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.