Sunday, February 27, 2005

Good Will Hunting

Great movie.

All those conversations between Matt Damon and Robin Williams/Math professor/Minnie Driver/Ben Affleck were excellent.

Ben Affleck displayed good acting skills all through the movie, but wonder why he never became a big star.

Robin Williams in conversation with the Math professor was also a treat to watch.

Ramanujam is revered all through the movie.

Shark s Tale

A decent movie, but guess lots of hype behind this movie.
The credits that was shown during the end, was a sensational i.e lots of major Hollywood stars including Scorcese have lent their voices to the charaters in this animated movie.

Saw a curtain-raiser programme which talked about Martin Scorcese's strong bid for this Oscars' Best Director slot. I have seen his earlier movies "Casino", "Bringing out the dead" , "Gangs of New York", but didnt really enjoy any of them. Hoping to see if "the aviator" is really that good. Lots of hype all around that he will get the Best Director for "the aviator".

The usual suspects

Out of the world movie.
Last ten/five minutes is the best part of the movie.
Kevin Spacey did give the absolute knock-out punch when he starts walking from limped foot to the normal way.

Benecio Del Toro kind of comes and goes in this movie, not so memorable performance unlike "the traffic" one.

Sense and sensibility

"Sense and sensibility" is a good movie. Really liked the way Emma Thomson has acted in that movie.
Small trivia about Emma,
Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000668/bio

"She was initially cast as the lead in Basic Instinct (1992), but refused later on. About Sharon Stone's appearance she said: “As far as I can see, from Sharon Stone's love scene in "Basic Instinct", they molded her body out of tough Plasticine. She was shagging Michael Douglas like a donkey, and not an inch moved. If that had been me, there would have been things flying around hitting me in the eye.”"

I saw the movie "kandukondein kandukondein" before seeing this movie "sense and sensibility". Thought "kandu... " was a good movie. Infact all the while, while watching this movie I kept comparing the actors of "Kandu.. " and "Sense and...".
Sometimes, I like those old-hindi remix songs that get played in channels. Agreed, the videos are bad most of the times. But the actual remix of the song seems to be good. I think R and B and our old songs kind of jell really well. My old hindi songs knowledge/awareness is bad. So, I get to listen to remix first and soon when I happen to listen to the original, I have a problem in appreciating the original. Maybe it is because the remix was the one I heard first.


I saw "Love actually" movie , in which almost "who is who" of Brit film industry appear. And only via "Love actually" did I get to know Emma Thomson and Robert Hardy.
And in "Love actually" they play more of a middle-aged role so, at times found it difficult to see them as relatively young folks in "Sense...", though Robert plays only a middle-aged man in "Sense..." but he looks lot older than that.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Ghosts ?

Ghost-town is something that you will get to see when you visit a place after a long time and you are in company of old-friends or in short when you in old-environment. Old here can be thought of as an abstract span-of-time i.e old = 1 month to n years.

Ghosts could be people or places will be omnipresent. You cant survive a minute without this ghostly or rather ghastly thought!

Drowning myself in nostalgia is not something I relish. True, nostalgia is like plesant break but I think nostalgia takes you away from reality and the minute the honey-moon ends you will be stuck with reality staring infront of you :-(

Guess, it is better to sit and go through the reality motions than chasing the mirage.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Hordes of movies

I got to see hordes of movies last week.
I saw "the forgotten", "alexander", "national treasure", "office space", "braveheart" and "rounders".

"the forgotten":
Bad movie, might have got inspired by "The ring". Nothing much to type about. Certainly will scare you out of your seat when you see men/women suddenly pulled from land towards sky in a second when they are about to utter something that is important about "how juliane moore's girl got lost in the plane-crash or why people lose their memory?"


"Alexander":
Bad movie. Oliver Stone has given a sketchy idea about Alexander, nothing really impressive. Few sequences that will amaze you is:
i. alexander as gay
ii. No decent collector's details about "porus, the king of Punjab region". In this movie "Porus"'s name is not even mentioned.
iii. origin of the name "alexandria" a port city in egypt which was named after alexander
So, historical details are mostly left forgotten all through this movie.

"National Treasure":
Nice movie. Very fast one. From Nicolas Cage and Bruckheimer team. This movie has way too many historical/trivia details. But some no one can vouch for the authenticity. Few sequences that might of interest include:
i. DST or Daylight Saving time invented by Benjamin Franklin
ii. All the theory about "Crusaders" and "the progressive thinking americans of that era"...
iii. good fast-paced adventure similar to indiana jones kind of movies.
iv. maybe this movie might have got inspired by da vinci code

"Office Space":
Nice Comedy movie. Has Jeniffer Aniston in not so cool role. Few funny sequences include:
i. Michael Bolton (not the singer but the software engineer who likes Rap) !
ii. Michael Bolton and the fax machine
iii. The next-door neighbour who overhears all the conversations
iv. The project manager during assesment describes his role as "i get the specifications from client and give it to engineers, because engineers cannot speak to the client". The manager kindof accepts that he is more of a postman.
v. Best part is when our hero quits his IT job and finds demolition job more interesting.
vi. And the mumbling fellow in office, who no one bothers


"Braveheart":
Bad movie. Too much hype. I get a feeling of deja vu almost after every sequence in this movie. I hope Kamal Hassan doesnt make 'MaruthuNayagam" in the "Braveheart" lines as most journalists claim.

"Rounders":
Great movie. Check this movie. Best part is when the law-student with a steady love-life decides to quit the secure atmosphere around him to enjoy the fascinating world of poker/gambling/insecure life as if he has nothing to lose.
Contrasting theme to that of "Eyes Wide Shut" where the plot doesnt encourage fantasy for normal regular-folks!

Eyes wide shut

Through Jayakanthan's blog http://shakuni.blogspot.com, I came to know about a few exhaustive links/articles about 'Stanley Kubrick'.
Stanley Kubrick's ideas are out of the box. I had seen only one Kubrick directed movie "Eyes Wide Shut" as of now. Did not really enjoy watching "Eyes Wide Shut" .

But really enjoyed a few sequences in that movie, including one scene when Tom Cruise kindof gets himself stuck very badly in the shady world of some cult and wants to get out of it for good. I think Kubrick via Cruise is telling that "cult-following or doing things out of the box is not for you, and go ahead and continue your regular boring day-to-day work in your office". Adventure particularly of this kind sounds cool, but wont suit you or me! He could be telling you and me to "Enjoy the movie and get alongwith your life and forget about the 'fascinating' world of cults/adventures"

Sunday, February 13, 2005

The Hours

A few days back I saw the movie "the hours".
Found the movie to be interesting, mostly due to the style in which the movie was taken. Three characters different years/places, but similar emotions.
Nicole Kidman was not recognisable at all in her role as an english-author.
The characters are complex and it required good concentration to understand the characters. Meryl Streep cries a lot in this movie!
Claire Danes was cute all through the movie.

I liked the novel interpretation of "suicide", in this movie.