A decent Scottish thriller

Red Road is a Scottish thriller which I had to see with subtitles, as the language in the movie was very hard to follow. The movie is about a middle aged lonely Scottish woman of whom we know nothing about except what she does for a living. Her job is to monitor the spy cameras, which apparently are placed at every nook and corner of the little town where she lives. Most of the time she just stares at the monitors, zooms in and out on a few people and then just observes life on the street. She does not have a personal life and when she needs physical intimacy, she will just have sex with her colleague in his car, without any emotional feelings.

One day on her job, she finds this person on the TV monitor and she immediately identifies him. He is a criminal who was jailed a few years ago and he should not be on the streets. She later finds out that he was released from the jail on the account of good behavior. She is not happy and she starts to monitor his every action on camera. After finding out his daily activities, one day she just shows up at a party in his house and meets him. These scenes were filmed in mysterious and eerie way that it keeps us on the edge and makes us wonder what her intentions are. Her intentions are not revealed till the end when I got to know them, I was slightly disappointed. The movie would have been just great if her motivations weren't explained.

The best thing about the movie is that it never goes for cheap thrills. There is very little background score unlike regular Hollywood movies which feel the need to give emotional cues on where the audience should feel sad, thrilled, etc. On the whole, the movie is very engaging and is recommended.

Movies based on Stephen King's novels/shortstories

Movies based on Stephen King's novels/shortstories

This is from my recent post in one of the orkut groups discussing about movies.

Stephen king has written a lot of novels, short stories that were adapted to the screen (nearly 50) and he is one of those writers who can elaborate a 5 minute story to 800 page book and still make it riveting. Most of his books are horror based but when he writes about real life drama, he can just get under your skin and make you cry, laugh and sometimes, insanely happy. I haven't seen all of his movies but from what I have seen, I have categorized them down below. This is purely my opinion and hopefully you will like them too.

The Great ones

1) The Shining: A great book and a great movie but completely different from each other. Stephen king was unhappy with the outcome of the movie when it came out in 1980. The director (stanley kubrick) has changed many key points of the novel and movie is very different from what the book intended to be. Shining has one of the greatest opening sequences ever and the haunting music adds an eerie effect when combined with the great camera work in the movie. Jack nicholson plays the role of the caretaker of the Overlook hotel, which is located on a mountain top, isolated, deserted and closed for the entire winter. Gradually, he develops a strange behavior and starts believing that he was there in the hotel before. Has he really??

2) Shawshank redemption: Based on a short story from King. Probably most popular among all the movies based on his books. Most people like the surprise ending of the movie and I love it too, but my favorite moment is when an old man who has lived all his adult life in jail is finally released, goes back to the city where he grew up and finds that life in city has completely changed and he feels like he is in the real jail. Morgan freeman excels and one of the best of King's works.

3) Misery: A chilling horror movie with absolutely no violence and bloodshed. A writer goes to a rural town on a holiday and gets stuck in the snow when his snowmobile dies on him. He gets rescued by a middle aged woman who happens to be a big fan of his books. The story takes a wild turn when he starts to find about her not so friendly side.

4) Carrie: First major success of Stephen king and a very typical story of King which he repeated in many other novels (dead zone, hearts in atlantis, firestarter, thinner,green mile) in which a lonely and a good person has a supernatural gift but he/she is not too happy with it. The movie was brilliantly shot and directed by Brian de palma and John travolta co-stars.

5) Dolores Claiborne: I saw this movie recently and till then I did not even know that there is one such movie. I felt that it was highly underrated and to me it was nearly as good as Shawshank redemption. The movie is about a mother-daughter relationship for over a period of 20 odd years. The daughter who has abandoned her mother visits her after a long long time and they dwell on their relationship over the years and the daughter finally knows about some hidden secrets about her mother which changes her opinions forever.

6) Green mile: Another movie set in the jail life and the rich characterization of various inmates almost makes one feel like we are living in the jail and we know these people. The movie was directed by same person who directed Shawshank redemption.

7) Stand by me: Best movie adaptation of any King's book, period. The movie made me sad and happy at the same time. Sad for realizing the fact that our childhood days have passed and gone and we can never have them back and happy for re-living and making me remember about those days. The movie is based on another typical theme of King's stories where a group of childhood friends meet during their adult life and remember about the good old days and one incident in specific which they will never forget.

Good ones

1) Rose Red : Rose red is a lengthy (4 1/2 hrs) horror movie, which was made as mini-series for TV, is about a group of scholars who plan to visit an old haunted mansion. The novel was loosely inspired by the real mansion called "Winchester mystery house" in Sanfrancisco, California. Thought the movie is very long and story line is wafer thin, it is very riveting and keeps the audience on the edge of the seat. The group on their visit to the mansion encounter the ghosts of the family who used to live in the mansion. The story of the family and the way they died is revealed in bits and pieces in flashbacks.

2) Storm of the century: Another movie made for TV (3-4 hours) is based in a small town in Maine, where many other novels of King are setup. When a blizzard hits the small town, the citizens of the town are visited by a stranger who knows the secrets of everybody in the town. After he kills an old man, he is jailed. Even after being in jail, he continues to kill people or force people to suicide by using his supernatural powers. The stranger keeps repeating "Give me what I need and I'll go away" and only at the end it is revealed what he needs. The ending of the movie might not be liked by many people for its abruptness and vagueness.

3) 1408: This movie is based on a short story that King used in his anthology "Everything's eventual". The movie stars Samuel L Jackson as a hotel manager and John Cusack as a writer who mainly focusses on haunted places. He comes to know about the room 1408 in the Dolphin Hotel, Newyork where apparently many people lost their lives. Initially, the manager of the hotel tries his best to convince him to not to stay in the room. But, the writer refuses and enters the room. He later comes to face with the evils in the room and he has no way out.

4) Cat's eye: This movie along with Twilight zone is one of the main inspirations for Ramgopalvarma's Darna mana hai/Darna zaroori hai series. Apparently (courtesy:www.passionforcinema.com), RGV narrated one of the stories from this movie to Anurag kashyap. Anurag later, after many many years realized that it was actually a story from Stephen king. However, he modified the story that he heard from RGV and made it into "No Smoking".
Anyway, Coming to this movie, it is an anthology of three horror stories just like Darna mana hai. The first story is the best of the lot. None of them are scary but each of them is very weird and often very funny.

5) Creepshow: Another anthology like Cat's eye but a big hit during the time of its release. The movie has 5 episodes and Stephen king himself played the lead role in one of those stories. Each story in the movie like Cat's eye border on comedy and eeriness. The movie is no masterpiece but has a certain weirdly funny quality that I absolutely loved it.

6) The Dead zone: Christopher Walken plays the role of a normal young man in love with a girl and one day gets hit by a car. After that he spends years in coma and when he returns back, he is empowered by a supernatural power using which he can predict future. Like other King's stories, he is not happy with the powers he has but finds himself in situations where he has to put it to use to rescue others and sometimes himself. The movie was directed by David Cronenberg (History of violence) and it is an engaging movie.

7) Pet Cemetery: Stephen king says it his favorite among his works but the movie is not that great. It is nonetheless very interesting at times. The story is about a small family with a husband, wife and a 2 year old kid. When the kid dies in a brutal car accident, the father is crestfallen and decides to bury his son in the near pet cemetery, where it is believed that the dead things come alive. The kid comes alive as expected but he is not his son anymore but is devil/ghost/monster or whatever.

8) Hearts in Atlantis: A very good book but a mediocre movie. Anthony hopkins plays the leading role of an old man who comes to a small village from nowhere. He befriends a teenage boy and passes some of this supernatural powers to him. The kid (and us) never find out where exactly he came from but what we know is that he is on the run and the people who are looking for him are not very nice.

Not so good ones

1) Thinner: A successful lawyer on fine day kills a gypsy by running his car over him. The leader of the gypsies casts a spell on the lawyer that he would become thinner everyday for the rest of his life. The fat lawyer is intially glad to loose some pounds but slowly he realizes that something is not right.

2) Maximum overdrive: The only movie directed by Stephen king. He has once admitted that it is his worst work ever and he did not what he was doing while shooting the film.

3) Salem's lot: A successful tv mini series but an awful movie.

4) Needful things: Max Van sydow (Exorcist) is the stranger from nowhere in a lonely town who knows the darkest secrets of everybody in the town. He instigates one against other and creates a hell in the town.

5) Firestarter : A story somewhat similar to Carrie. Drew barrymore plays the role of little girl, where she and her father have the supernatural power of producing fires at their will. They are pursued by people from the "Shop" for the father-daughter are on the run.

Recently Watched Movies-2

Thanks to Blockbuster's in-store rental plan, I can now go to store and find the new releases instantly. Here are some of the movies that I have seen since last week:

Lust,caution (2007): The movie is not really that good as Ang lee's previous one's but is definetly worth watching. The movie is about a group of Chinese students who want to fight against the Japanese imperialists and their mission is to kill the Mr. Yee, a japanese collaborator. The plan is trap Mr. Yee into an affair and kill him when they get the first chance. The beautiful Mrs. Wong, agrees to be the bait and her job is seduce Mr. Yee. Their mission is abrutply stopped when Yee moves to Shanghai, all of a sudden. After 3 years, the team re-groups and decides to launch the mission again. The ending of the movie might disaappoint many people.

The householder (1963): I have seen only one movie from James Ivory-Ismail Merchant till now and this is my second one. This movie is so good that I want to see all the rest from their combination. This is the directorial debut for James ivory and the movie stars Shashi kapoor and leela naidu. A simple movie about a normal school teacher and his early years of married life and how he copes up with his meager income, his new wife, his mother and other family issues. The movie's narration style is very similar to Satyajit ray's pather panchali, in dealing with financial issues that a poor/middle class family has to face everyday. The movie was made in both hindi and english, but unfortunately netflix is carrying only the english version.

Rescue dawn(2007) : Christian bale gives an amazing performance in this movie. The movie is based on the real life character (Dieter Dengler) who was captured by Vietnam militia, just after 40 minutes into his first mission in 1965. Once he is held captive, he is taken into POW camp where he meets few other Americans, who were held captive for over an year. Dieter convinces others to assist him in his plan to escape from the camp. What makes the movie so different is the way Christian bale plays this character. The movie was entirely shot on location in Thailand's interior and dense woods. The locations are breath taking and the director (wernor herzog) avoids all those scenes, which would have made this a regular war thriller.A must watch.

3:10 to yuma (2007): Remake and probably a better version of an old western. Russell crowe is Ben wade, an infamous outlaw who is finally caught in a small town. The hard part is moving him to yuma, where he would be imprisoned. Dan (Christian bale), a small time farmer who is in dire need of some money agrees to escort him for $200. Along the ride, Dan and Ben know more about and command respect for each other. Ben is not a complete bad guy and is capable of expressing emotions when needed and Dan sticks to his ethics and morals and is not afraid to sacrifice his life, if that situation arises. I have just seen another Christian bale movie (Resuce dawn) and he is so damn different in both of them.

Death at a funeral (2007): This british comedy is hilarious for the first 30-45 mins but later as it steps into slapstick and some explicitly vulgar scenes, it starts to drag. However, the first half makes up for the dragging final act . Like typical british comedies, the movies find laughter in situations where you least expect it. If you are of sensitive kind, you may want to close your eyes for a minute or two during some scenes in the second half. Barring those few scenes, the movie is a laugh riot.
During the opening scene of the movie, a coffin is brought into the home of the Daniel's. Daniel opens the coffin to see his father for one final time. He solemnly looks at the body for a minute and asks, "Who's this?". And then follows a series of things where everything goes wrong.

Gone baby gone (2007): A decent thriller with a lot of twists and turns and a good debut for the director turned actor, ben affleck. The movie starts slow but you will be hooked after the first 20 minutes.

Away from her (2007) : This is one of the saddest movies that I have seen in the recent times. Alzheimer's can be the most painful disorder, not for the patient but for their loved ones. The story is about an old couple who are married for nearly 44 years. When he comes to know that his wife has alzheimer's, he is devastated. He lets her join in an institution as per her will, but he is not happy to see her go. Her conditions worsens to the stage that she almosts forgets who her husband is. Is she putting put an act or does she really have alzheimer's is the question that the movie does not answer.

We Own the night (2007) : An okay drug related drama starring Joaquin Phoenix, Eva Mendes and Mark Wahlberg. One brother is a cop and the other is a drug dealer. Father, played by Robert duvall, is also a cop and loves the cop son but not the other. Joaquin (drug dealer) takes the side of the family when his brother gets shot by his own people. Though the movie is stylishly shot there are some obligatory sequences where the younger brother (drug dealer) becomes a cop in no time after going through few tests and brings down the entire drug dealing operation and makes his family proud. There are same old scenes of breaking up/getting back with girl friend and winning the love of the father and the fairy tale ending of winning the award for being the best police officer of the year, etc. Some reviews compared it to the Departed, but to me it is very dull and routine and no where near the energetic martin scorcese's classic.

Recently Watched movies

Hearts in atlantis (2001) : Adaptation of stephen king's novel and not upto the mark. I read the book and was very excited to watch the movie and it was a let down. The movie was okay and it is a typical King novel where a stranger comes to the town from nowhere and he is more than what meets the eye. The movie is about this teenage boy who befriends the old stranger (played by anthony hopkins) and learns the secrets about the people from an other world, who he calls him, "low men in yellow coats". The book instills a feeling of nostalgia and is beautiful at times when it deals with childhood fantasies and first romances. Unfortunately, the movie did not evoke the same feeling. A good movie nonetheless.

9 1/2 weeks: Adrian lyne's (who I always thought was french, but recently found that he is british) erotic drama is about a middle aged & beautiful woman, who is recently divorced, and a handsome but weird guy and their adventurous relationship. The movie has great cinematography and brilliant background score like other Lyne's movies (Fatal attraction, unfaithful) but a very different plot. One would always imagine during the first half hour that the guy would turn out to be some sort of psycho and the movie will end with a lot of violence. Nothing of that sort happens. The entire movie is shot in some kind of a moody environment and you have to watch this movie with lights off and sound on.

Darna zaroori hai (2006): I did not watch this movie for so long and looking back , I am surprised at many of the poor reviews this movie received. The stories this time were indeed scary and interesting unlike darna mana hai. I thought the final story of the six which was directed by Chakravarthy was the best of the lot. I thought the episode on apples and Aftab's episode on the stop game brought down darna mana hai. In darna zaroori hai, there are no bad episodes and two in particular are really out of the box.

Darling (2007): Darling is good for the first few minutes, drags a bit in the middle and comes together as an interesting movie, thanks to a very interesting and well-performed climax. Reviews have praised fardeen but to me esha deol was better. Songs were unneccessary in the movie and a it would have been better if the movie was a little shorter.As RGV said in his interview, the movie starts as a thriller, becomes a horror and later becomes a comedy and ends up as an emotional drama. Coming to the story, Fardeen, a happily married businessman has an affair with his secretary played by esha deol. When esha pesters him to leave his wife and marry her, a confrantation ensues resulting in her death. Fardeen then is followed by Esha's ghost. In a typical RGV's style similar to Money, my wife's murder, the guilty is frequently visited by the law, pushing him further into confusion and despair. There is a brief scene with Kota sreenivasa rao playing the role of a psychoanalyst which could have been handled better. Excluding a few boring scenes, darling is a very interesting movie.

The brave one (2007): Not good and not bad. Boring at times. Not too long but felt long. I did not like it.

Deathproof (2007): Nobody can write dialogue like Quentin. Quentin can make a 2 hr movie about two guys sitting in a restaurant and discussing about a sandwitch and still make it interesting. The movie is one of two parts in Grindhouse package and is the better one of the two. It is about a Stuntman who likes to kill young girls with his deathproof car. In the movie's first segment, he stalks a radio jockey and her friends in a bar and runs them over his car and kills everyone of them. In the movie's second segment we witness what is possibly the greatest car chase in movies, ever. Quentin hates the idea of using CGI and this entire car chase was filmed on location using real stuntmen and stuntwomen. Zoebell (who body doubled for fight scenes in Kill bill for Uma) excels in her role as a real life stuntwoman.

Once(2007): This year's oscar winner for the best song is a love story like no other. The movie was filmed using a handheld camera by independent filmmakers from Ireland. It is about a roadside singer and part time hoover mechanic, who one day encounters a beautiful girl who pays him 10 cents for his song. The girl is a song writer and he is a composer and they collaborate with other roadside musicians to get his music recorded. It sounds like a typical sweet hollywood romantic comedy but it isn't.

Single white female: Bridget fonda is the single white female who has just broken up with her boyfriend and is looking for a new female room mate. After interviewing a few girls, she lands on jennifer jason leigh (in her most famous role). Gradually, as she gets to know her, she gets scared as this new girl is different in many ways. An entertaining and chilling movie. Jennifer jason leigh is scary as hell and she carries the show.

The Devil's backbone: The earlier work of the director of Pan's labryinth and the producer of "The orphanage", is a movie about childhood fears about ghosts just like his other two movies. The setup is an orphanage and time is 1930's when the spanish war was in progress. The kids in the orphanage hear some strange sounds during the nights and they assume that it is the ghost of "Santi" who was recently killed. Only one kid knows about the secret of his death. Like Pan's labryinth and The orphanage, the movie takes its time and uses the sudden scary shocks for only the required scenes and the result is an engaging horror drama.

La femme Nikita: (1990): A very popular french thriller of 90's which was later re-made in hollywood (point of no return) and then re-made into a tv series. The movie is about a deranged teenage female assasin who is sent to prison for life. She is later trained by the secret service to carry out their classified operations. The woman who never had any emotions and feelings for life before, finally falls in love with a store clerk during one of her operations. She finally wants to live and leave all her past behind. The overall plot of the movie reminded me of RGV's Satya, though the setup is completely different.

Fool's gold: (2008): A very typical hollywood's idea of a romantic adventure. The movie is too predictable but the leading stars, Kate hudson and Matthew McConaughey save the movie from being boring. The movie received very poor reviews (nearly 7% on tomatameter) but I somewhat liked it, probably because of the lovely Kute hudson. Kate & McConaughey make a nice couple and it was very funny and romantic at moments.

Bug : (2007) Directed by William Friedkin (The exorcist), "The Bug" is about a lonely middle aged woman (ashely judd) and her encounter with another lonely demented guy. She is recently divorced and he is from nowhere with nobody to care for him. We know nothing about this guy other than his claim that he is pursued by some people, who are injecting bugs into his body as part of their scientific experiments. The movie ends in madness and Ashley judd's performance towards the end is brilliant. The movie did not receive great reviews and got very little recognition. It was loved by a few and hated by others, and I think both of their opinions/judgments are justified.