| Matrix Reloaded |
[May. 16th, 2003|12:07 am] |
The ones who are complaining about the movie haven't got a clue. The people who have been bitching about the lack of a strong storyline must be smoking some really amazing stuff. I need to watch the first part, all the Animatrix parts (especially, both the parts of Second Renaissance), and then 'Matrix Reloaded' again. In that order. And then, may be, I'll be able to give you the red pill.
Right now, I have the blue pill -- it's mind-blowing. |
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| Mulholland Dr. (2001) |
[Nov. 11th, 2002|08:43 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | One White Whale -by- Laurie Anderson | ] |
David Lynch's Mulholland Dr.
couldn't have had a better tagline -- "A Love Story In The City Of Dreams". The movie is an amazing ( ... ) |
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| Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) |
[May. 30th, 2002|10:03 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Ornithology -by Charlie Parker | ] |
He's back! And this time with a vengeance. No, I'm not talking about me; I am estivating ;-) He is George LookAss. The man who made 5 movies (and gazillions of dollars) based on some old stories. (Anyone remember Sohrab and Rustam, famous in the Western world by the Matthew Arnold poem? Yeah, Darth Vader and Luke are based on them). Throw in some special effects and voila! - you have a franchise big enough to make anyone green with envy. The best movie LookAss has made to date is supposed to be the documentary about Carl Foreman's 'Mackenna's Gold'. But then LookAss's movie was more about the secrets of the desert than about the making of the movie. As a student, he made one more good movie named 'THX 1138:4EB' in 1967. (He remade it in 1970). He achieved critical and commercial fame with 'American Graffiti' in 1973. In 1977, 'Star Wars' was born and then it was all downhill from then on.
Personally, the series appealed to me only because of the special effects. So even when the SW fans fumed over 'The Phantom Menace', I didn't bother. I liked it. Technically, the film was great. The same fans are now singing praise of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones. I have only one thing to comment -- just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like those fans. AOTC is a total waste of time. The screenplay and acting (excluding Ewan McGregor) are pathetic. Even the special effects do not come up to the level of TPM. It is clear that LookAss is just riding the wave.
For a more exhaustive and insightful review of the movie, read on. ( May the Farce be with you! ) |
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| Buena Vista Social Club (1999) |
[May. 17th, 2002|06:04 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Sunset Man -by- Thermal And A Quarter | ] |
In 1996, guitarist Ry Cooder travelled around Cuba gathering together some of the greatest (and sadly, all but forgotten) artists to collaborate on the Grammy winning album Buena Vista Social Club. Wim Wenders who had used Cooder's music in his earlier movies like 'The End Of Violence' and 'Paris, Texas' filmed the recording sessions and the later concerts of musicians like Ry & Joaquim Cooder, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzales, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo and Compay Segundo. The movie was nominated for an Oscar in the 'Best Documentary' category in 2000. The DVD has excellent audio recording, perhaps, even better than one of those big budget studio movies from Hollywood. About the music, all I can say is one word - excellent. You can find the website of the album here.
There is one person without whom I wouldn't have discovered the magic of Cuban music. Thank you JD, for intorducing me to the BVSC, and for your wonderful translation of the songs :-) |
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| Wo De Fu Qin Mu Qin (The Road Home) (1999) |
[May. 15th, 2002|06:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  working | ] |
| [ | music |
| | By the Rivers Dark -by- Leonard Cohen | ] |
I have covered some movies ('Shanghai Triad', 'Raise The Red Lantern' etc.) by Zhang Yimou in the past. The Road Home is a simple love story based on the Shi Bao novel titled 'Remembrance'. A young man is returning to his mountain-side village after getting the news of his father's death. He recalls how his mother (Zhang Ziyi, of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' fame) falls in love with his father who comes to the village as the new teacher. As per tradition, the people bring his body back to the village while chanting "This is the way home" so that the spirit does not forget his home. Yimou has woven yet another tale of visual beauty!
After years of avoiding the idiot box, I am taking cable connection again. If everything goes well, I should be getting the connection before the FIFA world cup starts :-) |
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| Weakly updates... |
[May. 13th, 2002|07:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 20/20 -by- Spyro Gyra | ] |
A quick summary of the movies I've seen in the past week, is all the luxury I can afford right now :-( The highlight was a mini-Warren Beatty retrospective. I haven't seen many movies of/by the man in the past, bar a few like 'Bonnie and Clyde', and 'The Parallax View'.
Reds (1981), based on the life of the journalist John Reed (the author of 'Ten Days That Shook The World' about the Bolshevik revolution, and the only American to be buried in Kremlin), is an excellent movie that showcases the acting and filmmaking abilities of Beatty. Plus, of course, it has the amazing Diane Keaton.
Bugsy (1991), another biopic, based on the life of mobster Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, the man who was the brain behind the Las Vegas gambling establishment. Annette Bening (soon to be Beatty's wife, after the movie) plays his love interest. Another good movie directed by Barry Levinson. Unfortunately, the movie fails to show Bugsy's rise to power.
Dick Tracy (1990), directed by Beatty, is based on the comic strip by Chester Gould. I am not an expert on the strip itself, but the movie felt very, um, lifeless. Wtf are Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman and Madonna doing in the movie?
The other movies had some forgettable teen-flicks like Dude, Where's My Car? (2000) and The Fast And The Furious (2001). I was expecting to get bored pretty soon when I loaded the DVD of The Contender (2000). Much to my surprise, I watched the movie till the end. It's nothing great, but a slightly above average thriller (albeit with no action) about a US Vice President nominee. Good performances by Gary Oldman and Joan Allen.
And yes, I watched Margaret Cho's I'm the One That I Want. If she's doing stand-up comedy and I'm doing sit-down sulking, then I wonder who is to be blamed. I'm disappointed, to say the least. |
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| Kwaidan (Ghost Story) (1964) |
[May. 7th, 2002|10:22 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan won the Cannes Jury special prize in 1965. The movie consists of 4 separate stories by Lafcadio Hearn.
(i) Black hair -- A samurai leaves his poor wife and marries a richer woman for fame and fortune. But he is haunted by his old memories. Years later, he returns to his first wife. He spends the night with her. The next morning, he wakes and pulls away the bed cover. And then...
(ii) Woman of the snow -- Two woodcutters (one young and the other old) are forced to take shelter in a hut by a snowstorm. A woman comes and freezes the old man to death. She lets the young one go after making him promise that he'll never say what happened to anyone, or else he'll have the same fate. The young man comes back to the village, marries, and has kids. He is intrigued by the fact that his wife looks similar to the snow woman in appearance. He tells her the story of the night when he met the snow woman. And then...
(iii) Hoichi the earless -- A seaside temple/monastery has a blind singer. He sings the tales of the sea battles and the tragedy that took place centuries back. At night, some one takes him to another place to sing. When this happens every night, the head priest asks two servants to follow him. They follow him to the nearby cemetery and find that it's the spirits of the dead warriors that call him. The priest covers the boy's whole body with sacred writings, so that the spirits can't see him. The spirit comes that night too. And then...
(iv) In a cup of tea -- A man sees the reflection of another warrior when he drinks tea. Later the man encounters him, and attacks the warrior. Later, three servants of the warrior come to meet him. He tries to attack them too. And then...
Probably the best way to describe the movie is Poe-esque (Edgar Allan Poe, I mean). If you've read the 'Tales of mystery and imagination', you'd know what I meant.
The third story is the best of the lot. It starts with surreal battle scenes interspersed with traditional paintings of the same, and haunting music (actually the ballad, accompanied by the biwa, a stringed instrument) in the background. |
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| Mujeres Al Borde De Un Ataque De Nervios (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) (1988) |
[May. 5th, 2002|07:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  blank | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sex Kills -by- Joni Mitchell | ] |
Pepa Marcos is a television actress who lives in a penthouse somewhere in Spain. She has recently split with her lover Ivan. She wants to talk to him before he leaves the country, presumably because she's pregnant. Ivan's ex-wife (who has been released from a mental institution after 20 years) thinks Ivan is with Pepa, and wants to meet him as well. Ivan's son and his fiancee want to rent Pepa's penthouse. Pepa's friend Candela is hysteric after finding out that her lover is a Shiite terrorist arrested by the police. She knows of the plot to hijack the plane to Stockholm, but does not want to go to the police as she can be arrested for harboring the terrorists. (Co)incidentally, it's the same plane in which Ivan is leaving with his new lover, the lawyer who represented his wife during the divorce proceedings. Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown is yet another wonderful comedy from one of the leading Spanish directors Pedro Almodovar. |
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| Snatch (2000) |
[May. 3rd, 2002|09:04 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | indigo | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Beaver Slide Rag -by- 'Peg Leg' Howell And His Gang (African-American Fiddlers, 1926-1949) | ] |
Much in the vein of his earlier 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels', Guy Ritchie's Snatch is a thriller ride for the viewer. Mix a stolen 86-carat diamond; a group of criminals trying to sell it; a KGB agent-turned-gangster trying to steal it using some good-for-nothing colored robbers; a ruthless (with a capital 'R') gangster who runs illegal/unlicensed boxing matches and also feeds victims to pigs; his 'boys'; a group of gypsies among whom is a bare-knuckle boxing champion; two boxing promoters whose boxer gets knocked down by the gypsy champ before the prize match; supposedly-Jewish jewellers trying to find the stolen diamond; and many other interesting characters -- what could possibly happen? What could possibly go wrong? That's 'Snatch'.
A warning to those who plan to watch the movie -- find a copy with subtitles!! The gypsy/British accents can really drive you crazy. Without subtitles, you are sure to quote a character in the movie -- "In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary, come again..." |
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| Sexy Beast (2000) |
[Apr. 30th, 2002|09:28 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Heart Of Gold -by- Tori Amos | ] |
First timer Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast has a simple story line. The brutal criminal Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) comes to Spain to recruit the retired criminal Gal Dove (Ray Winstone) for a 'job'. Gal and his ex-porn star wife do not want to get involved. But they end up killing Don. Gal goes to London to do the job. The mastermind behind the whole operation, Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) knows that Gal has bumped off Don. He spares Gal's life and pays him ten pounds instead. In short, nothing worth seeing here.
If Denzel Washington got an Oscar for playing the bad guy after so many do-goody roles, even Kingsley deserved one by the same yardstick. Oh wait, Kingsley is not colored ;-) |
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