Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Spider Lilies


The film magically appeared at my door step thanks to the Vietnamese pimp 'Nek'. The reason behind the unexpected gift was the supposed greatest kissing scene ever. So it was with much expectation that I slipped the DVD in...

Tattoos and "forbidden love" swirl around in this romantic drama from Taiwan. To add spice to her career, web-cam girl Jade is out looking for a tattoo which leads her to a body art studio. Conveniently the tattoo artist, Takkeko, turns out to be Jade's first love. Soon a cat and mouse game ensues between the two on Jade's website. Takkeko's past constantly places a spoke in the wheels. Further muddying the waters is a stuttering cop who also frequents the website in the process of collecting evidence against the web-cam girls for a raid. The plot line and premise for the film is original but the execution is contrived and the end result does not fit together aesthetically.

PS: The kissing scene did turn out to be the best scene in the movie :-)

Rating: * *

Six String Samurai


The US has been decimated with a nuclear attack by the Russians in 1957. The last bastion of freedom is Los Vegas which is ruled by Elvis Presley. When the King dies, warriors and rock 'n' rollers converge on to Los Vegas to succeed him. A supposed multi-layered action comedy but all I could discern in the layers were pure drivel.

Rating: +

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Thavamai Thavamirundhu


A family oriented film that paints with a broad brush the life of a simple man, Muthaiah (Raj Kiran), who supports his family by running a small printing press. All he cares for is that his children, Ramanathan (Senthil) and Ramalingam (Cheran), gets the opportunities he never even sniffed. But like all families go the happiness is interspersed with fall outs and misery. A film by Cheran that focuses on the importance of family in an almost throwback Visu like fashion but with a tad more class. But he needs to take a page out of Yasujiro Ozu and understand that family dramas can be understated by yet powerful. It needn't be overly long, saturated with melodrama and gut wrenching misery.

Rating: * *

Friday, June 26, 2009

Yella


Yella (Nina Hoss) leaves her hometown in what was East Germany and her violent husband for a promising job in the West. But the only welcome she receives there is disappointment. When she almost succumbs to her failure, she runs into Philipp (Devid Striesow), a businessman who needs someone who understands balance sheets. Events take a turn here as we are plunged into murky workings of capitalism. All along Yella is haunted by the tendrils of her past that stick to her like cobwebs. A film that presents you with many possibilities but never hints at a solution.

Rating: * *

Thursday, June 25, 2009

All About Lily Chou-Chou


Yûichi (Hayato Ichihara) is a shy introverted kid who is obsessed with a pop star  Lily Chou-Chou and maintains a fan website. His closest friend is Hoshino (Shûgo Oshinari), one of the best students in the school, who goes from being kind and good natured to evil and manipulative. He morphs into a school bully and blackmails his classmates in to enjo-kōsai. Yûichi helplessly watches this unfold around him by burying himself in the music of Lily. The events run parallel to the eerie chat message that pop up on Yûichi's website which are flashed across the screen. A film that peers into the surreal cyber-pop culture swirling amongst Japanese teens. If only it meandered less in the middle or should I say the beginning.

Rating: * * +

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Bashu the Little Stranger


An Iranian children's movie that is allegorical to the Iran - Iraq war and is supposed to subtly criticize fundamentalist beliefs. I strained hard to find these connections, but they slipped by me.

Rating: *

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Chushingura


During the Shogunate era in Japan, the Emperor would send royal envoy's to the Shogun. Lord Asano, the daimyo of Ako, is appointed to receive the envoys. The etiquette for the ceremony is supposed to be passed down to him from Lord Kira, who is protocol official. But when Asano fails to bribe Kira, he is goaded in to striking him at the Shogun's residence. As a result Asano is made to commit seppuku and his clan is disbanded. His vassals, now all ronin, vow to take revenge.

Presented here is the legendary tale of the Forty-seven Ronin who go to great pains to avenge their lord's death. Chushingura means loyalty and the ronin are pure embodiment of that quality. A movie shot at a delibrate pace but is so mesmeric that you forget the world because of it's stillness.

Rating: * * *

Monday, June 22, 2009

Missing


Beth (Sissy Spacek) and Charlie Horman's (John Shea) idyllic life in Chile (though the country is never mentioned in the film, it can easily be inferred) is shattered when a coup breaks out. As they struggle to deal with the violence erupting around them, Charlie mysteriously disappears. This invites the presence of his straight laced Christian scientist father, Ed (Jack Lemmon), from New York city. The father and daughter-in-law search in vain for their loved one while butting heads over politics and their divergent views on the US government. As the film progresses the subversive nature of the US involvement in Latin American countries is slowly revealed. A chilling reminder that nothing much has changed even today.
PS: The wikipedia entry for the film gives you good background on this true story.

Rating: * * +

Friday, June 19, 2009

Mr. Thank You


The bus route is from the countryside to Tokyo city and the driver is the kindest one on the route. Hence the passengers name him Arigato-san (Ken Uehara). The movie is a bus ride with travelers that come and go plus a few that stay for the whole trip. Slivers of their stories seep out during the journey and Arigato-san ensures that harmony is prevalent. The film is cloaked in good humor but there is an under current of the tough time Japan is going through. Directed by Hiroshi Shimizu who is known as an underrate Ozu with an expansive outlook for his movies.

Rating: * *

Thursday, June 18, 2009

A Wednesday


The Mumbai Commisioner of Police, Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher), is jolted out of his skin when he receives an anonymous call from a man demanding the release of four Lakshar and Al Qaeda operatives. The consequences of not doing so would result in bombs being set off in different parts of the city. As the unknown man (Naseeruddin Shah) plays the police and media like puppets, they strain against the strings being pulled. With two of the finest thespians at the helm, the film with its backdrop of terrorism is one of the finest thrillers released in the Indian film industry!

Rating: * * *

The Taking of Pelham 123


Walter Garber's (Denzel Washington) typical uneventful day at the MTA as a dispatcher turns into a giant adrenaline rush when men with guns hijack a subway train and demand a ransom in return.  A remake of the 1974 film of the same name sees the old plot updated for todays times with John Travolta playing a snarling bad ass and James Gandolfini showing up as the mayor of NYC. The Travolta vs Washington casting promises much and it almost delivers. But the director / script writer cuts it short just when the going gets good. An  action flick that keeps you engaged but not over awed.

Rating: * *

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Dark Matter


Liu Xing (Ye Liu) arrives in Salt Lake City from Beijing to study cosmology under the world famous Dr. Reiser (Aidan Quinn). He is soon taken under the wing of Joanna (Meryl Streep), who is fascinated by Chinese culture. Liu Xing seems thrives in the university behind his pursuit of dark matter, one of the unsolved mysteries in astro physics. But when his theories start to drift from those of his professor, he winds up facing the academic block and finds himself paddling upstream.


Rating: * * +

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Far North


Saiva (Michelle Yeoh) leads a lonely and tough existence on the Tundra. Her only company is Anja (Michelle Krusiec), an abandonded child whom she fosters. The quiet life of the two women change dramitically when a wounded soldier, Loki (Sean Bean), shows up. A visually scrumptious film albeit with potholes in the plot that will leave you scratching your head at many points.

Rating: * * +

Friday, June 12, 2009

Happy Together


A friend of mine once told me that in every relationship, there is a giver and a taker. This film is about such relationship with drastic skew. Set in Argentina, Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung play lovers who are constantly starting over.

Christopher Doyle's signature camera work brings to life the gritiness of Buenos Aires. The taxi scene is an echo from "In the Mood for Love" or maybe it is the other way around. In the center is the master, Mr. Cheung. All in all, a masterpiece from Wong Kar-Wai.

Rating: * * *

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Boy A

This film is about pain too - as well as second chances. However in contrast to the film mentioned below, its backed by a tight script and some fantastic performances. Eric Wilson, who is known to the rest of Britain as 'Boy A' of a high profile crime a few years back, is released from prison with hopes of a genuine chance to live - which can be challenging, to say the least.

Rating: * * * +

Helen

Another of political reporter turned writer Nek's suggestion. He did warn as to how painful a randomly picked art house film in a film exhibition can be - which it indeed was. Its a deep, painstaking look at a tragedy that strikes a group of people in an English city. Helen is picked to play the role of a missing girl in a police crime-reconstruction film. Then the director shows us how, ironically, Helen herself is missing from this world.

Rating: * +

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Grocer's Son


Fate pulls Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé) back to his village when his father (Daniel Duval) suffers from a heart attack. In tow he has his friend Claire, played by the bewitchingly beautiful Clotilde Hesme, on whom he has giant crush. He then finds himself saddled with his dad's grocery route that caters to the old folk in the neighborhood. Soon you find yourself in the middle of an age old boring family feud. But strange enough the characters begin to grow on you and the boredom slips away to something akin to contentment.

Rating: * * +

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Mongol


Tadanobu Asano is Temudjin, the man who would become the great Genghis Khan. Now why would anyone cast a Japanese as the greatest Mongol is a mystery. This film focuses on his early life as a slave and his struggle to rise and unite the Mongols. Temudjin is portrayed as compassionate and is yet to turn into the bloody Khan. A film that was expected to be bloody given the central character in question, but it turned out to be comparitively mellow. Hopefully that will be taken care of in the sequel to the film.

Rating: * *

Monday, June 08, 2009

War, Inc.


The film shows a future where corporations run nation with their private armies and hidden agendas. Unfortunately the director's hidden agenda was to bore us with this political satire.

Rating: +

Thursday, June 04, 2009

The Edge of Heaven


Nejat (Baki Davrak) is wracked by guilt when his father (Tuncel Kurtiz) accidentally kills Yeter (Nursel Köse), a prostitute, at his home in Hamburg. To assuage his conscience he decides to travel to Istanbul to track down Yeter's daughter and pay for her education. But Ayten (Nurgül Yesilçay) is part of political group and has fled to Germany to escape persecution. A film where the character's destinies flirt with one another as disparate cultures clash.

Rating: * * *

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Before the Rains


Henry (Linus Roache) oversees a tea estate in South Kerala in the late 1930s with the help of his able manservant, T. K. Neelam (Rahul Bose), who is influential with the workers from the nearby village. He hopes to expand into spices and build a road to help transport the crop before the monsoon rains. Life is looking good for Henry and the icing on the cake is Sajani (Nandita Das), a sultry maid servant with whom he is having a clandestine affair. But his dream like existence is ruptured when his wife returns from England. To make matters worse Sajani is seen by a couple of village children in the throes of her passion. Slowly but surely Henry's dream turns in to a nightmare.

Santosh Sivan does a masterful job behind the lenses but his directorial skill is a work in progress. His casting choices are mysterious. Casting Thilakan and Lakshmi Krishnamurthy (who happened to be my class teacher in 3rd standard) as TK's parents are masterful but then gives them a miniscule role in the plot. So we are left watching a wooden Rahul Bose who can never play a convincing Keralite in this lifetime. Plus the use of English among the villagers is grating. So in the end Sivan throws away a decent script and storyline for reasons only he knows.

Rating: * +

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Up the Yangtze


The Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze river is one of the biggest hydroelectric projects in the world. The flooding as a result of it has displaced thousands of people. It has also created a tourist attraction called the Farewell cruises that allows tourists to visit the areas that will soon be flooded.

Director Yung Chang follows two people whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the event. Yu Shui is from a poor farming family and is forced to work on one of the cruise ships to support her parents and siblings. Brash and cocky Chen Bo Yu is from a middle class family and is intent on becoming affluent. The documentary observes the transformation of the two youngsters as they work on the ship. Tangentially, it also observes the change in surroundings, the mass shift in the economy and in lives of the citizens along the Yangtze.

Rating: * * +