Mini Movie Reivews

These days i am on a movie binge of sorts,and which i plan to increase many folds in next few days Here's a list of movies i have seen in past few days and my views on the same:

• Frost/Nixon : Engaging political drama inspired from true events taken place between tv show host David Frost and recently disgraced president Richard Nixon.The movie shows the historic interview and all the events that took place in order to organize that interview.Splendid performances by Michael Sheen and Frank Langella(nominated in Best Actor Category for Oscars '09) and also a good supporting cast led by one of my favourties,Sam Rockwell.Must Watch.
• The Visitor:An Endearing human drama.Full On.No guns,no bombs exloding,no car chases.Just pure character developement and gripping human emotions.Once in a lifetime performace by Richard Jenkins(Nominated for Best Actor),he just gets in the skin of his charcter from the first scene.Must Watch.
• The Wrestler:A much anticipated movie from one of my favourite director Darrren Aronofsky ,as always he chooses a different subject altogheter,a follow up to RFAD,and The fountain, don't know why but i was a bit disappointed by this one.This movie is basically a character study of the aging wrestler played to the hilt by Mickey Rourke(Nominated for Best Actor).He shows behind the scenes in the wrestling business and how the fame and the adulation and more imporatantly the love for the crowd is all that remains in a wrestler's life.Can be watched atleast once.
• Gran Torino:Clint Eastwood is THE man.Period
• How to lose friends and alienate people:Simon Pegg takes care of most of the proceedings in this movie.He pwns the movie.Funny movie in most of the parts plus there is Kristen Dunst(sweet,adorable) and Megan Fox(HOT).One of those movies to be seen with friends on a nightout.
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno:Yeah Yeah enough for the reactions.Seth Rogen,Elizabeth Banks have been platonic friends forever and they device an ingenious way to come out of their credit crunch.Yeah you guessed it right.Totally tp movie,just like the above one.Watch it.
• National Tresaure:Book of Secrets : Yeah i don't know hy i watched this one but i always wanted to see atleast one of the National Treasure movies.Had no expectations from it and it surely topped that.Great Ensemble cast saved this movie for me.Cage,Jon Voight,Helen Mirren,Ed Haris,Harvey Keitel,Diane Kruger,and that sidekick.Popcorn flick,buckheimer ishtyle.
• Dev.D:Kashyap finally redeemed himself for No Smoking(Personally i didn't hate that movie so much).Abhay Deol continues his golden streak of hindie cinema.I'm totally on his side.He is perfect as Dev.D.Some pretty fundoo dialogues shattering all taboos imaginable in hinid cinema or india in genreal.Though the movie could have done some editing and the ending could have been so much better.
• LOST Season 5: It's getting better with age.As Macd would have said it; I'm Lovin' it.
  
• Auf der anderen Seite(The Edge of Heaven):Saved the best for the last.Beautiful Cinema,Beautifully shot and directed.This one deserves a review of it's own.So yeah obviously a must watch.

Movies on my playlist:

• Che Part One
• Gegen die Wand(Head On)
  
• Gomorra
• Australia(God knows WHY)
• Waltz with Bashir
• Leaving Las Vegas.
  

MY Director's Special

What follows is a list of my favourite Movie Director's , and you may or may not agree with the list but nonetheless this list will provide you a list of brilliant movies which you must watch at all cost(i.e if you haven't done it already). SO here it goes ( The following list is in no particular order) :

I) Stanley Kubrick :
This guy was simply way ahead of his times.For Ex. in his movie The Killing (1951) he had used the non-linear style of story-telling which was later made famous by tarintino in the 90's.He has made some movies which has influenced some of the best directors of recent times.He has made movies in wide spectrum of genres viz war,sci-fic,horror,ultra-violent.

Essential Viewings : The Killing(1951),Paths Of Glory(1957),Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb(1964) [ This is one of the most hilarious movies i have ever seen in my life ] , A Clockwork Orange(1971), Full Metal Jacket(1987)

II] Coen Brothers :
They are THE master of Black Comedies.They have got some of the best written scripts in their movies and they somehow extract brilliant performances from their actors.Many of their movies have metaphorical aspect in them, and may not be understood well by the "pop-culture" kinda crowd(Refer :Barton Fink,The Hudsucker Proxy). I enjoy black comedies and intelligent cinema , i have loved almost their every movie , because of the subtle humor in their movies.I would really recommend all of you to watch their movies if you like to laugh out loud at something other than slapstick comedies.

Essential Viewings:Blood Simple,Fargo,The Big Lebowski,O Brother Where Art Thou,Barton Fink,The Hudsucker Proxy,Miller's Crossing.

III] Christopher Nolan :
This guy caught my attention when i first watched Memento, that flick was simply amazing,it blew me away completely with it's unusual way of storytelling.Insomnia was also very good directed movie.I also loved what he did with Batman Begins and how he gave that movie a (much needed) dark overture.AND then he made The Prestige which again has a very non-linear way of storytelling involving magicians, a very different storyline.

Essential Viewings: Memento,The Prestige

IV] Guy Ritchie :
Some of THE best witty lines in movies are written by him.His Movies can be watched over and over and over again, and the best part is that it gets better with repeated viewings.Lock,Stock,And Two smoking barrels,and Snatch are my favourite con/Robbery/Black comedies i have ever seen.You never know when the scene changes from a guy making joke about something and getting his hand chopped off in the next scene.His movies are VERY VERY funny and violent at times. Special Mention to his movie Revolver over here because like his earlier movies this one also has killer lines but along with it has a underlying metaphor which simply with mess up with your mind.

Essential Viewings : Lock,Stock And 2 Smoking Barrels , Snatch , Revolver

V] Steven Spielberg:
Well i can't say that i have watched all of his movies but i have added him onto this list coz of 2 reasons : Schindler's List & Saving Private Ryan. I absolutely enjoyed these two epics he made.The way he made Schindler's list was amazing and the attention to detail in Saving Private Ryan was mind blowing. The war scenes were too good.

Essential Viewings : Schindler's List,Saving Private Ryan,Jurassic Park,ET

VI] Martin Scorsese :
Martin Scorsese + Robert DeNiro=Magic.
Has made remarkable movies in which he has extracted some of the finest acting from deniro.Just watch Taxi Driver or Raging Bull and you'll know what i'm talking about.

Essential Viewings : Mean Streets,Taxi Driver,Raging Bull,Goodfellas

VII] Darren Aronofsky :
This guy has a different way of putting things.It hits you like a bullet train.Some of the scenes in RFAD are etched in my mind along with the haunting music.RFAD has to be in my list of fav. of movies.It was one of the most depressing movie i have EVER seen in my life and it was brilliant. The fountain also had a very different concept and was very beautifully shot.

Essential Viewings : Pi,Requiem for a Dream,The Fountain

IX] Francis Ford Coppola :
Well i HAD to add the godfather himself to my list.Period.

Essential Viewings : The Godfather pt.II ( because it's my fav of the 3), The Godfather , Apocalypse Now

X] Quentin Tarantino :
So HE makes my list complete.I don't think there is much to say about this guy than what all has been said before, though i still can't forgive him about how he killed Grindhouse with his Death-Proof

Essential Viewings: Reservoir Dogs,Pulp Fiction,Kill Bill

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Honorable Mentions :
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Chan-wook Park
Guillermo del Toro
Spike Jonze
Michel Gondry
Brian De Palma
Roman Polanski

Not Your Average Thriller(And that's Good)

David Fincher (director of Fight Club,Se7en) is back with his 2nd attempt into Crime thriller genere.

The movie is based on books authoerd by Robert Graysmiths bout the real life notorious Zodiac,a serial killer who terrorized San
Francisco with a string of seemingly random murders during the 1960s
and 1970s.

Robert Graysmith( Jake Gyllenhaal) is a cartoonist in a leading newspaper which gets a series of letters by a unkown person claiming to be the responsible for the killings of a young couple and demands that his letters along with his ciphers to be printed in the newspaper else he would go on a killing spree.

Paul Avery( Robert Downey Jr ) plays the crime reporter who slowly gets invovled in the case and tries to solve the case along with the police department.Inspector David Toschi( Mark Ruffalo ) and Inspector William Armstrong( Anthony Edwards ) have been assigned the case of the zodiac killer.
What follows is a series of investigations,flase leads and dozens of suspects and case which goes on for several years leading to frustration among many officers.As time goes by Robert Graysmith who used to follow this case for his own sake decides to take upon his shoulder about finding out the identity of the zodiac killer.

This is not a average hollywood crime thriller, this is based upon the actual police case files and shows accurately the frustration which must be going on inside the minds of people involved with it as the case drags on for more than a decade.David Fincher deserves all the credit of making a tight thriller in which everything goes on with the flow, the flim gets tiring in between as it is of long duration but fincher manages to get back the atttention of the audiance with some brilliant scenes

But a major credit should go the actors.Jake Gyllenhaal plays his charcter with a certain nerdiness and obbsession which makes him fun to watch.He has matured as a actor from his Donnie Darko days.Mark Ruffalo who plays this dedicated and worked detective with a dash of humor is brilliant.Robert Downey Jr(he looks very different) in his small role adds his witty touch instantly.

This movie correctly potrays the chronological order of the zodiac case.As an audiance i started to feel equally paranoid and confused as the detectives would have felt during those years.This a dialouge-driven thriller which is certainly a bit boring at some parts but in all is a brilliant movie in itself.This may not be David Fincher’s best but it is still great.

The Review : Live Free or Die Hard AkA Die Hard 4.0

Willis is back and How !! I was pretty skeptic about this movie at first , but when i saw the reviews and some of friends also had nice things to say about the movie, it got my interested.

So finally thanks to hutch tue. i saw this movie yest @ 65 bucks -imax.

The Plot : Continuing the same tradition of earlier movies in the die hard series , mclane is in the wrong place at the wrong time. A group of "cyber-terros" have hacked into the fbi cyber branch and they send a search team to locate all the hackers and so john mclane is given the responsibility to bring in a geek but the bad guys are out to kill all of the geeks who were involved in supplying the source codes for various things..........anywhoo the plot is not important nor the (lack of) technical jargon they give in between.

It's all about old-school action , and hell lot of it. Full packed with action sequences and some killer lines by willis makes it a paisa vasool flick to watch. Leave your brains at home , coz the movie does become silly at some points (refer : the fighter jet plane sequence) but somehow i enjoyed the action. Willis is damn cool in the movie along with his sidekick whatever his name is. The baddie is also fine.

I would give it a 3 outta 5. Yippee-ka-yay-mofo.

Spidey is a Sissy !

Saw this non-sense of a movie they call spiderman at adlabs,vashi today for 50 bucks and man it ain't even worth that. I don't quite remember when was the last time i had seen such a silly and childish movie which bored me to sleep and let me tell you i have seen many viz tarararaaaaa pumpum , et all .

The "Plot" of the movie is still the same. I can't even differentiate between the three movies now.There is this parker guy( read : gay) who is always messed up on the personal front.He just can't get it right with that MJ girl (read :aunty) and even rightly so.

For ex. there is this scene where he is about to propose to her in the restaurant and the girl is in a bad mood coz she just got kicked outta broadway. She is saying that she doens't feel well and all that crap. To which he replies oh its ok, i know how u feel , even spiderman gets to hear bad things from people and what not. I was wishing she would take a iron rod and smash open his head then and there itself saying "digg this mofo"

Or this other scene , where spiderman is swinging around the buildings( as usual) and tagging people , yo - yo and all that shit , looking gay as ever. and then kisses another girl like he had kissed that other girl in the 1st movie in front of her. again i was like iron rod- kill him , kill him.For the sake of humanity kill this gay superhero.

All the same "villans" sand something guy , then there is this other black spidey as if one wasn't enough. When i come to think of it i kinda liked this black spidey much more than his gay counterpart. Nothing new happens in this movie what so ever. villians rampaging the city , spidey saves the day(along with his amnesiac friend goblin jr.) in the end and comes out alive and so and so forth.

I can go on forever cursing the movie but i would like to conclude on the following note :

I can't decide which movie was more boring and stupid : DHOOM 2 or Spiderman 3 ????

Pirates of the GURU-Dead Man's Chest

Well as the name of the post suggests these are two movies i saw yesterday and today.

GURU : I liked this movie which showcases some brilliant performances by abhishek,mithun da , mahadevan along with nice direction by mani ratnam.He knows exactly how to extract good performances from his actors.He knows exactly what he wants and gets that.While abhishek sometimes tend to act like amitabh from agneepath in the end but i guess thats ok,coz i liked rest of the movie very much.The climax is a bit of a letdown.Well in the end some of u will love it where as the other half won't as was the case in omkara(another well-directed movie).

Pirates.of.the.Caribbean-Dead.Man's.Chest :The actors are the same but the humor is gone.too stretched out for no reason whatsoever.All that stupid parts of those tribal people are of no consequence.The only thing i liked about this movie is depp(as usual brilliant) and the last scene.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Quoted by new york times as " the best book on the dope-decade"

This book is just brilliant.The basic premise of the book is about ramblings of a jouranlist Mr.Duke and his attorney Dr.Gonzo who are on their way to Las Vegas to find the "American Dream" while their car if full of all sorts of drugs to various other abusive elements and their head is full of acid n ether.

The movie is great too with depp as duke and del toro as gonzo. I would recommend watching the movie after reading this book as it would make more sense and seems hell lot more funny.

"WTF-was-that " kinda movies

Here are some movies,which i have seen and after movie ended i had just one thought in my mind:"WTF was that all about ?? . Well in case you are wondering that they turned out to be absolutely worthless;i am sorry to say my friend that you are sadly mistaken.In fact those are exactly the kind of movie you wish to see again and again and keep pondering over it or over its open-ending interpretation.so here are some that i have seen :

Few Movies I Loved

Here are a list of movies i have watched and re-watched over and over again.These are some of the movies i would recommend to anyone who has a good sense of humor or has a knack for watching good "different" movies(other than usual shit on US/UK Top 10) or would just like to try out new movies(not necessarily in that order).The foll. movies are in general funny,black comedy,"great-one-liners" type movies. ::
The above movies are in no particular order,i like them all the same.(ok maybe some even more so).

PS:In case you have seen any of the above movie,and you liked it do care to share your views and if you feel otherwise ,LIC.

Most *over-rated* hindi moviez

These movies have either put to sleep or made me laugh so hard(at the movie) or made me feel somebody put a bullet in my head and put me outta my misery.and the worst part being they went on to win awards.

1. Devdas :::
   This is baap of all boring movies.the acting was over-the-top by shahrukh as usual.there was no chemisty between ash n him.i didn feel a bit that he loved her.and then madhuri also bored me along me jackie shroff as a over-enthu "chunnilal".and kiron kher scared the shit outta me when she came runnin n shoutin in one of the song sequences.
2. Veer-Zaara :::
   Another one of shahrukh khan hits.the first thing i couldnt understand about this movie was the backdrop.i mean when was this movie set in wch year.if shahrukh was in jail in 2005 then in flashback is it supposed to be India n pakistan of 1950's or 1960's if so then it surely didn feel lik india in those days.i mean he's a pilot n wears denim.so this was the major flaw.secondly this movie was to terribly boring with boring songs(hell lot of 'em) and somehow zinta jus didnt fit in that role.bajpai was hopelessy miscast.
   
3. Koi Mil Gaya :::
   Whole movie copied from start to finish from ET which was made way back in late 80's and in India this movie goes to win the awards for Best Director and Best Film and what not.so on one hand we raise hell over that kavya girl who wrote opal mehta because of palagraism and on the other hand we give awards to fully xeroxed movie.
   
4. Main Hoon na :::
   First half was somewhat tolerable insipite of terrible acting by zayed khan but the second half was just messed up esp. the suneil shetty part and the ending was hillarious.
5. No-entry :::
   I didnt laugh in the whole movie and it was supposedly a "rib-tickling comedy".
   
   Other Honurable Mentions:::
   
   • Krishh
   • corporate
   • hum apke hai kaun
   • fanna
   • chalte-chalte
   
   The best part about these movies are that the comical ones don't make you laugh and the serious melo-dramatic one do!!!
   

fanna

so my vaccations have started.....today i went to see the movie "fanna"....first ate at ovenfresh at shivaji park...ate spagetthi arabitta which was good a bit too spicy n full of xtra masala but good in all...saw the movie show at 3.30...now somethin bout the movie:

the movie started n 5 mins into the movie i was wondernin why the hell in first place i came to see this....after 15mins aamir decides to sing a song for kajol n 20 mins later they fell in love...1 hr later they decide to get married...while sayin some stupid "shayari" in between every 10 lines....n it turns out he's a terrorist n in the meantime kajol gets her eyesight back....n blah blah....after 3 hrs she kills him finally n i m free to leave the hall....theres no dir in the movie whtsoever....i mean this director could hav done soo much with these talented actor viz amir,kajol,tabu but instead he made a total crap of a movie....
in one scene tabu shoots a guy wit a pistol from helicopter to helicopter while the guy has ak-47 in his hand...i mean wtf?? so in all i was dissappointed...

then came back home...so thts pretty much what i did today....anyways i dun knw y i am writing this cos i knw wht i hav done n i dun think anyone else vil read this but wht the hell i wanted to cuss this movie...