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The French film was subtitled in English as “The Kid with a bike”. The story is about a 12 year old boy (Cycil) who is abandoned by his father to foster home. The boy is hell-bent on tracing his father and his bike that went with this father. While forcing his way to his old apartment, Cycil happens to bump into a stranger – the local hair dresser (Samantha) .Samantha buys Cycil’s bike back from a person to whom Cycil’s father had sold it before he left the area. Samantha then takes Cycil into her home in weekends and a bond of affection develops between them. They trace Cycil’s dad who categorically says he doesn’t Cycil back. In the meanwhile Cycil falls into bad company with neighbourhood anti-law elements & commits a theft. Cycil realizes his mistake, turns calm and the movie ends with all going well.
The cycle (bike) is the only possession Cycil has, it gives him comfort and he holds on to it with his life. It comes throughout the movie, hence the title for the movie.
The movie has few characters but all of them have done their part naturally and convincingly, you are literally transported to the small town where Cycil lives. No vulgarity or exaggerations. A must see movie of 2011.
There is something about period TV shows that interests me. The one I am hooked to recently is “Downton Abbey”. This is a British TV Drama whose story starts around 1912 in a village near York, Britain, with the fiancée to the elder daughter of the house and legal heir being dead in Titanic shipwreck. The story revolves around the family of Earl and Countess of Grantham, and follows the lives of the aristocratic Crawley family. What makes the story more interesting is the focus on what happens in the servants quarters of Downton Abbey. The lifestyle of the owners of the house and the people who work for them can’t be more different but the show brings it all together in a common storyline. Every character seems to be given equal importance with no protagonist as such but still makes it easier to feel for the characters. What I feel is the success to the show is the selection of the casts – they are perfect and appear to be made for the characters they play. Great work by the Director in the casting and the actors.
Season 1 was all about the love life of the daughters of Lord Grantham & life in Downton Abbey, Season 2 was all about the World War 1 and its effects on every day life in Britain. Though it was dramatized for TV still you could get a feel of how life was during the Great War, the sacrifices people made for their country. Season 2 ended with story as on New Year 1920, War was behind, the puzzle on who will be the suitor to Elder daughter getting resolved – all this increasing the expectation on what’s coming next. I can’t wait for the upcoming Season 3 around September 2012.
I am not aware why this award winning show is not shown in any of the channels in India. Doesn’t Indian audience enjoy this genre like the American and British?. I bought the series from iTunes, for Season 1 the SD version. I liked so much the series that paid more and got the HD version for Season 2. I can’t believe the clarity of the screens in HD it was awesome.
Few days back I watched in one of the movie channels, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. This 1989 movie has all the big names in the industry, Steven Spielberg as the Director, Harrison Ford as the protagonist and the legendary “James Bond” Sean Connery. The action movie of those days was fun to watch. The story was all about the search into the Holy Grail taking into Nazi’s Germany and many places over middle-east.
It was nice to see Airships (Zeppelin) as a mode of transport, I never knew that Airships were used big time in 1930s by Germany and even for trans-Atlantic flights. Somehow I thought Airships were more demo vehicles and before they became mainstream the Hindenburg disaster happened.
The special effects in the movie like the hidden bridge and the tank looked funny now but according to Wikipedia took look of effort in those days without much Computer Graphics. Kudos to them.
The first time I saw Titanic was in Feb ‘98 at London, U.K. during my first abroad trip. I didn’t know anything about the movie and little about the original tragedy, so when my friend in London invited me to the movie with his family, I had little expectation but I was excited in being to a theatre outside India. Needless to say the movie took my breath, it was brilliant and kept me thinking for many days. After which I have watched and enjoyed the other two movies of James Cameron – Abyss (which actually was a predecessor to Titanic movie) and Avatar 3D.
15 years after that I went to see the movie again this Friday. This time at INOX, Chennai and with my 8 year old son – who knew more about RMS Titanic & the movie than me. He was super excited to be there and enjoyed the movie thoroughly. The original movie in 2D itself with its sets and interior were awesome, now being converted by Computer Graphics to 3D made it better. Unlike Avatar “3D” which was shot in 3D, Titanic 3D being a converted from 2D the effects were subtle, but the story and music compensated for all that.
A nice entrepreneur idea by the producers (James Cameron & 20th Century Fox) of the movie to re-release it this year commemorating the century of the original tragedy and to have no one complaining that they are exploiting a tragedy.
The movie “The Help” released in 2011 is one of the movies nominated for several awards for this year Oscar. I read about the movie in this article in “The Economist” about servant’s shortage in Brazil. The movie is based on a novel by Kathryn Stockett & is based on 1960s Mississippi in USA where how black maids were treated around the Civil Rights movement’s time period. This movie is one more in the list of Hollywood’s recent obsession to 1960s – remember the TV Serials Mad Men, Pan Am and movies like A Single Man.
Though Emma Stone plays the lead character Skeeter Phelan, a budding white writer who is trying to find her career, it is Viola Davis who steals the thunder in the movie. Viola appearing as an experienced black maid Aibileen delivers an imposing performance throughout the movie & is a perfect candidate to win an Oscar this year. Skeeter is one of the few people in Jackson, Mississippi who seem to be appreciative and sympathetic to the sacrifices the black maid in the city perform. Octavia Spencer coming as Minny provides the needed relief to an otherwise serious story, every scene she appeared I smiled.
Overall a good movie to watch & enjoy.
From the time I heard about this movie “The Dirty Picture” acted by Vidya Balan, we (myself and my wife) wanted to see it. After the movie got released few months back we couldn’t make it to the theatre every time we planned to go. In the few months after the release many magazines including Hindustan Times Brunch has written good reviews about Vidya Balan’s excellent performance in the role. I purchased the DVD from FlipKart and saw it today, DVD has the advantage the Hindi movie will come with English Sub-Title making it easier for me to understand it. The movie made by Ekta Kapoor said to be loosely made on the life story of South Indian film sensation Silk Smitha.
The movie didn’t meet the expectations I had. Though Vidya has done a good performance, having seen Silk Smitha on screen earlier I couldn’t see any resemblance of real Silk in Vidya Balan. Similarly almost the entire cast didn’t match the Tollywood or Kollywood people it claims to portray. The settings & costumes were impressive, they have been painstakingly brought back to life the 80s Kollywood. The first half of the movie was boring, the second half was better when “Silk” goes to her high moments and falls back rapidly from it. The makeup of Emraan Hashmi who plays Director Abraham makes him look like Director Cheran, which I think is accidental. The screen play was average at most places with the best in the scene when Silk walks out after her Filmfare award, when the reporter Naina advices her “Don’t think too much, just be yourself”. We are able to enjoy the play of emotions between Silk and Abraham (Director) in the last portion of the movie. The sound track for the song "Ooh La La" makes you hum it few times.
“Madly in Love” is a German movie about a Sri Lankan Tamil boy falling in love over a Swiss-German Divorcee with a Boy. I came to know of this movie from a friends’ FaceBook stream, after a search in the Internet found this movie.
The main character “Devan” is done brilliantly by Muraleetharan Sandrasegaram – he comes out naturally as a next door youngster that we will see daily. The female lead role “Leo” is done nicely by Laura Tonke. The movie is about the struggle the Devan goes through between his love for Leo and his father’s pressure to marry “Nisha” a young girl from Sri Lanka who has been engaged and flown over to Switzerland to marry him. The movie briefly touches on the life that Sri Lankan Tamilians have in Switzerland trying to assimilate into main stream Europe or to stay apart. You won’t believe it – but the movie has 3 to 4 Tamil songs just like Kollywood movies, but were shot quite nicely and were appropriate to the storyline.
இந்தப் படத்தை தமிழ் கூறும் நல் உலகில் கடைசியாகப் பார்த்தது நான் தான் போல, படம் பொங்கலுக்கு கலைஞர் டிவியில் கூட வந்துவிட்டது. இந்த வாரம் எங்கள் கிளப்பில் வேலாயுதம் என்று சொல்லிவிட்டு இதைப் போட்டார்கள்.
”கோ”வில் ஜீவா சண்டைக்காட்சிகளை பொளந்துக்கட்டுகிறார், பாராட்டுக்கள். நான் முக்காலியை வைத்து படம் எடுத்தால் கூட கோனலாகத் தான் வருகிறது, மனுஷன் ஒருகையில் ஏன் இருவிரலில் எடுக்கும் படங்கள்கூட சரியாக வருகிறது, நம்ம ஊர் 3ஜியில் மின் அஞ்சலே கஷ்டம் ஆனால் ஜீவா முழுஅளவு படங்களாக அனுப்பித் தள்ளுகிறார். கார்த்திகா ராதாவை நினைவுப்படுத்துவதோடு நின்று விடுகிறார், நடிப்பு முகபாவம் எதுவுமில்லை, அடுத்தப் படத்தில் பார்க்கலாம். வில்லன் வசந்தன் பாத்திரத்தை நிறைவாகச் செய்துள்ளார் அஜ்மல் அமீர், சில கோனங்களில் இயக்குனர் திரு.வாசுவின் மகன் ஷக்தியைப் போல இருக்கிறார்.
முடிவில் எனக்கு உடன்பாடுயில்லை. என்ன காரணம் சொன்னாலும் பாத்திரிகைகள் உண்மையை மக்களுக்குச் சொல்லத்தான் வேண்டும்.
When a friend suggested I see this movie “Bad Teacher” I was not sure I will like it. From the web comments I expected the comedy to dull & boring and the sexy visuals of Cameron Diaz especially as a teacher will be making it unpleasant to watch. But the movie turned out to be better than that. It is by no means a great movie or anything but just different, certainly watchable & at places I even laughed while watching it.
The movie is about a seventh grade teacher Elizabeth Halsey (played by Cameron Diaz) who is an exact opposite of an ideal teacher. She does everything that is wrong about a teacher, she sleeps in classes, secretly drinks alcohol in class, doesn’t even know her students names or what’s in the syllabus and she even uses Marijuana in the school parking lot. To fund her breast implant (which is to attract a wealthy spouse) she is shown stealing items from a student’s house, dresses provocatively in a student car wash to pocket the collection and even accepts grafts from parents for better grades and drugs the state examiner. Then there is the usual love story with Elizabeth trying to impress a wealthy substitute teacher while the gym teacher likes her.
What makes the movie watchable is the simplicity and the frankness of the portrayal. It doesn’t sugar coat anything. The Director breaks the typical mould of a teacher character in movies – someone who is normally inspirational and above criticism. And at the end too, Elizabeth doesn’t get caught, instead the good teacher gets punished and Elizabeth gets away, she stops being sloppy and becomes a guidance counsellor.
My son is avid reader of Tintin comics, because of him after so many years I too read again many of the books recently. Both of us have been planning to see this movie “The Adventures of Tintin” and we went for it today at Escape (Express Mall), Chennai. My interest was increased due to the film being directed by Steven Spielberg.
The adaptation of the comics to movie has been done quite nicely, without disturbing the original author’s (Herge) magic. The original Tintin stories had a way of impressing boys with its action packed scenes, simple storyline & wordings, a trip around many parts of the world showing its culture & people. The movie to a good extend has retained it, the animated characters too look quite faithful to the impression I had from the comics. You can even have laugh at many of the scenes, just like I had. Overall, a fun movie to watch with your whole family.
One thing I don’t understand is the need to pay for the 3D glasses Rs.20 separately in the food counter at Escape, why can’t they add it to the Online transaction itself?. I guess it might be due to some archaic Entertainment tax issue, but Satyam can collect additional Rs.10 or so to cover it and make it convenient for audience.
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