Movies by Deepavali

Dodgeball:

Entertaining movie.
I remember trying to see this movie maybe 3 or 4 times, but never ever passed the first 30 minutes because I doze off
pretty soon :)
But this time, I promised not to doze off and watched the entire movie. The movie wasnt all that bad actually.
This movie more of an Adam Sandler genre of comedy. Ben Stiller as the villian was hilarious.

Thirteen Days:

Good movie.
Fast-paced movie based on the Cuban missile crisis starring Kevin Costner.
Guess, Kevin Costner must be a Democrat, cause I remember his earlier movie 'dancing with the wolves' and now 'thirteen
days' all have some democrat-ideologies encapsulated in them.
It is quite surprising how come this movie was allowed to be released, since it had too many real-life characters and
it is quite impossible for the director to unfold the story as it happened some 40 odd years back. One would
expect a truck-load of controversies getting started due to this movie, and of course barrage of lawsuits etc.,
Anyway, bold attempt for a movie!
In India, very few real life based movies were actually tried, and when few of them are actually released, it always
sparks tremendous opposition from various groups(there is a group for almost everyone out here!) and finally
the director calls-off the project or is happy to release the film only for foreign film festivals.

Shaolin Soccer:

Stephen Chow's comedy movie!
This movie is entertaining in the slapstick sense, and also it has some dark-comedy as well.
The dark-comedy of course is a shocker to viewers, who dont expect such kind of comedies from Chinese films.
This isnt exactly a spoof one and neither is this is an action-extravaganza with comedy-fillers.

Trainspotting:

Another black comedy movie!
Best part of the movie include: Ewan Mcgregor talking about how Scotland was conquered by wankers(read England) and why they should not go for mountain climbing trip. It sounded senseless but was funny nevertheless. Also, the Scottish accent was great fun to listen.

Parineeta:

Vidya Balan was extra-ordinary all through the movie. But sometimes, she tends to give a photographic smile in quite a few sequences. This photographic smile is not really required, sometimes it is slightly irritating because those looks are artificial and you will tend to wonder whether she is doing an advertisement for a 'toothpaste or something'! Aishwarya has this bad habit of showing off her best smile all through the movie rather than look natural. Hope Vidya Balan doesnt overdo this smile!
For a moment, I thought 'Parineeta''s story is similar to 'Devdas'.
Rich boy in love with next-door neighbour. Rich boy's father wants his son to marry some rich-girl and is against the relationship between these two love-birds... but thankfully that's where the similarity mostly ended, else this movie would have been as worse as 'Devdas'.

A Walk to Remember:

Mandy Moore's idealistic behaviour was highly intolerable.
Story is a regular love story and the movie went from bad to worse when Mandy Moore claims that she has got 'cancer'!

Wimbledon:

Good romantic comedy movie.
The movie really takes a sprint right from the first sequence. There is hardly a dry segment all through the movie.
The game-shots was choreographed in an impeccable manner.
Wonder why this movie was dedicated to Mark McCormack?!

Enter the Dragon:

Must have been atleast 10 to 12 years back when I first saw this movie in DD Metro, when they showed 15-20 minutes of this movie and I patiently watched this movie 20 minutes every week to see 'The End'. Then, I grew impatient at the way this movie was shown on national television, as if this is television serial! At that time, I liked any Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee action movie and so I liked 'enter the dragon' then!
Now, when I saw this movie again, I dont see any good points at all in this movie, except for the funny sounds that Bruce Lee makes when fighting his rivals, his funny face-expressions when he kicks or jumps on someone, the best of all is the crazy mirror fight sequences - damn - that was a stupidest action sequence one could ever see on movies! Nevertheless, enjoyed watching this comedy movie!

Harry Potter - Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban:

I havent read the Harry Potter series as yet, but I was promised by a couple of my friends that this is top-class work. The movie was ordinary fare according to me, but I am sure ardent 'Harry Potter' readers might think the other way. Lots of sequences in this movie seems to have been copied from various mythological stories or simply picked from well-known adventure-fantasy writer's works. The time machine based climax and the 'back to the future' kind of picturisation are plagiarised in this movie.
Somehow to me seeing a movie seems to be a better option than reading the book. Book consumes major chunk of one's time, while a movie consumes just 2-3 hours to the max.

Iqbal:

Ordinary movie. Did not expect to see such a below-par movie from Nagesh Kukunoor. This was worse than 'Hyderabad Blues 2'. This 'feel-good' movies will certainly irritate the audience.

The Legend of Zorro:

Entertaining movie.
More in the Indiana Jones-way, no wonder Steven Spielberg's Amblin Production house is behind this movie.
Liked the way Hollywood couples american history with the protagonists in the movie and Spielberg Zemeckis are masters in this area.

Moon Landing Hoax:

I think this documentary is a big hoax.
Seeing this documentary reminded me of 'Wag the Dog' movie.
India is planning to land a man on the moon by 2007 and hopefully another documentary like this will creep-in and provide fun for all of us.

Once upon a time in America:

Ordinary fare.
Best part of this Sergio Leone movie is the pace at which it moves. Though the duration of the movie is a bit too long, and this will take a heavy toll on the viewer. This movie went along well till the point when Robert De Niro comes back to New York as an 60 odd year old man.
Guess, Mani Ratnam's inspiration for the 'Nayagan' smuggling modus operandi i.e throw the smuggled goods into the ocean/sea along with sacks full of salt was picked up from this movie.

Once upon a time in West:

Good movie.
Charles Bronson and all the actors in this Sergio Leone movie were great to watch. The music by Encino Morricone was also good. Guess, all Sergio Leone movies will have an actor playing a tune with harmonica. Quentin Tarantino's movie 'Kill Bill' seems to be inspired from this western classic. The theme music, the acting style, the revenge-part and the setting part all seem to be similar to this movie.
Guess, even Sholay seems to be inspired from Sergio Leone movies. For example, Amitabh's role seems to be quite similar to Sergio Leone's protagonists. Thankfully, Amitabh went on to do movies taking up roles which potrayed him as a calm-quiet-reticent-angry when pushed a bit too hard-taking revenge in style.

Tarzan - animation movie:

Entertaining fare.
Star voices include George Carlin and Brad Garrett.

Pulp Fiction:

Good movie.
Quentin Tarantino's dark-comedy style is great entertainment. The senseless arguments that his characters get into during the course of an important segment in the movie is great fun to watch, and we wonder 'damn.. can you guys stop this senile conversation and get alongwith the actual story of the movie', for example the one on 'five dollar shake' or the 'foot massage' or the 'why no one dont rob restaurants' or 'whether escaping from gun-shots was a mirace or not'.


Fourty year virgin:

Ordinary movie.
This movie started along similar lines to the movie 'the office space' and I was expecting this to be a comedy riot, but the movie lost the tempo.

Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind:

Good movie.
Great idea for a movie, i.e allowing people to erase their memories of someone who they dont like. It was a novel attempt. Jim Carrey's role will remind us of his earlier role in 'the truman show' where he desperately tries to find out 'who he is'. The way Kate Winslet's hair colour was used in this story was interesting. Kirsten Dunst's character-name in this movie is 'Mary' and it looks like she is having a name-fetish with this name, since she happens to carry the same name 'Spiderman', 'Wimbledon' and now in this movie. Also surprised, to see the name of SD Burman, Lata Mangeshkar, Lakshmikant Pyarelal and Mukesh's name in the soundtrack credits, since I dont remember listening to any hindi song during the course of the movie.

Run Lola Run:

Thought this movie was slightly on the boring side. The story line gets repeated thrice and the enthusiasm to watch the same movie thrice really will put one off from watching this movie.

No Man's Land:

This movie beat 'Lagaan' and three other non-Hollywood movies to win the 'Best Foreign Language film'.
Guess, 'Lagaan' deserved to get the Oscars with its nice 'feel-good plot', unlike 'No Man's Land'.
This movie seems to have a strong backing from various television network majors from France, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and UK.

The Real Da Vinci Code:

Haven't read this book 'The Da Vinci Code', but having seen this documentary, my earlier doubts about the authenticity of this book is proven right. Would love to read 'The Da Vinci Code' just for the entertainment value and of course will love to see Tom Hanks in action in the soon-to-be-released movie 'The Da Vinci Code'.

Dr. Strangelove:

Dark comedy which must have generated lots of publicity among-the-sixties generation ! It is a pity that Peter Sellers did not have much of a role. It is very difficult to make sense of this movie in the current era, where there is only one superpower.
The humming sound in the background everytime the bomber is shown on screen is hard-to-forget!

The Motorcycle Diaries:

Seeing this movie in Spanish(guess so), without any English sub-titles made life not-so-easy for viewing this movie.
And me also not knowing much about Che, also didnt help much. One will get a feeling that this movie is incomplete and thus will not impress upon the viewer.

The Graduate:

Good movie.
Dustin Hoffman's performance was top-class.
Simon and Garfunkel songs all through the movie also makes up good listening.

Beauty and the Beast:

Ordinary movie.
Guess, this is the first animated movie to have won an Oscar.
Maybe this movie-experiment paved the way for better animated movies than this.

Dil:

A Vikram movie before he had hits starting with 'gemini'.
Vikram seemed to be a much better actor in this movie before he started acting in outright-masala movies.
The story was a novel one in tamil cinema and it seemed to be vaguely based on the hindi movie 'Is Raat ki Subah Nahin'.

To Kill a mocking bird:

Thought this movie was kind of ordinary, did not live up to all the hype I heard about this movie. The child-actors in-particular the protagonist's acting i.e Scott was fantastic.
The Alabama accent is great fun to here, remembering listening to the same accent in Forrest Gump.

Full Metal Jacket:

Great movie.
This movie stamps Stanley Kubrick's class.
Best part of this movie include:
i. the funny rhymes the marines are taught
ii. the name-giving ceremony to the marines by the PT
iii. Joker's stubborness on claiming that 'virgin mary was not virgin' inspite of his PT trainer's insistence otherwise
iv. the dark style of film-making whether it is comedy/action
v. the war-game when they try to catch a sniper in the climax
vi. Joker's 'talk the talk' bold comments was great fun to watch.

Adaptation:

Good movie.
Nicolas Cage in a new avatar.
The movie was extra-ordinary except for the last 15-30 minutes, when the movie started taking the usual-commercial masala cinema plot.

Clockwork Orange:

Did not like this Stanley Kubrick movie, maybe a trifle too long also.