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.
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.
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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?
If 9/11 did anything good, it was to free Afganistan from the clutches of Taliban. A forgotten country, a forgotten people finally got the attention they deserved from a world that had turned blind eyes to their fate till then.
Todo el Poder or Gimme the Power is a Spanish movie by Fernando Sarinana set in Mexico city. A jobless videographer upset by the extent of crime in Mexico city goes on a crusade against, which is very much like a toned down Bollywood movie on a similar theme starring Akshay Kumar. To me, technically it looks like a TV serial, like 24 or CSI, maybe it is the lighting, camera or maybe it is the script or maybe all of it.
It might have been a very topical and relevant movie in 1967, the year which it came out. Starring Sidney Poitier, Katherine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy, it is the story of a day in the life of a rich liberal couple in the late sixties San Francisco whose daughter brings home a black man, she'd like to marry. Katherine Houghton, who is actually Katherine Hepburn's niece plays her daughter in the film.
If you are irritated by the antics of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on their numerous reality shows or shopping outings, this one is for you. 
One of the most original and unpredictable movies to come out of Hollywood in the recent times. All credit to the debutante director, Vadim Perelman. 
This documentary proves the powers of the internet, more specifically the powers of owning a domain name related to a notorious organization as WTO(gatt.org). Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano are two computer dudes who own a website http://www.gatt.org/ which imitated the original WTO site in form and layout, except that the content they delivered was/is intended to educate the readers about the real motives of WTO and the real meaning of globalization.
Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro is a potent combination that will withstand the ravages of time, as Taxi Driver proves. I saw this 1976 film for the first time yesterday and it is relevant and powerful as it might have been back then.
For an avid blogger like me, Garden State is like a blog turned in to a movie. Zach Braff, the novice director-actor-writer of this movie is very much the blogger who blogs about the daily nuances of his life.
The Truth is one of the better films made by Shaji Kailas ,starring Mammootty as the police investigator from Delhi who takes over the murder case of the CM of Kerala. Shaji Kailas has directed all his films glorifying the lone fighter of a cop, I think it is time Kerala Police Dept. conferred an honorary IPS upon him. Whatever it be, had it not been his films the people of Kerala would be largely unaware of the dealings of their corrupt rulers and the names of the big players in the drama which goes by the name of Kerala politics.
Through Hulchul, Priyadarsan - the visiting director(much akin to a visitin prof. giving a guest lecture) has presented Bollywood with a revamped version of the Malayalam hit of the mid-90s, Godfather. The film stars Akshaye Khanna and Kareena Kapoor in the leading roles and they deliver commendable performances. The role of the Godfather is played by the veteran actor, Amrish Puri, in one of his last major roles, before he passed away last month.
If I am asked to pick a director from Hollywood, just one, the one I like the most, I'd pick Clint Eastwood. His latest offering Million Dollar Baby starring Hilary Swank is a gritty tale of a female boxer. Eastwood himself plays the main male lead in the film as the experienced trainer, Frankie Dunn. 
Raincoat is like a play, the set hardly changes more than thrice throughout the movie, the number of characters is five, no more no less and it relies heavily on character development and realization.
Mondo is a little boy living off the streets in Nice, France. Like most of the movies which focus on li'l children (Valentin, Bachehe Aasman, Badnoake Safed, Kolya) this one too focus on the instant affection, we, adults feel for the unattainable innocence and poetry of childhood. Mondo touches the lives of some people and disappears, they wait for him knowing very well that the touch of innocence was transient and it'd never return.
This is a high end version of the usual memory-loss movies Hollywood excel in (the recent ones being Bourne Identity series, Memento etc etc). Except that being a Charlie Kaufman story and memory loss being deliberate, Eternal Sunshine.. is tailor made for the intellectual, it does away with the racy element of amnesiac thrillers and is a love story instead.
Shrek 2 carries forward the fairytale-with-a-twist idea which was first introduced in the original Shrek movie. Ok they are just trying to cash in on the success of the original, but if you liked the first movie for Shrek and his bride, you'll like this movie for the Puss in Boots - Antonio Banderas lends voice to the funny feline character in this sequel where Shrek and princess Fiona visit their royal inlaws.(Seems like it is inlaw season in Hollywood, with Fockers and Shrek2 and all that)
Jack Black is the soul of rock in this movie, he's such a natural at comedy. As a rocker chucked out of his band by his team mates and looking for work, Black lands the job(by deceit, ofcourse) as a substitute teacher at a prep school. The soundtrack of the movie could be a great preparatory lesson in rock. The movie is clean entertainment and Jack Black will give you your money's worth.
Kaazcha is supposedly one of the best Malayalam films that has come out in recent past. If this is the best, I am saddened by the state of the Malayalam movie industry. Kaazcha is directed by the newcomer, Blessy, who had served as assistant director to prominent Malayalam directors. 
What is Page 3? In a newspaper, thats where the celebrities, their parties, their gossips and their photos hang out and the first step towards celebrity-dom is to make sure your head shows up in some corner in some photo on Page 3.
Touching The Void is more of a documentary than a feature film, it charters the climb of Siula Grande in Peru(unconquered at the time) by two young mountaineers from Britian, Simon Yates and Joe Simpson. 
Troy is a good film as far as period films go, the only defect that stands out is that Achilles, the hero of the movie, played by Brad Pitt is a stereotypical contemporary American hero - arrogant, devil may care attitude and Pitt's portrayal of the character with door faced expression only made the matters worse. 
This is the first full length feature film of Charlie Chaplin's, I saw after a decade or so. Reminded me what a great performer Mr.Chaplin was. Performer is the right word, not an actor. He was a mime/circus performer/clown/entertainer all roled in to one.
Seems like Bollywood's current fancy is murder mysteries. Vaada starring Arjun Rampal, Zayyed Khan and Amisha Patel is another formulaic thriller. Acting, especially Zayyed Khan's is below par. The usual song and dance routines and the masala, just another Bollywood flick.
This is one of those rare movies where the sequel is better than the original. Bridget Jones diary was trying to give Ms.Jones a foothold in movie history, once the job was accomplished it goes all out hilarious with The Edge of Reason.
From Pooja Bhatt productions, a Bollywood murder mystery starring Irrfan Khan and a south african model, Ilene Hamann. I thought Rog had a sense of style, a kind of technical perfection unseen in Hindi movies - editing, camera and a less cliched script. The first half was sauve, although in the second half it falls in to trite situations. Suhel Seth and Shyamoli Verma are over the top whereas Ilene falls short in her acting. In the end it is Irrfan who saves the day and MM Kreem's soothing music.
A silly brainless movie which tries to capitalize on the fashion trends of the seventies. It tries to make fun of its main character, Ron Burgundy, the anchorman, but ends up being a torture in the process. I sometimes do not understand Hollywood comedy. The only scene I liked in the movie was when Jack Black appeared, drop kicked Burgundy's dog over a bridge and vanished. I was hoping he'd stay and save the film. Alas!
It'd have been one of the perfect Hindi films to come out of Bollwood in the last few years, had it been an original. For now, it'd have to satisy with the honor of being one of the best alternative remakes of The Reservoir Dogs. 
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