The Gardener, books and a missed chance

When you have a chance to fulfill a dream but you can't because you have other obligations, then how do you feel? Gutted in my case. I have just given up my Arsenal tickets because of other things. I was so close to getting a chance to see my fav. team play in their final year in the legendary Highbury stadium. Heck, even a beautiful flick like the Constant Gardener can't make up for that loss. No good book will help either.

Anyway.

The Constant Gardener (directed by Fernando Meirelles): Rating 9/10

A beautiful movie yet I can't consider it perfect. I have not read the original book by John Le Carre but this story feels more like a Graham Greene story. No other director could have taken Kenya and incorporated such a beautiful visual feel to it. Ofcourse Meirelles has his DOP from City of God, Cesar Charlone, to help him. And it shows. There are some scenes which look straight out of City of God (and in fact have no place in this movie, but that is a minor complain). And what is the story? A Love story wrapped around a political unveiling of the evils that western drug companies perform in Africa! A british diplomat working for the High Commision is in Kenya with his wife. The wife is an activist who wants to expose the evil of the drug companies there. The husband wants to stay away from all this mess and simply wants to look after his garden. To each his own. And when a tragedy results, the husband is forced to look at the ugly truth. He undergoes a change and understands what his wife wanted.

Acting wise, Ralph Fiennes does a good job as usual but Rachel Weisz is amazing. Her best role yet? Probably! Some of the other supporting roles have done a good job as well. Directing wise, I don't agree with all of Meirelles shot selections. His locale shots are perfect but his use of close-ups with handheld camera is what I had problems with. In some scenes, the close up didn't add anything. And the jerky handheld feel didn't give any more taste of reality to the movie either. In one scene, he drips the scene in too much dramatic background score for no reason. The chefs are busy cooking in the kitchen. Cue loud fast drums. The waiter takes a try of wine glasses out. End fast music. What was the point of that sudden loud scene in the movie? Nothing. Reminded me of City of God's opening scene. There are scenes of trains arriving with drum music which work in the movie but not that restaurant scene. Am I being too picky with a movie I really liked? Yes.

This is one of my favourite movies of the year yet I can't give it a 10!

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Some books on last month's reading list:

1) Collected Prose: essays, autobiographical writings, true stories by Paul Auster.
In the last few months Auster has emerged as one of my favourite writers. He is guy who writes with talent and does not feel like a hack looking to make a quick book. His Book of Illusions, New York Trilogy were wonderful. So it was fun to read some of his essays about he got into writing, his struggles and just some true stories that he gathered.

2) Simon Winchester's Calcutta: Why is the title Simon Winchester's Calcutta?
Simon and his son have written 2 essays about what they feel about the complex city that is Calcutta. Other than that, the book contains essays and writings about the city from a collection of well knows writers (Tagore is there, ofcourse). I didn't finish all the collected writings but the father and son have a good job of outlining this city's interesting history.

3) Supercargo: A journey among ports
Thorton McCamish writes about his interesting trip around the world's mystic port cities. Read most of it and it is a good read. Another lonely planet publication like the Calcutta book above.

4) Companero: The life and death of Che Guevera
by Jorge G. Castaneda

A very well researched book about the myth that is Che. Not even close to finishing it, but I found myself spending time reading the chapters that are the most contradicting episodes in his life. Che's youth is well documented but his time in Congo and Bolivia are the shadowy sections.

5) Rio De Janeiro: Carnival under Fire
by Ruy Castro

Ah Rio! So much to talk about. Unfortunately, I ran out of time dealing with this one. Maybe some other month?

September -- Festival Time

Well the festival time has started and the fall movie line-up is on the verge of being ushered out. Venice
kicked things off this past weekend with a distinct Asian movie line-up. Up next are TIFF, CIFF, Edmonton and VIFF. So in order to prepare for the festivals, I need to finish some commercial viewings before that.

1) Paycheck (2003 movie directed by John Woo): Rating 7/10

I had never seen this movie earlier because I was warned off it by a number of people. It turns out not to be that bad of a movie as I was led to believe. Sure it is a pointless action movie but atleast it has a good idea. Since it is based on another Philip K.Dick story, the movie was sure to have an interesting story line. But as with other sci-fi movies, Hollywood just runs them into the ground. This year, The Island was another example of a good sci-fi idea gone bad. In Paycheck, Ben Affleck plays a reverse engineer who works for different companies and at the end of each contract, has his memory turfed to protect his employer's intellectual property. And then sure enough, something goes wrong. Or it appears to. Our hero has to work backwards with a handful of clues to determine what really happenned in his 3 year long contract?
The puzzle like nature of the clues are interesting enough but the movie has quite a number of boring action scenes which don't add anything to the movie and end up slowing the movie down.

None the less, a neat germ of an idea hidden here. If a country pre-emptively attacks another country thinking that country will one day attack them, then the attacking country in turn creates a situation where the defending country is forced to attack back. In reality, if things were left as is, then the defending country would never have attacked. Hmmm...

2) Sehar (2005 Bollywood movie directed by Kabeer Kaushik): Rating 9/10

An honest cop taking on the local ganster is a favorite topic in Bolly movies. But if it is done well, like in Sehar's case, then the movie watching is an enriching experience. As it turns out like in the case of movies such as Hasil, Kurushetra, Shool, the directors do have a story to tell. And they tell it well. Backed by a well written script and amazing acting, Sehar is easily one of the best Indian movies of 2005. Arshad Warsi is perfect in his role as is Pankaj Kupar. The only weakpoint might be Sushant Singh as the young gang leader who wants to run things his own way. The movie shows the difficulty the police have in tracking down the illegal activities and highlights how the Lucknow branches had to be trained on how to deal with emerging technologies such as cellphones to deal with organized crime. The movie is set in 1998, at a time when cell phones were just hitting the Lucknow scene.

3) Dus (misdirected by Anubhav Sinha): Rating 6/10

As usual Anubhav Sinha has his weak directing skills stamped over an otherwise enjoyable movie. The poor script can't make up for the flashy setup up though. An international terrorist is hiding in Canada. And the Anti-terrorist branch of India has to track this man down and find out what big event is being planned for May 10. They had intercepted of a big plan to take place on the 10th from Algiers (in reality, Calgary is being passed off as Algiers, stupidity #1). Fair enough. But what takes place after that seems contrived and well just poorly scripted. None the less, I didn't mind all the fluff as much as I thought I would. The ending sequence is so poorly done that words can't describe. A crowd in a Calgary stadium is spliced with an European scene spliced with England's soccer game spliced with a fake computer generated background and on and on...Argh. The fact that I sat through the movie without wanting to fast forward it is a sign that it was better than average.

4) The Cooler (2003 movie directed by Wayne Kramer): Rating 7.5/10

Las Vegas movies neatly fall into various groups -- gangster and or/robberies, drunk + drug overdose or maybe quick fling + marriage. The Cooler does take a different approach by combining a Leaving Las Vegas story with a cultural generation gap theme. The end result feels that it is trying to hard to win the critics over. That was my gut instinct, movies like this are trying to hard to over-dramatize situations. Anyway, the love story between two opposites involves a 'cooler', Bernie, (William H.Macy) and a run-away-from-home-waitress, Natalie (Maria Bello). A 'cooler' is someone with a negative presence (it can be his touch or mere appearance) that he turns people's winning streakes into losing ones. Or so goes the superstition. Shelley (Alec Baldwin) believes in such techniques and forces his cooler to stick around. But when the cooler falls in love with Natalie and his luck changes, well, then Shelley has a problem. He bullies Natalie into leaving Bernie. At the same time, Shelley has to deal with keeping his casino running according to the pure old ways. He is being forced to go with the times and make the casino more family friendly for package tours. The acting is good all over, which is to be expected with the three main actors. But somehow I was not too overly in love with this movie partly because of all the Las Vegas run down themes being flashed around -- hollowness, depression, the town's greed aura, etc.

5) Cube 2: Hypercube (2002 directed by Andrzej Sekula): Rating 8/10

1997's Cube was an amazingly well directed and written movie by Canadian Vincenzo Natali. The movie had such a cult following that well, a sequel was deemed necessary. But the director from the original movie was not involved, so this was a first sign that somethign was wrong. Now ofcourse, a third Cube movie has been released. Will it stop here? I hope so. Anyway time to tackle Cube 2:

Despite all my preconceived notions, Cube 2 is not just a dumb sequel. It is a well thought-out script which stands on its own from the first movie. The director, Sekula, is also the DOP for the movie and that in this case turns out to be a good thing. He is responsible for some of the innovative camera shots, and the entire computer effects time has done a stellar job. I did notice a glitch in the sets near the end of the movie which kinda dampned things. You notice a person walking on the other side of the cube which breaks from the tension of the situation.
Just like the first movie, different people wake up in different rooms in a cube. They have no idea why they are there. So they try to find the pattern among all the cubes and try to escape. Unlike the first one, the performances in this movie are not that great. It could have to do with the fact that the actors were working against a green screen for a lot of the shots.

And for a change, there is a proper resolution in this one. In the ending we do get to set what the cube is all about and who created it. 60659!

End of the month -- Asian Flair

The line between documentaries and fiction is blurred sometimes and no more so than in the first two movies.

1) In This World (2002 movie directed by Michael Winterbottom): Rating 8/10

It starts off like a documentary, then switches to fiction mode and when it ends, you realize the story was based on true events. And the amazing cinematography, with appropriate close-ups makes you feel like you are a traveler in the film. The story is simple enough: a street smart boy agrees to lead another fellow Afghan refugee from Peshawar to London. Along the way, they cross into Iran (with some difficulty) and from there have to make it into Turkey, then catch the boat to Italy and then to London. But the journey is difficult and comes with its share of problems. Not much dialogue and that is appropriate, the visual images speak for themselves. Sometimes the editing feels off but I didn’t care – I was completely absorbed in this movie. A very good effort.

2) Mountain Patrol (original title, Kekexili, directed by Chuan Lu): Rating 9.5/10

WOW! Another movie based on a true story – the film shows the efforts of the Tibetan mountain patrol setup to prevent poaching of the endangered Tibetan Antelope. The poachers love hunting this animal because of the expensive price that the fur fetches. But the Tibetans want to protect the animal before it becomes extinct. The movie is from the point of view of a Chinese journalist who tags along with the patrol in search of the poachers. Visually this movie is beautiful. And the screenplay is very good as well. Once again, I was caught up in the movie. The patrol’s life is not easy and this movie captures the hardships in the lonely desolate stretch of land.

3) Les Fils Du Vent (Son of the Wind, directed by Julien Seri): Rating 4/10

I had such high hopes of this movie but was let down quite a bit. The movie starts off in Bangkok with an attempted high storey robbery. The two robbers don’t finish the job because the girl (with her brother being the other robber) changes her mind. But that missed chance puts them in trouble with the Yakuza. The scene switches to London with a game of high speed building jumping and chasing the ball (sorry I don’t know if there is a name for this game). The stunts are amazing, with the muscular athletes leaping off buildings with ease. They next travel to Bangkok where they help run a local gym. However, they run into problems with the local gang and indirectly with the Yakuza. Not much for plot but a lot of jumping up and down metal beams and some neat kicks. However, watching someone jumping up and down gets tiring after say 20 minutes or so. Especially if the jerky camera work gives you a headache. And the dragged out fight sequence in the end is pointless and has no place in the story. A missed chance to make a great movie here.

Mid August shows

1) Bad Guy (2001 movie directed by Ki-duk Kim): Rating 8/10

A man sees a college girl sitting on a bench. He is infatuated with her. So he sits up close to her on the bench. She is uncomfortable and promptly gets up when her boyfriend approaches. But the guy steps up to the girl and forcibly kisses her. The boyfriend gets made and gets into a fight. The guy gets beat up the gathering police as well. He wants revenge. So by some carefully arranged events, the girl ends up in a prostitution house. Initially, the guy just watches her, does not touch her. When the girl finds out, she is upset as expected. But for some reason, a bond develops between the two.

It is an interesting movie which is nothing like the shocking posters of a nude girl on the cover. In fact, there is very little nudity in the movie. It is a slow paced movie which grows on you. Like his previous movie, the Isle, the movie shows a love relationship tainted by pain and torture.

2) Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder): Rating 9/10

The cold stare. That wicked cold stare which judges, which humiliates.
On a rainy day, an older German woman walks into a bar. The bar is playing Arabic music. And the mostly Arab occupants of the bar stare back at the woman. Ali goes up the woman and asks her for a dance. During the course of their conversation, they strike up a friendship. And Ali ends up sleeping with the woman. Their age gap and race division becomes the hot topic for the woman’s family, co-workers and social circle. She is isolated, stared at and humiliated. This is Germany in the 70’s when racial discrimination was very common. And Fassbinder has crafted a powerful yet simple movie. Punctuated by the long cold state! And the camera angles are just perfect.

3) Coupling – Season 2, 3 and 4:
Well the British comedy Coupling only last four seasons. In reality, the first three seasons were stellar with the fourth one not being on the same wavelength. One of the reasons why the first three seasons were good was because of Jeff Murdoch (played brilliantly by Richard Coyle). After Richard left in the fourth season, things were not the same. That being sad, it is still an excellent show. A cross between Friends and Sex and the City but much better! Because the series shows both sides of male-female relationships as opposed to a single sided approach (like Sex and the City).

August Already

Well quite a few movies to discuss, including two charming love stories. But first off, I want to discuss two completely different movies, each with their fair share of problems.

1) Mangal Pandel – The Rising (mis-directed by Ketan Mehta): Rating 5.5/10

Aamir’s Khan first movie in almost 4 years is a huge waste of time! Why is this movie so bad? Well the lack of a screenplay reduces every frame to a misplaced scene. Then comes the absence of direction which results in extras and actors looking out of place. Then there is the poor acting (with the exception of Toby Stephens). The music is just so-so, the dances out of place. The cinematography is good but the editing is sub-standard. I don’t think any blame would lie with Sreekar Prasad (editor) if all the footage he got was just poor. Or should it?

A few example of the problems:

a) If one looks carefully, you can notice scenes in which the extras are looking either at the camera or are just moving their arms as if someone is shouting instructions at them.
b) The overly dramatic scenes. When Mangal rounds up every single villager and his troops to bring two flame torches each, do we expect that incident took a few seconds? Did the British simply stand around and wait to be surrounded by mashal holding Indians?
c) Lack of Continuity. Shots are just taken and put together. Each scene looks independent of the rest of the movie.
d) A battle is ranging on and Mangal has time to fight with his ex-friend Gordon?

I could go on....Calling this movie an epic and a great movie is an insult. Once again, Bollywood proves that despite having good production values, it can screw up. Amisha Patel and Rani Mukherji are un-needed wasteful characters who instead of adding something to the movie take something away. A hugely disappointing movie!!!

2) Downfall (Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel): Rating 7.5/10

This movie showing the last hours of Adolf Hitler has gotten universal acclaim. So it should. But that does not mean it is a perfect movie! Bruno Ganz has delivered a stellar performance as Adolf Hitler. Every scene with him is a perfect scene. But without him, the movie just seems dull. The movie shows how cut off from reality Hitler was in his bunker. He had no idea how bad his troops were doing yet kept on talking about victories and the future. When he finally learns of impending failure (coupled with betrayals by his own loyal generals), he commits suicide along with his wife Eva Braun and orders their bodies to be burned. This happens at the 2 hour mark of the movie. But the movie does not end there. It goes on for another 26 minutes showing what happens to some of the other characters and how the Germans finally surrender.

The fact that the movie goes on after Hitler’s death is a good thing. It tries to show how things in reality panned out. But I just wish that we had gotten to that point sooner. The initial 2 hours should only have focused on the happenings in the bunker and not shown the outside. Those outside shots are weak and add nothing to the movie. Those same shots would have had more impact had they only being shown after Hitler’s death. Anyway, that is what I felt. Technically the movie is very good. But I had problems with how everything was laid out. The first half of the movie had no flow. It was scenes put together, some Hitler scenes, then outside, then back in the bunker, etc. Yet everything was tied together after his death.

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Just a few words about the above two unrelated movies…Mangal Pandey ends after its main character dies. Yet I felt this was wrong. The movie should have focused on the impact his hanging had on rest of the nation for a while longer. The movie should have gotten to his hanging sooner. Downfall lingers on after Hitler’s death yet I felt it should have ended after his death.

Onto the two love stories…

3) Sepet (Directed by Yasmin Ahmad): Rating 9/10

A charming love story from Malaysia! In fact, one of the freshest and interesting love stories in a very long time. A Chinese boy meets a young Malay girl, and well infatuation takes place. The boy slips his phone number among the vcds he sold to the girl. And she gives him a call, the two of them go out and their friendship develops. But the boy is involved with a local gangster’s sister. And after he gets the gangster’s sister pregnant, he is in trouble. Forced to look after the pregnant girl, his relationship breaks off with the Malay girl. There is no happy ending to this movie but the sweetness with which how all the relationship scenes are handled is very touching! Especially the ones with the Malay girl and her parents. A great effort!

4) Socha Na Tha (written and directed by Imtiaz Ali): Rating 9/10

After 2001’s Dil Chahta Hai, Bollywood gets it right again! It took a while but this love story is as good as Sepet. A boy is forced to meet a girl for marriage. Both boy and girl discuss their future lie elsewhere. The boy rejects the girl. However, feud develops between boy and girl’s families over how the rejection was done. Boy and girl continue to be friends and their friendship soon turns to love. But both sets of families are now against their love. On top of that, Boy is involved with another girl and ends up dragging her family into the mix. Three sets of families are tormented because of one boy. WOW! That is the baggage that comes with the institution that is marriage. And this movie gets it right.

On to other assorted pics…..

3) Ken Park (directed by Larry Clark and Ed Lachman): Rating 2/10

Dressing up a soft porn movie as an American Beauty is not my idea of art. American Beauty had some merit to it but seriously, if you are going to take the story of confused and coming of age teens, then put some effort into the screenplay. Adding nudity and sex scenes is not the answer. But this seems to be the way Larry Clark makes his movies.

4) Sarkar (lack of direction by Ram Gopal Varma): Rating 4/10

Once upon a time Ram Gopal Varma knew how to make a good movie. Now, he has no clue. Nor do any of his productions. Sure he has managed to remove songs from his movies but along with that, he has eliminated the need for a story as well. Good acting by Amitabh Bachchan in an otherwise pointless movie. And calling this as a tribute to The Godfather is just a joke. What amazes me is the positive reviews that RGV productions (including this movie) keep getting. Have these people not watched Satya or Company?

5) The Island (was there a director?): Rating 5/10

Somewhere buried in this movie is a decent story. But unfortunately that story is never developed and instead it is buried underneath all the car & building explosions. Movies like this give the sci-fi genre a bad name. The Island could have been an improvement on ideas that Gattaca and The Matrix proposed but….

6) Eros (trio of three films):

a) The Hand (directed by Wai Kar Wong): Rating 8/10

If I had not seen In the Mood for Love or 2046, I might have liked this movie a bit better. But truthfully even though the movie comes off as erotic, in the end, it is just not that great. A young tailor apprentice (Chen Chang) visits a prostitute (the beautiful Gong Li). The touch of her hand on his genitals convinces the boy that he wants to be a tailor. From then on, the boy also becomes the woman’s exclusive tailor. He hears her sleeping with other men but is never able to touch her. Yet their invisible touch is more sensual than all the men who have touched her.

b) Equilibrium (directed by Steven Soderberg): Rating 3/10

There is nothing to mention in this pointless effort of a movie.

c) The Dangerous Thread of Things (directed by Michelangelo Antonioni): Rating 2/10

Two naked woman. One confused man. More nudity. A beach. Boring!

7) Non Ti Muovere (Don’t Move, directed by Sergio Castellito): Rating 7/10

A technically good movie about one man’s affair! Correction. One man’s repeated rape of a woman which turns into an affair. A lot of positive comments for this movie revolve around Penelope Cruz’s acting. Sure her acting is good but what is the point?

8) Tokyo Raiders (2000 movie directed by Jingle Ma): Rating 5.5/10
A man does now show up for his wedding. The fiancée goes to his apartment to find out what happened to him. There she meets the apartment’s interior designer who is there to collect his unpaid bills. Together they head to Tokyo to find the missing man. There they are chased by thugs. But when a private investigator rescues them, he discloses a bigger conspiracy that the missing man was involved in. The usual flashy fights are there but an average movie overall.

Foreign Movie Galore..oh and two Canadian ones as well..

1) Coup De Torchon (1981 movie directed by Bertrand Tavernier): Rating 8/10

The English title of this interesting French movie is ‘Clean Slate’. And that is exactly what the main characters sets out to do – wipe all the corrupt people in his West African town and start fresh again. Tavernier adapted the story of this movie from an American novel by Jim Thompson called Pop. 1280. The story was moved from Southern American to a West African town. And it adapts perfectly. A corrupt police officer wanders around the town doing nothing to protect the black slaves from the rich white French residents. And then one day, he snaps. After a constant barrage of insults from the rich French elite, Lucien Cordier (played brilliantly by Philippe Noiret) starts killing people off one by one. Oh and thrown in the mix is Lucien’s affair with Rose (Isabelle Huppert) and Anne, the cute school teacher. Ofcourse, this is in between handling his wife and his strange brother in-law.

2) Knife in the Water (1962 movie directed by Roman Polanski): Rating 7/10

Roman Polanski’s first movie is a very interesting effort. With only three actors and a minimal production, Polanski manages to construct an interesting moral crime thriller. A well do couple is on their way to the lake. On the way, they pick up a young hitch-hiker. The husband invites the hitch-hiker on their boat journey over the lake. The husband pushes the young boy around and treats him like a servant. During a skirmish, the husband pushes the boy off the boat. Is the boy dead? No, but the husband thinks so.

The movie is decently acted and not bad at all.

3) British Comedy Series: Coupling, Season One – Rating 9/10

Hilarious. Watching season one of this Brit series was a fun experience. The series can best be described as ‘Friends’ meets ‘Sex and the City’. The series is clean but the jokes are much more adventurous than they would have been if this was an American tv series.

4) Un, deux, trios, soleil (1993 movie directed by Bertrand Blier): Rating 8/10

How do you rate a movie which is not linear and may all be a dream? None the less, this is one of the most original and interesting movies I have seen. The opening sequence goes something like this:

A young girl is eating bread and having her soup. Her mother constantly asks her daughter if the soup is to her liking. Finally, the girl gets tired of her mother’s nagging and leaves for school. But her mother chases the daughter down the streets and keeps harassing her. The mother attends the girl’s classes in place of her and sits down with all the kids. The teacher is surprised and when she inquires what the mother is doing there, she gets a nonsensical answer back. When the teacher leaves the class, she is chased by the school teenagers who try to rape her. The young girl comes to the teachers aid and gets a cop to pull over. When the cop is handling the kids, a bunch of 8-10 year olds drive away with the cops car. The cop shoots blindly and manages to hit one of the young kids. The other kids take the wounded boy to the cop’s home to see his wife. The cop’s wife removes her clothes and rubs the wounded boy on her naked body. After that, the boy is cured of his wound and fit again.

Sound crazy? It is. But once the movie settles in, you can describe the dream and real sequences and by the end things make much more sense. Hilarious performances by Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Grinberg, Olivier Martinez.

5) The Man Without a Past (2002 movie directed by Aki Kaurismaki): Rating 10/10

What a perfect movie! A man is traveling in a train with a single suitcase. When he gets off a station, he is beaten up by a bunch of thugs and his money and personal belongings are taken away. When he wakes up, the man does not know who he is or where he is. So he drifts around and tries to start his life again. He befriends another guy by the container yard near the lake (the poor people live in make shift houses made out of the metal containers). This is just a charming movie and yet it is both tragic and funny at the same time. Perfection!

6) Puteri Gunung Ledang (2004 Malay movie directed by Teong Hin Saw): Rating 6.5/10

This was my first Malaysian movie. The title roughly translates to ‘The Princess of Mount Ledang’. The love story (based on a Malay myth?) is quite simple but drags on for 145 minutes. A princess falls in love with a Malay warrior. However, a rival kingdom’s young king wants the princess for himself and sends the warrior to get the princess. The princess is hiding on top of Mount Ledang waiting for her true love – the warrior. In defiance to the young prince, the princess is willing to marry another rival kingdom’s king to save her kingdom from the clutches of the young king. Beautifully shot but the story is just too long to sustain continued interest.

7) Apaga Y Vamonos (Switch Off, a documentary by Manel Mayol): Rating 9/10

A riveting documentary on globalization and the evils of modern corporations! This time the arena is Chile and the problem is control of natural resources and water. 67% of Chile’s water supply is controlled by a Spanish company. How is such a thing possible? It is and this power control of nature is happening all over the world. Manel Mayol’s movie is engaging and chilling. The visuals are captured perfectly as well.

8) The Battle of Algiers (1965 movie directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, who also co-wrote the movie with Franco Solinas): Rating 11/10

This is one of the best movies I have ever seen! Period! Very few movies will ever come close to this realistic fiction movie which feels like a documentary. In fact, the first release of the movie had a note which stated that no documentary footage was used in this movie. Pontecorvo captures the feelings and sentiments of an oppressed people and their means to gain independence perfectly. This movie is more relevant today than any other movie. After 130 years of French control, the Algerian people are aching for freedom. So they start their mini revolution. Which leads to a counter reaction from the French who don’t want to leave the country. The situations escalate to a point of total collapse. And then everything is all quiet. For 2 years. After which the people start revolting again. Every scene, every dialogue in this movie is perfect. I had to shake my head and think that this movie was made in 1965 and not in the present day. WOW!

9) It’s all gone Pete Tong (Directed by Michael Dowse): Rating 7.5/10

Canadian (Calgary) Dowse’s second feature is a mocumentary like his first flick (Fubar).
This time Dowse takes the title name from a real life character, Pete Tong and even gives Pete Tong a tiny role in the movie. Pete Tong is a DJ in the Spanish island of Ibiza, a popular holiday spot for British people. In the movie, the main character Frankie Wilde (Paul Kaye) is a popular DJ in Ibiza. However, Frankie’s excess life style of music, drugs takes its toll on his ears – as in his is going deaf. He has only 20% of hearing left in one ear and eventually due to freak accident he goes completely deaf. After a long self imposed exile, Frankie returns. He finds a way to spin music again – he can feel the vibrations of the amps and read the graphs on his laptop. Along with the help of a Portuguese woman, Frankie learns to lip read as well. Once again, Frankie is the best. And then just like that, Frankie disappears.

It is a well done movie. The only complain is that it gets drabby in some parts but for a few stale scenes, it is fresh and original.

10) Fubar (Directed by Michael Dowse): Rating 6.5/10

Michael Dowse’s mocumentary on headbangers won rave reviews in Sundance and is a cult classic in its own right. The story surrounds two Calgary based headbangers who live their life to the fullest – rock and roll, drinking, fighting and smashing. A documentary film-maker (Gordon Skilling) decides to make a film about the two characters – Terry (David Lawrence) and Dean (Paul Spence). Either one loves this movie or one doesn’t. One can call it a mesh of Spinal-tap and Wayne’s World. It is a well done for a tiny of budget of $25,000. But I was not floored by it.

Dogville takes a bite

1) Dogville (directed by Lars Von Trier): Rating 8.5/10

What a strange movie Dogville is! First off the three hour long movie is shot on a stage like fake set, with chalk lines outlining houses, boundaries, streets and even a dog. There are some doors, a bell, a curtain, a fake mountain, wooden beams depicting a coal mine, and a window or two. Once you get beyond the stage like atmosphere, you start sinking into the movie. That is unless you have left the theatre or switched the tv off already.
What is the story? The entire drama takes place in a fictitious tiny American town of Dogville, a town of about 15 people, where nothing ever happens. The coal mine was shut down long ago and the people go about their daily lives with mixed emotions. And then one day, Grace (Nicole Kidman) enters the town. She is on the run from a mobster and is given shelter by Tom Edison Junior (Paul Bettany). Tom takes a liking to Grace and manages to convince the rest of the town folk to let stay. At first, the town folk are hesitant, but eventually grow to like her. They find a use for her, and end up burdening her with extra work. And with time, the town folk start abusing Grace’s kindness to fulfill their own pleasures – the men find her as a sexual outlet, the women as a scorn of hate, etc. The entire human behaviour spectrum is shown in the cycle of the movie – at first the town folk fear the stranger, then they like the stranger and find a use for the stranger, then the use turns to misuse, and then they are back to fearing and disliking the stranger. Finally the stranger is considered more worthless than a dog and chained. All throughout the movie, Grace tries to remain calm and considers the town folk as human. Yet, when things finally reach a dead end, Grace unleashes her wrath.

So why is this movie so hated? Most American critics slammed this movie as being ‘anti-American’. That is the most absurd criticism of this movie as there is nothing Anti-American in this movie. This story could have taken place in any city in any country in the World. The raw emotions and human behavior in the story as so basic that they transcend national boundaries. The acting is what keeps this movie interesting. If the acting was not up to par, then this movie would have been painful to watch. What about the fake sets? Well after a while, it does not matter. The movie is like a theatre stage play, and the set design is not really much of an issue.

My real problem with the movie is the final 20 minutes. Near the end, when Grace finally meets the mobster again, the scene is so poorly written that it is a disappointment. If there was any scene which should have been strongest, it should have been that final confrontation. But for some reason, Von Trier brought out tired and boring dialogues for that scene. And the ending was not totally unexpected. There was no other direction the movie could have taken. My only other question is what if Grace was not on the run from a mobster? What is no mobster came back to get her? How would have she have survived? I think by using a gangster element in the story, Von Trier got out of answering a tough question. His movie might have been much more haunting if Grace was left to remain like a ‘dog’. None the less, this is a movie unlike any other.

2) Killer’s Kiss (1955 movie directed by Stanley Kubrick):

I was looking forward to seeing this movie but due to time restrictions I could not finish this film noir. The start didn’t look too bad but I will have to wait another day.

Some festival movies:

3) Noise (directed by Tony Spiridakis): Rating 8.5/10

This is a neat little independent thriller. A recently divorced woman (Trish Goff) moves into a quiet apartment complex to start a new life. However, she soon discovers that the only other person living in the building is quite a noisy neighbour. Her neighbour plays loud music beyond 4 am, and Joyce can’t get any sleep. So she goes up and leaves a note underneath the noisy neighbour’s door. The next day, the neighbour Charlotte (Ally Sheedy) pays Joyce a visit and apologizes. But after a little quiet, Charlotte returns to her old ways. Joyce starts going crazy, and tries to hatch a plan to quieten Charlotte. However, the plan backfires and Charlotte becomes more noisy. Charlotte takes revenge in getting Joyce fired from her job and combined with the noise, Joyce’s life starts falling apart. She takes to drinking and is heading for disaster, until a twist manages to turn things around. The end comes as a shock but given the dark undertone of this movie, it is not unexpected.

4) EMR (directed and written by James Erskine, Danny McCullough): Rating 7/10

An independent conspiracy theory movie from the UK! Adam is a conspiracy theory buff and one day finds his life turned upside down. He wakes up to find himself in Mexico with stitches on the side of his body (playing on the Kidney stolen myths) and after running around, faints and awakens back in London. He wakes up alternatively in San Francisco and London with no idea what is happening to him. The movie contains all the common urban myths and various conspiracy theories but the movie is not fast paced or very polished. Still it is worthy for a watch!

5) In the Shoes of the Dragon (Documentary directed by Hronn Sveinsdottir and Arni Sveinsson):

Rating: Technical quality of the movie (3/10), Movie Merit (9/10)

This is a wicked movie! Unfortunately I have to rate this differently. The movie has terrible cinematography and editing yet the underlying story is worthy. Hronn decides to enter Miss Iceland 2000 to show how fake beauty pageants are. She plans to film the entire thing but realizes it would be difficult to participate and make a movie at the same time. So she gets the help of Arni to handle the camera. However, neither people are professional film-makers and that shows in the camera work. That being said, the story behind Miss Iceland is very interesting. Hronn soon finds herself caught up in the contest and her personality changes right before the camera – she goes from an easy going person to a mean spirited person. Ofcourse, every person has mean parts to their personality but the movie shows how a competitive environment nourishes her evil side more than her sweetness. Overall, her expressions and vibrant personality make this a fun documentary.

Notes: Iceland is a country of less than 300,000 people (approx. 293,000) yet they have produced three Miss World’s in the last 4 decades. Claudia Schiffer is invited to crown Miss Iceland 2000 and the reigning Miss World from 1999 (Miss India) also makes an appearance.

Craziness in July

1) Crash (directed by Paul Haggis): Rating 10/10

Either you like this movie or despise it. But one can’t discount director and writer Paul Haggis’s attempt. Like Gurinder Chada’s What’s Cooking, Crash shows an ethnic side to Los Angeles. In Crash, Latin Americans, Koreans, Persians, White, Black collide and brush past each other as they make do with their daily hardships. One of the biggest criticism of this movie has to with the fact that virtually all the encounters are dipped in racism. Is that a right portrayal? Yes in the movie’s framework. The movie shows the stressful moments in various characters lives and when they are pushed against the wall, their anger and fears come to the forefront. And it is in these situations when racism rears its ugly head – when people try to use racist remarks to put the other person down.
The movie moves at a good pace and the acting is top notch. Loads of stars make little cameos and all the roles have an important place in the structure. Not to be missed!

2) One Night in Mongkok (Directed by Tung-Shing Yee): Rating 7/10

Mongkok is one of the most crowded areas in Hong Kong. The story starts off when two rival gangs clash and one of the gang leader’s son is killed. So the other leader wants revenge. A contract killer is hired (by a middle man) to finish the job. But this contract killer is from a small village and finds himself as a pawn in between the person who hired him and Hong Kong police who want to shut the violence down. Not a bad movie, but nothing spectacular either.

3) Oldboy (Directed by Chan-wook Park): Rating 9/10

A man is imprisoned in an apartment for 15 years without any reason or explanation. So when he gets out, he goes out to seek revenge on those put him there and those who tortured him on a day to day basis. The movie is not a violent revenge movie but has a story which plays out like a puzzle thriller (sure there are some fight scenes). And the reason for the imprisonment is completely unexpected and comes as a shock. Chan-wook Park’s follows up with another stellar movie like his earlier Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002).

Note: Hollywood is remaking this movie next year. That is just plain pathetic. Why do they have to remake almost all the recent Asian hits? Have they really run out of ideas?

4) Three: Extremes (sequel to Three, a collection of 3 short films made back in 2002):

This time around, directors Takashi Miike, Chan-wook Park and Fruit Chan serve up three short films. All three movies are shot/edited very well. But not all are equal.

a) ‘Box’ by Miike: The less said about this the better. Quite boring and weakest of all three segments. Disappointing by Miike’s standards but he does try different stuff every now and then.

b) ‘Dumplings’ by Chan: This one was apparently cut down from 90 minutes to a shorter version to fit in between the two other director’s movies. For a change, I thought a line had been crossed in this movie. Like a Twilight Zone episode, this one features a woman who serves up the best dumplings because of her secret ingredient – aborted human fetuses. Yup, that’s right. Apparently eating bits of these aborted fetus help preserve women’s skin and make them look young. So what was the line? The choice of the secret ingredient! Other sources on the net are praising the story but I don’t think the selection of the secret ingredient was a requirement for this movie or it helped in shaping the story.

c) ‘Cut’ by Park: This is the best of the lot. By a long shot! A famous director awakens to find himself tied to the wall. His wife is tied and tangled in a web of strings by her piano. The intruder offers the director a choice – either he kill a young girl or he will chop one of his wife’s fingers every 5 minutes. None of the gore is shown in this one but the acting from the intruder and director is very good here.

5) Fantastic Four (directed by Tim Story): Rating 7/10

This movie has been heavily trashed from all fronts. But despite all the movie’s faults – script problems, poor acting, technical inconsistencies, I enjoyed this flick. The characters of Human Torch (played with tons of enthusiasm by Chris Evans) and the Thing (Michael Chiklis) are the best played and acted characters of the lot. Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) is very poor and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) is only mildly better. Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) looks the most polished but is made out to be clear villain, as opposed to giving him more substance. So I am probably the only person out there who is giving this movie such a high rating, but it was short and enjoyable. And I don’t this is the worst of the recent comic book movies – 2003’s Daredevil is still one of the worst. Ofcourse, I have not seen Catwoman or Elektra.

Singing in July

1) Parineeta (directed by Pradeep Sarkar): Rating 8/10

What does one do with the songs? With the exception of Sarfarosh (1999), I can’t conceive of giving a Bollywood movie a perfect rating if it has useless songs. And unfortunately, Parineeta does have some needless music numbers. That being said, the movie starts off amazingly. The crisp voice of Amitabh Bachchan (who else has such a voice?) introduces us to the vibrant city of Calcutta. The visuals are stunning in that opening sequence and all throughout the movie. The cinematography is spot on as the lens blur the characters we don’t want to see, and focus on the expressions we should be interested in.

The story is based on the 1930’s Calcutta novel which means that it is a love story about unrequited love and about upper class Indians laying around balancing their life between the leftovers of colonial India and modern India, while filling their time with some activity. In this case, the activity is music. Childhood friends Shekhar (Saif Ali) and Lolita (Vidya Balan) grow up to develop a very close and intimate understanding, and Lolita even helps to co-compose Shekhar’s music. But problems of jealousy arise when Shekhar’s father tries to get him married off to a rich girl and Girish (Sanjay Dutt) enters the frame. But surprisingly the ending is a happy one. All’s well that ends well.

The movie length is just 2 hours and 7 minutes but the few needless songs make it feel longer. The story is adapted to be set in the 1960’s but a few clothes are taken straight from modern day: did women wear short suits back in the 1960’s? I don’t think so. And Shekhar is showing wearing modern day sun shades and turtleneck sweaters. I know these are minor points but they stick out. The acting of all the main leads is very good with the only exception being the role of Shekhar’s mother.

Anyway much better than a typical Bollywood movie but not a perfect one though.

2) Les Choristes (The Chorus, directed by Christophe Barratier): Rating 7/10

The biggest problem with this movie is something which is not the movie’s fault – the story of a new teacher bringing the best out of an unmanageable bunch of kids has been used so much in Hollywood that it looks stale, even if the movie is in French. A teacher takes up a job in a boarding school where all the children are ill-disciplined and unruly. The school principle believes in an action-reaction method, meaning for every student’s violent action, there should be an equally violent reaction in return. The new teacher, Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) notices that this action-reaction approach will never solve the situation so he tries to reason with the students. He discovers that most students in his class have a talent for singing. So he takes up music again (he had vowed to forget music) to help find a way to better the students. The movie is very good on all fronts: acting, directing, music, editing, and cinematography. But the story didn’t appeal too much and after a while, it gets boring.

End of June viewings

Near the end of month, I came across quite a few Shaw Brothers movies. Yes it was a time to return to those classics which have shaped modern Hong Kong Kung-Fu and even Tarantino movies.

1) The Lady Professional (directed by Akinori Matsuo): Rating 7/10

Ge Tianli (played by Lily Ho) is a café owner by day and an assassin by night. On one of her assignments she is recognized, and instead of turning her over to the police, the man decides to blackmail her on a monthly basis. One day, the blackmailer proposes a way out for Ge Tinali. In order to be free, Ge Tianli has to kill a police protected witness (a former gangster). When she kills her target, Ge Tianli escapes from her sabotaged car meant to make her death look like an accident. From then on, she goes after the people who tried to kill her.

2) The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978 movie directed by Chia-Liang Liu): Rating 9/10

Vintage shaolin kung-fu movie! A man wants to learn the shaolin way to save his fellow people from oppression. She he sneaks into the shaolin temple and pleads with the monks to provide him the secrets of shaolin. What follows is the core of the movie – the intense kung fu training, the Buddhist discipline, etc are just brilliant to watch. It is easy to see how this movie has influenced decades of kung fu movies. And the meaning of the movie title – there are only 35 chambers of Shaolin training. But the new apprentice wants to create a 36th chamber which the average layman can learn without having to undergo years of training.

3) The One-Armed Swordsman (1967 movie directed by Cheh Chang): Rating 7/10

A treat! As aspiring swordsman apprentice loses his right arm with his teacher’s daughter cuts it off in a bout of anger. He leaves everything behind to lead a simple life in the village. In the village, he is taken care by a woman who encourages him to use his disability as his advantage. And the one armed swordsman is born.

4) My Young Auntie (1981 movie directed by Chia-Liang Liu): Rating 7/10

A comical kung fu movie! An aging old man is worried that his estate will be taken over by greedy men (3rd cousins) as he has no heirs. So the man proposes a marriage his servant’s daughter so that she can inherit his money and pass it on his 4th cousin. The servant’s daughter is very young and hence the title – she is the young auntie for the 4th cousin. The 4th cousin along with the young auntie have to fend off the 3rd cousin who is upset at not getting any of the property/estate.

Assorted Foreign Movies:

1) Copacabana (2001 movie directed by Carla Camurati): Rating 6.5/10

A different side of Brazil is shown in this movie – the elderly people of Brazil are showcased for a change. Moments before his death, 90 year old Alberto recalls the tender moments of his life and that of the Copacabana beach. The movie moves back and forth in time from the present to the past. Alberto drifts on the sidewalks of the beach talking and chatting with his friends, all of whom have their own stories. The movie shows the elderly people of Brazil and their life. Hardly a single young person is seen strutting along the beach. However, the biggest problem is that all these stories are told in a rather dull manner which causes the viewer to lose interest. A positive aspect is the catchy title song, which lingers in one’s mind long after the movie is over.

2) Border Line (2002 movie directed by Sang-il Lee): Rating 7/10

A tale of interleaving stories set against the backdrop of a changing urban Japan. A young teenager is struck by a taxi cab. The Taxi driver is drunk and quite a colorful person. He assumes responsibility for the teenage and plans to drive the kid home. The only snag is that the boy’s home is miles and miles away. So the taxi driver and the boy head on a road trip. Another story is of a business man who has his money stolen by his partner and close friend. The business man has connections to the Yakuza and needs to get the money back. The third story is about a housewife whose husband has left her and a young son because he was fired from his job and can’t face the humiliation of bring unemployed. The housewife has to work extra shifts just to make ends meet. These three stories intersect in a slow paced movie. If the movie was shortened from its 2 hour length to maybe 90 minutes, it would have been far more interesting.

Worth a watch though.

3) Fate Come Noi (Just Do It, 2001 movie directed by Francesco Apolloni): Rating 6/10

A very average movie which feels more suited for television rather than cinema. A pair of friends kill time in the summer talking about soccer, women and basically driving around Rome. One of the boys develops a friendship with a young girl and she teaches him a thing or two about life – for example, she teaches him the benefits of reading literature.

The story starts again and that is a good thing.

Two very different movies turned out to be gems – one a Hollywood summer movie, and the other a small budget Canadian flick.

1) Batman Begins (Directed by Christopher Nolan): Rating 10/10

WOW. Amazing! I have to admit, I was bowled over. I didn’t have too many expectations before hand but this one is just perfect. Nolan who hit it big back in 2000 with Memeto, a small budget movie with only a handful of actors, has assembled a collection of major stars and has used each actor appropriately. Christian Bale is perfectly cast as Batman/Bruce Wayne and really brings the role alive. When he dons the bat suit, he does sound a bit like Michael Keaton (original Batman) but he lets his anger resonant through. Then there’s Michael Caine (Alfred), Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson (what a role), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), Tom Wilkinson and Ken Watanabe. To his credit, Nolan also manages to extract a solid performance out of Katie Holmes who plays a District Attorney and Batman’s love interest.

The movie shows aspects of Batman’s lives that other movies have never touched upon – his fear of bats, how Bruce Wayne overcame his fear, how the Wayne family made its fortune, etc. Now, there have been some different interpretations made about the story but they all fit perfectly in the movie. For example, the movie starts off with Bruce Wayne hiding in a Far Eastern Prison camp. He is there by choice – he wants to study the criminal mind and so he wandered from Asian country to country to find his answers. These are story topics only addressed in the later version of the Batman comics.

Overall, the movie shows the darkness that is Gotham. Once again, WOW!

2) The Dark Hours (Directed by Paul Fox): Rating 9/10

An excellent Canadian thriller! The majority of the movie takes place in an isolated cabin located in the middle of snow land. We get to see a version of the truth, but in reality, the story is not as it seems. Is it real? Is it fake memory? The movie is edited very well and manages to splice enough clues along. But the end is very open ended but leaves the entire movie open for interpretation. Hopefully, this movie gets the attention it deserves.

Also some Hollywood movies to pass along as well!

3) In Good Company (Directed by Paul Weitz): Rating 8/10

Only in today’s North American corporate age can you have a 26 year with no practical experience become the boss of a 51 year old with decades of experience. The Weitz brothers tackle the topic of modern evil corporate companies in this light hearted romantic comedy. The Weitz brothers have been evolving with each movie. They started back in 1999 with the hilarious American Pie, a movie about young horny teenagers. Then they switched gears to portray the live of a single male in About a Boy. Now they tackle the life of a married man (Dennis Quaid) who has a teenager daughter (Scarlett Johansson). The only negative for this movie is that is a bit long.

4) After the Sunset (Directed by Brett Ratner): Rating 5/10

This is a terribly boring movie with too many script loop holes. Pierce Brosnan is playing the same role as he did in the Thomas Crown Affair. The only difference is that instead of robbing paintings for fun, he robs diamonds. Salma Hayek struts around wearing skimpy clothes and gets annoying after a while. Woody Harrelson tries to play the smart-ass cop but he does such a poor job of it (Denis Leary did a great job with this role in Thomas Crown). And Don Cheadle is there just to make up the numbers. The only positive is the charming accent of Naomie Harris who plays the local island cop.

La Cinema: Film festivals and Assorted flicks

The annual Waterton French Film festival had an interesting line up. On tap was Tony Gatlif’s excellent Exiles, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement, the 2005 oscar nominated Chorus and a collection of Quebec movies. I was only able to watch two Quebec movies but they both turned out to be excellent choices.

1) Memories Affectives (Directed by Francis Leclerc): Rating 9/10

Another alternate title for this movie is ‘Looking for Alexander’. This movie won three major awards at the 2005 Canadian movie awards and rightly so. It is a very well done movie. Roy Dupuis plays Alexandre Tourneur, a man who suddenly awakens from a long term coma. Tourneur is declared physically dead and when someone pulls the plug on his life support system, it suddenly brings him back to life. He has no idea who he is or anything about his past. His wife, who was on the verge of leaving him, suddenly changes her mind and starts feeding false memories to her husband. Tourneur’s daughter has another version for her father and he tries to believe her version of their relationship as well. In the meantime, a police inspector is trying to investigate the incident which led to Tourneur’s accidental coma. As Tourneur tries to piece his life together, he finds out some very interesting things about this past. The best part of the movie is that we arrive to the conclusion at the same time as Tourneur does. And not everything is answered in the end, we actually have to figure some things out for ourself.

An excellent movie and the best part, it is MADE in Canada.

2) Camping Sauvage (Directed by Andre Ducharme, Guy Lepage, Sylvain Roy): Rating 8/10

Guy Lepage was in attendance to present this movie. This is a movie packed with typical Quebecois humour and that means it might not go down too well with everyone. So either one will love this movie or find it pointless. I for one, loved it.

Pierre-Louis (Guy Lepage) plays a strict by the rules stock broker who can never resist correcting someone’s grammar or proper French pronunciation. One day he witnesses a hit and run accident – a hummer runs over a pedestrian and drives off. Pierre-Louis immediately calls the police on his cell phone. As it turns out his anonymous call to the police is not so anonymous. The arrested hit-and-run person finds out who put him in jail and goes out looking for revenge. Pierre-Louis’s car is blown up and well that strikes fear in him. The police offer to give him a different identity as part of their witness protection program. In his disguise, Pierre-Louis is sent to live in a trailer park. But the trailer park is no ordinary place either. A series of hilarious characters live there and well, Pierre-Louis is not very safe. The park is located next to a biker gang hideout and the hit-and-run perpetrator was the head of a biker gang himself.

Documentaries:

1) Based on a True Story (International doc directed by Walter Stokman):

Rating: 7/10

This is a directory made about the real incident which inspired the 1975 movie, Dog Day Afternoon. The Sidney Lumet directed movie starred Al Pacino Sonny ‘Dog’ Wortzik, a man who had robbed a bank to pay for his lover’s sex change operation. The entire bank robbery turned into a 12-14 hour hostage crisis and a media fiasco. But was the Hollywood version the true story? This is the question that Dutch film-maker Walter Stokman set out to answer when he wanted to make his movie. However, Stokman’s task is made difficult because the real Sonny is not easy to work with. Sonny wants a lot of money for his version of the truth and he threatens and even abuses Stokman along the process. Stokman pieces an interesting movie with clips from the Hollywood flick, real media footage of the incident, Sonny’s phone calls talking of the incident and interviews with some of the hostages/police officers involved.

2) Janela Da Alma (English Translation, Window of the soul): Rating 7/10

Joao Jardim and Walter Carvalho have made a very off beat documentary which tries to ask and answer questions about reality, perception, images, and along the way leave the viewer with more questions and some eye opening views. There are interviews with a very learned group of people: Jose Saramago offers his views about reality and how he was inspired to write his famous novel, ‘Blindness’; Film-makers Wim Wenders and Agnes Varda are also interviewed extensively.

Foreign Flicks:

1) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972 movie directed by Luis Bunuel):

Rating 7/10

A movie about nothing. Ok, not really. A movie about dreams and fantasies and nothing else. A set of friends want to have a dinner party but for one reason or another all their attempts at dinner are thwarted by them waking up from a dream or having their dinner interrupted by an incident involving death. After some time, it is quite easy for the viewer to figure out which sequence is a dream, which is a fantasy and what is ‘real’. Along the way are elements from other Bunuel movies – the hint of terrorism lurking around every corner, characters playing multiple roles and changing identities. It is a fairly interesting movie.

2) Contempt (1963 movie directed by Jean-Luc Godard): Rating 7/10

A very talented cast grace this movie – Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Fritz Lang to name just a few. Loosely based on Albert Moravia’s book, it is an abstract movie which is to be enjoyed on a warm summer day. I didn’t totally enjoy every frame but it was worth seeing.

Hollywood:

1) Mr. and Mrs. Smith: Rating 7.5/10

Angelina Jolie steals this movie, whereas Brad Pitt recycles his character from Ocean’s 11 and The Mexican. The dialogue is interesting along with the story line -- two spies married to each other yet are unaware of each other’s identities. What sinks this movie is the last 20 minutes of action. Ofcourse, since it is a summer movie, action is a requirement. But if all that action was stripped away, it would be a much better movie. Alternatively, if all the dialogue was taken away, then we could have had a loud annoying movie.

2) Spanglish (Directed by James L. Brooks): Rating 7/10

Only if the movie was not so long, it might have been much better. It is a interesting movie, clichéd as it may be, but not a bad watch. Another tame quiet role for Adam Sandler and an English debut for the charming Paz Vega (Sex and Lucia). In a nutshell: a cultural coming of age meshed with troubled American household story. The weakest part is the overall structure of the movie – that the entire story is an actual essay submission to Princeton. Oh and Tea Leoni’s role as Sandler’s wife is a bit drab.

Bollywood:

1) Kaal (Directed by a former factory and sugar production): Rating 4/10

The only reason this movie does not get a zero rating is because of the technical merits. The movie is shot neatly and the editing is good. But the acting is terrible, the script pathetic and the direction non-existent. This is shameful even by Bollywood standards.

2) D (another Ram Gopal Varma factory movie): Rating ?

Very poorly scripted and laughable even by the factory movie standards. Calling this movie a prequel to ‘Company’ is a joke.

International Flair

1) The Sea Inside (directed by Alejandro Amenabar): Rating 8/10

No matter what movie Amenabar makes in the future, I will duly watch his work. Why? Because a man who can make conceive such movies as Thesis, Open Your Eyes and The Others is no ordinary film-maker. With The Sea Inside, Amenabar changes gears and goes for a dramatic movie as opposed to a thriller. But as Amenabar mentions in the DVD his fourth movie still contains the notion of death, like his previous three movies. This time however, it is a question of having the right to die – Euthanasia. The movie is based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a man who lost the use of his limbs during a swimming accident at the age of 19. Since then, Ramon has wanted to die. The movie picks up 26 years after that incident and Ramon still persists in ending his life. His requests are constantly denied by the courts. So finally, he hires a lawyer who has a physical disability hoping that she can help him, that she can understand his frustration of being bed-ridden and not being able to move.

The movie contains engaging performances by all the actors; Javier Bardem (as Ramon) plays his role wonderfully. The cinematography is just excellent, especially the camera work when Ramon imagines himself flying through the Galician skies. My only complaint is that the movie was 20 minutes longer than it should be. This is a fact that both writers (Amenabar and Mateo Gill) acknowledge in their interviews as well. But both felt that this movie had to be this long to show all the aspects of Ramon’s life – his writing, his accident, the women in his life, his daily struggle with the authorities, etc. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting movie which highlights a sensitive topic – assisted suicide.

2) Days of Being Wild (1991 movie directed by Kar-Wai Wong): Rating 7/10

Unlike Wong Kar-Wai’s other movies (Chunking Express, In the Mood for Love), I was not bowled over by this effort. Sure it is a simple story told at a leisurely pace but I just didn’t find it interesting enough. The story starts off with a bored young man (Leslie Cheung) stopping by a food/drink stand. The young man, Yuddy, takes a liking to the girl working there (Su Lizhen, played by Maggie Cheung). Yuddy duly asks her out, and after sleeping with her, dumps her. That is how Yuddy is -- he moves from one woman to another. Afterwards, he goes to threaten his mother’s boyfriend (over a pointless pretext) and picks a fight with him. While smashing stuff at the club, he asks the by standing exotic dancer out. When Su Lizhen discovers Yuddy’s affair, she is dejected and leaves him. Andy Lau plays a police officer who takes a liking to Su Lizhen and tries to console her after witnessing Yuddy’s behavior. Eventually Yuddy tires of the exotic dancer and leaves her as well. She is distraught and finds it hard to come to terms. In the meantime, Yuddy decides to leave to the Philippines where his anger gets him into trouble with some gangsters. What follows are sequences that I felt could have been left on the editing table.

On the plus sides, the movie has a soothing background score with good mood cinematography (rainy streets, dreary rooms, picturesque Philippines landscape, etc).

3) House of Fury (directed by Stephen Fung): Rating 8/10

Spy Kids meets Kung-Fu. A retired secret agent tries to keep a low profile by running a medical centre. He has spent his life raising his kids by telling them stories of his secret agent days, his adventurous exploits. When the kids were younger, they believed his stories. But after their mother passed away, the kids just considered their father’s tales as make-believe and nonsense. Now in their teens, the kids can’t stand their father – they find him annoying. One day, the father disappears. When his son goes to his father’s office, he finds everything broken. He stumbles into his father’s secret office where he sees proof of his father’s secret agent days. Everything starts to make sense now to the son. All those years of martial art training by his father, his father’s advice, etc seem to fall into place. When the son goes to tell his sister about all this, he finds that she is being attacked. The two kids manage to escape and start to go about finding the truth. Where is their father? Why are people after them? What follows is an entertaining action movie where the two kids (the son is played by Director Stephen Fung) manage to fight their way to the truth.

June happennings

Movies and Documentaries:

Before I get to the few documentaries I have recently seen, let’s get some of the commercial flicks out of the way.

1) National Treasure (2004): Rating 6/10

This movie feels like a rip off of the ‘Da Vinci Code’ with the only difference being that the story is set in USA with a few elements of American history tied together. Also, tied in the story thread are elements of Knights Templar and the Free Masons. The result: another typical commercial flick. For all the potential, the movie screws up on its own accord. Firstly, the start of the movie is terribly boring. In fact, the first 30 minutes or so are wasteful and not at all interesting. Secondly, Nicolas Cage is wrongly cast for his role as Treasure Hunter. He looks bored and un-interested for most of the movie. Thirdly, Diane Kruger is wrongly cast as well. But after the first 30 minutes, the movie settles into a fairly entertaining story with the only problem being that the story feels like an episode of the Amazing Race.

2) Meet the Fockers: Rating 5/10

I was never a fan of the original ‘Meet the Parents’ and this movie does not add anything to the series. Maybe the only positive is that Ben Stiller’s parents are interesting characters played by Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand (Note: The parents do feel like clones of Greg’s parents in ‘Dharma and Greg’). Roberto De Niro acts just like he did in the first movie, maybe because he does not have any different or interesting material to work on. Throughout the movie, you just feel sorry for Ben Stiller as it is obvious things will keep getting worse for him before they get better.

3) Victory (1981 movie directed by John Huston): Rating a solid 8/10

I had never heard of this movie. And when I saw the names on the cover, I felt it merited a seeing. The names were ‘Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Max Von Sydow and Pele’. It was obvious this was a soccer movie with Pele, Bobby Moore and Osvaldo Ardiles credited on the back cover. The story revolves around a ‘friendly’ soccer game between the German National team and a team of captured British Allied Prisoners of War in 1942. Max Von Sydow (who plays a German General, Karl Von Steiner) spots Colby (Caine) teaching soccer for the captured prisoners. Since Steiner was a former soccer player for the German National team, he recognizes Colby as a former professional player (Colby played for West Ham and England). He proposes a soccer game between Colby’s students and a collection of German soldiers/captains. After negotiating for extra food rations and better sports equipment, Colby agrees. When news of the games reaches the German high administration, they decide to use the game as a means of propaganda. The stakes are raised with the German National team playing not just against Colby’s boys but an allied World team of British colonies. The game would be held in Paris. The British hate the idea of the game, and decide to hatch a plan to let the entire team escape – they feel this is the only way they can make the Germans look bad.

What is interesting about this movie is that real soccer players were used, with the exception of Caine and Stallone. The soccer game footage is shot very well and the match is quite interesting. The movie came long before ‘Lagaan’ or other sport movies of the 1990’s. And Pele was a joy to watch.

Documentaries:

It is that time of the year again when documentaries flood the festival circuits. Here are some notable ones that I have been fortunate to have seen:

1) The Future of Food (Directed by Deborah Koons): Rating 9/10

This is chilling documentary about the abuse of genetically engineered foods and spray chemicals used by some of the major food corporations. Also shown are the illegal and stupid methods that some corporations are using to patent seeds, food genes and even food itself. A must see movie. The movie is along the lines of ‘The Corporation’ and ‘Super Size Me’ but it is much more relevant because it tackles the topic of everyday common food, whose quality is increasingly being tarnished by some companies.

2) Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land (Directed by Sut Jhally and Bathsheba Ratzkoff): Rating 7.5/10

This is an interesting movie which outlines the methods and techniques used by the American Media to portray a one-sided account of the Middle East conflict. The movie is not as interesting as ‘Check Point’ and ‘Control Room’ but it puts forward a lot of interesting ideas. The scenes which show Israel’s plan of establishing settlements in the West Bank in strategic locations are very interesting and eye opening indeed.

3) The Letter: An American Town and the Somali Invasion (Directed by Ziad Hamzeh): Rating 8/10

What happens when a bunch of Somali refugees are dumped into a quiet all white American town? A timer starts and the tension keeps building until something explodes. In this case, a tragic situation is averted but not before the entire town and even the entire country is dragged into a mess perpetuated by a single incorrect and racist letter written by the town’s mayor.

4) Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession (Directed by Alexandra Cassavetes): Rating 9/10

A movie for all movie lovers! I had no idea what Z Channel was before I saw this movie. And after watching this movie how I wish we had such a great channel in this day and age. A channel dedicated to only showing foreign, independent and even commercial movies rejected by the main-stream audiences. A channel dedicated to providing information about film makers, genres and showcasing great actors.

This documentary talks about the famous Z channel and its programming chief, Jerry Harvey, who brought the best in cinema to households in L.A. Not every region in L.A got this pay cable channel but those that got it, cherished it. The movie has notable interviews with film-makers and critics (Robert Altman, Jim Jarmusch, Alexander Payne, Tarantino to name a few) and includes clips from some long forgotten gems of cinema.

Real Cinema

It has been a while since my last update and I have seen some good flicks in the last few weeks. But I want to get the commercial movies out of the way, and none are more commercial than Episode III.

1) Star Wars, Episode III: Rating 8/10

Well I held out for 13 days before I succumbed to the final episode. And I was pleasantly surprised. The movie is miles better than Episode I and Episode II. No doubt about it. The movie does a great job of tying up all the story pieces and makes it much more enjoyable to watch Episode 4, 5 & 6. Once again, the biggest weakness in the movie is the terrible dialogue. Also, the love story is so amateur that it is embarrassing. I really wish Lucas would have sub-contracted the dialogues and love story to someone else, but this is his story and his project. So he can do as he pleases. The story is complete now, finally. Will we have ever see Episodes 7, 8 & 9? Time will tell.

2) The Interpreter (directed by Sydney Pollack): Rating 8/10

It was a rainy night. There was no decent movie playing anywhere in the city. But I had a feeling a movie with Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman and Catherine Keener couldn’t be all that bad, could it? Well I am glad to know I was not wrong. The movie is not bad at all. In fact, it is a very good movie. Well made and quite absorbing. The story starts off in the fictitious African country of Matobo. A jeep of three men head off to a soccer stadium for a meeting. One camera man stays behind and the other two enter the stadium. But the two don’t make it out alive. The movie then picks up in New York, where the crust of the action takes place. The important scenes of the movie are shot on location at the U.N headquarters, and those scenes give the movie its authenticity. Nicole Kidman is an interpreter working at the UN. One night she over-hears an assassination plot to kill the head of Matobo who will be visiting the UN in a few days time. Since only few people know this language, so what are the chances that the only person in the UN who can understand this language overhears such a plot? That is the FBI’s problem when they come to investigate Kidman’s confession. And the case takes on an interesting twist when Kidman’s past reveals her hatred for Matobo’s leadership.

The only problem with the movie was some of the contrived Hollywood scenes regarding some of the movie’s main action points. Also, Sean Penn’s character was a bit too clichéd – once again he played a sulking brooding man. And there were a few scenes where Kidman’s accent changed quite a bit. One good thing about the movie is that it is not reduced to a love story and Kidman’s relationship with Penn’s characters is very natural and compassionate. The movie also does an excellent job of taking African and current Middle Eastern politics and wrapping it around a U.N setting. Worth seeing.

3) Chunking Express (directed by Wai-Kar Wong): Rating a very solid 9/10

Long before ‘In the Mood for Love’ and ‘2046’ was Chunking Express. And when this sweet movie came out, it won rave reviews (especially from Quentin Tarantino). The movie has two separate stories connected by a loose thread – the take out place where not only quality food is served but dreams are dished out as well. The first segment involves an inspector who has broken up with his girlfriend. He is lonely and miserable, so when he misses a blond femme fatale, he falls for her. The femme fatale is a self-described cautious person, who always wears a raincoat (just in case it might rain) and sunglasses (just in case it might be sunny) while donning a blond wig. She runs a drug operations using Pakistani immigrants as drug mules. She has a one night stand with the inspector and leaves him in the morning. Disappointed, the inspector heads to his favourite take out place. He brushes against a new employee there but he passes on the chance to ask her out. Instead, the new employee falls for another inspector. Both stories have a prominent song which plays continuously and sets the mood for each story.

A simple yet beautiful movie! And one can see the seeds of ‘In the Mood for Love’ and ‘2046’ in here.

4) Bad Education (directed by Pedor Almodovar): Rating a perfect 10/10

I am big fan of any movie by Almodovar. But I was told by a lot of people that Bad Education misses the mark. It is too much to endure and hard to sit through. Maybe in a theatre it is. My verdict on this movie: Perfect, Vintage, and just magnificent. I saw the movie without knowing the story. And that is the best way to watch this movie. So I won’t give anything away.

5) Stella (1955 movie directed by Michael Cacoyannis): Rating 4/10

Supposed to a classic movie but maybe some movies lose their impact with time. And so it is with this one. I just didn’t find anything enjoyable about this one. The end is quite interesting but I was bored long before that.

6) Stachka (English title ‘Strike’, 1925 movie directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein)

Rating: Interesting watch.

This is a classic movie in a lot of ways, not only regarding when it was made but the different techniques used. Cinema was definitely much more creative in the initial days when directors were experimenting and learning to use their new found tool of movie making. The movie’s story involves around a Russian factory revolution – workers are plotting to strike and the owners hire spies to foil the workers plan. If Eisenstein would be making movies today, then we would be truly lucky.

7) Gothika (Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz): Rating 6/10

Kassovitz has been responsible for directing powerful movies like Crimson Rivers and Hate (La Haine) and starring in hit movies like Amelie. But for some reason, I had not seen Gothika when it came out in 2003. Seeing it two years later, I can safely say that there was nothing I had missed in not having watched this movie. It is shot well but I just wished the story had more depth and did not go for the obvious angle that run of the mill Hollywood flicks take.

The movie starts out with Halle Berry listening to her patient, Penelope Cruz in the mental asylum. Cruz claims that the devil raped her, but Berry does not believe her. Driving home on that rainy night, Berry sees a girl standing in the middle of the road. She swerves to avoid hitting her and crashes her girl. When she gets back to the road, she inquires to see if the girl is all right. But the badly scarred girl suddenly bursts into flames. And just then Berry wakes up, only to find herself as a prisoner in that same mental asylum. How did she get there? It is an interesting setup but as the movie progresses, it just gets worse and worse. And the ending is very disappointing.