Recent films:

Baaz - directed by Guru Dutt, this one is an unconventional swashbuckler. Geeta Dutt plays a girl who ends up as the leader of a band of pirates sinking Portugese ships off the Malabar coast as an act of rebellion against the foreign rule personified by the evil Fernando (played by the suave KN Singh). Guru Dutt as the prince incognito flirts with the pirate queen. The movie is pacy and fun, and the sexual tension between the lead pair is palpable.

Also saw Aakhri Cheekh, a decidedly second-rung Ramsay schlock flick. A monster vows vengeance on a group of buddies for having thwarted his conquest of un-virginal virgins. Some interesting riffs like the body-hopping from The Thing, but the production is quite sub-par (even given the low budgets and technical sloppiness of Ramsay movies in general), and worth watching only if you really must see every passable entry in the Bollywood Horror category.

saw The 400 Blows over the weekend. A great film, beautifully photographed , a story well told with lot of nostalgia. Loved it.

Not had the chance to watch too many movies of late, but these two in the last two days.

Subramaniapuram, is this 2008 movie by a debutant that pretty accurately portrays the early 80s TN (Madurai to be specific) with a lot of cool details and references. But this is at the end of the day like polishing a turd - turd in this case being movies about rowdy unemployed fellows getting trapped in the underworld. They make almost every movie in Tamil and Kannada about this. Too much unemployed rowdies and drunken tappankoothu in the first half kill it basically. But on the good side, the second half has got a couple of nice twists and the movie ends well.

Unnaipol Oruvan has been pimped all over tamil cable network coupled with Kamal's 50 years in the industry pimpage, so this movie is doing rather well for a 110 min no-songer. The movie looks good, shot really well, tight execution except for a couple of (long) scenes (the final talk from Kamal's character, and the cheesy scene with the terrorists and the two cool cops). Good cast, Mohanlal as expected was flawless, and Kamal was susprisingly under control except for his strange English accent (It's the kind of an accent a typical Indian guy would put on if he has to talk to a whitey). Nicely done overall, and worth a watch on the big screen. May be I'll watch the hindi source some time.

I've also used up my parenthesis quota for the week. Good night.

Srikanth Panaman wrote:

Subramaniapuram, is this 2008 movie by a debutant that pretty accurately portrays the early 80s TN (Madurai to be specific) with a lot of cool details and references. But this is at the end of the day like polishing a turd - turd in this case being movies about rowdy unemployed fellows getting trapped in the underworld. They make almost every movie in Tamil and Kannada about this. Too much unemployed rowdies and drunken tappankoothu in the first half kill it basically. But on the good side, the second half has got a couple of nice twists and the movie ends well.


As is my wont with movies, i started watching Subramanyapuram close to midway and thus, lost some part of the plot. The Madurai dialect wasn't helping either. Nonetheless, from what little i watched, i thought it was quite interesting overall.

Maybe my exposure to tamil movies is quite minimal but i thought this one was slightly better than usual, particularly the production values where they gave great attention to little details.

Panaman, get a hold of Naan Kadavul. I'd like to know how it strikes you.

Yes, this was way better than the usual - because I just saw their weekly "top 10" and it is all garbage. Both the movies I mentioned have their problems but are steps in the right direction. Good production values and good attention to details.

Edit: Ravi - Naan Kadavul, noted.

Am currently reading We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families by Philip Gourevitch. This is a shocking account of the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda which saw (an estimated) million Tutsis being eliminated. The book is absolutely fascinating and horrific and essentially shows how little global sympathy counts if you are unfortunate enough to live in a part of a world or belong to an ethnic group no one particularly cares for. The book examines not just the massacres themselves, but also gives a historical context to it all and the role colonial powers had in fostering hatred. Very unlike what I generally read, but damn good nevertheless.

DIE MONSTER DIE a later Karloff starrer loosely based on HP Lovecraft's 'The Colour Out Of Space'. Some wooden acting, uneven pacing and risible dialogue, but good atmosphere and Karloff is always worth watching. Only a 2 on 5 movie at most.

Saw Rob Zombie's The Haunted World of El Superbeasto and there really is no mystery as to why this went straight to DVD. This is like an exploitation movie fan's dream come true with everything from Zombie Nazis, big breasted women, some of the most potty mouthed dialogue I've ever heard in a cartoon and a hero who is basically like an extreme Johnny Bravo on crack. Lots of decent gags and overall a fun watch.

Saw Wes Anderson's debut movie Bottle Rocket featuring the brothers Wilson. Luke Wilson is a guy with no direction in life, having just checked out of a voluntary mental hospital where he'd been staying for a while. Owen Wilson is a highly driven underachiever who cajoles Luke and another friend into assisting him in petty crimes so that they can eventually earn enough respect and money to join forces with Mr.Henry (James Caan), whose crimes are allegedly not as petty as theirs. After getting practice by robbing Luke's own house, they hold up a bookstore and then take off to lie low for a while at a highway motel, where Luke becomes enamoured with Inez (cue bass riff), a Paraguayan maid. Then, things just get more complicated. Not Anderson's best movie, but it's got its fair share of laughs and it moves by pretty breezily without dwelling on any of the emotional moments.

District 9 was quite a blast, though they should have ideally pitched it as an action-comedy. The first half could have been more hilarious than it was if they put in a brass section:

"Doctor, my hand is infected is it bad is it...WODDAFOCK?!?"
(trumpet vibrato)

I couldn't help but view it as a half-spoof on the lines of Planet Terror, which is why the middle section - around which point the main character gets infected - was a bit of drag. But then, it picked up towards the end with some pretty solid action. So as an action-comedy, quite enjoyable if a bit too long. As sociological commentary on xenophobia or as science fiction, it's a little weak to say the least.

Saw and really liked The Hurt Locker, which I thought managed to rise above being just another 'US soldiers in Iraq' movie. Review could happen.

I finished watching the first season and about 10 episodes in the second season of Dexter over the last month (muchos gracias, Ravi san)and liked it quite a bit.

I've been wanting to watch The Wire on account of all the good things being said about it in here but I could only mooch Seasons 2 & 3 off Ravi and I'm still waiting to get back to Madras and a decent net connection to get the first season.

Dogma (Kevin Smith) - The cast looked quite promising, with two of my favourite comedians in the fray. The opening was quite terrific but halfway down, the film kind of fizzled out. This was a movie that could've gone amazingly right but turned out to be quite ordinary. I mean, you had George fucking Carlin playing a Cardinal and Chris Rock as the 13th apostle. You have to fuck up real bad to make this a clunker and Kevin Smith succeeded admirably in doing just that. Bleh.

My brother insisted that I watch District 9 and has passed on a rip to me. I remain skeptical, though.

It's the residual Fight Club fan in your brother that's making him do these things. don't.

sodom hussain wrote:
My brother insisted that I watch District 9 and has passed on a rip to me. I remain skeptical, though.
Watch it, so that your skepticism is replaced by...something else? And stop pretending you have action movie standards after swearing by Matthew Reilly!

Oh, and WHERE ARE THOSE REVIEWS, YOU BIYATCH! All the time you were engaging in that vow of silence, I was greatly impressed by your principles, but now it turns out you're a big phony. Keep posting, though.