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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...

May 28, 2005

May 25, 2005

50 First Dates

An easygoing romance, this film has Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore as lovers in Hawaii. Some jokes are hilarious and then there is Rob Schneider, just in case you feel a lack of comedy anywhere. I liked the lines of the old Hawaiin(or china man?)man at the restaurant in some of the opening scenes.

Adam Sandler is cool, I don't usually like his roles in all his movies, but the last one I saw before this - Spanglish, he did a neat job. This one although not different from the usual Sandler roles is okay too. Drew Barrymore suffers short term memory loss and that is the whole premise the movie is built upon. She is a natural, both at ease with romance and comedy. All in all - an easy on the eyes Sandler-chick flick.

May 24, 2005

French movies bore me with their length and their lack of dialog for minutes at a time. As one of my friends put it, I have bought myself in to the Hollywood culture, maybe I have.

This French movie starring Philippe Torreton as a kindergarten teacher is long by Hollywood standards but has ample conversation. It is the story of an ordinary everyday man who sometimes fails, sometimes triumphs trying to fight for the good cause in the midst of a failing economy and wretched cirumstances. It is like a piece of life presented before an audience without any makeup.

May 22, 2005

May 17, 2005

One of Mahesh Manjrekar's first films, and possibly his best film to date. Sanjay Dutt has portrayed the prototypical Mumbai Don to the hilt, which led him to similar roles in similar movies after Vaastav.

With its true to life characters and typical Mumbaiyya tapori Hindi, Vaastav is a rare Bollywood movie bridged the popular, commercial attitude of Bollywood with vaastav(the reality.) The performances by the supporting cast are also above par. I was watching it for the second time and as it is often said, the truth or the reality(vaastav) is hard to resist.

May 14, 2005

May 13, 2005

May 10, 2005

Road to Ladakh gives the feel of a short stretched to feature film length, not that it has lost any of its tautness in the process. From the Oscar nominated Indian documentary film maker Ashvin Kumar, Road to Ladakh stars Irrfan and Koel Purie in the main roles.

The stark and expansive landscape of Ladakh plays an important part in the movie. The length of the movie is very short by Indian standards, maybe that could be one of the reasons why the director decided to keep this movie under wraps and convert in to a Hollywood film. IMDb site says the production of the Hollywood version is underway which has Irrfan in the same role as he had played in the Indian version, but Koel Purie's role is being done by some American actress.

With money to spare and Indians becoming rich enough to afford the exotic Ladakh is fast becoming a hot spot, hope the roads will also improve. Coming back to the movie, Ashvin Kumar himself appears in one scene in the movie as the Indian army officer's driver. All in all, it is not a typical Indian movie, someone is trying to deviate the beaten path of high emotions and drama and venturing in to the rarefied realms of subtlety.

May 8, 2005

It is an explicitly sexual movie. So if you are not comfortable with raw portrayal of sexuality and explicit dialogs, please stay clear of this one. What else can of you expect from a coming of age movie about two teenage boys set in the beautiful beaches of Mexico?

It is a movie about trips - a sexual discovery trip, a trip to the lovely beaches, a cultural trip through Mexico of the present, a trip through a life with a terminable disease and within these trips there is life, sex, drugs, music, fried fish and beer. Above everything the film is an incredible character study - of two teenagers growing up, their lingo, their acts, their lives and that of the young woman who is facing some of life's worst crises set against the very believable social fabric of current day Mexico.

May 6, 2005

Nowadays Bollywood movies are a lot better than watching Malayalam films. The quality of latter has forever been going downhill and seems to be beyond rescue. Tango Charlie(wonder what is the significance of the term in aviation, 'cause I have heard Tango Charlie mentioned in pilots' transcripts aired in NatGeo?) in this movie is the codename of a BSF jawan, played by Bobby Deol. Ajay Devgan also plays an important role in the movie as Deol's commanding officer.

Suneel Shetty and Sanjay Dutt strats off the movie with their special appearnce roles as two IAF patrol pilots. Sanjay Dutt is a laugh riot from start to finish(was for me). With his tapori Bambaiyya Hindi it is fun to hear him mouth an IAF Squadron Leader's dialogs.

The film takes up the cause of India's BSF soldiers, an often forgotten branch of the Armed forces and fits in encounters with almost all prominent terrorist groups actively assaulting the nation from within like Bodos, mujahiddeens imported from Pakistan and the like. Although it is quite impossible in the real case that the same BSF soldier might be called to defend all these volatile zones simultaneously, it gives you an idea what an ordinary BSF jawan goes through for the sake of his country and then dies off as yet another unknown soldier.

Although not a great film, like the star studded Border, Tango Charlie is an ok movie with a believable script. Ajay Devgan and Bobby Deol has given commedable performances. Not a bad 'timepass'.

May 4, 2005

May 2, 2005

This Russian movie is almost a quarter century old, tells the story of a middle aged professor and his relationships with two women, namely his wife and his girl friend.

It is interesting to know how people lived in Russia in the late seventies and the early eighties, which was also the time I used to read much about Russia thanks to subsidized subscriptions of Russian children's magazines. The movie reiterates the fact that man-woman relationships are pretty much the same, whether they are behind the Cold War's Iron curtain or in the free world.

May 1, 2005

Welcome to Mooseport

Although actors have done their parts well this movie lacks something. You cannot say it is the script or the camera or the editing, but something is certainly amiss.

Gene Hackman and Ray Romano play their roles, that of an ex-President and the town's handyman running for mayoral office respectively, quite charmingly. Hmmm...now that I think about it, the story was kind of unbelievable, made-up and predictable.
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