Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

Stoic Takata (Ken Takakura), a coastal Japanese fisherman, has been estranged from his son Kenichi for decades. The estrangement is the father's deepest regret which he knows not how to face. A terminal illness in his son forces him to try and close the wide open chasm. The only tool he has is a tape handed to him by his son's wife. Soon he finds himself traveling thousands of miles to China hoping to understand his son and mend the relationship.

After a brief disastrous detour with "House of Flying Daggers", Yimou Zhang returns to his melodramatic best. Reminiscent of his past films like "To Live" and "Not One Less", the focus of his lens is again on rural China, while gently weaving the themes of community and family. The striking difference here though is the silent melancholy of Takakura which exposes his usual melodrama in a different light.

Rating: * * *

Calcutta Mail

Anil Kapoor land up in Calcutta trying to play the mysterious man looking for someone. He meets Rani Mukherjee who tries to play the mysterious damsel in distress. 140 minutes of pure crap. Find it hard to believe that the same Sudhir Mishra who directed Chameli and Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi was also behind this film.

Rating: *

Mutual Appreciation

Young wannabe rock 'n' roller, Alan Peoples (Justin Rice), moves to NYC to explore his music career. A supposed comedy that involves 20 year olds sitting around having mind numbing conversations about nothing.

Rating: +

Rebels of the Neon God

Dispirited Taiwanese youth flit across the screen. Each rebels in their own way. Ah Tze (Chao-jung Chen), a petty thief walks his life in a disconnected haze. The connection that comes his way in the form of Ah Kuei (Yu-Wen Wang) only scares him. Hsio Kang (Kang-sheng Lee), a dispirited student, rebels against his father by walking out on school. These disparate lives soon form a closed circuit by a random act of violence by Tze against Kang's father in Ming-liang Tsai's first film. Long shots with minimal dialogs succinctly captures the spirit of the youth in the movie conveying their forlorn mood and inner turmoil.

Rating: * * +

2 Days in Paris

Another of those romantic Julie Delpy films except in this she not only acts but directs, writes the script and music plus produce it. Marion (Julie Delpy) is on the last leg of a vacation which she and her boyfriend Jack (Adam Goldberg) are spending in her native Paris. Jack, a typical American, finds himself being overwhelmed by her parents and the city itself. But what really gets his goat is the laundry list of Marion's Parisian ex-lovers he keeps running into. A film I would have appreciated a decade ago.

Rating: * *

Prom Night

A thriller that splits itself into two halves. The first part involves teenage girls being complimented on looking good. The second shows a psycho attempting to annihilate a small town in US with a pen knife in order to capture a teenybopper.

A film like this usually assaults your eyes when you decide to be nice and take a teenager out for a movie. Like the old man in Ronin said... At the end of the day we are likely to be punished for our kindnesses.

Rating: +

Pink Floyd: The Making of 'The Dark Side of the Moon'

The Dark Side album was a landmark in the rock music road. This documentary guides us through the making of every song with insights from the music wizards who were Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, the wailing women and hosts of others. A must for every Floyd fan who has grown (is growing) up listening to its timeless sound.

PS: It was heartening to note that a fellow Mallu / Indian, Bhaskar Menonm, chairman of Capitol Records was instrumental in the US release of the album. Yes we rule!!!

Rating: * * *

Shintaro Katsu's Zatoichi

The final Zatoichi film from Shintarô Katsu again shows the blind masseur wandering around Japan. As usual it contains blindingly fast sword fights, beautiful women and lots of blood. Each frame of the film is well constructed and the atmosphere is brilliant. But Katsu makes an attempt at introducing an intricate plot unlike other Zatoichi flicks and in there lies the undoing of the movie.

Rating: * +

Moonlight

The day Claire (Laurien Van den Broeck) hits puberty is also the day she finds a young middle eastern boy (Hunter Bussemaker) in a pool of blood in her backyard. As she slowly nurses him back to health, she finds herself a tad attracted to the silent lad. Not having a common language, gestures make up for the silence. The boy is a drug mule and his scent is soon picked up by his dealers causing him and Claire to make a run for it.

The film alternates between riveting and disturbing as it winds way down on a unremarkable path. The only remarkable feature being the mature acting from the young leads and it is a wonder that they came out psychologically unscathed from it.

Rating: * +

Factotum

It's just a slow day
Moving into a slow night
It doesn't matter
It doesn't matter what you do

Henry Chinaski (Matt Dillon) drifts from job to job in an alcoholic storm. The only anchor for him is his writing. The rest is all inconsequential. Based on the stories of Charles Bukowski, the film shows you a side of Matt Dillon that has never been seen before.

Rating: * * * *
PS: The film strangely resonates with the way I feel at this moment...

My Blueberry Nights

Wong Kar-wai's first English feature burns, splutters and slowly dies out. With his regular ingredients of leading men who smoke, mysterious women, fractured relationships, blossoming love and cops; the featured strained to be ethereal, beautiful and melancholic but something was lost in translation.

The casting was poor and the acting was abysmal other than for David Strathairn. The music was listless in spite of the presence of Ry Cooder or rather his absence. But what was missed the most were the saturated hues of Christopher Doyle and that melancholic streak which usually graces all of Kar-wai's flicks.

Rating: * +

Trouble with Men + Women

The film starts with a man wallowing in the misery of a break up with his girlfriend of six years. The rest of the flick is about the messy aftermath. Thankfully it was short.

Rating: * +