Flavors

A mishmash of different flavors of desis living in the USA make up the cast of this hilarious movie. Almost every class of the NRI betheren is represented here. 

• The parents visiting their son who is getting married to an American. 
• The software engineers on the bench.
• A girl being shopped around for an arranged marriage.
• The newly minted husband who is laid off.
• The bored desi house wife.
• The power hungry Indian manger.

The director grinds them all together and comes up with a fairly palatable chutney.

Rating: * * +

Rosemary's Baby

Guy (John Cassavetes), a struggling actor, moves into a new apartment (the infamous Dakota building) with his beautiful wife Rosemary (Mia Farrow). As they settle in, an elderly couple living next door starts to engage them like most old people. But when Rosemary gets pregnant under very eerie circumstances, their neighbors start to take an eerie interest in their lives. Rosemary finds herself being fed strange concoctions and observes her husband's career getting magically jump started. Or maybe she is just having a bad case of hormones... Roman Polanski at his twisted best as always.

Rating: * * +

Brotherhood of the Wolf

18th century France and it's Gevaudan province is being terrorized by the Beast. The King dispatches his naturalist, Grégoire de Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) and his Indian valet Mani (Mark Dacascos) to investigate the situation. Fronsac finds finds a town ruled by myth and fear. As he entangles the web, Mani helps by slicing punching through the sticky bits in some well choreographed fights scenes. Adding some intrigue, romance and Monica Bellucci to the plot ensures that there is never a dull moment in this eerie period drama.

Rating: * * *

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Young Makoto is a regular high school girl with the usual share of teenage problems. But all that changes when she finds that she can leap through time. But being the ditz that she is, her time traveling capabilities are only put to use for silly things like avoiding conversations, doing school work and fixing people's romantic problems. An anime that won't bore you but neither will it enthrall you.

Rating: * *

Zatoichi

In Takeshi Kitano's version of Zatoichi, the blind masseur wanders into a remote town that is being held hostage by the yakuza. Like always Ichi decides to lend a helping hand or I should say, helping sword. Though following the regular plotlines of an Ichi flick, Kitano cleverly massages other characters and storylines into it plus his own brand of humor. What you finally have is a very slick flick with blindingly fast sword fights and a cunning background score.

For those who are curious as to why Kitano would make a Zatoichi flick, here is a good article that explains it.

Rating: * * * +

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior

Ong-Bak, an ancient statue of Buddha is stolen from the village Nong Pradu. The villagers dispatch Muay Thai exponent Ting (Tony Jaa) to retrieve it from Bangkok. Predictably he starts to kick some serious ass, literary with no strings attached. Please be aware that if you sit through this spectacle, you will find it hard to appreciate any other martial art flick forever.

Rating: * * * +
PS: Rated purely for the quality of action.

The Shawshank Redemption

Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins)  finds himself serving two life sentences for a crime of passion at the Shawshank prison. With nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it, Andy finds himself bonding with a fellow jail-mate, Red (Morgan Freeman), as he meanders his way around prison life. Corny as it sounds it is movie a movie about hope with just the right amount of melodrama. And with Mr. Freeman playing the narrator you will be left haunted forever by some of the dialog. 

The film which is based on a short story by Stephen King, is like fine wine. It seems to age very well and just keeps getting better with time.

Rating: * * * *

The Usual Suspects

The film starts with a police line up of the usual suspects for a hijacked truck. But this time lining up the usual suspects takes us on twisted journey that ends with a burning ship filled with dead bodies.

A movie that I have seen many times and have enjoyed it each time around. How can you not when it has golden dialogs like "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist". A film about which the less is said about the better.

Rating: * * * *

Quantum of Solace

Daniel Craig is back as Ian Fleming's James Bond and he wants revenge. He is up to his usual tricks with women, fast cars and gadgets, but with a palpable lack of panache that used to be his signature. It sure looks likes the whole Bond franchise needs a makeover.

Rating: * +

This is England

Little Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is angry and depressed about his Dad's death in the Falkland War. The sting and rawness over his father's demise makes him easy prey for a gang of skin heads. Set in England during the 80s this brilliant film shows a side of Britain that rarely flashes across the screen and Shane Meadows might be a director worth paying attention to.

Rating: * * *

Scrap Heaven

Shingo (Ryo Kase) is a cop who feels that he is a waste of space, thanks to his failure to stop a bus hijacking. But all that changes when he meets Tetsu (Jô Odagiri), a professional bathroom cleaner, who was shot during the hijack. The duo floats a revenge for hire startup and unleashes a pocketful of chaos. Chiaki Kuriyama of Kill Bill fame also makes an appearance in this film which has the echoes of Fight Club rippling through.

Rating: * * +

Sunshine

50 years into the future and mankind has forgotten the warmth of the sun. Eight astronauts are sent out to the center of the sun with a payload to reignite it. As they near the star, as usual man's best laid plans start to splinter. And so does the crew. A film that could have made its way into the list of great sci-fi flicks but stops short in spite of the fine cast and crew.

Rating: * *

Drama/Mex

Fernanda (Diana Garcia) finds herself being raped by her loser ex-boyfriend, Chano (Emilio Valdés), who had left her after stealing from her dad. She welcomes him back with open arms.

Jaime (Fernando Becerril) steals the payroll from from his office, walks into his boss's cube, spits on the desk and leaves. He heads out to do something far worse but runs into Tigrillo (Miriana Moro), a teen who is scamming tourists on the beach.

The film flits back and forth between the storylines in a vain hope of keeping the viewer engrossed.

Rating: * +

My Best Friend

Francois Coste (Daniel Auteuilis an art dealer and has spent all his life collecting antiques. Suddenly faced with a question of friendship he discovers that he is a blank slate. To make things worse his gallery partner (Julie Gayet) draws him into a bet to produce a best friend. So in the twilight of his middle age, Fracois sets out to learn how to make friends. His tutor is Bruno (Dany Boon), a good natured taxi driver whom he randomly runs into. As the clock ticks you find yourself sitting back and enjoying a melodramatic comedic tear jerker the French way.

Rating: * * +

Tekkon Kinkreet

Street urchins Kuro and Shiro rule the diapilated world of Treasure town from its roof tops. The happy life of the kids is soon under dark clouds when the yakuza show up to turn the town into a theme park. And things only get worse when thunder in the form of alien assasins show up.

Based on the manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, the film does get dark and violent as it proceeds but none of it is wanton as the anime reveals its many layers. Nothing is as simple as it is made out to be...

Rating: * * +

The Piano

Ada (Holly Hunter)and her daughter Flora (Anna Paquin), arrives on the shores of New Zealand as part of an arranged marriage to Alisdair (Sam Neill) who is a wealthy land owner. Ada's most treasured possession after her daughter is her piano which she plays with great passion defying the silence she lives in. The language of music that she speaks and her body soon has a local Maori native, Baines (Harvey Keitel) lusting after her. And who said one needs words to fall in love...

Rating: * * +

Raincoat

Mannu (Ajay Devgan) with a heavy heart and an empty wallet leaves his small town of Bhagalpur for Calcutta in an effort to raise money for his business. As he wanders around Calcutta he finds himself at the doorstep of Neeru (Aishwarya Rai), his childhood love...

Mr. Devgan is decent in this unusual stoic and pensive role which he underplays. Ms. Rai is breathtaking as always and even acts for a change. But the actor who steals the show is Annu Kapoor in his ten minute cameo. And while giving kudos let us not forget 0. Henry and Rituparno Ghosh without whom the film would not be possible.

Rating: * * * *

The Method

Madrid is exploding with anti-capitalist radical groups protesting against the World Bank and IMF. But a group of people vying for a mysterious job are oblivious to it. Closeted in a room they are put through a mental and psychological wringer as the tests they are given get stranger and stranger. A film that could give Donal Trump a few evil ideas.

Rating: * *

In Between Days

An overtly close look at a sullen relationship between two South Korean immigrant teenagers. A film so swollen with teenage angst that one would expect it to explode.

Rating: * +