"Igby Goes Down" (2002) - Movie Review

If a film is distancing itself from making the viewers care nothing at all on the characters, it needs to have a thumping story line to support. “Igby Goes Down” does not live up to it at any given moment during this short ninety seven minutes longer than two and half hours. The film attempts on the darkness of this rebellious kid Igby (Kieran Culkin) alias Jason Slocumb Jr. What happens is a miserable attempt by him and director to have a funny portrayal of what life is a slow expectancy towards failure. And it is a thought to be pondered and the concept of life, happiness, family and aim are targets to be hit upon only to miss it way off the chart.

Igby decides to grace the presence of failure which eventually will happen in life to accept it early on. Instead to thrive on this constant social expectation, it is better to succumb to the fiasco the living span of him has left. He flunks and drops out. Why is he like that? A schizophrenic father (Bill Pullman) and his mother Mimi (Susan Sarandon) has no bit or trace of love for this kid looks like a reason. To top it is a narcissistic brother Oliver (Ryan Phillipe) to rub the ignorant screw up on him every possible opportunity. Every character is a failure in some way or other. Failure not defined by the financial or social status but as a human being itself.

He falls in love with a slightly older girl than him, Sookie (Claire Danes) and she really is the only one who shows some symptoms of sane human. But she falls right off too with Igby’s brother. Nothing but a sexual tension and an age factor is quoted for her decision. I am not here to point for her betrayal which in reality not necessarily seems to. She realizes it cannot go in long run and backs off. But to fall for his brother should have been given more explanation. Not a slight flirting and brushing himself on her to get seduced and eventually decide to take the serious step. When Sookie is with Igby she questions him of his insane activities and stand still future. In every way she seems to understand and wake Igby up. The evidence of that with Oliver is unimaginable to be honest. It is not the hate on Oliver along with Igby it generates. It is just a big hole in the torn screenplay.

If he is taking a run on his life, he should have been ridiculously adventurous or left in the streets. But he knows it is tough and opts for drugs, sex and of all a bum. There is no sympathy being generated for this spoiled and confused boy. He does not have friends and reaps every chance to run away from an already messed up family. Is being in a dysfunctional upbringing is good enough for an unreasonable outlook towards life? It might be but you have to back it up with dialogues, chemistry good and bad to be presented upon to support those.

The characters pops up for no reason and as Igby is full of pessimists and lazy junkies. They sleep around with no sun to rise for and do not live in fantasy. Every one especially Igby perfectly understands his way of living. There is nothing holding up for him. The acting is a stiff faced look and easy “f” word utterance acting as not realizing but wants it to be razor sharp on the person it aimed upon appeals at first and then fades away and then becomes boringly annoying.

So I was expecting something mildly darkly from vehemently dark to be seen as a positive which generally emerges from a movie like this. Igby may not suddenly take a big shift in his life but realize what he is throwing away. He does and yet it is not satisfying. By that time, we have given up on the film and the characters. The last hope of having quirky and interesting dialogues dies away with two chuckles in the whole film.

If one thing impresses in the film, it should be its song selections or soundtracks. I should appreciate director Burr Steers for the independent and different styles of music for the film. All are hits which many do not know. It is a perfect soundtrack to purchase. He has a very good sense of music and collecting it too. When some one has that sense and likes those songs, you make a CD compilation, not a movie.

"Amistad" (1997) - Movie Review

In “Amistad” the gravity of the sickening and gruesome torture the slavery took its toll on the Africans happens some where in the middle. It is when one of the many slaves who rose upon to take control of the ship which were taking them to Spain in 1839, Cinque (Djimon Housou) the leader narrates their journey from their home to hells of the ship’s basement. When a true story is depicted, the enactment of the killings is not shown in detail, concerning to how much it would be inhuman even to watch those. Stephen Spielberg lets it to be exactly shown as it would have happened in the torment and tribulation inside those carrier ships where human values torn upon mercilessly. And that is something needs to be shown for the current world of hatred and inhumanity. It tells us the brutalities a human can do and can be made to do by the very act of them.

We are introduced to Cinque and his people to be the non-hesitant executioners of most of the crews in the ship, “La Amistad”. We are made to fear them as would any one at that times did when they are forced to be brought upon the lands of America. The slavery and its cruelty are well aware upon on us and the film making us to live through those is when we really are aware. The first fifteen minutes are entirely in one of the native language in Sierra Leone, Mende with no subtitles. We see the expressive, angry and toughly built Cinque orchestrating the mutiny and guiding the ship back home, as he hopes. Djimon Honsou’s needed to speak a language which most of the times did not have subtitled for. He uses his expressive face to widen more to reflect the pain and humiliation he is put upon. He does not understand the system of law in the new country playing its politics. He cannot understand when judgments are “almost” final and questions how one can live in a system like that to his lawyer Baldwin (Mathew McConaughey).

Baldwin has a change in his own taking up the case and proving it in every evidential and legal way possible. He is not defeated in the cases but challenged step by step by the non-stop pounding the politics poses upon. He starts off with an interest over the case than the people. He suggests being a real estate attorney advocated the easy winning with Cinque and his people as and not slaves. But he befriends the Cinque and with the guidance of Covey (Chiwetel Ejiofor), he listens and understands him.

The story marked one of the quintessential turning points which formed the American and African history. It witnessed that the same men who enslave another human can very well be brought down on their knees. Making one devoid of freedom can create ripples of reflux unimaginable which can amplify into enormous power and wrath. The real case as the movie too forgets the massacre made in that ship. It is quite ridiculous to question the mutiny performed by Cinque and his people. It is the nature of human existence exhibited out there. When a human decides to act on the basis of power, cruelty and disrespect of another and in the process claiming the single most important value and necessity, the freedom, and the resultant is a knife to his throat. Legal systems are into shambles as the very literal presences of human beings are thrown off the charts.

The problem with the ancient stories is the mannerism it needs to be assumed for playing the part. Things might be learned from books and people but the imagination is blocked and limited to that. Anthony Hopkins plays John Quincy Adams and the mannerism he exhibits in the court room punctuates the sounding speech he gives with audacity, will and courage. When he brittles the executive’s prejudices and views on slavery, he tells the nature of the man and knocks on the stand and it makes that statement come to live told by the person who said the same in that court. That body language and gesture is the wide angle he protracts into that limited boundary.

The star cast, the alarming scenes and the inspiring speech which are the ingredients of a history movie made by the talented Spielberg misses in liveliness seeping out in couple of instances. The momentous tone and weight of certain period of film and some chorus dominated sequences, distracts us from the center issue. As perfectly might it draw the past, the focus for a moment blurs out. The editing by Michael Kahn faltered and an easy twenty minutes could have been shrunk into a five minutes event.

The 19th century American life is magnanimously sculpted and captured by the cinematography of Janusz Kraminski. It thrives on the minute details to design the people of those times by the costume designer Ruth E. Cater. Noticeable fits are those of the abolitionist Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman) and the sets to recreate the buildings of the landmark political centers by Rick Carter’s production design.

It is a story to be made and lessons to be learned upon. It is also to understand that a few managed to rise upon to the occasion and define the understanding of human civilization and existence. But mainly how a legal system was reminded upon its formation and action to vindicate the righteousness and be the backbone of a peaceful society of equality and freedom.

"Intermission" (2003) - Movie Review

Call me biased but I am totally psyched for a thick English or Irish accent. And it works particularly hysterical when it is dark comedy. And for umpteenth time, there are cross over layer of stories connected not necessarily in convinced fashion but for the heck of it some times and most of the times for fun. Director John Crowley’s “Intermission” is sickeningly funny and has a little bit soul of every genre for that matter.

With the setting of Dublin, Ireland, the film involves numerous characters as it is needed for a multi connected story of different day to day ordinary people mixed up with comedy of errors. And when I say me being biased about the accent, take this for example. Detective Jerry Lynch’s (Colm Meaney) car is toasted and he looks at it gravely. One of the colleagues comes and says, “Condolences, Man”. It is good enough for your chuckles but the next one is the banger when another colleague comes by and says, “Seriously” in that tight powered ridiculously sarcastic yet serious accent, you break out laughing. And if you think, explaining this spoiled the fun then you are wrong. You might enjoy it more now expecting it than when I did not expect it. Might sound untrue and it is for many movies, but not this one.

The film is filled in with constant interval of these moments of pure delivery of dialogue than anything else. But Crowley’s script does not primarily wander in the Tarantinized world (as Ebert might say) of insane dependency on style and cuts. It tries to make sense in the migration of screenplay from one sequence to another. Like the film “Go” or “11:14”, it relies heavily on music, movements and unexpected behavior of its characters, but they do not strain of being smart and stylistic than being them. The funny twists are funny ones and the serious twists are even funnier.

While cracking us up, the film takes a side step and gives some sweet simplicities of life as any movie of this genre would not attempt to. It does not hesitate to weigh down the macho factor to have some earthly substance as well. May be it does not offer the best of the drama but the necessary drama for a film concentrating on dry comic. And to see Colin Farrell and Cicilian Murphy eager and enthusiastic to be underplayed and bold, it is fun to watch.

True that there is not much to write in depth about the characters and while it surfaces on being honest about some of these people, it might not affect. I am kind of put in an area not so good in reviewing spot when I spent more time laughing and missing some of the materials too. Analyzing characters in this movie might be to steal even some of the remote soul in eccentricity left in this film. While I did hesitate to leak out a funny moment, because it is filled in abundance with it, I would not want to spill the beans on handsome amount of character traits left in the film.

Seeing the movie, the manner, tone and colour of it has developed and formed in to a genre than a trend. While Tarantino developed his authenticity in it, there are few directors who took the inspiration and created their own territory of making. The cult status of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” with minimal stars by Guy Ritchie, Troy Duffy’s “Boondock Saints”, again Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch” are some of those elements of inspiring dry but interesting Tarantinized genre. Thinking about it, one will be surprised how come no one ever was able to bring a path breaking form of movie making as that of Tarantino after him. I would not deny the existence of bold Robert Rodriguez’s pleasure of his colourful and enthusiastic movie making (even though I did not enjoy “Sin City” and “Planet Terror”, there is a mark of originality and novelty in the screen). There are directors who have their own take but they mainly depend on DVD distribution than on main stream release. Is it because of the Hollywood mess ups in identifying the right talents? Why do big giant producers blindly venture into a project with only reliance on the frame than substance like “Crank” or “Smokin’ Aces”? I hope people like Crowley are recognized and mainly encouraged for inventing a genre like what Tarantino did.

"Boiler Room" (2000) - Movie Review

I like the honesty of “Boiler Room” not hesitating to quote itself of the classic “Glengarry Glen Ross” which I enjoyed and the one I have not yet watched “The Wall Street”. It could have concentrated more on how to be better than these two but it focuses on the script which keeps it safe and steady for the near two hours it runs. During the high school days, computer courses were hot in the market in India. Any one and every one was taking courses and the center which teaches them made a fortune out of those. Trust me; they were selling it like stocks as these guys do in the movies. It was legitimate but they were pushy. I was no different. So this lady as one of the center’s manager in fact gave me a kind deadline of tomorrow to get a discount of some amount for a course. As a kid, not knowing the business, I recited it to my father. And as a father and head of house hold, he does not like when some one tries to push him for any reason. It was pretty embarrassing and in a way felt bad for the lady who tried to dictate the terms with me and also my dad when she got a bad ear out of my father’s bitter taste of anger over the phone. How it would have been if one of Seth’s (Giovanni Ribisi) or Chris’s (Vin Diesel) or Greg’s (Nicky Katt) client came back with that? I bet they would have a rebuttal for it.

Some times sales highly question the ethic of any transaction. While hard coming marketing looks icky the same goes for the client’s bargaining. Which started first is an egg-chicken situation but the guys in the “Boiler Room” holds up and rather attacks them in a friendly way. They get a feel for their client by testing out couple of personal authoritative insulting jokes. The film bases on it and manages to squeeze in the personal front of Seth. Seth drops out of school to run a casino at his home. It is illegal but as he says, he runs it with control with a model of a business. He wishes his father Marty (Ron Rifkin), a judge could see it that way. Their relationship is turbulent and harsh. Marty is right but never opens the channel of open communication with his son. He is more humiliating than making a point and guiding his son. Trying to earn a respect, he joins the JT Marlin firm. They suit like typical Wall Street brokers and they are an hour away from it.

It is always entertaining when some one like successful salesman Jim (Ben Affleck) come up and give a raunchy talk like Alec Baldwin does in “Glengarry Glen Ross”. Affleck reminds the character but not being the character of Baldwin. He creates a clear confident and realistic Jim. He spits out the truth of being in this firm. Money is everything. If you can squeeze in extra one hour in a 24 hour day to make it 25 hour, then do it.

Huge money in short time brings in clouds of doubts and feels sleazy. For people like me who immediately skip a line which has “stock”, “shares” in television, newspaper or internet, they explain the sale and the profit the company makes, including its fraudulent. Never they take a lecture session as such alone but blend it in with situations.

One notable thing in the movie is the character of Abby (Nia Long). She works as the receptionist and is aware on some level on how the company works. She knows it and when Seth expresses concerns on the firm’s operational structure, she bluntly gives wise advice of to either leave the firm or accept it and work without a soul. And for once the love of the protagonist in a movie is more mature and treats the ground reality keeps it real.

The dialogues are not hard hitting but keep you tickling, laughing and admire the talents of these guys who are not alone articulate but also carry the situational intelligence. It might be quite strange when some one like Seth, who starts his career as an illegal Casino owner to find the things in the firm as wrong. It is real for him when he exactly sees the lives of people collapsing. He is a master in turning the conversations in to a closing sale but the foot note personal information he intrudes in is enough to keep their aspirations and disasters based on the sale he made, known to him. These are the movies which are not classic but good. An impressive debut feature by director Ben Younger with good talents gives a good film with confidence.

"Michael Clayton" (2007) - Movie Review

We have seen the story of “Michael Clayton” in couple of other movies like “Erin Brockovich” or even though I have not seen “The Firm” and “A Civil Action”, the plot lines and couple of scenes I have witnessed over surfing the channels deals with that too. We see here something more than that, wherein any one else would not have thought about the key players of the underplaying characters. Many concentrate on the trial lawyers and the case builders but here we take a spin on a silent whistle blower Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) who just had enough of the case he is disputing the deal for the company U-North. Under medication for depression, he stops taking it. But his actions of running across the table stripping off during the important settlement seem a cut loose person finding various ways for redemption. I guess self-humiliation is the punishment he imposes on the sins he has been committing for U-North through his law firm.

As the scenes of Michael Clayton (George Clooney) and Arthur, Clayton and Marty (Sydney Pollack) fall by, I wondered how classy the movie have been so far. We can see Clayton riding down the hill in the four long and tiring days. He is heading a deadline to meet up his financial debts with organized crime due to a failed bar of his then a man he looked up as a mentor going mad and puts the firm as a whole in jeopardy. All of those needs clean up by him. That’s his job though as he and Arthur calls it, “Janitors”. They are the men behind the curtains to make sure when it pulled off; there is a beautiful picture of harmony, an illusion though.

The screenplay by director Tony Gilroy is tight, inventive and has the mood. Its midnight in the law firm office and as the light is on; no one is at their desks. And with Wilkinson’s character Arthur explains his release out of the dirty hole to Clayton in background voice, the mood is set. It is dull not because of the winter but the bleak truth faded by walking lies. Added to that we see tired Clooney and if some one like that is shown tired, you can picture the rest. We have always seen Clooney in bright lights of freshness. He can be mean and ruthless and make it look elegant and appreciable. He in his other movies comes as a man of command, wit and cool. We see him in command but he is losing it too as Arthur. He is witless because any man in his situation will be sucked out of those. He makes humour but it is dark to be insulting and cut throat to make his point. He is cool to the others but as the audience we know his stomach is full of butterflies, worried and tensed. He reassures himself talking to his kid in the car and is simply his demonstration of acting on how much of the end in the arc he can go. Clooney pulls the opposite of him with the charisma he always has and brings it along with the traits of his trade mark mannerisms.

Why do giant companies easily negate the consequences of their actions and go in business with flood gates open? I guess relying on big law firms and the cleaning people like Arthur and Clayton. They are there who are for worst case scenarios. They fit the work and deal the deals. These are the soul sellers and executioners taking missions from the kings high above believing that an indirect action does not contribute to Karma. But sometimes the movies wake up some doubts in these characters. Michael Clayton is the fixer as he says and wipes out the mess and dirt doing it for several years. With that we can imagine the years of work Arthur has spent and how he is better than the best in his line of work. How come out of the blues there is a cry for emotional catharsis from them? It is good to say that almost any human has the idea of right and wrong. It pops up in us when the cross roads come. We die a little when we go against the known right decisions. May be that is one of the reasons, Arthur’s wrong turns has taken him closer and closer to the bitter deaths only that he cannot sleep in peace. For Clayton it gets attached from Arthur. Truth is contagious. When these two characters are at the end of the horizon for absolution, we see Karen (Tilda Swinton) planting hers into the league only that extending it far more beyond than these guys.

Gilroy’s movie makes us to forgive these two and mainly release Arthur from his pains and provide him the chance of making up his life a sum of good will. And Wilkinson’s edge of the life portrayal of Arthur makes us to sit with the guy and hear something out of him, or as Clayton try to make some sense out of it.

The credits rolled up with a simple close up scene of Clooney in the back of taxi and no one moved from their seats. They show his facial movements and we know what he is thinking. I was not seated to express a good gesture of not going out when others were sitting through it, but I wanted to read this person, looking afresh for once in the whole movie. It forms as a thoughtful and perfect way to finish the film. It is no wonder why the utmost dissection of truth links so close with the law firms and the big deal makers. It is the place where it gets thawed upon with ease and some times makes it look that there are bunch of neatly attired persons with money on their mouth than a heart to bite the bullet.

"Catch a Fire" (2006) - Movie Review

Phillip Noyce does get to find the true story in various parts of the world dug deep for no one’s notice and then shoots a film. His “Rabbit-Proof Fence” told the journey of three young aboriginal kids in 1931 Australia walking 1500 miles to reach back their home from a government camp to “convert” and “train” to suit them in white society. And now he takes the life story of Patrick Chamusso during the period of Apartheid South Africa. As many might not now (and I came to know only after watching the movie) that Patrick Chamusso is a real life character and the film is based upon that.

If some one can define a perfect family man’s life, that would be Patrick Chamusso’s (Derek Luke). He works in an oil refinery stepping his way up, sitting by side with his kids and helping them in Math, earning the jealousy of his wife when he dances with another lady and sweetly gets a tap in his head, coaching a local kid’s soccer team and staying away from politics. Noyce with the cool headed Luke makes no mistake in giving that. We know his life is going to be shambled into disaster. Whenever normalcy rises up and flows out of the brim it is a bad indication for the family in films. It is understood that a calamity waits and is going to break them apart. Many do it in cheap works of cinematic. Not here. We feel sorry for the Chamusso who will be facing the painful interrogation orchestrated by Colonel Nic Vos (Tim Robbins) working for the Anti-terrorist squad.

Chamusso completes the perfect family man by having another family. And at one point when he confesses it to Nic, even he does not believe. He is good to be a family man and a terrorist but not some one to have an affair. A man who does not even sing the anthem of the Freedom Fighters song when the whole factory workers are chorusing tells about Chamusso. He never, ever wants to be in trouble and put his family in jeopardy. How an innocent man can be tortured and changed to be some one else is “Catch a Fire”.

As Nic Vos, Tim Robbins comes up with yet another powerful performance. Even in the end it is hard to get this man. He never shows signs of anything at all. He is a family man too. He trains them to shoot and says to protect them when danger hits them. His way of interrogation is soft but deadly. He plays with the ties of blood. He stoops so low, it is sometimes hard to grasp him. He is ready to let Chamusso go when he realizes the truth but the damage he caused makes a terror out of an ordinary man. While he is in anti-terrorist squad, he creates a terrorist of a family man. He does not stop with that and quite cunningly manages to plant seeds of thoughts to Chamusso’s wife Precious (Bonnie Henna).

Noyce skillfully makes us to think about how we extract information or treat prisoners as such. Is it worth it to use the gruesome technique to get information? It might result in saving lives but does it end out there? If some one is fighting against some one, acting according to their expectations just proves their point of hating them. In the delusion of keeping a safe place, many forget the people who gets stamped and how the chain of war never ending up. In “Catch a Fire”, as the end approaches and we are looking for the confrontation of Chamusso and Nic, it takes a wild turn. I will not reveal it but it is how Noyce arranges the complex message to many in simpler terms from the horse’s mouth. It could have been the perfect opportunity for Noyce to employ his directorial skills. But we see him how much he is up for the message than the movie itself.

"Down by Law" (1986) - Movie Review

When you see Jim Jarmusch’s boring “Dead Man”, the funny artsy dramatic “Broken Flowers”, the intuitive and experimental “Coffee and Cigarettes” and now “Down by Law”, this is a man who makes movies for the fun of it, every second of film has the stamp of his precise thought process and ideas. In the Criterion DVD extra features of his voice under “Thoughts & Reflections”, he says that this is one movie made with American money and smiles saying that the rest of the movies are different because American money comes with many strings attached. I do not know how many “strings” attached, that statement is a reflection of how much he wants his way of doing things. And that is the reason that this movie even though with no big twists, plot is clinically drafted and yet able to give a new feel.

As Tom Waits voice in “Jockey Full of Bourbon” hits out with the streets dull and having an identity, we associate immediately to the mystical New Orleans (which I have heard a lot about for its cultural mixture and authenticity but never got a chance to visit). It is the regular approach of Jarmusch on characters. With black and white cinematography, it promotes into the flick every one should be patient about on expecting some dry comedy drama. We venture into the lives of Jack (John Lurie), a pimp and Zack (Tom Waits), a DJ finding it hard to settle in one place. We get to know about these numb thick skinned characters through their female counterparts Laurette (Ellen Barkin) for Zack and for Jack it is Bobbie (Billie Neal) one of the “merchandise” as he quotes. Both are setup and end up in prison. There they meet up with the bubbly and innocent Roberto (Roberto Benigni) but seems to be guilty of a crime or more of an accident.

The prison scenes wherein they gel without a choice is thoughtful and makes us to think about being there, I mean losing your freedom. Lot of films has already dealt in depth about being in prison and the Jarmusch’s way is novel and unique. The individual shots of Jack, Zack or Roberto wherein they simply stare or do nothing are those forming the simple cruelties in prison. With three sharing a place and time endless, you got to either become thick friends or kill each other. Jack and Zack cannot stand each other but have their moments of fun as well. To these opposite poles comes the proper link Roberto with his broken Italian English. They begin to co-ordinate and connect.

Robby Müller’s camera work can be dissected into three parts in the film. The first part being the streets and rooms of city life and a life where crimes are dealt on desolated gas stations and rooms with shut windows, always. The mood and light shines up to lighten the dark world. In the second part it appears pretty much simple to show a room but there too, the camera shift inside and outside the cell gives different perspectives towards the mood of a scene. The third part is the closely packed trees wherein the sunshine is not stopped though. The small streams, swamps and the bayou in night and day bring another tone of independence but a prison of its own.

The best part of the way the movie works is how Benigni is brought in. He is being himself than being the character lot of times which has brought the ethnicity and some one thriving to communicate. He has so many thoughts and so little words in English. He reads from “English book” as he calls the scratch pad. While Jack and Zack are grumpy and complaining, it is compromised by the cheerful and funny Roberto. Jack and Zack sit in dark unknown location in a dense forest thinking of what to do and Roberto comes back with a Rabbit. A small fight separates them. Each have their monologue and Benigni comes up with something very funny but also tells so much about the character and Benigni as a person (Jarmusch mentions in the DVD extra features saying it was improvised by Benigni somewhat based on his own child hood).

The film will not please many audiences. It is a short story with a sweet ending. The film needs to be praised and enjoyed for Jarmusch’s style, performances and the camera work. These are the movies which exist for the art of it. It does not attempt on big things or trying to be a great profound approach on delicate and controversial debates. It stays to itself and forms a territory of its own through creative and artistic instincts.

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007) - Movie Review

And so I ended my review of the movie “Elizabeth” as “My expectations are to see the Elizabeth with unanimated and convincing character trapped in the midst of religion, people and country”. Little did the sequel “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” convince us with the character of lonely authoritative queen left dangling aimlessly to continue here too. The budget is increased and anchors it again. With that director Shekar Kapur laboriously strain us into this responsibility tying the feelings of the lonely queen and her ridiculous tantrums of her in unbelievable situations uninterestingly.

We see a confident and controlling Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) who in all means while enjoying the power tries to govern something (now and then she says “people” to remind us of her concern over her country) and apart from that her youth and loss of love and lust is dissected as they try. A charismatic sailor Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen) strikes and interests her to bring back those days when she was a woman than a queen. And one more trusty (and we know she is going to fall for Raleigh too) Beth (Abbie Cornish) who provides little to no support in the solacing Elizabeth’s deprivation of true love. Well, shall we not see the same trust and betrayal in the previous venture too? It is not new and still not interesting.

In the first film, I was able to at least corner some ant sized empathy for the character Blanchett gives but in this, she is grown and controlling child than a responsible adult. The title suggested and made me to expect that her reform or the religious beliefs are show on how she managed to equip and season the people to survive but it is of no significance other than the plans of Philip of Spain (Jordi Mollà) to dethrone her. To this directionless script is couple of other talents wasted. The only impressive part in the first movie Geoffrey Rush as Francis Walsingham is denied some presence of wisdom and dark cunningness. Samantha Morton as Mary Stuart is another entry into the hall of wasted talents.

Including Elizabeth, rest of the characters has no sense of their goal, instinct or outcomes. We see Mary Stuart shred some lifeless bitterness towards the queen. She tells she prays for her cousin while no reason is explored in depth. While Elizabeth suffers from the conscience haunting her way on the execution, why does not she stop it? The law should be imposed but lawful killing is not right in her beliefs too. As the history speaks there might have been more enough reason for those actions but we do not see it a bit.

It’s quite evident that director Shekar Kapur got more funds to make this movie. More than dialogues there are scenes of posture and circling of camera in a frustrating lethargic manner to play for the back ground score. The composition of Craig Armstrong and A.R. Rahman is rich and skillful but they forgot the music is for the movie and not an individual album of theirs. I believe the grandeur humming, chimes and orchestration for a historical movie has long past gone. But these two are caught up with the old tradition and while you enjoy the music, it takes the screen and not the film.

Elizabeth’s frustrations and the chains of responsibility keeping her in leash are true. Her quest to explore the once lively sexuality and being loved for her true personality rather than her throne is understandable. And when she explodes on Beth for winning her love for Raleigh, we feel sorry for her. But these were dealt in some per se in the first film to death. With due respect to the lady, the movie gives us her exploring these instead of ruling the country. She comes up armoured to give a speech which in history is supposed to be inspirational and in the movie I was hoping to end before it started.

Many might suspect my judgment over the movie since the dislike of mine for the previous. True, I did have some kind of low inclination when I entered the theatre. But I was able to manage to overcome it and start afresh on a clean slate. Unfortunately the film filled it with emotionless and clueless characters like the first only to add more wasteful sketches to it.

"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" (2006) - Movie Review

The senses of our body have their priority of importance. The sensation of sight, touch and listen but throughout the films, the sense of smell has been negated. “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” is a film adapted from the novel written by Patrick Süskind in German which compensates the inhaling pleasures of humans overwhelmingly in the art of movie making. If the Mona Lisa painting can be brought out as a walking angel in a motion picture frame along with its amalgamating tones of colour and whites and the smell of immeasurable satiating scent, then it is Tom Tykwer’s incredible masterpiece set in the 18th century France.

The end the film comes to may not satisfy many. It may not answer many. It also may not mean anything at all, but as the essence of the content, the scent; it vanishes and evaporates in thin air leaving behind some of the memories of those sweet juices of life. It is poetic and dark. There might not be any morality or humanity in Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) who was thrown out of the vaginal hells of his mother to the hells of earth, in the midst of retched puke and defecating carcass remains of the unknown sea lives. People he meets succumb to the depths of lifelessness directly or indirectly. He wanders like a curse constantly looking for its home only to demolish it half unknowingly and half completely aware. Soon we realize that it is more than a characteristic. It is the natural phenomenon of Grenouille. It is the science unexplained as his gift of miraculously identifying, enjoying and isolating the sensory of smells of substance living and non-living.

And in Ben Whishaw’s skeletal posture of his body and eyes mixing the ambiguity, void and devil creates the fear unexplainable. The fear is set by the ambience rightly captured by the adaptation of Tom Skywer. When Grenouille smells the beauty of the first woman he encounters, the fear is lighted. With John Hurt’s narration, it is a fairy tale, an urban legend and a literary painting of the precious beauty the world has produced. As the camera of Frank Griebe closely journeys through the soft, sensual skins of his first accidental victim (Karoline Herfurth) and Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood) who is the key final piece to Grenouille’s collection, our heart is smelted with the sensuality of their sweet tender odour and the fear of what his act might be in a note of unpredictability.

While the film does not try to empathize much with the mystical Grenouille, the feel of puzzlement engulfs as it does him in the final sequence. His hunt and quest to capture the eternal scent of women gets accomplished, but what exactly he wanted to get out of it is unknown even to him. From his childhood, there were rejected loves or there is only hatred, ugliness and menial torture. His soul asylum is those tiny sensory organs hidden in his nostrils to provide the momentary gateways to the volcanic eruption of orgasms. But the obsession, denial and negation of his existence make him some one whose survival is the expectance of smelling the captured evanescence of those women. He knows the world would not understand his thirst for it. He believes the art of encapsulating and produce infinite retentiveness of it can be acquired from the experienced perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman in another short but memorable supporting role). But Baldini’s technique is fruitless and Baldini shows the way to the town of Grasse, the birth of scents. There he learns the method but his test materials (beautiful women) end up losing their life by the single hard blow of him.

He commits murder but without any guilt. He covers them with animal fat to absorb their smell without any flinch in his face. For him there lays the raw material with its elegance and resource flourishing so fast to decay in to the realm of non-existence and he quickly performs to it. The “greed” as the narrator defines of Grenouille’s thirst for aroma is not understood at that instant. We fully grasp when the victims roll on like tied pile of woods unfurled over the slope.

I was not fully satisfied with the ending. The hidden connotation and encrypted guilt of his or the love he never got could have been given in better terms of understanding is what I observed. But then I realized the poetical significance of it. The movie as such is the mystical evocation emancipated by the elixir scent produced by Grenouille by the carnal display of this life. The effect as it produces in the final sequence is how the movie generates. We forget the morality and the conscience of the living. We are buzzed in to the paradise of quasi love which appears in veritable tone. The dwindling true mesmerizing hoax is felt but the honesty in its perfume defuses everything remotely resembling the conscience of human.

"Knockaround Guys" (2001) - Movie Review

Once in a while there comes a picture which borrows the traits of the various classic movies but does not boast its creativity and plays by its limits. This is “Knockaround Guys” which could have been another easy combination clone of gangster movies emerging to fix to its routines and cover up the bases. We get to watch John Malkovich walk around easily with an unusual charisma of Teddy. He is the one who thumps a gun to Matty (Barry Pepper) when he was twelve to shoot a guy who clued the cops about his father Benny (Dennis Hopper).

On the looks of the people we get introduced to, like Chris (Andrew Davoli) Matty’s relative, Taylor (Vin Diesel) and Marbles (Seth Green), there is every chance of a dark comedy. There is the stint of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” too, but the film is a short story of serious events. Matty trying his best for a year to fit a citizen’s profile of getting a regular job gets bleak. All his life he looks up for his dad to see him with proud eyes and now he wants a part in the family business. With right support from Teddy, his uncle, he gets the gig. It’s a simple transfer of money from one place to another which (of course) goes wrong. Hence as a notable power of hand in New York rough streets, it is up for these four young guns to debut their play in the remote parts of Montana.

The movie prospects into the heavy influence of gangster flicks and Kurosawa’s strangers in an unknown town. Barry Pepper who has always in the supporting role possible takes up a more center stage than others in this. And in lot of his other movies, wherein he plays the tough guy or with sharp corners for talent, he for a change comes as a regular guy. He does not have brass knuckles or cold heart to make blood come out of his enemies. He is the regular dealer of smoothening things up. He is the guy who knows the guys and knows how to run them. He is not super smart but smart enough to survey his surroundings to clue in the ideas. And he desperately needs this shot to be done, even when he is fully aware that things are going to be ugly. Pepper quietly underplays in important scenes involving the big people Malkovich and Hopper among their characters.

The style of noir with the classic touch and correct plot helps the screen going. As the plot thickens and when the final showdown is about to happen and when we see the first body count, it prepares our nerves on what is going to be nasty result of this. We fear of what might be the massacre of these young kids who just started to smell the metals of gun. They cleverly do not show them in the first act. We are not ready for a dirty end and make us look good and suited when it comes.

“Suicide Kings” is one such movie which had an interesting plot weaved with gangsters, betrayals and young kids trying to enter the dangerous world of it. In that they had the friends who were enjoying the ride. Even though the fear resided in them, couple of them was in it for the element of adventure. Taylor and Chris come to the forbidden place for Matty. And surprisingly the “the half idiot, which is his good half” as described by Benny of Marbles sticks to his ground too. Small simple characters carry the burden evenly enough to have us guessing till the end. Directors Brian Koppelman and David Levien manage to rope in good actors into a simple script and give a tight short film. It may not be “Goodfellas” or “Snatch” or has the flair of “Yojimbo” or “Sanjuro” but is sure worth for its honesty to its plot and its end.

"Heat" (1995) - Movie Review

“Heat” could have been the action of Hollywood formulas very easily, the same how “L.A. Confidential” (which it’s been a while I watched it as a whole) would have been. But it studies the characters of two person obsessed with their zeal towards the passion of crime in opposite directions. While Lieutenant Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is struggling to cope up with his third marriage with Justine (Diane Venora), Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is stumbling into his first relationship in his lifetime. One a cop, other a con and their relationship are ridiculously opposite too. The thing to look though is that Neil understood all through the years the prospective of having a relationship; it is next to impossible with a profession like his. Vincent believes in a life of his own of wife and kids, when pager ringing is good enough to forget those in a moment. Around these two people runs a crime drama to bring in the two best versatile actors in Hollywood, Pacino and De Niro.

There is no compromise taken by director Michael Mann in order to weigh down the script over the image and phenomenal expectation of these two actors. But looking broadly, we have Jon Voight, Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Tom Sizemore and Amy Brenneman equally good in their profession of strong character and supporting roles in various films. One can only imagine the insane figures spent in casting the crew alone. In the hands of any other actors, this role would have been a great one too, but Pacino and De Niro plays with the same passion as these guys do in their respective profession. They get their individual screen time in this movie which clocks near to three hours. When they sit face to face in that restaurant to have a cup of coffee that stamps the scene in any stands as electric. Many believe that they were individual shots and I doubted it too. Wiki cleared the doubt that it was shot with both the actors facing each other. How much they downplayed their image in to that scene is unfathomable. When you see that scene, we never associate it with the actors. Of course we know these are the giants clashing smoothly sipping their coffee, but we see them as the giants of Vincent Hanna and Neil McCauley. Not for one moment there is a loose rope which it could have been. Both are matured actors but there could have been the subconscious feeling of being competitive or intimidated. It never is visible and that five to ten minutes sequence is a time capsule for the generations to come for viewing this two legends work their magic.

The score they plan are good. They are not the “Ocean’s Eleven” high technique co-ordination of various people and sequential order of events executed in a stylistic and sarcastic fashion. The crimes are raw and real. They are prepared for anything and everything which might stand between them and the money, and mainly their life. At that point of time, we realize that it is more than the money. These guys will be happy to walk out with a bag of candy if they are challenged that it is an unachievable ones in the secure place of high tension. Such is their attitude towards their line of living.

You give a character of power, authority and control to these actors and there are fireworks. But the highly anticipated scene of showdown is slow, subtle and comforting. They have the tight rope to dance upon and they walk by in a careless manner not because they are condescending about it, but they know the drill blindfolded.

We see the analogy of life in these personalities which are unalike on bird’s eye view. When we take closer look, they are by chance in different direction. Their instincts are same. We see Vincent empathizing with the mother of a victim. The viewers can be fooled to doubt that Vincent still can be in the other side of the table. It might be true, but the care he takes for his family makes him who he is. Neil would have been afraid of the change and the effect it is going to take on his profession.

What makes “Heat” stand out from the regular run of the mill crime story is the considerable amount of time dedicated to the other characters surrounding Hanna and McCauley. Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) who loves his wife Charlene (Ashley Judd) so much that he is ready to take the risk of his life, more than the bank robbery in the movie. Being the wife of a cop and also a criminal appears to be same. Both are affected by each other to keep their personal life dangling. It is complex to see that there is no hesitation in shooting out randomly over the streets showing no value for human life and in the next scene they hug and kiss their loved ones. Why does not that face of their wife, daughters, sons and friends glance through by when they decide to go berserk in saving their own life? May be that is one of the reason Neil stayed single and the faces he cares are right beside him shooting.

"The Jane Austen Book Club" (2007) - Movie Review

I have not read any of the books of Jane Austen. With the tag line of “You don't have to know the books to be in the club.” it gave some courage to enter into the film without being completely ridiculed as a jerk staring at a screen with no sense of clue of what the people are talking about the books. I was clueless during the discussion of the books by the characters but it did not stop me from enjoying it. The characters in the book may not resemble the era and the people in the movie but surely the situation and emotions match those. Director Robin Swicord makes it to think like that with the adapted screenplay of the novel by Karen Joy Fowler of the same name.

With fast paced electronic life and the psychological mishaps in the interaction with it, the people in the movie push up and down in the connection of humans. The title with chains of medley giving those mishaps with technically wound world is lovable. The Californian life is taken a slow drive in to the tussle and tricks of love, passion, mistakes, second chances and risks in life.

Jocelyn (Mario Bello) in her early forties is grieving for her one of the closest companion, her dog. She has friends but never got married or has children. Apart from the loss, she is content with her life. She does not have many expectations or feel insecure by the pressure the society puts on her. The concept of family life is a proven method of successful existence. It is accepted as a universal form of life and it works fine too. But is it the eventuality of every single one in this world? Daniel (Jimmy Smits) tells her young gay daughter Allegra (Maggie Grace) on these “human connections” and the way of life, is the only way. Her reply makes him to rethink the twenty plus years of marriage with her mother, Sylvia (Amy Brenneman). Jocelyn’s friend Bernadette (Kathy Baker) in the process of starting a book club meets the sobbing enthusiast of Jane Austen books, Prudie (Emily Blunt) who is in the process of questioning her marriage with Dean (Marc Blucas). Jocelyn who also introduce Daniel to Sylvia decides to introduce one more chance of revival by asking the Science fiction handsome geek Grigg (Hugh Dancy) into the club. Together they read Austen’s novel every month and meet to discuss about it.

The table is set and people bring in their issues along with the characters of every novel they discuss. What makes the movie interesting is that it slides around the line of soap opera and drama. The talks are mature and the mistakes are silly. But that is the life of human. The most understanding helping personality does not tally the possibilities of their actions and when the time makes them think it through, the enlightenment evolves. Whether it is going to result in the reuniting or separation with their loved ones is different but the learning is the key out there. Here of course, the happy ending seems to be inevitable. Still we do not know who is going to wind up with whom.

We do not know deep into these people. May be it is due to their relationship strains sometimes seem to flimsy and may be even unexplainable. The film pushes to view forward and reverts back to the same position where they started. Some are caught up in the past and some are caught up in the present. Jocelyn is caught up in the present of Grigg. Whilst her attractions are towards him, she facilitates the pair up with the distressed Sylvia, even with Grigg liking Jocelyn and even with Sylvia still loving Daniel.

We get the glimpse of these people except for Bernadette. Bernadette is the one who forms this posse to meet and vent out the book’s emotional study and she is the successful failure of marriages. She treats marriage as an excursion, or a vacation from an uncommitted life. It would have been further trendy and twisty to dwelve into that to understand the points toward it. And her final pair up seem to be clichéd add on for a formulaic end, the Hollywood demands. But the movie inspires to pick up at least one Jane Austen’s novel.

The chances are there when one decides to enter into a relationship. It comes with the package of misunderstanding and bumpy ride. The real problem is no one does not when is the line of breakage to get out or continue with that. Some would have tried their best and some use it as a leverage to escape out of it. But the cause and result always questions those chances and risks. A question every one asks is that, is it really worth it? Unfortunately for a long held relationship the Yes and No margin are blurring. Jane Austen might not provide an answer for that but it sure makes to think and communicate. Regardless of breaking up or getting back, it is always good to learn.

"The Lookout" (2007) - Movie Review

In the trailer of “The Lookout” is slick and flashy reminded me some of the nightmares of watching “Smokin’ Aces” and the streak of “’trying to be cool and clever” movies like “Running Scared” and “Lucky Number Slevin”. I was begging not this one fall into the same pit fall. For the following reason I wanted this one to be good. Joseph Gordon-Levitt seems to be a creative and enthusiastic actor in the roles he takes. I did not like Greg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin” but the boldness Levitt took prompted me on his quest for experimental subjects.

And the movie started with young teenage couples going on a drive in a dark night over a desolated country road was another touch over the margin of the pitfalls. You know something is going to happen. Does it mean the end of that sequence miss to shock you? It freaked me out. From there on, with the voice over perfect and not cheesy by Levitt accompanies a story not about a heist but about a recovering personality. Heist just seems to be over the background of the Chris Pratt’s (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) post accident life.

Chris used to be the popular and mesmerizing kid of the school. Director Scott Frank does not show photographs or elaborate scenes but makes the other characters speak about how Chris was before the accident. Every one aspired to be him. His dad senses his next move in a chess board now. He carries the cold frame as that of the chilly bitter winter the movie back drop forms to. He looks fine but the accident left him with a moderate head injury. His co-ordination and correlation gets misplaced randomly. He is conscious of it and that agonize him even more than the disability of it. Chris’s injury is not visible but as we get to know him, it comes into light. He forgets miserably for starters. He makes notes of his chores and also the important things he wants to be remembered. Yet he keeps his key in the car locked. And he has the other key in his shoe. His charming days are gone and now makes note of a pick up line uttered by Gary (Mathew Goode) which works like a spell on a woman. Watch when he uses it the next time he is in the same bar and you can see how cold he is in that and we realize something inside him is still desperate for some other thing. At a first glance there would have been nothing tough or new for Levitt to come as a young kid with no visible disability. He manages to give it so easily as to not notice the difficulty of acting Chris. Everything is internal and characterized which makes it harder to grasp and react as some one like that.

Yes, the film centers on a heist. And yes, there are guns and shootouts. Yes, the film is stylish and slick. So was it the routine slick and shoot movie? No. They carefully construct the world around Chris. He lives with a blind room mate Lewis (Jeff Daniels) who is witty, enlightening and happens to light up any place. Chris apart from mopping the floor during his night shifts at the Bank spends considerable time with him. He also goes to the center which tries to help Chris in building the involuntary actions or talks he makes. Out there, he is given an exercise of writing the events of typical day. His narration repeats several times with slight changes in the action. They finish the movie with that as everyone expects but how apt and perfect it fits.

Jeff Daniels after a condescending irritating father and a husband in “The Squid and the Whale” comes up with a man guiding himself and his room mate. One cannot miss to thank a million to Scott Frank for staying true to his story. I was expecting the character of Luvlee (Isla Fisher) to pop up and ruin everything the movie built up. They terminate her from the story rightly and promptly. Her character lures Chris into the dungeons of the heist Gary plans with his crew and departs when it is needed, quite reasonably.

“The Lookout” is clever at times, not because it intentionally wants to, but the story demands it to be. The act of it is not pompous but truthful. Chris is not fine but not dumb either. He learns from the mistakes of his life and relives the tragedy when he does one more mistake. In the interview, Levitt says that director got a note to make this character better in the end. Levitt thanked the director for staying true and fair to the real life people with the same kind or worse injury. I felt it in every bit of it.

"8½" (Language - Italian / English / French / German) (1963) - Movie Classics

I was discussing with my friend Mathi regarding how great directors like K. Balachander and Bharathiraja are not able to come up with a master piece in recent times which used to be their habit. The reason I was able to come up is that at some point of time, they yielded to audience’s artistic and moronic confrontation to bend and break their belief in their work. In simple words, they decided to make movies for the audience then for themselves. It might surprise some one as how ridiculous this statement is as the movie is for the audience. Wrong. An art reaches its true form when the artist convinces himself to the conscience of moulding it how he wants to. The awards, glory, fame, scrutiny, defamation comes as a bonus or curse to it. And “Federico Fellini’s 81/2” is the paradox of it with the fight of creative questioning of his life and work.

Charlie Kauffman’s inspiration for “Adaptation.” should have been Fellini. The screenplay, concept and the self indulgence are classic text book information to be in common in Kauffman’s work. And how well a director can produce a work like this that sometimes the inspiration is subconscious. The movie’s release would have been a slap in the face of the critics and the audience who regarded and disregarded the director’s works. He does not take sides but gives the truth of lies. It gives the chaos of organization and presentation of a material super imposed by the gargantuan expectations and glory of the business of entertainment. How tough is to be honest especially in an arena which are fake in reality? It does not happen but it tells something. For once, fake does help out the truth in life. The film is irony and paradox sprouting every minute either reeking or satiates our senses to taste the smell.

Such is the human condition that we exhaust the possibilities of limitless creativity to an extent of void and vagueness. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) has exhausted his possibilities of lying. Marcello has a face of hedonistic depression. His Marcello in “La Dolce Vita” succumbed to the pleasures of showbiz and in the end; he exhausts the possibilities in that too. Here it can be considered as its sequel in a way. The young at start and old at the end Marcello starts where he ended out there. Of course it is a different person but the personalities remain. Guido is a Marcello in every way except that some where in his life, he fell for the system. He gets married. One cannot blame Luisa (Anouk Aimée) for despising every single word Guido spits out of the mouth so seasoned to tell the lies in a respectable and believable fashion. And it is good enough fuel to burn her in rage and frustration to boost her energy in loathing him.

The film is a confession. The realistic dreams and the loops of mistakes of Guido taking form over the screen is how we see it. The movie gives the film which is criticized and named unmarketable by Guido’s advisors and producers. The enormity and the lies Guido has created gave the producer to erect the biggest hoax of the science fiction. But it has a meaning too in the end. Everything makes sense and senseless for Fellini. It is autobiographical but the separation leads to the “The Beautiful Confusion” as Fellini wanted it to be named.

The title represents the number of films Fellini made including this one. The half constitutes his short film. The title another sample of his self indulgence. At many times, the actors/actresses speak to the camera directly signifying the nature of the story towards Fellini. We see shadow partially and some times completely covering Guido’s face to enigmatically show the silhouette. Any one can fit into those chambers of façade and gloominess.

Fame, fortune and falsification go hand in hand in the world of luxurious compulsion to pleasure. Some time it becomes them and they are defined by it. There is no absolution and no redemption. Fellini tells through Catholicism and its connotation of looking down the sins and secrecies. Humiliation is the punishment to redeem one from those sexual instincts and behaviour as the advocates of the religion impose. If the story telling and screenplay is far far ahead of its time, the drowsy movement towards a particular focus of interest and use of shadows and lights is Gianni Di Venanzo excellence challenging the current cinematographers and many others to come. His camera operates in an unhurried manner and befittingly swelter the crux of the scene. Leo Catozzo’s editing weaves the stage of these events to perfectly display what Fellini intends to. We never really know the truth and lies of Guido. We cannot identify the film as a representation of real events but is based upon it. Guido’s view or Fellini’s view are perplexed by this unusual conclusion and it does the same to us. And we see the protagonist accepting who he is and continues his life of lies but truthful in telling it to Luisa, may be.

And the appreciation of those beautiful women cannot be a symbolization of those attractions Fellini had but quite a direct show piece. But in those faces of his mistakes, he finds the angels. When we wander through every day life, we encounter the nature’s sin of beauty. It initially signifies and makes us to conclude to hide their actual soul. Then we fall for it and when we learn some of the ugliness in it, the face disappears. But before that, they are the fantasies of the world of termed perversion. Guido associates and chronicles the beauties he encountered in life through his hallucination of movie making. That scene of depiction of illusion with exploitation and philosophical conclusion alone makes this a master piece.

"The English Patient" (1996) - Movie Review

I do not know why I am not able to attach myself to the soap operatic romantic movies. I was neither mystified by the secrecy and follow through of “The Constant Gardener” nor the mesmerizing eyes as beloved by many of Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall”. And in “The English Patient” it is better though and far appealing than the two I mentioned. Handful of good performances, crispy clean editing, breath taking cinematography and nice moody Hungarian songs make this a good movie.

During those final scenes, I can imagine how much the people who got them into this long movie to tear down and cry. If I am able to think like that when the scenes are running, then you can conclude about my reaction towards it, indifferent. Why do reasonable people always act on instincts which they are fully aware of the heart breaking consequences? Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) knows the involuntary forces acting upon him towards the married Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas). He is the stern and silent explorer of the remains in the mystic lands of Egypt. Egypt is filled with history and at the time of Second World War, he along with his colleagues dwindle them with the mysteries and secrecies of ancient history. As a shadowed finger smothers the pores of the old hardened paper giving birth to a figure and the frame shifts to the vast spread desert, John Seale is visible in his cinematography and the editing of Walter Murch shows up.

This is a class act of a crew determined to fight for a master piece. The hard work is there. I can see there everything the material portrayed have something to it. Usually I will be able to see the puppet characters stick into its two dimensions i.e. faking cannot be faked to me. There are wonderful visuals and the human idiosyncrasies which I can say are there without fallacies. This is the second movie in a row in which the persons in the screen did not come out of it, in this week (first being “Band of Outsiders”). I see them as people in the movie. I can see the border of my Television, strange to stare the border of it while a movie is running, unless it misses something. I am still hunting the way through to capture where I was lost by the film. It is half way through the review, so there are couple of more paragraphs before I come down to it.

The movie is whopping 160 minutes and it cannot be noticed. Almásy is a riddle to his colleagues. “You speak so many bloody languages, and you never want to talk.” Says Katharine. The conversation over their drive when Katharine sits beside is witty and sees two notions of Almásy. One of course is his nature and other being to overcome the attraction towards her. He knows things are not right with her being out there. He even asks her husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth) why he is not taking her along with him to a short summon to a near by place. And when Almásy leaves her at the destination and asked to come, he denies and replies “Mrs. Clifton” strongly to remind her and him of the reality in front of them. The attraction for Almásy makes sense and his sensibility are reasonable but was not able to completely understand Katherine. But may be she confused friendship for love with her child hood companion Geoffrey or it passed away when she really meet her other perfect match, Almásy. Well then in that case everyone never marries their perfect match but that is not marriage. It is the art of abiding the differences and pave way to respect the harmony in understanding it. Katharine seems to not think that way. This void might be one reason for its loosened departure with me. Still not good enough.

Almásy with last few days in pain due to his burn goes back to those days of clandestine happiness he had. In the present day which is the end of Second World War he is been nursed in a monastery by nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche). She lost her love and in Almásy, she sees some comfort and duty. She says it is her job, but there are things absorbed and bedraggled in the good will and in her responsibility. She develops a heart for the sapper Kip (Naveen Andrews). A mystery man of sarcastic tone, David Carravagio (Willem Dafoe) comes with a mission of his own. There is suspense which I was never eager to learn. They do not create the sense of being restless not knowing what happened. We ride along patiently and steadily to look into the past of Almásy when he wants to reveal.

This is my last paragraph and I need to come to a conclusion on the target missed by the movie over me. Hardly thinking and writing about it till now, the time spent and the positives came out of it is self explanatory over the state of my mind. I am clear on the incomplete explanations and the indifferent reaction it leaves me. I guess for all these paragraphs, I was denying saying it aloud. I liked a soap operatic movie which did not strike me. It behaved true to its content to be a watchable flick. There you go, I said it.

"Band of Outsiders" (Language - French/English) (1964) - Movie Review

After a grueling 96 minutes of noir and film style of “Band of Outsiders”, one cannot miss the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”. And I will be upfront to say that I did not like “Band of Outsiders”. So with that, let me go through what would have been those shots which inspired Tarantino meant at that time. My belief is that a movie regardless of its time when it came out stays still and the people grow up to understand it. I doubt whether I will grow up to get this. This doubt raises concerns whether this will be the same situation of “Pulp Fiction” for the coming generations? I hope not.

Despite the fact of me not blown away by the noir modern crime style, the shots from the back and front of the car, the approximate minute of silence and dance in the café are innovative and classic in nature. If I time traveled in my mind to be in that period of movies, the novelty in the making would have awed and bored me simultaneously. Now with so many movies taking this as their mother to nourish their films made the original to soak in mediocrity so long that it has lost its awe. In a publicly announced and recognized classic movie, a person undergoes a peer pressure. The peer pressure is to somehow make him or her like the movie regardless of their original feeling towards it. It does need and aids in appreciating the actual content. It is the dust which spreads across our nostalgic antique. We do not like it and blow it off but it gives a rare beauty to it. “Rashomon” has those in terms of those expressive acting and loud vocals. So does the cacophony comedic music in “Uthiri Pookkal”. We wither it off and look at the heart of it. I dusted off the pale and dull characterization of Arthur (Claude Brasseur), Odile (Anna Karina) and Franz (Sami Frey) and enhance the neo-crime thriller of that time. I admired the nuances of innovation but the translucent characters left me bored and numb.

Odile is the apple of the eye of this crime story, or an upcoming story of crime. Two men and one woman involving in a robbery and there are no zillion combination lock or historic mechanical traps to overcome. It is simple and that is in fact the reason for this two crime story enthusiastic weirdo to launch the attack. The only appealing and successful aspect of their mannerism and eligibility to carry on a heist is their driving skills. They make dragging turn and twisted circles before they make their destined stop. Both wear a hat and a solid coat, and once in a while enact a shooting scene with their hands as guns in an offbeat road. Arthur is a straight on crush for Odile. Her eyes are the most talkative and expressive part of her. She always has this doubtful and mischievous face. As she confuses sometimes towards the feeling for both men, even though it is explicitly evident for her love towards Arthur, it reflects her state of mind in the robbery. She sends mixed signals in both the situations.

The movie lost my interest before the double finale of the robbery. It circles around these three characters and goes merry go round for an hour. Initially it feels good and then it dizzies us, not due to the complexity or the repetitiveness but the inconclusive nature and agenda of them. Both Arthur and Franz seem to be doing ok for themselves. If they are doing it for their passion for the crime, the execution is not thrilling and also not clever at all. The passion for it would have tempted them to opt for a more challenging task than trying to get in a house where their key person Odile resides.

The only convincing reason is the luring of Arthur towards Odile. Their eye contact and body language are well choreographed with smooth handling of camera. With the English teacher dictating the Romeo and Juliet, that sequence could not have been better than that. Yet it is short term memory. The attraction is there but it never blossoms into next stage. It stays there with no advancement both in the relationship and screenplay.

The movie is not dark comedy either. It does not fall into thriller or romance or any other thing. It is first of its kind and Tarantino after so many years took the essence of it added his Midas touch of slickness and sickly entertaining never ending conversations to make a trademark for himself. Director Jean-Luc Godard is the failed father for a successful son of Tarantino in this genre.

"In the Valley of Elah" (2007) - Movie Review

Roger Ebert in his review for the movie “Platoon” wrote “It was Francois Truffaut who said that it's not possible to make an anti-war movie, because all war movies, with their energy and sense of adventure, end up making combat look like fun. If Truffaut had lived to see "Platoon," the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion.” It would suit perfect for “In the Valley of Elah”. Granted there is no full fledged combat shown as that in “Platoon” but the intensity and the arrival to the point of the tragedy is threatening enough not to go through or still many going through to the horrific war zones of Iraq.

The film is inspired by the true events of the murder of soldier Richard Davis. His father Lanny Davis jumped in to suit up and find the real truth behind his son’s demise. While Paul Haggis adds some fictional characters, in its core it sticks to the incident. World Wars paved way to show the atrocities and the possible redemption for humans in films and then came the Vietnam War to repeat the cycle. Now it is Iraq. Still there is so much material to be learned upon to not go through war again which have seen in “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”. Looking back and now, with every attempt to make an anti-war movie there still comes up one more to produce another one of the same. Ironically tragic.

Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) is meticulous, systematic, immaculate and a war veteran. He is a father too. Look how closely and carefully he makes his bed, shines his shoes, shaves in the morning, dresses up quickly when women comes up and a face with suppressed and controlled emotions. Jones plays Hank as some one who cannot be made to be confided or to confide. The detachment he creates and the enormity of being the “man” with the traditional previous generation Army guy is going to line him for the nomination for numerous awards. But you see age has moulded him into another dimension which can only been seen by him, alone in a room. It is his way anywhere he goes, even in a remote motel. Even persuading some army young kid to speak up, he pulls him to his zone. Then he moves the coins and gets the answer. He looks for things and looks hard enough to outsmart any police detective.

As perfect and seasoned he behaves and appears as the tough straight army veteran, there are things untold about him. We then know that is how he reacts. He kind of questions the belief of war happening now. Is the sanity maintained in the massacre in World War and Vietnam in his times? Definitely not. May be he would have heard the stories and seen the movies but I guess he believed in the greater good or the percentage of right soldiers in the team. A war where they abided the code and ethics, as he explains the story of David and Goliath in the valley of Elah to the son David (Devin Brochu) of Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron). The code gets broken or not but the men and women turn into insane human beings. Or may be they had the skill as Hank, and had a way of maintaining themselves when they returned home. Unfortunately even Hank questions it. When the ammunitions are in place, does it really matter to have the concept of conscience out there? Is there any psychological consolation out of it when the process of ethics and code are followed? May be there is, but it is a band aid for an amputated leg.

As spotless in correlating and linking the chains of cause and action in the film, it is Tommy Lee Jones who provides that leverage for the script so dependent on his enactment. The supporting role by Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon as Hank’s wife Joan is adequate and precise. Sarandon has now can easily sleep walk through any role like this and able to knock us down fair and square. Charlize Theron’s Emily Sanders fights in and outside the walls of the police station. With couple of sexists and drooling envies around the colleagues, she finds the openness and acknowledges the pain of Hank. The only real close conversation Sanders is able to make up with Hank is a final “Thank you”. Every other thing pertains to his son’s case and every movement is for a terse signal of communication. The chemistry is odd and they along with understanding it begin to behave according to it.

There are those tiny things in various sequences which tell a lot about how much of the knack and cleverness they brought into the movie with the correct whiff of emotions it would have demanded. After Joan is shown from top camera view taking the news of her son’s death through the phone from Hank, there is the phone table down with candies scattered probably from her collapsing. They do not show that. We see the scene starting from Joan asking questions to Hank sitting down. We understand what happened.

With Haggis scripting and directing, the high and soaring flag of message is the one every anti-war movie cries. Movies keep on coming on about the balanced terror created all around the world. As any one would watch it over the TV or read it in news, we see the bunch of the people who in the name of country, religion or any other thing we can come up with to face and give death. We do not know them and hence while there is this empathy, the world goes on and the time we dedicate dies along with it. Of course there is no avenue for the factor sitting with every one and may be have a chance to speak to their disturbed and damaged soul. It is movies like “In the Valley of Elah” which may not deliver that one on one conversation but encourage enough to hunt ourselves to relieve the devil inside.

"Courage Under Fire" (1996) - Movie Review

Matt Damon shed 40 pounds in order to appear for the present day specialist Illario in this movie. During his interview in the show “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, he mentioned that he was terribly disappointed when no one noticed his performance in it. Thankfully after “Good Will Hunting” Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Copolla got him to do “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Rainmaker” respectively. When the story circles on the events even the central character of Lieutenant Colonel Serling’s (Denzel Washington) gets missed sometimes. And missing Matt Damon is something which did not surprise me. He did his supporting role to perfection but the film moves beyond performance. The style of narration and the importance of key facts out of war becomes the priority.

The film takes the old school “Rashomon” technique. The difference though is that the event depicted happens in a 1991 Gulf War. We get three versions. The investigation by Serling is to award the Medal of Honor (posthumously) for Captain Karen Emma Walden (Meg Ryan) who will be the first woman to get it.

Serling is trying to recover from his own guilt. He cannot live upon a normal life with his family after the terrible incident he encountered in the War. More than that, it is the cover up by the Army to protect its reputation tortures and haunts him. Having lost his friend and a good soldier, he not only lied to the parents but to himself. He sees the investigation as an opportunity to revive the truth he has hidden. He drinks too much and does not open up to his wife Meredith (Regina Taylor). She understands him though mentions that she cannot wait too long. Added to that is the pressure from the White House and his command officer Brigadier General Hershberg (Michael Moriarty) to finish up this as soon as possible and in anyways possible. They rush to give people some thing to see the Army’s success and recognition.

Director Edward Zwick takes the technique used by Kurosawa and puts in some more elements. Elements of conscience, truth and bravery. Bravery – how does it look on paper and in reality? War is a calamity and lives are lost. The way it is lost in bravery is the only good thing the loved ones hopes to hear. They want to know that their son or daughter died bravely. When lives are lost in hundreds and thousands, the details are mishandled and fudged to make it easy to digest and move on. Zwick with the underplayed performances of every actor takes the narration and story telling as essential ingredient.

When the initial investigation is dictated to Serling by the other chopper who were down, everything seems straight forward. Serling thinks so too but the inconsistencies in the minor detail of two people involved in the incident ticks him to dig more. Quite contrastingly in this investigation, even we do not want further perusal of information. With the stories heard, we make up our mind to give some hope to the daughter of the deceased and make her proud. Serling burned consistently by his conscience stands by his ground to know the truth. He does not want one another foul play by the army. His life is army and his wife reminds him that his family is his life too.

There is an offhand tendency when war happens. It is not unusual for the loss of lives as many would see it. Is it negligible the way they die since it is war? The post war situational executives look upon good colourful dramatic results as that of truth. The movie essentially brings in doubts and questions over the plausibility of accidents turning into incidents. But is it worth while to explain that one soldier’s life went in misfortunate accident than in enemy hands? May be not, but how does one feel when the truth leaks out from the fissures of lies? When Serling meets the parents of his friend Boylar (Tim Ransom), the closure is in finding terms through the living. There will be moving on not forgetting the deceased soul but through it.

With every possibility to have this script been mishandled into an overdone emotional drama, Zwick peppers the detective noir curiosity with the inner struggle and politics in the Army. We see different dimensions and perspectives on the personalities of Captain Walden. In one she is a brave Captain in control and in command. In another, she is completely lost and wants to be alive even thinking about an option to surrender. And finally we see another face too showing veracity of the happenings. This is the technique of Kurosawa. Human’s inability to enact the most truthful event even to them.

"Eastern Promises" (2007) - Movie Review

After “The Godfather” many following movies tried to venture upon the organized crime in styles of its own. Scorcese is the king in it. Still if one thing that I would like to be taken upon from that movie, it’s the code system, the men who in every kind of judgment of them declare that they are the most honorable one among others. And the cold and vicious crimes undergone unexpectedly in the most fearful fashion. I was not a big fan of David Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence”. I have seen many movies in my native language with similar storyline and the style was not particularly impressive. Slick but not impressive. In “Eastern Promises” he has won over me right from the very beginning of the movie.

The film is visceral in the crime and bloody in nature. The film is the look on the organized Russian crime family vory v zakone and a plot running on Anna (Naomi Watts) who tries finding a home for the baby. A baby born to a fourteen year old girl and from her diary unravels the rape and torture done upon her in order to maintain the secrecy. I read from http://www.wikipedia.org/ and they have in detail given the codes and laws of the vory v zakone or thieves in law. I was astonished, surprised and stunned to see the codes in it and the details said on the movie in a subtle manner.

Viggo Mortenses as Nikolai Luzhin impresses as he dresses impeccably and the stature he maintains. He is calm and we know he can be deadly. He sees and understands a little more than you and how your next action is going to be. His loyalty to his boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and more than that to Semyon’s son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) is the way he crosses his arms and stands in front of the restaurant. “I am just a driver” he says to Anna when she questions about the girl. He is the man with a heart in the terrible world of heartless men. Men who translate women to whore and have a testosterone scale to measure their manliness. The control more than in life is that they need over sex. They judge and accept one who believes in it, literally.

Kirill is the mad son every crime family movie has. But he too believes in brotherhood. He follows the code and gets beaten by Semyon. Kirill loves Nikolai but proudly shows his tattoo of star over his chest to say he is the “Captain”. They have the King Semyon and the “Captains”, the “Slaves”. They have a Kingdom of their own and we afraid and may be even feel pathetic for these people who still believe in the system of power and control. Kirill is conditioned and raised by Semyon. Sadly enough he expects the love of his father openly. The scene where he expresses the jealousy over Nikolai to get attention from his father and trying to stay true to the affection of brotherhood is a moment to watch out for both for Mortensen and Cassel.

Semyon on the other hand is noble and understanding in appearance. It ends there, appearance. The face he quietly puts up to hide his acts but does not hesitate to use it as a threatening device to get things done in the manner he wants. He is in power and he is in control. He is the man for whom love even to his son is unspoken of and in a sense he does not understand it himself. He protects his son we do not know whether he does it for the code he follows or some slight traces of love? But it is not much of use either. The crime he commits does not have absolution and more importantly forgiveness. But the funny part is, he does not realize it as crime either. He hides from the law because they will not understand the “code”. Cronenberg never utters these because these men are taught things to dug deep inside and bury them in the heart. Follow it but bringing it out is as horrible is bringing out the ghost.

The fear Cronenberg manifests throughout the movie is nerve breaking experience. He uses the sharp objects to tear upon the skin and blood oozing out as to not shock us but to constantly intimidate us on when they are going to come up. We do not want to see those and that’s exactly how he plays with our fear. Every moment we see the wrong body language and the sense of fear elevates.

Among these cruel and shocking males are the miserable girls who from their small villages and towns of their country come with their dreams. May be not dream but some small life they try to make up for and miserably succumb to these men. We do not see those females but hear one of them confiding through their words. Nikolai is some one who has some evidence of that conscience to extend their life, a bit more and save them from themselves. We understand why later in the movie.

“Eastern Promises” is as gripping and enthralling as “The Godfather”. It tends to lose its track but it holds it fort strong in the end. Cronenberg got very good actors like Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel and Armin Mueller-Stahl to give these men who live by their ruthless laws and unforgiving codes. This is a movie which can very well be called the new godfather, having every bit of those untold movements and hand gestures to really get these people.