If this is not all, the film has excellent story line, written ofcourse by Ruth Prawar Jhabhwala which revolves around the young dashing actor, his wife, his writer friend and the 'toofan' which comes in to their lives as the western writer played by Jennifer Kendal. Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kapoor had been married 12 years by the time this movie was shot and in this movie Jennifer plays the other woman.

Mar 20, 2005

A 15 year old black boy is arrested by the police on charge of a murder of a female, white tourist in Jacksonville, Florida. The only witness, the woman's husband is convinced that the killer is the fifteen year old, police botch up the investigation, they needed a criminal with motive, they pick up the first black guy they spotted in a dark t-shirt. The documentary does not take side, but goes on a slow and methodical analysis of the case following the defense lawyers. Powerful.

Mar 19, 2005

Well, if this film didn't ruffle the feathers of the true believers nothing would. And sure as hell, it did when it came out. From the acclaimed novel by Nikos Kazantzakis of the same name, Martin Scorsese weaves out a believable yarn(even the satan's fake angel)story about Jesus of Nazereth.

Scorsese's brilliant direction, a beautiful music score by Peter Gabriel, breath taking and contextual cinematography by Michael Ballhouse, a very American script by Paul Schraeder(if you are looking for a classical version of the story this is not it as the name implies, it is American to the core),The Last Temptation of Christ is a revelation. For me it makes Christ a more believable character, ofcourse the American accent and the slang simplifies the matters for an ordinary viewer. Willem Dafoe as Jesus and Harvey Kietel as Judas are two of the quirkiest yet successful cast choices made by a modern day director of a Hollywood film. Brilliant!

Mar 16, 2005

The story idea is cool - compulsory retirement of all super heroes and making them part of the FBI's relocation program. The Incredibles are a family of four, where the mother and the father are ex-super heroes who married each other and had kids with super hero abilities, currently living in some anonymous burb as an ordinary family. Its a funny movie, a bit dark and reminded me a lot of SpyKids, but this is better. But personally my favorite animated movies of the recent times are still Shrek I and Monsters Inc.

Mar 14, 2005

From the director of Cinema Paradiso, another movie pulling at the same emotional chords. But this time, an unlikely story about a man who was found on top of a piano, as a baby. The piano itself was inside a passenger cruise ship and the man becomes a master pianist who refuses to leave the ship for the rest of his life.

It is one of those films cast in the sugary idyllic mold, got too sugary and idyllic for my tastes. Btw 1900 is the name of the pianist given to him by his adopted father, a black ship mate as he was born in that year. It is a very Disneyesque movie, in a larger canvas meant for adults.

Mar 12, 2005

This is an HBO movie about the first fully televised war in human history - the 1991 Iraq war and the story of a handful of CNN crew behind it. It is a TV movie, starring Michael Keaton and Helena Bonham Carter and has the trapping of a TV movie. Not much of a great film or anything, it'd be good to know the beginning of 'embedding' television crews in the war began.

Mar 10, 2005

A great family entertainer and for a change, Adam Sandler is no more the bumbling awkward guy but a successful award winning cook, married and a father of two - a role which suits him well.

The main characters in the story are Paz Vega as Flor- a Mexican woman and her daughter who immigrates from Mexico to United States and after six years of living in the 'latin quarter' of LA, gets a housekeeping job with the Sandler's family. All the character are witty, likeable and real, so are the dialogs. The film opens in the form of a letter the Mexican girl (Flor's daughter) sends as a part of her admissions package to Princeton - "Why she'd like to study at Princeton/Why Princeton should choose her" type letters, the whole story unfolds through that letter. Worth the watch.

Mar 9, 2005

Mar 8, 2005

I saw the whole movie in fast forward with subtitles on. It is almost real time picturization of a painting being made by some modern day artist in Spain, who has this impossible task of painting a quince tree and he takes years at it, half hour at a time(ok I am exaggerating, but it is something like that). And it has one 20+ international awards, yeah I am a dunce.

Mar 6, 2005

It is an interesting movie, about two married dentists who have a practise and three daughters together. It is a depiction of a mid-life crisis that happens a li'l earlier than is normal. Campbell Scott and Hope Davis plays the couple in this very believable film directed by Alan Rudolph. Denis Leary has a quirky role, first as an annoying patient of Scott's and then as a representative of his alter ego.

Mar 4, 2005

An interesting take on ghosts by 1947 standards. Mrs Muir is a widow who buys a haunted house, befriends the ghost of a sea captain who is bent on driving the tenents away and ends writing his biography for him. The captain's ghost albeit very serious has a dark sense of humor.
Another AA movie in my list. AA means Arrogant American movie, the last one in this category I saw before this was Hidalgo. Although in the Last Samurai, Tom Cruise, the disillusioned Confederate soldier who takes up a contract of training soldiers for the Japanese emperor is all praise for the Samurais and their contributions and joins ranks with them against the Americans and the Japanese soldiers trained by the Americans, I found the movie rather drab. Add to it, the ending was typical Hollywoodsy, with the otherwise silent emperor coming to his senses and shifting to Cruise's side.

Mar 3, 2005

Mar 2, 2005

French films or the films shot in France makes me a bit wary before watching it, most of them are too intellectual for my taste, I guess after all these years of movie watching, I still like the 'trashy' Hollywood.

Swimming Pool, directed by Francois Ozon didn't confirm to my idea of films shot in France. It is about an English mystery story writer who goes to her publisher's vacation house in France for some peace and quiet to start on her next novel. But her peace is shattered when the publisher's teenage daughter arrives to share the house with her. There is a lot of uncalled for nudity, maybe it is 'called for' to give it the French touch and with a sexy French girl around how could one expect anything else? But all in all it is an interesting story which ruffles its mystery and suspense feathers towards the end, not bad as I had expected.

Mar 1, 2005

Love stories have never been my cup of tea, but this one staring Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio bowled me over. It is science fiction and love story woven in to one, with a mind blowing script that saves it from going over that cheesy edge under such circumstances and elevates it to pure entertainment, makes it the thinking man's love story. Ok did anti-science fiction enthusiasts already flee, then you lose, it is romantic movie to the core, but you didn't wait to hear that, didya? Yeah afterall it has Marisa Tomei, did you think she'd fall for the cheesy, un-classy stuff?

The movie also has the best explanation for time travel amongst all the movies I have seen on the subject and the script, more than 75% of the appeal of the movie should go to the the script written by Brad Anderson, who is also the director of the movie. Wonderful!
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