The Whiz’s Crucible

After a spate of okey dokey movies here is one I really loved.

In a word this movie is:

BEAUTIFUL

Beautiful in every sense of the word.

Beautiful – in the sensitivity with which the lives of some of the players, who are part of the losing side, are portrayed during the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
Beautiful – in the way the the visuals are shot, with Nature often pointing a mirror to the state of human relationships
Beautiful – in the way individual relationships are portrayed, in isolation to the teeming world around them
Beautiful – in bringing out the delicate nature of the heart, even in the face of the cold nature of societies rules or the hot state of affairs in wartime
Beautiful – in the way the writer has managed to pick up a stor about the Shinsen Gumi and give a character in it a completely different take from what is expected of these warrors
and above all
Beautiful as in the beautiful beautiful acting by the main characters who manage to bring out the story with so much force, and so much love.

It is not an art movie, it is not world cinema, it is not just a samurai’s tale of heroics.

It is about a learned and sensitive man, caring and loving, and the decisions he needs to make at the same time as big decisions are made about the future of his country. And it is about his antagonist.

And finally it is about money, in the way people less priveleged than me would look at it.

P.S: I did know about the general history of the Shinsen Gumi and about the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate before seeing this movie.(Thanks to Rurouni Kenshin)

For a good review hop over to Kungfu Cinema.

Ultra Violet

After Aeon Flux let us take on another ultra-stylish, sci-fi, kick-ass, neo-punk, chick flick – Ultra Violet.

Now I will not go into the silly double review stuff I did with Aeon Flux. At the core it is almost the same movie!!!:) The story is indeed very different but once again the story is secondary to the Gun Kata trained Milla Jovovich in red, white and multicolored tight-ass leather outfits with cool weapons and an ultra-cool sword. Ands hats what the movie is about.

Yup there are interesting gadgets, but just jump over to the links to read more about them.

In conclusion what differentiates the two movies?
One has CT the other MJ; one is tight ass black or white outifts, the other has more colour(especially the vermillion outfit); both fight gracefully and both fight hard. So the choice comes down, as it often does in life, to personal choice. And for me that means I have to go with Aeon Flux.

BTW if you were wondering, the movie is worth a one time watch. It does have some real good stunt sequences.

Aeon Flux – hmmm…

The U-rated review:

Ho-hum sci-fi ACTION thriller. Interesting in parts. Not to bad if you haven’t paid through your nose to watch it. The main attraction – Charlize Theron in kick-ass outfits kicking ass.
Time for you children to please leave the room now.

The 15+ review:

Most sci-fi when brought onto the big screen fizzles out quickly. Somehow it never reaches the heights of its origins in books, comics or an MTV series. Still most movies should be able to break even these days as a result of them being watchable and mildly interesting, thanks to hi-tech work in today’s movies.

If I were an an emotionless critic I would have to say that this movie just about passes muster. Rent it if you can and do not expect much.

However as earlier mentioned I am not a critic. So my take -

For all you MF$%*ing, c*$! smelling, a$$ licking jerks who worship the goddess that is Charlize Theron, this movie is your shrine.
Lets be serious, we love her for her a$$ not her acting talents. Yah yah monster was great – hoo ha!!! Here’s the Oscar for you. But that’s not what you want. You want her in tight tight outfits, graceful like a cheetah, looking super sexy be it mouthing adialogue or pulling the trigger. You want her in every scene, doing calisthenics for you, killing off the bad guys like she was tomorrow’s James F$%*ing Bond. She’s Fonzie and she’s Lady Siva, she’s the kick ass rebel merc with the face of an angel. She’s all you want her to be and then a little more.

Now don’t be shy, don’t tell me you were watching the grass, you naughty boy. Its all right. That’s why the movie was made – to worship her.

So get out there and but a copy so you can watch her again and again.

And for all you uptight b$%^*%ds out there, there is a story; I think!!!

Fantastic, irreverant, gut-wrenchingly funny movie.

The plot is well summarized over at IMDb by Martin Ford:

A female descendant of Mary Mother of Christ and two unlikely prophets are called upon by Rufus, an unknown 13th apostle, to stop two angels, that were cast out of heaven, from unknowingly erasing all of God’s work by restoring their souls by entering a new church. Restoring ones soul by entering a new church is a part of the Catholic Dogma, and by restoring their souls the angels could reenter heaven thus revealing there is a loophole to return to heaven. This would prove God was not perfect and upon proving this all of God’s work would immediately be erased.

The beauty of this movie is how it uses satire to take potshots at the Catholic Christianity’s orthodox rules and edicts without, in any way, insulting the religion itself. I laughed and laughed at the idea of God having to make sure that her word was maintained and how if it ws not there was no world!!! Of course it helped that the cast was fantastic.

I was not sure of the movie when I picked it up at Blockbuster but as rule of thumb I find that I like most movies which have either Ben Affleck or Matt Damon. With both of them figuring in this one I was sure that I would at least enjoy their interaction. Not only was I not disappointed with their performance, their chemistry is nothing short of extrordinary; I was bowled over by the whole movie and its theme and its take on the theme.

Wonderful movie, watch it!!!

Got a lot of comments for my log on Dune. Thanks mates. HyperPat was especially helpful in his comments. Will be looking out for more advice from him wrt sci-fi and reading in general. Pat, will be a regular visitor of your site for sure. NULL also has an interesting site.

One obvious reference I missed was “To tame a land” – thanks to Dr. J for pointing that out. Miss hearing albums with you pal!

And finally my lazy friend Venks wants to see the movie rather than read the book. For him, here follows my review:

Dune, The Movie:

My one liner review: Watch Dumb and Dumber instead!!!

After a long long time I saw a movie I absolutely hated! The difference between the richness in the book and the stupidities in the movie were too many to ignore. Now don’t get me wrong. I am a movie buff and not a movie critic. I end up loving almost every movie I watch. I normally try to keep an open mind and try to keep a context of when a movie was made to judge the moviemakers efforts. For eg. Tron is a movie which is quite campy in today’s context but in the time it came out one can understand why it would have been cool. Movies based on ooks, one does not expect much from them, still you do like them. Hell! I even liked Hellboy-The Movie!!

So after all the background let me tell you categorically – Dune was thrash. Tremors is a much better movie, at least its honest about its B-gradeness.

Frank Herbert has written a great book, God alone knows why he supported this movie and not Iron Maiden’s song:)

So Venks watch Kal Ho Na Ho rather than watching Dune.

Update: The title seems to have come out all wrong .
Yup, Have landed up in UK for some work and have had to come alone, as the missus cannot get any leave right now. Yah, yeah, smirk away thinking how lucky I am. Let me tell you the novelty of staying on your own becomes old real fast(or two weeks o be more exact:) ) However thanks to the net I can still communicate a lot and that’s real cool.
Have spent my time here working. And when I am not working I am reading a lot (beautiful libraries the British have, the one I freqent is the Ipswich County Library) The other thing I am enjoying doing is watching movies. Caught some real gems on DVD. I most probably will add more posts on the books and movies later on.

So that’s where I am and what I am doing. Am once again active in orkut. Also on Skype.

Cheers:)

There I said it. Very politically incorrect statement to say but its true! I loved the original DON and I loved the new one. The greatness of the older version was twofold – one, it had one of the best twists in a bollywood film – two, it was a sentimental favourite due to the Big B. I never thought I would love another version. But I do. The new DON is even better than the older one. It kept the same meter as the older one, while taking adventurous tangents wherever possible. And it fulfilled all the same goals as the older one. It is stylish, has the current king of Bollywood as DON and has wonderful wonderful twists (unluckily I cannot discuss these twists without giving up the plot ) However being stylish it should be boring for the generic bollywood fan:( – their loss
I enjoyed the whole experience, including SRK(sorry Venky), and the only grouch I have is that the film could have ended 5 mins earlier without any explanation for an even tighter story. but then that’s Hollywood.

Click on the pic for link to site

Technically the movie was not too great. Just a little better than am amateur movie made on a handycam. I will have to agree that some of the video perspectives were really good. But nothing great to write home about.

Then again this movie was never about technicalities. Neither is it about actors or even the story (though both the acting and the story were fairly good). It is about a common man getting caught in the clutches of the land mafia. It is about his dreams for himself and his family. It is about bonding, or at least trying to, with your son who lives in a different world than yours. It is about the happiness a hardworking family man has in making the nameplate of his would-be home. The film catches all of these emotions beautifully. It is not a comedy, though there are comic moments( I especially like some of Navin Nischol’s lines). It is not a tragedy, though there are moments which makes one feel so. It is not romantic either. It is an honest to goodness movie about life in urban India(with specific nuances of Delhites). A flavour of any 70’s Amol Palekar movie. And it is a must watch!

PVR
I saw the movie at one of the PVR theatres. I was impressed – great sound great lighting. The only thing that stung was the surcharge in everything. I mean sixty bucks for a hotdog is just a little too much in my book. The interesting thing is their gold class but that’s a rant for another time.

Tonight I caught Jurassic Park on T.V. – the I one, that is. Two thoughts popped into my mind:

1. This movie is an outstanding movie – but only on the silver screen. It is a totally stupid & camp movie on the small screen. So here’s a request to my friends who are going to earn lots of oil money – get a theatre installed in your house. I want to watch Jurassic Park again:)

2. Speaking about friends brings me nicely to my second point. A lot of thanks to Somitra, Sarat, Venky, Kapil, and all the others who waited in the phenomenal queue to get the tickets. Thanks to your efforts many of us had a wonderful afternoon that we will never forget.

Was watching the rerun of Disco Dancer. I really liked Mithun in this movie. And I remember that it was a big hit when it was released . Still parts of it – especially the supporting cast & the dance choreography was quite camp. Now this is one movie which deserves a remake!