Where the Wild Things are: A kid escaping into the fantasy world story nicely told by Spike Jonze. Recommended.

Star Wars: A New Hope
Re-watch. Fun enough, even if George Lucas' script and dialog suck balls.

Live & Let Die
Entertaining Bond flick with Bond v/s Da Boyz in Harlem. It was Roger Moore's first Bond outing so his square jaw isn't buried under the flab he later put on. Some hilarious camp dialog:
Black cab driver to Bond "For twenty bucks more, I'd take you to a Ku Klux Klan cookout!"

Ghost Writer is the kind of film I have been wanting to see in the theaters. A suspenseful thriller laced with dry Brit-humor that is smooth in its story telling. This is Polanski in Hitchcokian-mode both in form and style. A must watch.

Recently:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: The story's more meandering and not as tight as the other westerns I've seen, but quite a few of the setpieces are huge and damn impressive even by today's standards. Eastwood and Van Cleef have some major screen presence, that goes without saying. And Eli Wallach walks the line between earning our sympathy and our revulsion.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: Visually and narratively very engaging movie from Terry Gilliam. I also like how all the dealings with the devil are done very matter-of-factly, without any pomp or affected gravity. Heath Ledger's death during the course of filming the movie led to some interesting fix-it methods which actually fit quite well. Only complaint was that the end maybe felt a little too neat.

Cube: Cult low-budget movie in which people are thrown into a maze of cubes with no explanation. While the vein of survival horror continues throughout the movie, it also turns into a social commentary after the group stay together long enough to start getting pissed off with each other. Good watch, though the amateurish acting kind of pulls you out of it a bit.
(Edit: Apologies for typing 'action' where I meant 'acting'. The action is fine, the acting not so much.)

Where the Wild Things Are: Nice movie that shows that sometimes you might need to escape from escapism. Some parts came off somewhat fragmented, but I was sleepy at the time, so that might have had something to do with it. The big-ass Things playing it straight and human-like made for an interesting touch.

Capitalism: a Love Story A fairly interesting documentary on the recent financial crisis in America derailed by Michael Moore's penchant for idiotic gimmicks (like running around with a megaphone informing Bank of America that they were under citizen's arrest). He also seems to have gotten a lot more Godbothering with the onset of age. And the entire Lo We Elected Obama! And The VERY TAPS Of Our Houses Flowed With Milk and Honey, I Feasted As I Bathed and Became Fatter Yet conclusion is really stupid given Obama has done sweet FA ever since taking over.

The Office - Season 6 continues to be one of the most entertaining TV shows. This last episode was I daresay one of the best of an uneven season.

Rahul Chacko wrote:
Recently:

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: The story's more meandering and not as tight as the other westerns I've seen, but quite a few of the setpieces are huge and damn impressive even by today's standards. Eastwood and Van Cleef have some major screen presence, that goes without saying. And Eli Wallach walks the line between earning our sympathy and our revulsion.

.this still is the best western ever made for me!the soundtrack is the best and most memorable and has some fantastic haunting tunes which make the film even better!i think Eli Wallach's character is one which most of us connect to..there are saints,sinners and some who have had an ample share of both! ;)

Finished Neverwhere a great novel by Neil Gaiman on a typically wimpy unheroic hero's adventures in a parallel London. Very imaginative and losing out only to China Mieville's superlative Un Lun Dun, this is a fantastic read in its own right with a couple of the most memorable and psychotic villains ever. Loved this book.

Started on Fist Blood the novel by David Morrell that inspired Rambo. The novel does make the sherrif come across as less of an asshole and Rambo as more of an obstinate psycho kinda guy, embittered and broken by his Nam experiences. Morrell has a definite flair for writing action sequences and doesn't spend too much time masturbating over guns. This ought to be a good read.

HathyaSaiBaba wrote:
Started on Fist Blood the novel by David Morrell that inspired Rambo. The novel does make the sherrif come across as less of an asshole and Rambo as more of an obstinate psycho kinda guy, embittered and broken by his Nam experiences. Morrell has a definite flair for writing action sequences and doesn't spend too much time masturbating over guns. This ought to be a good read.

This is a great book. Along with Testament probably the only two absolutely essential books that Morell has written.

Started on Tim Powers' Declare which mixes cold war intrigue with magic and totally fucking rocks so far.

HathyaSaiBaba wrote:
Started on Fist Blood the novel by David Morrell
Fist Blood. huh? Makes it sound like a different genre of book than the movie.

Yeah, like pugilism.

Tintin and the Picaros

Over the last 3-4 days:

Kundun - A very realistic portrayal of the present Dalai Lama's ascension, from his childhood up till China invade Tibet. I liked this one a lot though it curiously leaves out Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian explorer, subject of Seven Years in Tibet.

The Midnight Meat Train was a snappy, 'clinical' horror movie based on a (Clive Barker's) Book of Blood short story. The bizarre ending, a characteristic trait of Barker's story telling, is the movie's redeeming point since most else is been there, done that material.

Caught The Hurt Locker and Where the Wild Things Are and both were very enjoyable.

Also saw this horrible movie called Sex Pot - it's a tough task to fuck up a movie where the story line revolves around pot that gets women horny.

Das Boot (Director's Cut)

Wolfgang Peternsen's lavishly mounted and convincing looking late WW2 submarine drama (based on true experiences) was originally made as a mini-series, so this 3 1/2 hour cut is still abridged, but long enough for me to see it in 2 sittings. Pretty good on the whole with a fair number of taut sequences where the German U-boat is looking for ships to destroy or escaping from the wrath of destroyers with depth charges. Good writing and credible performances help immensely too.

Food Inc.

A focused and incisive look at the policies of Giant corporations that control what you eat and how your food is grown/bred.

GxMx wrote:
this still is the best western ever made for me!the soundtrack is the best and most memorable and has some fantastic haunting tunes which make the film even better!i think Eli Wallach's character is one which most of us connect to..there are saints,sinners and some who have had an ample share of both! ;)
Yep, it's up there with the best. Also the only western I can think of which is set upon a theme (the US Civil War) that dwarfs the main plot. Great soundtrack too:




More recently:

The Men Who Stare At Goats: Quirky comedy featuring a quadet of A-list actors (Clooney, Spacey, Bridges and McGregor) that do a pretty good job bringing life to a fairly flimsy premise. Basic notion is that at some point in time, the US Army decided to work on developing a division of elite psychic troopers. Something like Jedis without the lightsabers but with all the philosophical self-actualisation spiel. I guess it's an inside joke how Clooney tries to teach Ewan 'Obi-Wan' McGregor the Jedi way. On an aside, is Iraq the Vegas of war movies now?

[REC]: Spanish Blair-Witch style horror movie, which is viewed from the point of view of a TV crew following a firefighter duo on the graveyard shift for a late night TV show. Yeah, in this case, graveyard shift is practically literal (substitute with a classier pun if you come up with one) and when the shit hits the fan, the terror levels just keep on escalating. Thanks to Ravi for the indirect recco.

Un Prophete: Winner of this year's phoren language film at the Auskers, apparently. Sort of like Shawshank Redemption minus most of the feelgood Hollywood-isms and in a modern setting with an added racial element. Difference is, while Andy in that movie toughs it out and makes the best of an unjust incarceration without losing his humanity, Prophet's protagonist Malik El Djabani has a slightly different path. Was pretty long at 2.5 hours but it moves on briskly. Don't understand the title of the movie and there's also one recurring element that I thought was quite unnecessary.

Le Samourai: Jean-Pierre Melville's slick hitman movie from 1967 earned a couple of direct homages - John Woo's The Killer and Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog, specifically - and influenced a bunch of other crime movies to come, no doubt. Alain Delon turns in a suave performance and the whole cat and mouse game is strung very tight.