Movie Blog

Links

• Jeff's Monday Night Movie Night List
• Samarth's Movie List
• Metacritic.com
• The Internet Movie Database

Apr 2006

• Match Point, dir. Woody Allen - **, I didn't find anything ground-breaking about this movie (as I have come to expect with Woody Allen's movies) - the overall concept is an old idea (of his), the dialog was quite poor, and the characters were not believable. I didn't buy the abrupt switch of Scarlett Johansson's character from femme fatale to a neurotic and jealous lover.
• Animal House - *, movie for binge-drinking undergrads; maybe I should have watched it then. :-)

Mar 2006

• Ikiru, dir. Akira Kurosawa - ***
• Dogtown and Z-boys - ***, narcissistic view of the skateboarding "revolution" in sunny California
• Walk the Line - ***, Like Jon Stewart said at the Oscars, this really is a white version of Ray. There are just too many parallels. But still, good movie, great performances, and great singing - Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon's versions of Johnny Cash and June Carter's songs are really good!
• Junebug - ***
• Sixteen Candles - ****, an 80's classic starring Molly Ringwald
• Kung Fu Hustle - **
• Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - ***
• Rize - ****

Feb 2006

• Hotel Rwanda - ****
• Capote - ***
• Searching for Bobby Fischer - ***, this is one of those heart-warming movies based on a true story about a genius with the usual Hollywood simplifications. As a chess enthusiast I enjoyed the movie (but fear I may not have otherwise). The movie portrays chess as being very competitive - hate your opponent. They use this to contrast the main character's good-sportsmanship. However, every single chess game I've played in or observed, the opponents have been friendly, humble, and without a hint of resentment for each other. I've never played in a tournament before, which may be more competitive than I would like to believe, but I fear that the general audience will walk away from this movie with the wrong impression about the sport. Lastly, I thought the ramblings and video-clips about Bobby Fischer impeded the flow of the movie. Maybe the Bobby Fischer parallels were a marketing stunt to begin with (the book this movie was based on). The movie dwells on how Bobby Fischer keeps disappearing for no apparent reason, but fails to ever mention why he was on the run (from the US government) in the first place...
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - *
• Finding Neverland - *

Jan 2006

• Brokeback Mountain, dir. Ang Lee - ****, amazing performances and great movie all round. Apparently there is a debate on whether this is a "gay" movie or not. There seems to be no denying that this film depicts a love story about two men with overt sexual themes and scenes, something we rarely encounter in today's mainstream cinema. Intended or not, this movie symbolizes positive progress in today's largely homophobic society (for example, not too long ago, the hetero audience was willing to make Will & Grace a hit TV-show as long as there was no overt homosexual behavior). Maybe this movie is more of a gauge than an effector of progress?
• The Wedding Crashers - *, within the first few minutes of the movie you are bombarded with a long sequence of 'Owen Wilson' and 'Vince Vaughn' crashing weddings and picking up women. This is hardly credible and too abrupt without any character development to set it up. The rest of the movie focuses on the sexual tension between 'Owen Wilson' and 'Rachel McAdams', a bridesmaid at one of the crashed weddings. She is engaged to marry a complete jerk. Why she is engaged to this guy just doesn't add up. The regular Hollywood formula kicks in and carries you to the end on auto-pilot. Sure, there are a few laughs, but if you're expecting something along the lines of Zoolander (which I thought was really funny and original), you'll be quite disappointed.
• The Cooler - *, I thought the dialogue was very poor. The premise was unconvincing - the main character is hired at a casino for his bad luck, presumably linked to his pathetic life. He stands next to tables where people are winning, and then they immediately start losing. One day he falls in love and then people win at every table he visits. He's sad one day, and people start losing, and so on. Ridiculous movie if you ask me.

Dec 2005

• October Sky - ***, Many formulaic scenes to pull in a larger audience, but in the end it's a heart-warming movie based on a true story that is sure to inspire the younger generation to aim for their dreams. In this instance the "Rocket Boys" inspired by Sputnik rise above the coal-mining culture in Coalwood WV and build a miniature rocket for a science project, leading to greener pastures.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - *. This movie seemed like good entertainment for kids, but unlike say the latest Harry Potter movie, it lacked any depth for adult audiences. I also felt some amount of faith-based propaganda where the professor tells the children to "trust" the story of the little girl, encouraging them to make a leap-of-faith. So, this is really teaching kids to stop questioning other peoples' claims and to accept them on faith (not science?). This should come as no surprise - the book was written by C. S. Lewis. And as Anthony Lane (The New Yorker) puts it: "The problem with any allegorical plan, Christian or otherwise, is not its ideological content but the blockish threat that it poses to the flow of a story."
• Syriana - ****, Oil is running out. Saudi Arabia has most of it. It's not a surprise that the US government and the CIA are involved in shady behavior and are trying to control the Saudi oil. Fictional story that alludes to US's current policy, and quite well done.
• Batman Begins - *, poor character development - it's hard to put the sudden and cheesy martial art training into context. poor chemistry between Bruce Wayne and Rachel, terrible dialogue. Don't waste your time or money on this one unless you want to watch plenty of explosions. Seemed like a James Bond movie at times.

Nov 2005

• A History of Violence - *, I went in quite excited about the plot, but came out thoroughly disappointed. We had plenty of laughs. The sad thing - it wasn't meant to be funny. Poor dialogue and ridiculous scenes.
• Good Night, and Good Luck, dir. George Clooney - ****, I'm beginning to enjoy these history lessons, albeit through a Hollywood lens. I really liked the acting, especially the silent party scene in the beginning.

Oct 2005

• Grizzly Man, dir. Werner Herzog - **, movie full of nutcases, about a nutcase, by a nutcase. Still very funny. I think Herzog's commentary and his search for a deeper meaning to Timothy Treadwell's life was very cheesy. Still, many entertaining moments.
• Proof - ***, great performances, but I still felt some amount of sensationalism about brilliant mathematicians. Not to the extent of Goodwill Hunting though.
• Flight Plan - ****, high quality suspense, similar to Red Eye. I almost didn't want it to end.

Sep 2005

• 2046, dir. Wong Kar Wai, featuring Tony Leung and Gong Li - ***, a very interesting interwoven story, but maybe trying to be a little more artistic than it should be... Read up before you watch the movie, or prepare to be quite confused.

Aug 2005

• Apres Vous - **, wacky French comedy
• Red Eye, dir. Wes Craven, - ***, I don't think this movie broke any new ground in the suspense/thriller category, but it was an important step back from the usual Hollywood explosions and special effects. Every once in a while, you need a movie like Red Eye for recalibration.

July 2005

• March of the Penguins - ****, breathtaking cinematography, heart-warming, funny, amazing story about survival, but in the end it's still just a highly glorified version of a Discovery Channel documentary about animal reproduction. Don't let that stop you though!
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, featuring Johnny Depp, dir. Tim Burton - ****, wow, much better and darker than I expected it to be. I thought Johnny Depp's performance was great too, esp. after being quite irritated by his performance in Pirates of the Caribbean.
• The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, documentary featuring Mark Bittner - ****, I was quite amazed by the footage. Barring a couple of overly sentimental shots, it's a beautiful story about some very beautiful parrots.
• War of the Worlds, featuring Tom Cruise, dir. Steven Spielberg - **, formulaic, romantic portrayal of the US Army and heroism in general, and not something I would expect from Spielberg. Too many crowd pleasers.
• Goldfish Memory - **, poor acting, borderline interesting story about relationships

June 2005

• Maria Full of Grace - ****, I really liked the flow, pace, and acting in this movie. Not too slow, not too fast, and a great performance by the main character, who apparently debuted in this movie.
• Better Off Dead, featuring John Cusack - ***, wacky classic 80's movie
• Harold and Kumar go to White Castle - ***, pretty hilarious. A little bit of American pie, a smattering of Office Space, add weed to taste...

• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, dir. Wes Anderson - ***, great offbeat comedy. There are several random and seemingly offhand moments in the movie that are just hilarious. The ethereal sealife is quite interesting, and on the whole the movie is a visual delight.
• Vera Drake, dir. Mike Leigh - ***, great acting and directing, no more dialogue than needed, and maybe Vera Drake could have cried a little less in the movie. Lots of colloquial British English in addition to the accent, so subtitles may help!
• Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith - **, way better than Episodes I and II, and in the league of the original Star Wars. A reasonable amount of cheesy dialogue and terribly poor acting, but hey, it's Star Wars!
• Downfall - ****, unlike any other Nazi-related movie I've seen. This movie focuses on Hitler's last few days in his bunker, and not on the Holocaust. For the first time you get to see Hitler as a person - sick and twisted, but still, you get a sense of his character that is lacking in most other movies.
• Crash - ****, deals with the complexities of race in the USA. Everybody has problems, and life goes on.

Apr 2005

• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, wr. Douglas Adams - ***, more faithful to the book than I had imagined, but not nearly as funny. I also thought that the improbability drive wasn't well explained. Still, the movie was funny, and is definitely worth a watch.
• The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo - ***, a good history lesson
• Born into Brothels - ****, I was quite moved by this documentary. Briski does her best to make a difference in the lives of seven children of prostitutes, hoping to free them from ending up "in the line"
• The Motorcycle Diaries, featuring Gael García Bernal - ****, the young and impressionable 'Che' Guevara roadtripping with his buddy through South America. If you like road trips, this is the ultimate road trip, and check out The Straight Story (dir. David Lynch?!) while you're at it...

Mar 2005

• Bride and Prejudice, featuring Aishwaria Rai - **, only interesting in the Bollywood frame of reference. Interesting because it's an English version (songs included) of a Bollywood movie, and also because it rejects the West is Best philosophy that I grew up in. I thought Aishwaria Rai's acting was as poor as the dialogue, but again, not too bad in the Bollywood frame of reference...
• Live Flesh, dir. Pedro Almodóvar- ***, love, lust, twisted and interconnected relationships, revenge, and more.
• Bourne Supremacy - ***, high quality timepass, great car chase scene. Interesting cinematography, intentional or not - the director never gives you a good field of view and keeps you on the edge in suspense over what you cannot see.
• Amandla - ***, on the role of music in the struggle against apartheid
• Ray, featuring Jamie Foxx - ***, a good history lesson
• Politiki Kouzina - **, maybe worth a watch if you enjoy cooking. Dialog is a tad sentimental, and the film devolves into a Bollywood ending in the last 15 minutes. The English dialogue is quite strained too - the characters would be more believable if they spoke bad English naturally. Instead, they were speaking perfect English quite awkwardly...

Feb 2005

• Bad Education, dir. Pedro Almodóvar- ***, maybe the story could have used a fewer twists. Great acting by Gael García Bernal.
• Infernal Affairs featuring Andy Lau and Tony Leung - **, worthy of note is the sleazy advertising on the DVD cover. There's no "sexy woman in blue" in the movie...haha
• There's a Girl in My Soup, featuring Goldie Hawn and Peter Sellers - *, dated, although Austin Powers seems to be based more on Peter Sellers' character in this movie than on James Bond. Might be worth a watch just for that...
• Million Dollar Baby, dir. Clint Eastwood - ***, although it does have a lot of formulaic elements and dialogue. Think Rocky, with a woman instead, updated for the 2005 psyche. Why did they win the Oscar? I think Sideways should have won, but the Oscars seem to favor the mainstream blockbusters. Trivia: Rocky won the Oscar for best picture too, in 1977
• Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Men), dir. Satyajit Ray - ***, two landlords obsessed with chess, and oblivious to the real game ensuing against the British

Jan 2005

• A Very Long Engagement, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet - **, Compared to Amelie and City of Lost Children, I thought this movie was cliché. Watch it for the cinematography, but don't expect much from the story.
• House of Flying Daggers, dir. Zhang Yimou - **, dismal story/plot, a couple of the fight and dance scenes are worth watching. However, the Bamboo scene is not new. It's just a rehash of the bamboo scene in King Hu's 1969 film, A Touch of Zen. So then, what's original? Hero was much more coherent and probably more beautiful.
• Primer - ***, dialogue is hard to follow at times (because it's low budget?). An interesting variation on the time-travel theme.

Dec 2004

• Kinsey - ***, a good historical perspective on the first scientific attempt to study human sexual behavior
• Sideways - ****, one of the best movies I've seen this year. Great acting, and very funny.
• Breakin' - ***, that crazy 80's breakdance movie. The plot is laughable, and so is the acting. But this movie is about the popping and locking and moonwalking. Turbo (Boogaloo Shrimp) is amazing, and Ozone (Shabba-Doo) just gets in his way.
• Before Sunset - ****, just like Before Sunrise, the dialogue is just so natural and believable. Heart-warming.
• Lunafest 2004 - ****, a must see if your town is on their calendar. It's a collection of short films "by, for, and about women." These two were great - A Good Uplift, and Wet Dreams and False Images. Little Black Boot was amusing.
• The Incredibles - ***, it's good to see a real cartoon while other studios try to create super-realistic animations (e.g., Polar Express). Good humor.

Nov 2004

• Witness for the Prosecution, wr. Agatha Christie - ***, still quite funny after all those years (1957)
• Whale Rider - **, mainstream pleaser, sappy, predictable, cliché

Oct 2004

• Earth, dir. Deepa Mehta - **, disturbing story, but the sets are cheap and in general it has a Bollywood feel (think Aamir Khan and his theatrics).
• Wisdom of the Pretzel - *, cliché, poor dialogue, poor character development
• Sanjuro, dir. Akira Kurosawa - ****, more laidback and comical compared to Seven Samurai
• Beijing Bicycle - **, remake of The Bicycle Thief, not as depressing as the classic

Sep 2004

• Madame Rosa - ***
• Do the Right Thing, dir. Spike Lee - ****, the best Spike Lee film I've seen
• The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, featuring Clint Eastwood - ****, the classic (spaghetti) western
• Maqbool - ***, modern day Macbeth set in Bombay's underworld
• Ripley's Game, featuring John Malkovich - ***, sequel to Talented Mr. Ripley
• The Killer, dir. John Woo - **, A Bollywood-like movie that is unintentionally hilarious
• Garden State - almost ***, starts off well, but eventually degenerates into a sentimental romantic movie. Substandard performance by Natalie Portman

Aug 2004

• Rashomon, dir. Akira Kurosawa - ***, a little dated though
• Hero, featuring Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, and Tony Leung Chiu Wai - ****, stunning/breathtaking visuals, amazing martial art movie in the league (better?) of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
• The Corporation - **, some of it is pure left wing propaganda, but you'll get your money's worth
• Moonstruck, featuring Cher - ****, very funny 80's film starring Cher and Nicholas Cage
• The Village, dir. M. Night Shyamalan - **, better than Unbreakable and Signs, creatures are about as corny as in Signs
• Collateral - ***, Tom Cruise actually does a good job, good suspense movie
• I, Robot - ***, jokes are pretty poor though, which will disappoint Will Smith fans

July 2004

• Big Fish - ***, "Interesting," a welcome change from the usual blockbusters
• In America - ***
• Spiderman 2 - **, recycled themes from Spidey 1. Could have been worse, but they play around with Peter Parker's struggle to reconcile his regular life and his crime-busting antics.

June 2004

• Fahrenheit 9/11, dir. Michael Moore - ***, can anybody really vote for Bush after watching this?
• Solyaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky - ***, great movie, but be warned, it's long and slow.
• Coffee and Cigarettes, dir. Jim Jarmusch - *, I thought the "coffee and cigarettes" premise was weak. Mostly tedious, with some humorous moments.
• Shrek 2 - *, only worth a watch to see the state of the art in computer graphics.

May 2004

• Rabbit Proof Fence, dir. Phillip Noyce - ***, pretty amazing true story of three "half-caste" aboriginal girls escaping from a training camp
• Hable con Ella, dir. Pedro Almodóvar - **, interesting, but didn't do much for me. I don't think the main character was developed enough.
• Good bye Lenin, dir. Wolfgang Becker - **, it had its funny moments, but overall I found the plot to be weak - it was not convincing.
• The Chinese Connection, featuring Bruce Lee - ***, Bruce Lee is just way too cool. Unfortunately, I saw the dubbed version...

Apr 2004

• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, featuring Catherine Deneuve - ***, more interesting for its historical significance and set design. Forgive the plot and enjoy the explosion of color and the musical dialogue (entirely sung!).
• Shaolin Temple, featuring young Jet Li - **, good fighting. However, Jet Li's character is quite irritating, and the plot is very weak. Some animal cruelty too...Jet Li screams "siiii-fuuuuuu (master)" repeatedly - Chinese torture to the audience.
• Touching the Void - ***, true story of survival, stunning cinematography
• Fist of Legend, featuring Jet Li - *, Bollywood meets martial arts. Neither the story, nor the fighting was impressive.
• Iron Monkey, dir. Woo-ping Yuen - *, A "B" version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Iron Monkey's fights are ridiculous compared to CTHD's beautiful fantasy.
• Tarnation, dir. Jonathan Caouette - ***, it cost him approximately $200 to make this film/documentary entirely on his Mac. Disturbing look into Caouette's past/present.
• Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored, dir. Tim Reid - *, sappy, feel-good, simplistic
• Kill Bill Vol. 2, dir. Quentin Tarnation - ****, Slower and more sentimental than Vol. 1. Refreshingly not "more of the same stuff." Vol. 1's soundtrack was a lot better.
• Elephant, dir. Gus Van Sant - ***, disturbing, presents things "as-is" - you draw your own conclusions

Mar 2004

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - **, given Memento, Groundhog Day, Truman Show, and Open Your Eyes (Vanilla Sky), this plot hardly breaks ground. Star studded cast, but weak overall
• The Barbarian Invasions - ** to ***, sentimental
• Monster - ***, disturbing, great performance by Theron (especially after her pathetic performance in The uber-pathetic Italian Job)

Feb 2004

• Triplets of Belleville, dir. Sylvain Chomet - ****, one of the best animations in a while, bizarre/surreal
• City of God - ***, watch out, the violence is pretty disturbing
• The Mirror, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky - ???
• Russian Ark, dir. Aleksandr Sokurov - *** and ???, filmed in one shot, an ode to Russia's glorious past
  

Jan 2004 and Recent Past

• Kill Bill Vol. 1, dir. Quentin Tarantino - ****, amazing soundtrack too. One of the rare movies that I saw twice
• Mystic River, dir. Clint Eastwood - ****, finally, a good mainstream movie set in working class America. I don't see that too often.
• Lost in Translation, dir. Sophia Coppola - ** (*** for Bill Murray's performance)
• Station Agent - ***
• 28 Days Later, dir. Danny Boyle - ***, rage, mayhem!