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The advertisements for this movie “Madrasapattinam” were brilliant – the 1947 days scenes shown in TV Ads, titbits about that period in Radio Ads and so on. It created good amount of buzz around the movie and the curiosity to watch it. Last weekend, I went for this movie in Mayajaal. I took a (big) risk by taking my 7 year old son to this movie, which I haven’t done earlier (other than Children movies/cartoons), surprisingly he enjoyed this movie especially seeing the old Madras and he was thrilled.
Director “Vijay” has told interestingly an otherwise usual love story, the old Madras theme has helped him a lot in the effort. The story as such feels greatly inspired by a combination of Titanic and Lagaan. Throughout the movie the pace, scenes, dialog are all well done. At many of the places, you can guess what is likely to happen but nowhere you feel bored.
The Art Director “V.Selvakumar” and Cinematographer “Nirav Shah” have done a superb work by recreating the Old Madras in front of us. For example the olden day “Spencer Plaza”, “Tram” are all realistic recreations of the gone era. To a large extend this has helped to transport the audience to that time – you can feel the pace of the life in those days. Both Arya and Amy Jackson have done their respective roles well, Arya comes out well in the Kusti fight scene – his hardwork is clearly visible.
The Director has left his touches in places – like in the scenes of a man sleeping all the time, but suddenly getting up in the crucial fight scene; In the scene (which happens in the height of independence struggle) where the labourers are meeting to decide their course after the British Governor orders the removal, voices are heard saying let us avoid confrontation. There are misses as well – like in the midnight of 14th August when independence was got, why will the police keep going after 2 lovers, I am sure they had bigger problems on that day especially who they are answerable to?
Overall, a fine work, don’t miss.
After reading my blog on the movies I have covered in it, my fellow INFITT member Mr.Jean-Luc Chevillard from Paris recommended that I see this German Movie “Good Bye Lenin”. Title alone was enough to make me interested. Today I got a chance to see this movie.
The movie’s story happens in East Berlin from October 1989 to just after German unification a year later. Alex lives with his sister, and his mother. His father fled to the West abandoning the family. Alex’s mother single headedly raises the kids and becomes an idealist and supporter of ruling Socialist Party. Later, she suffers a near-fatal heart attack and falls into a coma. When she comes out of Coma, Doctors advice Alex not to give any exciting news to her mother. So he recreates a make-believe communist era inside their house to make his mother thinking that all his well in Berlin outside. This happens till his mother dies peacefully having lived in a Communist Berlin which didn’t exist.
The director does a fine job of bringing out the difference in life in East Berlin before fall of Berlin Wall and just months after it, by showing simple things like a selection of Pickles in a Super Market to the hoardings and fashion.
I read about this movie after its eight category nomination to Oscar Awards along with The Hurt Locker and Avatar, immediately bought the movie. Managed to watch it today. Inglourious Basterds is a Historic Fiction war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and others. The story is set in the time of Nazi Hitler’s occupation of France, kind of an alternate history story.
The story starts with a scene in 1941, SS Colonel Hans Landa played by “Christoph Waltz” arrives at a dairy farm in France to interrogate the farmer their about rumors he is hiding the Jewish family. From that moment till the end of the movie SS Colonel character establishes clearly as the villain of the movie.Waltz is an Austrian Actor and no doubt he has been awarded the “Academy Award for Best Support Actor” for his brilliant performance in the movie. Though brief scenes are shown, the director doesn’t fail to make an emotional impact on the viewer on the plight of Jews under Nazi occupation.
The movie gets its curious name due to Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) in 1944 recruiting a team of eight Jewish-American soldiers in Italy for a mission to get behind enemy lines and bring fear to all German servicemen. Though Lt.Aldo Raine exhibits comical behaviour, the team succeeds on creating fear amongst Nazis and the Germans begin calling this team as “Basterds”, hence the title for movie.
If you like Historic movies with a bit of comedy, then don’t miss this one.
As general public we read & think more of big tragic events like 9/11 or Mumbai 26/11. But due to their near-common, frequent nature we hardly think about everyday tragedies that Security Forces in War Zones like IRAQ or Afghanistan undergo. “The Hurt Locker” movie is an attempt to address that awareness creation. It is about a US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. I came to know about the movie due to its nomination to this year awards. The story sounded interesting and I believe there have been very few movies about the ongoing IRAQ or Afghanistan War (many documentaries exist, but rarely many movies). The movie is directed by Kathryn Bigelow and story by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded with a bomb squad.
After watching the movie today, I should say the movie seems to be a honest attempt at telling the story as it is on ground. The scene were a local man strapped with timer explosives around him, all of them secured with steel bars and locks that prevent removal in time was a very moving one. Doesn’t seem to have lot of “Hollywood” effects added normally for better story telling. Doesn’t go into flash back of characters and tries hard to stick to the factual line as closely as possible. A must watch for any Movie Buff and for anyone remotely interested in understanding the modern day warfare against terrorism in our world.
I know this movie came few years back, but I managed to see it only today. The movie is one of the few made on what happened on the tragic September 11, 2001. United 93 is about the events aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked during the September 11, 2001 attacks. The film attempts to recount as much as possible and was supposed to made with the full cooperation of all the families of the passengers.
While watching the movie you are certainly to feel “moved” and “emotional”. Even with such a powerful background to work with the Director has done his best by not dramatizing or glorifying any individual. Certainly a must movie to watch if you are curious on what happened on 9/11.
Though Lagaan was a very popular Hindi movie that came early this decade, I haven’t seen it so far. I bought the collector’s edition of the DVD few years back, but it has been sleeping in my CD rack. Today with the rains in Chennai, I was not able to go out, so I watched this movie.
The first impression anyone seeing the film is that it is an excellent movie, must see. Initially I was worried on how I will sit through for a Three-and-Half hour movie, but the director & actors keep the interest level high all the time. The other significant things that impresses you is A.R.Rahman’s brilliant background score, the choreography and the dialogs.
I had purchased the DVD of this movie “An American Affair” sometime back, but never watched it till today. I can’t recall on why I bought this movie as I haven’t heard or read about it; nor I could recognize from the names any of the actors of the movie. The only reason I can think of is probably I thought the movie was about Marilyn Monroe. It turned out to be not. The movie set in 1963 was about adolescent attraction of a school boy to his new neighbour – a pretty lady who has relationship with then U.S. President John F.Kennedy.
I try hard but nothing I am able to remember or say that is great about the movie. A boring movie with an average coverage of a Thirteen-year-old boy’s adolescent yearnings.
 I am writing this post on a flight from London to Los Angeles. Since I had a good night sleep on my previous leg from Mumbai to London, I didn’t want to sleep now, instead spending the time got on clearing my backlogs of emails and tasks. I own a Zune Player that I rarely carry outside, I think I already have enough electronics with me all the time – Laptop, its cables, cell phone and USB drives. I use my Zune most of the time while I am at home connected to Lansec speakers. Recently I found a good use for Zune, it is to take it on long trips for watching movies that I don’t get time to watch while at time. The best thing about Zune is that it has a quite big size screen which makes it comfortable for watching movies, battery that lasts for nearly 2 full movies and I can charge it back by connecting it to my laptop.
I bought the DVD of the movie “World Trade Center” few months back but never had the time to watch it at home. Before leaving I converted the DVD into Zune format using PCDVD software. The software does a good conversion, but freezes once in a while running in Vista.
Coming back to the movie, I was expecting (should I say ignorantly) the movie to be the story behind the plot & how it was executed. Instead the movie was about how two cops from Port Authority (PAPD) who risked their lives to safe people after the first tower coming down, got themselves trapped in concourse of building 5. The whole movie revolves around these two officers and their anxious family. The director has nicely handled the story on the lines of human spirit, moments before death and courage of people in uniform. After watching the movie completely, it struck me if the movie had covered any other story line or talked about the plot it would have been disrespectful to the thousands of families who lost their loved one’s on that tragic day.
This week one of my colleagues gave me a DVD of the movie April 1945, A Nation awaits its … “DOWNFALL“. Surprisingly I didn’t put it in my CD shelves for watching one of the days (which will never come) but managed to see it today.
In the last half-a-century much as been written and movies taken about the Holocaust & World War II. But many of them skip the last few weeks of Hitler or mention them in passing paragraphs. This movie is all about the last few weeks, when it was certain the Nazis have lost. This different perspective makes the movie different and enjoyable, even though it is 2:30 Hours.
Oliver Hirschbiegel (the Director of the movie) chronicles the last desperate days in Hitler’s underground bunker, as the Red Army unrelentingly closes in. It’s April 1945. The streets of Berlin are defended by armed children, and the fate of Nazism is sealed. Some blindly believe Hitler capable of some last-minute miracle. Yet there is still a human drama to play out… Read a nice review of movie here.
If you are interested in war history and the human toll it takes, this is a nice movie to watch.
Today I started from Chennai to USA, enroute London (that’s where I am doing this post after paying GBP 10 for 24 Hrs T-Mobile Wi-Fi) by British Airways. Like I have said in my past posts, almost all my Non-Tamil Movie watching happens while in long distance flights like these. Today I got a Upgrade to Business Class and could enjoy to a private selection of movies in the BA flight. While the first 7 hours of flight I slept, the last two hours I caught up with some movie watching.
The movie (The Last King of Scotland) was about the Late Uganda Military Ruler Idi Amin and the friendship with a young Scotland doctor who comes to Uganda to help in a NGO. The doctor initially reluctant to take the President’s Physician job, then get lured by the benefits and status it provides and soon becomes Amin’s trusted advisor – little did he know that closeness to power centre’s are always a double-edged sword. The movie depicts the doctor’s emotional dilemma between his Western Principals and friendship with the President. It doesn’t attempt to be an historic record of all events of Idi Amin’s rule. Nice to watch.
While in the terminal I came to an Italian Coffee Shop “Costa” for a cup of tea. But look below at their monstorous cup given for GBP 1.5. The cup was much bigger than a regular soup bowl, so I had to definitely take a snap of it!
(I have kept my Nokia 9500 next to the cup for size comparison)
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