Adam's æbler aka Adam's Apples

Saw this movie with no prior information as CG suggested and thoroughly enjoyed it. Its about a neo-nazi being sent for reform to a church under the supervision of a priest, Ivan. Ivan has an extreme sense of faith and positive outlook to everything. Adam is constantly trying to achieve one simple goal he set for himself, to bake an apple pie. While on this task he is stubborn to not rub off any of the faith or goodness from Ivan. There is a constant tension of will Adam-raise-to-good or Ivan-loose-his-faith and the contrast is interesting. Overall its a great story, with intelligent twists and a thoroughly enjoyable dialog, that gives the characters a full personality. You actually get them, their style, their act, their talk and even what they think like. A MUST SEE

Casino

Yet another gem from the classic combination of Scorsese, De Niro and Joe Pesci. Joe Pesci is undoubtedly one of the best comedians of the 70s and 80s. He is hilarious in this movie. His dialogue delivery is so swift and funny that you will end up laughing like a drain. This movie features the rise and fall of a Casino bookie known as Ace (played by De Niro). Also features Sharon Stone as a drug addict with whom Ace falls in love. This movie is half narrated by De Niro and half narrated by Pesci. Throughout the movie Ace struggles with the friendship of Nicky (Pesci) and the love for Ginger (Sharon Stone). Features a great background score and highly stylist shots which makes me remember the movies of Guy Ritchie. A must see for people who like mafia stuff glorified.. :)

Leben der Anderen, Das a.k.a. Lives of Others

2007 Academy award winner for Best foreign film...
The story is about strict surveillance executed in East Germany before the collapse of Berlin wall.
About how one of the officer who was to listen, transcript every movement of a writer begins to admire the writer as he sees the "system" he believes in is being misused by the few powerful.
Wont say more about the story. As the movie roles on, for me it actually allows me to think through, feel and own the acts of the characters, like I am in their skin in their story.
Viewing the whole movie I cant think of even one frame or word or expression being better or different, it is so finely done.

One thumb rule I am beginning to follow is, "Most Academy award winners for Best foreign film are a must-see!"

Rebecca

The Hitchcock marathon continues .. :) Rebecca is a psychological thriller in which every character is haunted by their own minds. There is no one to catch or there is no mystery to be solved but the characters are deeply haunted by some thing or the other throughout the movie. Mr De Winters who is depressed with the death of his wife Rebecca marries a naive and modest young woman who enters the Manderley only to find that everyone there adores Rebecca. As time passes she feels more and more alien to the Manderley palace. It seems as if Rebecca is the one who decides the course of events in everyone's lives in the Manderley palace even though she is dead a long time back. The second Mrs De Winters tries desperately to be loved by De Winters only to find that he is haunted every moment by the death and memories of Rebecca. Hitchcock launched his career in Hollywood with this movie and this movie went onto become one of all time great movies. This movie is also considered by many to be the best work of the "Master of Suspense".

Marnie

This is a movie which is more closely related to psychoanalysis and has a kleptomaniac as its protagonist known as Marnie. This is one of the not so well known flicks of Hitchcock. Marnie is a compulsive thief who uses her beauty to trap the employers to get herself a job and then eventually robs them. This thing continues till she enters the Rutland's publishing company which is owned by Mark (played by Sean Connery). But at Rutland's she gets caught by Mark who forces her to marry him in spite of her sickness. Mark desperately tries to help her to get over her psychological sicknesses. But she never lets him come near her even after the marriage. Mark tries to get to the core of the problem and finds that Marnie has a repetitive dream in which she refers to her Mama. Though this movie is not up to the expectations of a Hitchcock movie I think it has psychoanalytical relevance and also offers insight about the origins of a repetitive and haunting dream.

The lady vanishes

This movie is set in a train where a young woman travels with an old lady known as Miss Froy. Now the young lady falls asleep and wakes up to find out that Froy has disappeared into thin air. Everyone in the train including the ones in the compartment claim that they have never seen any such lady with any such features described by this young woman. All the passengers in the train suddenly start behaving mysteriously and once again kudos to Hitchcock for weaving such a beautiful mystery with minimal possible resources. The pursuing investigation depicts the young lady just had some wild hallucinations and there never was such a lady known as Miss Froy on the train. But the young lady could not believe that such vivid memories were only hallucinations. She finally finds a companion who would believe in her and agrees to help her in the the investigation of the vanishing lady. This is a lightweight suspense movie with all the characters beautifully woven by Hitchcock. Again the suspense lasts till the final minute when all the pieces start falling into place.

The 39 steps

This is a movie about a gentleman who gets himself into the middle of a dangerous spy game trying to help a spy lady who eventually gets killed. Now this man is accused of the murder of this spy lady and then he is literally left with no one who would believe him. Throughout the movie this guy gets chased chased chased .. This movie has all the characteristics of a Hitchcockian classic and is supposed to have launched the career of Hitchcock. The whole plot unveils only in the final five minutes of the film. After seeing several of his movies I started feeling that maintaining the suspense till last minute is quite an art in itself.

A Peck on the Cheek

This is a story about the search for the birth mother of a cute-naughty girl Amuda, with her loving and foster parent. The movie shows a nice juxtaposition of motherly love, love for nation, fear and terrorism as they search for Amuda's birth-mother. With all the intense terrorism and blasts there is a nice tone of humor in the portrayal of Amuda's present family and their love story. Words are less and best when used, like in all Maniratnam's movies that stand apart from the mostly verbose Indian movies.

Paths of Glory

This is a film about the class differences in the French army during WW1 and is directed by Stanley Kubrick. This film depicts the suicidal ant hill mission where the French army tries to take on a hill well defended by the Germans. It depicts the lower classes in the army(like the soldiers) to be much more morally responsible and integrated than the higher classes. Throughout the movie there is a moral degradation of the higher class generals in search of promotion or fame. The degradation goes so far as to give an order to attack their own army. Kirk Douglas gives a brilliant performance in his role as an officer who tries to fight all the vile stuff that goes on during this movie. This is one of the best Kubrick movies I have seen.

One Hour Photo

This movie is about a weird photo guy Sy Parrish(played by Robin Williams). Sy tries to escape his solitary and monotonous job by observing and admiring the family photos of Yorkins. Slowly this admiration turns into a dangerous obsession. And this obsession jeopardizes his career and he loses his job. Throughout the movie Sy tries to get closer to the Yorkins in a desperate manner. We can observe this when he tries to get a gift for little Jake or when he tries to get closer to Mrs Yorkins by trying to read the same book as Mrs Yorkins does. But this never really happens due to standoffish nature of the society. For those who like psychologically stimulating thrillers this mus be a good watch.

Anita and Me

One more movie of the theme: diaspora, but very differently handled. Its interesting to see how did different cultures interact. This movie is about growing up and friendship of a 12 year old Indian(east) girl: Meena with a pretty blond: Anita in England in 1970's.

Bend It Like Beckham is an entertainer but this one is a classic. The movie touches various topics: racism, growing-up, diaspora and friendship all with a nice sense of humor. The thick Black-country accent is hard to follow but going through the story from the child perspective helps us hold our attention.

I always love movies on this theme. I feel a natural curiousity to understand how different cultures are read or perceived out of their context. Other movies on Indian(east) diaspora are: Bend it like Beckham, Namesake, Mitr: The Friend, American Desi. If interested in this genre do check out Russel Petter's Stand Up Comedy( yes, you can you can find it on YouTube :) .

Anita and Me stands out for sure from the list above,
- in its slightly French-movie(cute like in Amelie) like narration,
- set up in 70's and
- it surely dealt it at a greater depth than superficial stereotype humor.

Drunken Master (Jui kuen)

Saw this one few days ago, a kung-fu classic out of my recent uprising Martial Arts appreciation. Jacky Chan is always action + humor but its the later half of the movie you realise why the movie is a classic . Here is a glimpse of the drunken kung fu moves towards the end of the movie.




Jacky Chan is brilliant and so is the action choreography, storyline is bit loose. If you are just into the action and sweat , just jump to the middle of the movie and start watching.

Crash

Saw this movie last weekend and pretty impressed with the message it conveyed. Narrated in similar fashion of Amerros Perros. I like this movie for the fact that it illustrates racism, such a sensitive subject in a very mature and balanced way. Movie being such a gripping medium forces people into believing certain philosophies through a strong story. But this masterpiece doesn't draw any conclusions or statements but allows viewers to see the criss-crossed confusions in our heads with a bunch of connected stories.

Watching this film I felt, that Racism doesn't exists only in how the "other" treats you but also in how "we" perceive ourselves. Like fear doesn't exists without our acknowledgment of it.

Awakenings

This is the story of a neurologist Sayer(played by Robin Williams) who tries to solve a intricate pathological situation related to a set of patients who survived the Encephalitis Lethargica (also known as Sleeping Sickness) outbreak in 1920s. But almost all these patients who survived this disease were in a catatonic state ever since. Sayer was hired to diagnose and treat this condition. This movie depicts the struggle of patients to fight and the struggle of doctors to treat some of the impossible diseases. Robert De Niro plays the protagonist (Leonardo) as one of the patients on whom Slayer experiments using a new drug called L Dopa which is actually devised to treat Parkinsonian patients. Sayer somehow believes that this drug will eventually awaken the catatonic state of the patients. So he goes onto try this drug on Leonardo. After he tries this drug several interesting miracles take place during the course of the movie. Both Robin Williams nd De Niro were at their best ..a mus see..

King Kong (1933)

This older version of the movie is released in 1933 which is 72 years before the newer version.

Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.

is the last dialogue of this classic version of King Kong. And this dialogue alone describes the whole wisdom of this movie and the reason why this movie is one of the greatest movies ever made. Here BEAST becomes the metaphor for senses and BEAUTY refers to the sense objects. So this classic version is built on the very basic moral fundamental that even if a king craves for sensual objects outside the realm of rationalism, he is subject to destruction in no time. Just a few days before, I saw the newer version of King Kong and it gave me a mild impression "Wow nice graphics" and nothing else. In the newer version the protagonists become friends of the King Kong which is so unrealistic, considering the highly insecure nature of the present day people. After watching this newer version I was so reluctant to see the classic version thinking that it would be same bullshit. But the classic version escaped all these silly hypocrisies and went onto destroy the beast mercilessly and hence entered the list of beautiful classics...

Letters From Iwo Jima

For all those who like wartime flicks this is a must. Brilliantly directed by Clint Eastwood, this movie depicts the Battle of Iwo Jima from point of view of Japanese soldiers (features english subtitles). This same battle was also shown from the American point of view in "Flags of our fathers" also directed by Clint Eastwood. The battle is a part of world war II and features some of the fiercest fighting of the war. The name of the movie refers to the letters written by Lieutenant General Tadamichi Kuribayashi starring Ken Watanabe (of The Last Samurai fame). This movie depicts the helplessness of the Japanese soldiers due to lack of the reinforcements from the headquarters. All the Japanese soldiers on the island are bound to die and they show great courage till the last moment of the battle. Some of the soldiers are ordered to commit suicide by their Commanders hence depicting the wartime irrationality. The movie also has a protagonist called Saigo who is a baker conscripted to Japanese army. He is like a witness to all that goes on during this battle. He is repeatedly saved by the general Kuribayashi who orders him to do some errands potentially saving his life. The background score of the movie is wonderful. This movie also won a Oscar for sound editing and also won several other awards. Be sure to concentrate while watching the movie as the names of the locations and faces of the soldiers are pretty alike..

21

Saw 21 this weekend. Me likes mathematicians and maths... been watching Star wars.. got the Yoda's lingo. Will write about Star Wars after we finish watching 1,2 and 3...

Coming back to 21, it is decent... can be shorter. Felt like a mix of Good will Hunting and Ocean's 11
The twist in the tale wasn't mind boggling enough for me. After watching A Beautiful mind, me caught on to Go(a board game), hoping to try Blackjack http://www.hitorstand.net/game_m.html

The prestige

Yet another non linear and not so cryptic flick(consider Memento) by chris nolan. This movie shows the darker side of friendship where two magicians fall into rivalry. As any other film based on magic and illusions, this flick has got a lot of twists till the last minute which makes it highly gripping.Its more of a fine trick performed by Nolan..

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Saw this in an Imax, was a great experience for me. Specially because I get really nervous even for kid's thrillers... Ring was the last thriller I saw, didn't leave a good feeling at all and since then, I maintained some distance from thrillers. My mind goes on to create and see those visuals in and around everything for quite some time. Its haunting. And all the ill-logic of these movies wants you to think and obsess and solve them...

Anyways I braved to go and see Spiderwick and it is good. It's good for the mix of good and bad portrayed in a balance, fairies and the goblins, both look really striking and good in contrast. Makes me want to come back home and visualize these out-of-the-natural beings and forms. What kind of an imagination do each of us have to draw to life creatures we not seen? We humans are pretty smart to give form to God close to our own image... proclaiming our superiority. I would add for caution in lot of cases though not all.

Like someone long time back asked me, how would Martians(if they existed) look? Will we even recognize them as living? would we classify them as plants or animals? I think building the nomenclature and classification so that it scales to the unknown is a great problem... ohhhh wait... where am I going? to information architecture? Back to Spiderwick, its always amazing to imagine and give form to the unknown.

À la folie... pas du tout

One more good example of non-linear story telling. A story told in 2 perspectives. Each half makes you hate and love the 2 characters. And then from the peak there is a reversal these emotions as you begin to see the other side. Audrey Tautuo's great acting makes it possible to believe in such strong contradictions. The story starts to fall in place with the start of the second half, but the imagination isn't over till the end. Thoughts can never be ruled, not by others, and not even by our own selves!