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.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Marathon of Horror
I used to be a horror film lover long time ago, while I was just starting out watching american movies. Later I took a sidestep towards popular cinema and it took a way long time to return to my favorite genre. Thanks to the free HBO movies on TV and the cool "watch online" feature on netflix, I am back on track. Past two weeks has been a horror marathon on my laptop and I can't recall the last time feeling this high in my movie watching experience. Of the numerous movies I watched in my life, probably horror is the only genre which I would cherish for a long time after leaving the theatre. My marathon started with a mediocre but an entertaining movie based on a book by none other than the king of horror, Mr. Stephen king.
Needful things: (3/5) A very typical King movie based in a small and remote town where everybody knows everybody and when a stranger moves into this town, life is never the same again. The town is inhabited by strange set of characters as one would expect. The stranger provides the needful things to each of this unhappy characters and in return provides an unsolicited advice. Little do these people know that this stranger is the Satan sent directly from hell to destroy the village. Hell breaks loose and before everyone finds out the truth, its too late. Max von sydow excels in the role of the Satan but other than him, the movie disappoints. Though the film is very substandard when compared to similar movies from king (storm of the century, rose red), I was able to enjoy it for my love towards this sub-genre in horror.
Salem's Lot (2/5): Another movie from Stephen King and another movie very much like the above one. Only more disappointing. Stranger moves into a little town and creates havoc. I could not tolerate the pace of the movie and had to skip a few scenes here and there before reaching the predictable climax.
Maximum Overdrive (2/5): Its halloween and its Stephen King again. This movie is directed by the man himself and it makes one feel that everyone must stick to their own profession and its better not to be nosy in someone else's job. A very very disappointing directorial effort from Stephen King. I loved the first few minutes of this movie and a scene here and a scene there. However, there was no continuity and the screenplay just sucked. Automobiles come alive in this movie and decide to take over the power away from the humans. There are a few funny scenes here and there where a truck without a driver chases the running humans, ATM machines asking the customers to go fuck themselves, vending machine killing loads of people by propelling the coke cans..things like that. However, they don't make up for remaining part of this boring movie.
Cemetery Man (4.5/5): Just loved it. This is the kind of the movie which re-instills my interest in this genre. This movie has everything for a B grade horror fan, gore, breasts, sex, violence, comedy, one-liners, zombies and a lot more. It follows the life of a care taker of a cemetery called Dellamorte Dellamore ( Love and hate in italian) and his dumb (or not) side kick Naghi. For Dellamore, its a daily errand to kill the zombies who return back from their grave a week after they are dead, and put them back into the grave. Nobody in the town knows this and Dellamore never reveals this to anybody as he might lose his job. The cemetery is only place in the world known to Dellamore and Naghi and this is the cause of the rumor floating around in town that Dellamore is impotent, which we later come to know is untrue after witnessing his erotic scene with the beautiful wife of the city's Mayor whose body was just buried in the cemetery a day before. Unfortunately, his lady love is eaten by her own husband who comes back to life from the grave. However, Dellamore encounters other women in the rest of the movie, who look exactly like his first love. More than horror, this movie is hilarious black comedy and sometimes also leans towards noir, spirituality. A must watch.
Dead Zone (3/5): I think I have seen all of the Stephen King's best works and now its time to watch his worst and mediocre films. This is one of those movies like Carrie and Firestarter, where the main lead in the movie has a superpower but he/she is not too happy with it. This time the super power is to predict the future of the person when our superhero holds his/her hand. Christopher Walken plays the main lead superbly and Martin sheen plays the political villain. Walken is ln love with a beautiful girl and one night one his way back to home he encounters an accident and rests in coma for nearly 6 years. He looses his job and his girl is married by the time he returns. However, he gains this new superpower as a compensation. Walken works with the police and helps resolving a few cases but he is unhappy and decides to put an end to his life. He wants to do one useful thing before he dies and plans to bring down the corrupt politician (martin sheen) which forms the rest of the movie.
Dolls (3.5/5) : A husband, his cute little daughter and his new rich/arrogant/bitchy wife are on a vacation when their car breaks down during the middle of the night. They take shelter for the night in an isolated bungalow owned by an old doll maker and his loving/eerie wife. Joining for the night is an young yet childish man with two tramps who hitchhiked his car during that night. After the discussion at the dinner table, the guests return to their alloted rooms and one of the sister in the junkies decides to steal the dolls (antiques) as they can get a very good price in the market. But she is not aware of the fact the dolls have a life of their own, and if you piss them off, you will pay your life as the price. The movie has good amount of gore and is very inventive and creative in designing various methods to kill/torture people. The movie could have done away with talking dolls, as the movie would have been much eerier if they were silent.
Fright Night (3/5) : One of those movies which is so bad that its good. A good idea of a rental for a Friday night of horror. Charley is an young teenager at school with a beautiful girl friend who loves him but cannot go "all the way" during their night outs. A new nieghbour moves into their house next door and brings a new girl home every night. Charley discovers that his nieghbour is a blood sucking vampire and decides to bring in the cops. The obviously don't buy his theory and the vampire warns killing Charley the next night. Charley seeks the help of a TV anchor for a Vampire show and though he refuses to help him first, finally agrees. The rest of the movie has a good amount of blood sucking, flesh eating gore scenes but the movie lacks good dialogue. A good B horror anyway....
Return of the living dead (3.75/5) : I fulfilled my dream. I finally watched a B grade horror from 80's in a theatre in its full glory. The movie has great background score and its setup in a run down chemical store which is located right next to a cemetery. On his first day at the job, Freddy comes to know that "Night of the living dead" was based on a true story and his chemical store is a living proof of that story. Freddy and his boss take a peek in one of those chemical cylinders located in their basement which releases the toxic gas and with it the living dead in those cylinders. They catch the monster and they burn it in the nearby crematorium and finally they take a sigh of relief. But the worst is yet to come, as the smoke from the oven brings every dead body in the cemetery to its life. Loads of gore and funny one-liners makes this movie a recommended see..
Freaks (4/5) : I was bored for the first 30 minutes but after that all the pieces fell into place making this one of the best noirs/eerie/horror movies of the black and white era. This movie has people with all kinds of physical abberations you can imagine. A half man-half woman, siamese twin girls who are bodies are attached to one another for their rest of their lives, a man without the lower part of the body, another man without hands/legs/abdomen, a midget man and his midget admirer, a bunch of mentally handicapped people and their caretaker, etc..The owner of this circus, named Cleopatra plans to fool one of the midgets in making him believe that she is in love with him and when the "Freaks" come to know about her true colors, they seek revenge...There are few great moments in the movie for which the audience applauded and this is one of the most wierd films I have ever seen..
From Beyond (3/5) : Based on a pulp novel written by Lovercraft, this movie is a passable rent. The best part of the movie is the sexy scientist who is introduced as a hard working and a conservative professional and when you get to see the unexpected wild side of hers...its just awesome...Other than that , the gore in the movie is not really that great and the cheesy special effects is a let down. I am already tired and don't feel like explaining the concept of the movie... that's it for now...
Needful things: (3/5) A very typical King movie based in a small and remote town where everybody knows everybody and when a stranger moves into this town, life is never the same again. The town is inhabited by strange set of characters as one would expect. The stranger provides the needful things to each of this unhappy characters and in return provides an unsolicited advice. Little do these people know that this stranger is the Satan sent directly from hell to destroy the village. Hell breaks loose and before everyone finds out the truth, its too late. Max von sydow excels in the role of the Satan but other than him, the movie disappoints. Though the film is very substandard when compared to similar movies from king (storm of the century, rose red), I was able to enjoy it for my love towards this sub-genre in horror.
Salem's Lot (2/5): Another movie from Stephen King and another movie very much like the above one. Only more disappointing. Stranger moves into a little town and creates havoc. I could not tolerate the pace of the movie and had to skip a few scenes here and there before reaching the predictable climax.
Maximum Overdrive (2/5): Its halloween and its Stephen King again. This movie is directed by the man himself and it makes one feel that everyone must stick to their own profession and its better not to be nosy in someone else's job. A very very disappointing directorial effort from Stephen King. I loved the first few minutes of this movie and a scene here and a scene there. However, there was no continuity and the screenplay just sucked. Automobiles come alive in this movie and decide to take over the power away from the humans. There are a few funny scenes here and there where a truck without a driver chases the running humans, ATM machines asking the customers to go fuck themselves, vending machine killing loads of people by propelling the coke cans..things like that. However, they don't make up for remaining part of this boring movie.
Cemetery Man (4.5/5): Just loved it. This is the kind of the movie which re-instills my interest in this genre. This movie has everything for a B grade horror fan, gore, breasts, sex, violence, comedy, one-liners, zombies and a lot more. It follows the life of a care taker of a cemetery called Dellamorte Dellamore ( Love and hate in italian) and his dumb (or not) side kick Naghi. For Dellamore, its a daily errand to kill the zombies who return back from their grave a week after they are dead, and put them back into the grave. Nobody in the town knows this and Dellamore never reveals this to anybody as he might lose his job. The cemetery is only place in the world known to Dellamore and Naghi and this is the cause of the rumor floating around in town that Dellamore is impotent, which we later come to know is untrue after witnessing his erotic scene with the beautiful wife of the city's Mayor whose body was just buried in the cemetery a day before. Unfortunately, his lady love is eaten by her own husband who comes back to life from the grave. However, Dellamore encounters other women in the rest of the movie, who look exactly like his first love. More than horror, this movie is hilarious black comedy and sometimes also leans towards noir, spirituality. A must watch.
Dead Zone (3/5): I think I have seen all of the Stephen King's best works and now its time to watch his worst and mediocre films. This is one of those movies like Carrie and Firestarter, where the main lead in the movie has a superpower but he/she is not too happy with it. This time the super power is to predict the future of the person when our superhero holds his/her hand. Christopher Walken plays the main lead superbly and Martin sheen plays the political villain. Walken is ln love with a beautiful girl and one night one his way back to home he encounters an accident and rests in coma for nearly 6 years. He looses his job and his girl is married by the time he returns. However, he gains this new superpower as a compensation. Walken works with the police and helps resolving a few cases but he is unhappy and decides to put an end to his life. He wants to do one useful thing before he dies and plans to bring down the corrupt politician (martin sheen) which forms the rest of the movie.
Dolls (3.5/5) : A husband, his cute little daughter and his new rich/arrogant/bitchy wife are on a vacation when their car breaks down during the middle of the night. They take shelter for the night in an isolated bungalow owned by an old doll maker and his loving/eerie wife. Joining for the night is an young yet childish man with two tramps who hitchhiked his car during that night. After the discussion at the dinner table, the guests return to their alloted rooms and one of the sister in the junkies decides to steal the dolls (antiques) as they can get a very good price in the market. But she is not aware of the fact the dolls have a life of their own, and if you piss them off, you will pay your life as the price. The movie has good amount of gore and is very inventive and creative in designing various methods to kill/torture people. The movie could have done away with talking dolls, as the movie would have been much eerier if they were silent.
Fright Night (3/5) : One of those movies which is so bad that its good. A good idea of a rental for a Friday night of horror. Charley is an young teenager at school with a beautiful girl friend who loves him but cannot go "all the way" during their night outs. A new nieghbour moves into their house next door and brings a new girl home every night. Charley discovers that his nieghbour is a blood sucking vampire and decides to bring in the cops. The obviously don't buy his theory and the vampire warns killing Charley the next night. Charley seeks the help of a TV anchor for a Vampire show and though he refuses to help him first, finally agrees. The rest of the movie has a good amount of blood sucking, flesh eating gore scenes but the movie lacks good dialogue. A good B horror anyway....
Return of the living dead (3.75/5) : I fulfilled my dream. I finally watched a B grade horror from 80's in a theatre in its full glory. The movie has great background score and its setup in a run down chemical store which is located right next to a cemetery. On his first day at the job, Freddy comes to know that "Night of the living dead" was based on a true story and his chemical store is a living proof of that story. Freddy and his boss take a peek in one of those chemical cylinders located in their basement which releases the toxic gas and with it the living dead in those cylinders. They catch the monster and they burn it in the nearby crematorium and finally they take a sigh of relief. But the worst is yet to come, as the smoke from the oven brings every dead body in the cemetery to its life. Loads of gore and funny one-liners makes this movie a recommended see..
Freaks (4/5) : I was bored for the first 30 minutes but after that all the pieces fell into place making this one of the best noirs/eerie/horror movies of the black and white era. This movie has people with all kinds of physical abberations you can imagine. A half man-half woman, siamese twin girls who are bodies are attached to one another for their rest of their lives, a man without the lower part of the body, another man without hands/legs/abdomen, a midget man and his midget admirer, a bunch of mentally handicapped people and their caretaker, etc..The owner of this circus, named Cleopatra plans to fool one of the midgets in making him believe that she is in love with him and when the "Freaks" come to know about her true colors, they seek revenge...There are few great moments in the movie for which the audience applauded and this is one of the most wierd films I have ever seen..
From Beyond (3/5) : Based on a pulp novel written by Lovercraft, this movie is a passable rent. The best part of the movie is the sexy scientist who is introduced as a hard working and a conservative professional and when you get to see the unexpected wild side of hers...its just awesome...Other than that , the gore in the movie is not really that great and the cheesy special effects is a let down. I am already tired and don't feel like explaining the concept of the movie... that's it for now...
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Confessions of film maker
Directed by : Anish Kuruvilla
Starring : Kamal Kamaraju
I swore to myself never to watch telugu movies (the recent ones) and I don't have respect for most of the telugu stars, their sons, directors and producers. There were many instances where I was understood (or misunderstood) by my friends as somebody who was trying to escape his roots and was trying to look like a film expert. I don't have anything against the cinema of my own language and on the contrary I love some of the old classics and lot of films from the good old 90's. But why I can never watch a telugu cinema anymore and why I couldn't stand the fans of old aged stars and their young sons, I couldn't explain. I think now I can ask those people to watch "Confessions of filmmaker" and find out for themselves why me and several other people like me can't stand the new generation of telugu cinema.
COFM was made by Anish Kuruvilla, who I think has spent more than 10 years in telugu film "industry" chasing his dream only to realize that it was not the right place to make his dream come true. Kamal (the protaganist of the film), like Anish in real life has been working in filmnagar for almost 10 years and in this span he was a co-director, editor and assistant producer and has made some money for himself. But the real issue with him is that he is not doing this to earn his livelihood like others.
The movie starts with Kamal's confession of his love for cinema and why he is going to kill himself. I read several reviews of the movie and I knew that Kamal kills himself in the film but no review has explained why he took that decision. So, I naturally assumed that the guy couldn't fight the system anymore and decides to kill himself. But I was pleasantly surprised after watching this guy's take on cinema and what it really means to him. This guy grew up believing cinema to be his mother, friend and his only love and he just can't take it when his only love in his life betrays him which finally leads to his decision of taking revenge and then killing himself.
Kamal invites his friend Anish to help him shoot a documentary where he would take his revenge. The conversations between Anish and Kamal were so natural that it is unbelievable that , that kind of dialogue was actually written for a movie. Kamal is simply awesome and I kind of liked the accent of Anish's telugu. On this trip of 10 days.. we follow Kamal and like Anish, we think Kamal is taking this too personally and if a producer wants to make trash that's his decision. But slowly we come to know how much this guy loves movies and around this point, the movie kind of reminds us how much we loved the cinema while growing up ....and we see Kamal's point and come to understand him.
There is this beautiful sequence in the movie where Kamal stands for hours on the Tank bund facing the Buddha. Anish thinks he is going mad but he is not just staring into space but he is playing those magical moments from cinema in his head which he grew up watching. The sequences include classics of telugu , hindi and world cinema. I absolutely loved watching those scenes from casablanca, citizen kane, benhur and finally it is dawn with the scene of "dawn of man" from kubrick's 2001.
During the course of the movie Kamal imimates and ridicules most of the leading actors but the one that stands out is of our beloved balayya "babu". As Kamal mimics him we see a message on the screen that reads "You now know whom to blame if I get shot", obviously referring to shooting incident of the producer bellamkonda by bala krishna. Unfortunately, many north indians watching this movie may not get this joke..
At the end of the movie, we see a picture of Kamal's obituary and it reads Kamal Kamaraju, "1997-2007". Brilliant.
I have seen hundreds of telugu films in the past 5 to 10 years...most of them sucked big time, I had a little bit of fun watching a few of them and there were very few of them that I really liked and cherished. But if you ask the list of those movies that I really felt had the NEED to be made ..probably.. COFM is the only one. We needed it. We finally need someone to speak out...what we really feel..
Finally... the one line that I loved the most "Cinema is bigger than us.."
P.S
You can watch this movie on www.confessionsofafilmmaker.com. It costs $5.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Rhea
Rhea is the newly born baby girl of my brother.. and I was lucky enough to get a 4 week holiday to see and play with our cute little queen in this january..
I recently got some more pictures of rhea through email from my sister-in-law and I can't help myself from staring at those pictures for hours.. I just created this album using google's picasa and they have this great tool by which I can upload the pictures and create a slideshow and I could host it anywhere on the web... Here it is...
I recently got some more pictures of rhea through email from my sister-in-law and I can't help myself from staring at those pictures for hours.. I just created this album using google's picasa and they have this great tool by which I can upload the pictures and create a slideshow and I could host it anywhere on the web... Here it is...
Friday, May 18, 2007
Macbook
After weeks of deliberation and brain storming , I finally made my decision in a matter of hours and bought my macbook from my nearest apple store. I don't have a clue about what my experience with this new environment would be but my notebook sure looks cute.
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