One line (A bit more than that actually...) Movie Reviews

One line (A bit more than that actually…) Movie Reviews

Posted by Uma Damle | Filed under Headshot, I think therefore I watch, Review rats

OK This was something I’d wanted to do for a long time:Review all the movies I’d seen since the end of my exams on the blog.But if I decided to write full length reviews for each movie , movies would become a lost art studied in history classes by the time I am finished(Considering the (in)frequency of my posts). Following are some short and sweet/bitter/sour(Changes with each movie) reviews of some of the movies I plan to write about here. The rest will (most (im)probably) come later in between posts about other stuff.

Across the Universe: The most I can say about this movie is its not too crappy. I think its the genre of the movie (Musical) that bothers me. I love music and movies both but not when they are served in the same plate. Prefer to keep them separate. Loved the music and the way they have touched up all the old Beatles songs, especially Hey Jude and I wanna hold your hand (A chick’s version, this one. Can’t stop singing it).Actually the only reason I had for watching this movie was Jim Sturgess..Sigh…He gives the phrase “Chocolate good looks” a whole new meaning ;-p. Can’t wait to see him in 21, especially because he plays an MIT brainiac in that.

Sleepless in Seattle:A nice story. Good acting. Very witty dialogues. This one is an all out girls movie that manages to be romantic without being cheesy, which is a very rare achievement. Also worth mentioning is Meg Ryan’s work in the movie. Boy is she magical in there.Her expressions, dialog delivery, timing, her movement, just the way she looks at the camera casts a spell on the viewers. This is her movie by and far although Tom Hanks was also very good.Another genre that I don’t watch very often but this one was nice.

Guru: This one sprang up a surprise. I was expecting it to be just another sappy Bollywood love story in guise of movie about a business tycoon’s life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turned out to be a very power packed political drama with no-nonsense performances by all the lead performers (Except Vidya Balan who was her usual over-sweetened self) Especially Madhavan who was simply awesome in his role of the honest yet street-smart journalist and Aishwarya Rai who once again proved(after Raincoat) that she was a director’s canvas and with powerful, well-written roles she can actually deliver a sterling performance. A.R Rehman’s music had the aroma of fresh earth and needless to say is at its usual best. Rajiv Menon’s cinematography and camera work captured the earthen beauty of a village in Gujarat and the claustrophobic Mumbai chawls with equal elan making it one of the few movies that are portrayed in a realistic, unadorned style yet aren’t ugly or unaesthetic. Minus a few unnecessary and irksome song and dance rituals, this could have been a classic.

Hairspray: Three words. Don’t Watch it.

Wild Hogs: I know this post is posted under the category I think therefore I watch but I’d call watching this movie a temporary lapse of thinking power on my part and making it, unability to think on the director’s part.Watch it if you want to shed some tears for the out-of-work John Travolta(To think that the Pulp Fiction star to be reduced to this…).

Atonement:I expected this one to be good and saved it for the day my exams ended.It wasn’t really.The story is only pseudo serious and sorta confused.Nothing remarkable about the acting with Keira Knightley appearing bored and repeating her Lizzie Bennet act from Pride and Prejudice verbatim.The end was a surprising and touching one and the music impressive with prominent use of a typewriter as a musical instrument!Boo hoo…I want a typewriter :-p

The Following:Ah now we come to the good ones.This was Christopher Nolan’s first movie and is very short(69 minutes),shot in student-style and black and white.That does NOT mean that it was a shoddy,unprofessional movie.In fact it is WAY more professional than any Hollywood megabudget movie I might have seen.Shot in classic taut Nolan style, the movie moves in a non-chronological order (a la Memento and Prestige) and leaves you with a lot of stray pieces of puzzle as it progresses but like any other Nolan movie it all magically fits in the last five minutes as all the loose ends are wrapped and the entire picture becomes clear finally.A fabulous example of film noir. Nolan is simply an incomparable and brilliant story teller. You’ll miss out on a lot if you don’t watch this one. I am part of Nolan’s fan “following” now :).

The Ring:Calling this one a horror flick (A genre which IMO is just repackaged soft pørn) would be an insult. For one it actually has a coherent,intriguing story line that does not move in a retard-predictable style. Secondly the scares and thrills aren’t of the barely-dressed-babes-seeing-a-bloody-oozing-face-in-the-mirror sort. The movie terrorizes you from within by its cinematography, the situations, the sound (or rather the lack of it) and its movement. Its a powerful movie with a surprising and powerful ending. The only worth watching horror movie I’ve seen apart from Sixth Sense. Also check out the character of Samara (the little girl) in the movie. F.E.A.R ripped its Alma straight out from here.

Memento: What do I say… this movie is the work of a pure genius(Christopher Nolan strikes again). The story is about a man (Guy Pearce) seeking revenge for his dead wife. Sounds simple enough, right? Now sample this:The man suffers from short term memory loss and since his wife’s death is incapable of making new memories. He has to constantly make notes of his progress on his quest in forms of tattoos on his body. Now if that’s not compelling enough listen to this:The movie puts you in the shoes of the protagonist which means you see the movie in sections of fifteen minutes….moving backwards. The movie begins towards the end of the story and ends towards its beginning. Sounds like fun? Believe me, the movie was frustrating as hëll. You had to remember what had happened in the beginning of section 41 to understand what happens at the end of section 42. To top it all half the movie is shot in color and half the movie in black and white.While the color bits progress in reverse order, the black and white bits are moving in the correct order. (Lather rinse and repeat to understand whatever I said in the last para ;-p) But the final 10 chilling minutes bring it all together in a knock-out ending where you finally understand,at the end(Err…was it the end or the beginning?) of a one and half hour long movie, what the hëll was going on through out.
Need I say more?

<flotsam>What is the probability of a person stating a fact and it being completely true ? A statement can only have One completely true version while there can be infinitely many false versions of the same statement. So I’d say the probability of a person stating a completely true fact is 1/(∞ +1) </flotsam>

Bluegenemaid.

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Permalink | April 20th, 2008

8 Responses to “One line (A bit more than that actually…) Movie Reviews”

Abhishek Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 3:25 am
Pretty cool post. Since I liked all the movies you did, I think I’ll probably hate the ones you did too. So 3 movies just went off my to-be-watched-soon list.
Uma Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 4:36 am
Thanks
rach Says:
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:19 pm
whoa! good to see atleast someone in India is acknowledging Nolan’s genius! Following was too good…sad that I havent seen Memento as yet…
Uma Damle Says:
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 am
Its tough not to acknowledge Nolan after seeing one brilliant offering after another to cinema by him.And yeah Memento is a must watch…I had to watch it twice just to grasp the movie completely.Prestige is just as riveting if not as well knit.
rach Says:
April 24th, 2008 at 12:35 am
yeah…i’ve hard that abt memento…when i saw prestige for the first time, i dismissed it as bull çráp, but then after watching it again, i realized just what all i’d missed the first time i saw it…that’s what i like abt Nolan’s movies-everytime you watch them, u find something new and realize just what a fool you are, after all, EVERYTHING is right in front of you!
Prateek Rungta Says:
April 28th, 2008 at 1:37 am
Christopher Nolan is the man! Absolutely loved each movie of his that I’ve watched so far (Batman Begins, The Prestige and Memento) and can’t wait to watch his latest one - The Dark Knight (due this July), and from what you’ve said, Following (as soon as I find it somewhere).

Credit must also be given to his brother Jonathan Nolan who’s co-written most of his movies.

P.S. - Its Memento, not The Memento. You might wanna correct that.
Uma Damle Says:
April 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am
@Rachit:That’s the best bit about his movies.He merges important details in the movie so seamlessly into the flow that you’d be forgiven for thinking them to be unnecessary, irrelevant stuff that one does not need to know.After you watch the movie for the second time though,you realize that only a clever story maker could have told a story where everything is right under your nose yet you don’t get a whiff of it the first time .
@Prateek:Although Batman Begins was a well made movie that departed from the usually crappy, kiddish and cliched superhero movies, I was disappointed ‘cos it wasn’t Nolan’s usual no-frills style where every element in the story,every scene and every character is of vital importance
to the main thread of the movie.I might be wrong here but that’s my personal opinion.So I am not really dying to see Dark Knight.
Prateek Rungta Says:
April 29th, 2008 at 1:49 am
Sure Batman Begins wasn’t “wasn’t Nolan’s usual no-frills style”, it was made in a style of its own. What was crucial was having the *Batman* style and theme in there and I think Nolan hit a home run with that. He made a dark movie that stayed true to the spirit portrayed by the Batman comics.

Of course personal opinions may and will vary, but I’m not alone when I say that it was one of the best movies of 2005. Its #103 on IMDB’s Top 250 for a reason.