200 Cigarettes

A whole bunch of strangers, including Elvis Costello as himself, on New Year's Eve in NY in 1982. All their stories run parallel, totally unrelated, there is Ben Affleck, Paul Rudd, Jay Mohr, Kate Hudson, Jenine Garefalo, Courtney Love, Casey Affleck, Christina Ricci.......thats a whole load of actors, all emptying their minds, souls and their starved selves(starving for different things), and finally running into each other at the same new year eve party. I have no idea why it is called 200 Cigarettes?!!

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Mr Klein

It is a bit confusing, a bit slow for all the suspense it has and follows the French filmdom's rule of not ending happily - the end is always a compromise, not too sad but not a fairytale ending either.

Alain Delon who also starred in Le Cercle Rouge is the leading man, who is an art collecter/seller in Paris who is mistaken for a Jew and sent to prison camp during WW2. It is a charismatic movie, but I'd have prefered a different ending than the self-destructive one this one has.

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Secret Window

Stephen King wrote the story which stars Johnny Depp in the main role as an author in a remote cabin trying to get his act together while being stalked by another author who claims he had plagiarized his story. Although it has a li'l suspense towards the beginning, the plot is obvious because lots of movies has been shot around the same premise.

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Pulp Fiction

I can forgive Tarantino(not that it matters) for Kill Bill series just because he made Pulp Fiction. The movie is a classic, one of the all time greatest movies to come out of Hollywood ever - the man certainly deserves some respect. John Travolta and Samuel.L.Jackson are amazing in their roles, truly deserve the boost the film gave to their careers later on. But the coup de grace of this film is its dialog - a dream come true of a script writer.

The movie is so full of cinematic intrigues and hidden meanings that come to light only after second and third viewings, but is a new experience every time. Watch the movie from the collector's edition DVD, there is plenty of extra material, like the entire soundtrack(the movie revived interest in fifties/sixties music in US), deleted scenes and unlimited trivia. Hats off to Quentin Tarantino.

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Intimate Strangers

A French art house movie - kind that is usually adapted from a play, where almost all the scenes take place in one particular setting. Not exactly my kind of movie, I get bored when all that people do is talk, talk and more talk. But I have to agree, if viewers are to appreciate such a film it calls for great performances from the actors and actresses involved - which this film has, though I prefer something less sombre and more happening.

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Cold Mountain

A love story set in the background of civil war. The coup de grace of the movie is not exactly the lovers - played by Nicole Kidman and Jude Law, but Rene Zellweiger who plays a supporting character named Ruby.

It is a good patrol of the civil war era through the travails of two estranged lovers, beautiful landscapes, well directed with a tight script and an engaging story.

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21 Grams

"They say we all lose 21 grams... at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams?" - the final thoughts of Paul Rivers played by Sean Penn in the film 21 Grams. And I had thought 21 Grams was a movie about drugs! Well, it is not.

Directed by Alejandro Inarritu(director of Amores Peros), with a mix-match timeline, 21 grams holds the viewer's attention till the very last. Not to mention the intense perfomances by Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Torro. A well directed movie, although the chopped and pasted timeline creates a confusion, whick kind of makes the film more complex than it really is. When lives collide in a random moment, yes, the same premise as in Amores Peros, lives change, get destroyed or take an abrupt turn for better or for worse, then it moves on. Somewhere a total stranger has the power to completely change your life!

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The Killing Fields

A true story of two journalists from the war torn Cambodia of the mid seventies. One is an American covering the vietnam war and its Cambodian aftermath for the New York Times, the other is a Cambodian journalist who acts as his interpretor.

Every generation has atleast one big war - a big scar that it tries to hide, to forget. For the late sixties and the seventies it was the Vietnam war, the ethnic cleansing of 2 million people under the dictatorship of Pol Pot. This is a story/movie that reminds how tainted our march towards 'civilization' has really been. The only things which we can take pride in is our friendships like the one these two journalists had.

Directed by Roland Joffe(City of Joy), this is one of the must-see films for a student of humanity.

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Forgotten

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The Missing

Ron Howard's tale of the frontier and the wild west, set in the south west, it stars Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones in the starring roles as an estranged father daughter duo who come together to help each other in a time of need.

It has the usual western theme of cowboys fighting Indians but with a twist. This time it is a frontier woman and her born-again-Indian father who gangs against the evil Indians who had kidnapped the woman's daughter with the purpose of selling her off to Mexicans down the border. Its a nice history lesson, to understand how people used to live in those days, nothing too serious, except the sweeping landscapes.

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Kill Bill: Vol 1

I remember reading somewhere that Quentin Tarentino used to peddle his movie scripts on some beach in California(suspect it is Long Beach), thrusting it in to the hands of reluctant passers-by. He surely has come a long way from there, as Kill Bill proves. Now he can dance Hollywood on his fingertips, they'll take anything he dishes out, whether it be a real decent heist story(Reservoir Dogs) or a trashy Japanes anime video game made to satisfy his destructive teenage inner self(Kill Bill).

Or did he see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and think that only thing that movie lacked was Uma Thurman, so I better make one with her in it?!! Kill Bill, for me, is a Tarantino comedy in the guise of a video game(if you have played Dead or Alive you'd know what I am talking about). Almost all scenes were funny, like computer games you went thru' levels, first you got your transportations(yep you have to fight for it too), then you went thru' different levels of enemies with increasing sophistication - first you fought off dwarfs and gnomes, then teeming midgets, then the devil's advocate and finally the devil him/herself - thats exactly what Tarantino does in this movie, except you don't have the joystick with you, he has it and he makes sure that you win this automated game.

And like all the computer games he has a version 2 out too, for those who have mastered all the thrill of the version 1 and are asking for more.
p.s - the 'fountainsque' blood works was totally brilliant, Tarantino.

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My House in Umbria

An English movie set in Italy. We follow the life of an aging romantic novelist in a villa in Umbria and her proteges - who are a trio recovering from a train accident, along with her and their interactions. Its kind of funny, kind of beautiful, kind of sad and stars the famous British actress Maggie Smith in the leading role.

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Shaun of the Dead

So British. There are no cool computer graphic ghosts or whiz ghost busters and the humor is so so British. In a way the whole movie has an effect of a play because there is no computer animation here and with zombies and ghosts and fights against ghosts shot in the old fashioned way, without the behind the screen gimmicks it is more earthy and appears less ghostly. All for a few laughs.

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Cidade de Deus

Cidade de Deus or the City of God is the slums(favela) of Rio De Janeiro. The movie revolves around drug trafficking, almost daily encounters with police and the striking point is the extreme young age of these drug traffickers - most of them are barely out of their teens and you would only rarely get to see anyone over 30. What happens to the kids then? They die!

It is a film from the eyes of a budding photo-journalist, a young boy(Rocket) from the favela who wants to break free from the drug world and wants to reveal to the world what it means to live in the favelas and why young kids end up as drug dealers. The cinematography is slick, fast cuts in tune with the fast paced life - you have to live a lifetime before you die with a bullethole in your chest at the age of fifteen or nineteen.

Directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, Cidade de Deus will especially strike a chord with you if you come from developing countries like Brazil, India, Thailand or someplace like that. Your analysis of the film with your background of gritty realities of life in a developing country will indeed be different from the average American. Things and people are real in this movie, afterall its is based on a real life story. It won't surprise you when they say Brazilian cops face combat situations everday in their line of duty and carries more ammo and has access to more different kinds of guns and runs a thousand times more risk to die in combat than an American soldier in active duty. This holds true for the drug dealing kids in the favelas too. The movie starts in the sixties and spans a few decades hence, behind the beautiful but thin facade of the Rio's beauty to reveal its seldom heard dark side. Go watch it, there is nothing wrong in being better educated.

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Seabiscuit

I am not much of a horse person, if I were I would have enjoyed Seabiscuit. Supposedly one of the greatest success stories of the Great Depression of the thirties, Seabiscuit was truly the dark horse who by mending himself, mended the people who took care of him as well. It has all the trimmings of a best seller book made in to a movie, which it is. A typical Hollywood feel good movie(well who said we don't need that?!) where the underdog comes from behind and takes the prize. In a way it also embodies the spirit of the people who made US what it is today - the ultimate risk takers with a never say die attitude. Seabiscuit is okay, if you like horses.

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Ned Kelly

Mick Jagger was a hero of a movie? I never thought that had happened. Well, in Ned Kelly, the story about the famous Australian outback hero of the same name Jagger gets to play the hero and he does a good job too. Ned Kelly was remade later with Heath Ledger playing Jagger's role and with the supporting cast of Orlando Bloom, Naomi Watts and Jeffrey Rush. Supposedly remake is better than the original.

There is a lot of Irish in the movie. I think Kelly is an Irish surname and Ned's people is originally Irish who went to land down under. Liked the folk songs(kinda like extended limericks) they sing in the movie. Ned Kelly is presented as a RobinHood like figure, since I don't know Aussie history I have no ways to verify the truth about his character. An ok movie.

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Bourne Supremacy

I knew this was Hollywood masala, but I like such flicks, seem to give you your money's worth. They burn enough cars to satiate your appetite for destruction. They have those edge-of-the-seat car chases to give you the much needed adrenaline rush after a dull work week. They take you to all those places who want to go - Moscow, Berlin, Goa and Italy. Then they have that charismatic(mainly because he's a recovering amnesiac)and intelligent ex-CIA agent who is the perfect combo of brawn and brains and for me personally, this time they have a whole part of the movie shot in India - Goa to be precise and with a super duper car chase thrown in. Cool. I knew Jason Bourne was a cool dude.

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Xun Kiang - The Missing Gun

A very interesting, different film from the People's Republic of China. Oh no...don't say you've seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - thats not the real Chinese cinema, it was a canned product for people used to Hollywood consumption standards.

The central concept of the movie might seem so alien to Hollywood viewers - a policeman loses his gun, almost loses his job, go nuts about it and is considered as a social outcaste. Here in US, were you can simply walk in to a store and buy the firearm of your choice the whole premise of this movie might seem pathetic. But thats how things sometimes happen in 'the rest of the world'.

The cinematography is really cool, smart shots of small town China of the present day, their social interactions, an honest view in to a world so different and wonderfully directed for a movie of such a low budget($250,000).

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Swades: Movie Review

After long Bollywood makes a commercial movie that is up to the current standards of world cinema - thank you Ashutosh Gawarikar! A Hindi movie cannot do without its quintessential songs and melodrama - that is what makes it a Bollywood movie. It is an artform by itself, but how can you make it a competitive film appealing to world audience, Swades is the answer. 

 Even ShahRukh Khan, the immutable stammering, stuttering, lover boy of Indian cinema has broken free of his stereotypical role and played the role of a confused young scientist with passion. A.R.Rahman's songs are mind blowing - hats off to the maestro. After almost sixty years of independence Indians finally realize that they should have something else to show off other than the oft repeated 'great heritage and history'. 

Swades asks the much unsavory question to the current Indian junta - "what do you have to boast about your present?" Inspired by the true story of two young engineers who brought electricity to a village in Maharashtra, Swades is a tightly knit film which gets as close as it can to the real life in Bollywood terms.

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