Wednesday, June 07, 2006
I am surprised at how few people have seen the year's two best movies (so far) in my opinion
V for Vendetta - What a killer movie! Political, cruel, no holds barred comic book movie. Absolutely fascinating stuff. From the Wachowski brothers. I just think it wasn't promoted enough. Loved it.
Inside Man - Probably the best thriller of the genre I have seen for a long time. It's actually uunfair to call it a genre movie because it completely re-invents it. Amazing movie. And the fact that Spike Lee has directed it probably makes it extra good. It makes it so much more than a bank heist/hostage movie.
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Recently saw "Brick". A really good movie. Very interesting premise. It's like a classic noir film set in a high school. Like Chinatown meets the OC. I know... sounds cheesy. But it is anything but. It's exceptionally well done. Do watch.Saw the Da Vinci Code.... I don't know why everybody hated it so much. Come on...It's not THAT bad. It's nothing spectacular, but still as far as movies go there have been worse. I think it's being mauled a little undeservedly. Feel sorry for Ronny Howard. If he had adapted any other book for the movie, he would have chopped and sliced it and moved things around and put in extra scenes and taken out unnecessary ones. But here he was adapting the most famous book of our time, and he got the jitters. Every time he picked up the scissors, some part of him said "What are the fans going to think" and in the end he just decided "screw it... I'll put it all in... if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And that's where it fails. There was entirely too much information, too many things happening. I reckon he should bring out a "director's cut" DVD... pick up the scissors and just re-edit the whole thing. Even that would seriously improve it.
Saw X-Men 3. Really annoyed now. I am actually a big fan of the X-men saga. Probably the only comic book movie franchise I am really fond of. I was so looking forward to this. And now I am disappointed. They changed directors. Brian Singer is too busy with "House" so they got in some other schmuck. And he just turned it into a fireworks show. It's still reasonably fun to watch, but it completely lacks any depth or dimension. Something there was plenty of in the first two movies. Which is why they were so great. The feeling of teenage melancholia, the gothic foreboding, the internal conflicts, the social ostracisation themes. All these things are gone. Just crash boom bang. So sad.
BTW: If you want to see a BAD movie... watch "Bloodrayne". This movie takes bad movie making to a whole new level. It's shocking how bad a movie can be. I'm not kidding. The story, the acting, the cinamtography, the direction, the sound, the special effects. It is just so uniformly shockingly bad. I reckon if they had just strung together the cut scenes from the game it would have made a better movie. Even I could have made a better movie with my handycam. And what a waste of a cast... Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Geraldine Chaplin, Kristanna Lokken (The terminator 3 chick... she has a pretty hot sex scene in this... probably the only thing worth watching), Michelle Rodriguez, and Meatloaf. If he had jsut locked these actors in a room for 2 hours and filmed them it would have made a better movie.
Movies that I am really looking forward to:
1) The Namesake : Jhumpa Lahiri meets Mira Nair. Trailer looks good. Don't know why they didn't use any bengali actors though.
2) District B13: I love french action movies. This one is supposed to be one of the best.
3) Apocalytico : The new Mel Gibson. Looks bizarre. Like "Cold Mountain" set in ancient Mayan civilization.
4) Clerks II: Remember how much fun the first one was?
And there is this semi-animation, semi-live action movie called "princess" which made a huge impact at his year's canne's. About a priest who single handedly wages a bloody and brutal war on the porn industry. My kind of stuff. Must get hold of it somehow.
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7:32 PM
