The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson is back with the symmetry of his frames, still camera and arrestingly strange characters. In his latest masterpiece, the story is centered around an old hotel that lingers on in the cloud of its prestigious past or I should say around that of its concierge. The movie starts off as a simple retelling of the legendary concierge's past that soon becomes part murder mystery, part prison break, part thriller and full on fun ride. Manifested with big name actors and actresses playing their bit and lead roles that they only would for Mr. Anderson, you are left marveling at this genius who makes complexity so simple. Or is it the other way around... 

Rating: * * *

Sherlock Holmes

Had a bad feeling about this one at the outset, but decided to give it a shot since its Sherlock Holmes. We've recently seen many directors attempting a "new age" take on popular fictional characters of the past - while some have indeed given the characters a second life, a good lot of them have disappointed. Guy Ritchie's Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes belongs firmly to the latter. Big muscles, exaggerated action sequences and the usual GR humour dot the plot, but there is no intrigue as one would expect from with Arthur Conan Doyle's hero - whats the point then? 

Rating: * +

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: * +

Breaking and Entering

A must watch for any aspiring script writer on how not to write shit. Complete fucking waste of time.

Rating: *

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Cheesy dialogues, corny love story and a script which was DoA. Good effects and feel though. A pity that it turned out the way it did.

Rating: *