Max Wahlberg

Max Payne offers little original amidst a plethora of big screen adaptations of popular animated characters and games. These are interesting times in Mumbai (the siege of the Taj ended yessterday) - the themes that stick in one's mind are clearly that of individual courage, loss of family and of course the ubiquitous floors of scyscrapers exploding and burning. Perhaps not the best of times to review a movie, or watch one in a hall - cant remember the last time when I saw less than twenty people in a Sunday evening primetime movie. To continue, Mark Wahlberg exudes character as always and brings his force of personality to bear on an otherwise hackneyed plot of catharsis and revenge in a Batman meets V is for Vendetta like dark urban milieu. Kudos to John Moore (Flight of the Phoenix, Behind Enemy Lines) for some really smart cinematography.

Chronic Persistent Hunger

Ambition drives men to suceess but very few know where to draw the line. In Woody Allen’s Match Point, Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) does not know where the line is, paradoxically for a successful tennis player. Lust and betrayal draw him from the very edge of success and fortune to a terminal outcome. Not quite game set and match. A strong drama but with the exception of the lead, the performances are not convincing

Game Cars

Another game adaptation, Death Race locks hardened criminals on an island in a gladiatorial car chase combat. The movie would have been quite intolerable except for decent performances by Jason Statham and Joan Allen. Not a movie to proactively go out and seek unless it, well, comes and hits you much like the cars here

Moneyed Family
Nicolas Cage perhaps finds it more difficult to portray an investment banker than A Family Man. And therein lies a tale. The conflict was all too real, the first part of the movie unconvincing. No, Nicholas Cage does not come across as a man who works through 13 barren years and Christmas Day with nary a whimper. While a pleasant movie as movies go, herein lies its big failure – the protagonist does not transcend both roles - investment banker and family man - equally convincingly. Not quite a great movie

Banker Jeykll and Hyde

In American Psycho, Christian Bale shows early promise that for some reason went into limbo for half a decade. A close adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, it shows an investment banker’s continuous struggle with himself to eliminate the demons within that have zero tolerance for failure, lack of refinement, tolerance for the success of others. The ending is one of the most tantalizing I have seen on film – were the ghosts real or of the mind? Unilke say Wall Street or Boiler Room this is not a movie that has anything to do with the world of finance per se. Perhaps the leitmotif is – we all hate various aspects of our lives – do we hate them enough to destroy them at any cost? An intriguing book and movie, as they are gory

Planet Eccentric
It is difficult to comprehend a movie that is eccentric even by Quentin Tarantino/ Robert Rodriguez standards. Planet Terror makes the cut and more. Suffice to say that you would not have seen a movie that is anything like this. Part Resident Evil style action cameos, part Harold and Kumar meets Zohan style incongruous humour, you will never know what to expect next in this movie. It would all be very amusing if it was not, in addition, so in-your-face gross as well. After watching this movie, it would really be difficult to take any zombie movie seriously. Not that any of us ever did.

The Eagle hasn’t Landed

America is threatened by terrorism and this time the threat emanates from within its own borders. Part science fiction and part action flick, Eagle Eye delivers. The movie is fast paced and that takes care of the fact that it is barely believable, because you will not pause to think. Shia LaBeouf does not hurt his progression as one of the rising stars of Hollywood, while not accreting much to the same either. There are remarkable moments but on the whole the extent of power attributed to Eagle Eye is a little over the top. Good entertainment

Can you Keep a Secret?

Jon Voight’s moment of triumph in The Odessa File is the beads of sweat as Herr Kolb works at a (short-lived) infiltration of the ODESSA. An old style tale of intrigue, and the second of my day since Quantum of Solace, this is investigative journalism sixties style ie, with all the intensity but sans the glamour. A truly talented actor and easy to see the reasons for the sustained long career

Lend me your Ears

Eccentric but engaging, Noise takes a man’s fight against the urban menace through an illogical path to an acceptable end. This is a twisted vigilante role that steers between self-remonstrance, provocation, action and then brushes with the law and collapse of family. The remarks on Hegel, sex and promiscuity make this a movie about free will and personal space rather than a limited movie on individual activism. And on the activism – yes, our man does work the court to a positive outcome on his pet peeve. So there.

Quantum of Entertainment

The James Bond movie is measured to a near impossible benchmark. Literally anything could kill the next installment – too much violence or too little, plot too weak or too abstruse, the lead too stiff or too much swagger, too little that is new or too far from the traditional Bond elements. Thankfully, Quantum of Solace, like Casino Royale and unlike the Brosnan editions, does not look like a directorial tightrope trying to manage all these elements. The story is predictable but taut and watchable. The villains are malicious without being over the top. The women are attractive without being come hither. There are two elements of the movie that I could not help noticing. First, Americans being portrayed as outright villains, which is rare. Second, the Bond girl simply takes his leave and them parting ways somewhat Western-style and not Bond-style. This is a good movie in its own right, and as long as you stop running comparatives in your head in the theater, you will do all right.

Cant believe I Watched This

If I were to sum up Funny Games in two words it would be unmitigatedly negative. Terrifying in its casual malice, the sequence of events shocks beyond the expectations of a rational audience. In some odd way this movie reminded me of Apocalypto – whatever can go wrong does – except that Apocalypto ends on a redemptive note while this movie simply leaves you staring and the credits and wondering what just happened. A blend of gorno (Saw, Hostel etc) and the traditional horror movie elements of isolation will leave you gasping at the end. If you know how this movie ends, you probably would not want to watch it. Naomi Watts anchors a difficult role, while Brady Corbet (Peter) and Michael Pitt (Paul) are creepy. Definitely not one for casual family viewing.

Half past Dead

A restless soul seeking to convey to the living her last moments. A woman in search of the truth. A man trying to escape a past. Shutter is predictable, but engaging. The Japanese horror genre has caught on well and this is a good example of a well-paced movie with a strong and unexpected twist near the end

Reality Radio

Good Morning Vietnam is largely classified as a "funny" movie. Apart from the humour in the dialogue, there is very little that is funny about the movie. This is an alternative take on Vietnam from the jungles and trenches, and shows a rapidly escalating conflict through the eyes of an observer who is mirthful, engaged and aware. What better way of bringing out the humanity of war than the fine line between friendship and terrorism, the impossibility of some relationships, and the simple poignancy of teaching baseball and colloquial English to a largely deadpan group of Vietnamese? The fact that there is so much concerted effort to suppress Adrian Cronauer's (Robin Williams) brand of humour only underscores the importance of his message. In a time when the world debates US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is an important movie to watch and understand the simple realities of a zone of conflict.

Lie Low

In Body of Lies, Ridley Scott juxtaposes two faces of America in the War on Terror. The one, cold and aloof, ensconced in comfortable American suburbia. The other, tough and gritty as he is vulnerable, the man on the ground who has fallen in love with the Middle East. While movies like The Kingdom show the war on terror as a series of military actions, Body of Lies manages to capture the human touch of being in the Middle East and having to deal with Middle Easterners. One liners like “Nobody Likes the Middle East” and the potent understated argument against Americans linger long after the movie. For those who would like to know what America is really working on in terms of counter-terrorism in the Middle East, this is possibly the best movie yet. Di Caprio continues where he left off from in Blood Diamond and The Departed and puts in another sterling performance.

The Final Cut

With cult-ish overtones reminiscent of the likes of Pulp Fiction and Fight Club, Pathology profiles a set of deviants in white who bring new meaning to the adage “It is human instinct to kill”. The movie makes no concessions to gruesomeness and gore, and eventually shows a breakdown of reason as killing for achieving one’s desired ends becomes all too easy. I would call this an un-missable movie, but hold back for want of external affirmation, i.e, the utter absence of either critical or popular acclaim for this movie. Maybe they all got put off by the gore. Ha ha.

Mind Less

If you have missed any of the Naked Gun series, like I did Naked Gun 2 1/2 , you have missed out on some Hot Shots meets Police Academy style zany fun that is your right to savour. Mindless fare and good for more than a few laughs. Have fun

Trolls in NY (yawn)

I cannot and will not bring myself to say anything negative about Guillermo Del Toro. Like Peter Jackson, the man has achieved a lifetime of acclaim with Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage, and may well rest on his laurels for the rest of his living days. Hellboy II – The Golden Army liberally uses animal motifs, but in aggregate ends up missing out on both originality and believability. Perhaps it is the backdrop of New York that makes is so over-the-top. Troll gates below Brooklyn Bridge remind one of Harry Potter, while the Troll city itself appears like something out of Star Wars. More Star Wars – Attack of the Clones when the troll army rises. By the end of the movie, I am not sure what to believe. But again, a great movie!!!

Sinner or Saint?

Hoffa stars Jack Nicholson and Danny De Vito at their arsonist best. In times where the divide between labour and management was far wider and more un-bridged that it is now, it is hard to distinguish the business leader from the mafia, the union leader from the law-breaker and anarchist. In a day and age where rampant unionismis bringng down auto majors and sundry others in manufacturing America, the return to outright conflict with labour is a sobering thought

A Mind of Horror

A movie that starts as a horror flick and ends as a thriller, Identity has a motley crowd brought together by sheer chance to a remote motel. While you are speculation on who or which of them is bumping them off one by one in true Agatha Christie “And Then There Was None” style, the movie takes a sudden and unexpected turn. And while you are trying to make sense of the same, the movie again veers unexpectedly in the last one minute or so. A movie for a day when you wouldn’t mind the occasional jaw-dropping surprise or two.

The Truth is Out There in Shades of Gray

X Files - I Want to Believe is a brave movie that deviates from the paranormal routine. While it may alienate the die-hard fans of the franchise flocking the halls in droves for what once used to be their daily dose of being privy to sundry government cover-ups, as a standalone movie this one excels. There is a debate through the movie on stem cell research – the dark side of human trafficking and experimentation, and the healing power and potential of the very same research. There is the moral ambiguity of the prescient who can save lives but otherwise has had a very twisted past. This is a very human edition of the X Files rather than being simply a science fiction movie. Looking at the previous edition, the science fiction avatars would have had a limited shelf life anyway. And the ageing of Scully definitely does not help.

How not to do a Heist

Watching Quentin Tarantino movies in reverse has serious drawbacks. The template of quotable quotes, asynchronous retro music, and chapters in movies – it probably all started here. And what a start. A heist is committed. It goes all wrong. The men, none of whom are known to each other by their true identities, are looking for the mole in their midst. You can look at Reservoir Dogs as sheer human cruelty – a man bleeds to death, a policeman is almost set alight and eventually killed almost as an afterthought. In the end, there is a Western-style showdown, out of acrimony, and the movie is over. Another experiential Tarantino tale – over the top, mindblowing, unforgettable. A classic.

Minority Report II

America says – we like our sense of humor, thank you. And the problems of the world – well, don’t bring them here to our homestead. The great insularity turns upon itself, tale a good long laugh, in You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Over the top action and downright sleazy humour bring reminiscences of Harold And Kumar and Hot Shots Part Deux. This movie is fun to watch, but you will not leave the movie hall roaring with mirth. In its own way, it touches upon racial conflict, the unchecked might of corporate America, and the simple theme of following your dreams. These themes recur movie after movie because there are no easy answers to any of these.

Play it Again Donna!

I was singing on my way to Mamma Mia. I was singing for hours and hours after. The music is timely and brilliantly intertwined into, well, the musical. For us in crummy Mumbai, the elegance of opera is a far cry. But a good English movie with a high quality cast and great music is truly uplifting. Who would think that the dapper Pierce Brosnan used to be Bond till not too long ago? I guess the mantle of promiscuity went to Meryl Streep (Donna) here, hands down. And what fun it was.

Suspend Belief, Have popcorn and fun

Brendan Fraser is our new Indiana Jones, but in Fantasyland. What is striking about A Journey to the Center of the Earth is that a lot of bogus science is thrown in at the appropriate places to make the movie somewhat believable. There will apparently be a sequel to this, like for The Mummy. Good fun – watch this in 3D with the kids. One of those Use and Forget movies.

Difficult and Depressive

Some movies can be read as easily as a fifth standard textbook. Others are as tough to decipher as the most abstruse poetry. The Tenant is a Roman Polanski movie that perhaps does not have a single interpretation as to its meaning – and that is quite the pleasure of watching a movie such as this. Trelkovski is a perfectly normal, if slightly more sober than the rest, tenant, who moves into the apartment of a woman (Simone Choule) who has recently attempted suicide and is lying in a hospital. The superficial relationship between Trelkovski and Stella, the persecution (or persecution complex) of Trelkovski, and the descent into depression and suicide, and the scream of a dying man (or woman?), bring out the angst of the immigrant, stereotyped, persecuted and inevitably given less than his due.

End of Days

De Niro and Pacino come together after more than a decade (Heat) for the movie Righteous Kill. It is poignant to see the passing of two great stars – the dialogue does not quite carry the punch of yesteryears, and the ending is quite predictable and not much of a twist. Having said the above, the movie is still worth a watch – there is still fire in those old bones, and a good supporting cast make up for some of the ageing in the star attractions. Watch this for its own sake, but comparing it to the likes of Heat and other sundry classics could be disturbing.

A Lesser League

Is A League of Their Own a politically correct movie? Not quite – it goes over the top way beyond a reasonable level of depiction of gender prejudices – a near perpetually drunk Tom Hanks who can barely comprehend the progress of his team, and a talent scout (Jon Lovitz) who is not exactly your average role model as far as his dialogues and general predisposition towards the world at large is concerned. This is a feel good movie that takes more than a passing swing at the prejudices of the time even as it regales us with laughter and all the hackneyed positive elements of sports movies.

Journey of an Era

I watched The Motorcycle Diaries in fits and starts. Yes, that kind of does not allow for one strong lingering lasting feeling. Notwithstanding that, I would rate this movie as easily among the best I have ever seen. Several critics have apparently noted the "uneventfulness" of the movie. I think they could not miss the point more. At a very basic level, the movie fills you with a near-immediate urge to travel. Not out of an itinerary, but travel linked to your specific interests, travel that is all about improvization, travel that widens your horizons in whatever you take an interest in, be it love or leprosy. Then, the travel itself. The journey in the movie opens your eyes to South America in a different age, and the series of influences that could convert an average medical student to an unifying force for a continent. This movie should be made mandatory viewing for studying the "right" kind of influences towards having political aspirations. Somehow, the simple concerns of adequacy and safety when the journey begins, fade away into the distance, and the viewer is left with an experience and message of a lifetime.

Pretty, Quirky

Many of the elements of Quentin Tarantino's cult classic Pulp Fiction are to be found in say Kill Bill. The retro music, the quirky character portraits and disjointed engagements, the engaging dialogues - all combine to give a disengaged portrayal of a loosely connected sequence of events, acted out by unforgettable characters. The movie is a difficult one to judge, inasmuch as it probably defined a (limited) genre in itself. What makes it particularly stand out is the performances of the entire star cast - especially the (questionable) redemption of Samuel L Jackson, the "day in the life" of Bruce Willis, the chemistry between John Travolta and Uma Thurman, and the righteous anger of Ving Rhames. Does it all collectively make sense in the end? No, but that is not quite the point.

Who's the Man?

It seems that Pixar will be the most defining force in the history of animated movies. Every movie seems to set a new threshhold of the kind of content and emotive appeal that can be delivered through the animated medium. Wall-e is more thought provoking than say Ratatouille but far from being a grim morality tale. This is the first movie that I can think of that truly brings life to robots - does not "humanize" them in an I, Robot kind of way but gives them unique attributes. If acted out by humans this would be a truly dystopian tale, curiously enough, it is the mechanical Wall-e and Eva, along with the maverick robots on board the Axiom that deliver a telling message without making it too depressing for comfort. A truly un-missable movie.

Decisions, Decisions

Indian-born director Bharat Nalluri brings easy familiarity to his portrayal of a love quadrangle, and disentanglement by a governess short on luck thus far, in Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day. What is unexpected is the near-perfect casting and depiction of London society in the 1930's. A simple movie about choices - wealth, fame, or love? - and a resolution of the same in Bollywood-like morality tale style. Nor is Miss Pettigrew left behind in the derservedness sweepstakes as she finds a man who too would like to break free from the dilletante posturing world - and the fact that he is rich, successful and handsome does not hurt one little bit. This is a movie for a day when you are short of faith in the goodness of the world, but cannot quite tolerate the saccharine overdose of Bollywood. You will find it difficult to pin down a specific reason for overly liking or disliking a movie like this one, though.

Ahead of Its Time

In a world where sting journalism and "We Got It First" stories stand poised to wipe out any semblance of sanity and the human touch in journalism, it was interesting to watch a movie that was way ahead of its time in profiling the Rise of the Paparazzi. In Billy Wilder's Ace In The Hole, a bounty hunter gets trapped in a cave, and dies an agonizing death thanks to some truly amoral opportunistic reportage (Kirk Douglas), helped along in no small measure by vixenish wives, ambitious sheriffs, and the competition with whom Kirk Douglas has more than a score to settle. And this casts the sanity of a grieving mother or a few voices of reason that question the sense of a convoluted procedure that ultimately takes too long, far into the background. Charlie Tatum watches the rise of a Great Farce where the object of an exclusive scoop gradually becomes the focal point of a great (and somewhat exaggerated) circus. The end is sombre as the reality of news served as entertainment sinks into our protagonist, and he makes some amends to that effect. A movie to make one pause and think, but given that this was made back in 1951, and journalism, well, is what it is today, it is quite clear that the world did not pause and think all that much.

Leave us Alone

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanomo Bay can be watched at two levels. At one level is the obvious frivolity and cock-a-snook at a dozen different themes ranging from homeland security and racial profiling, to the untamed South (overtones of O Brother Where art Thou) and the dark side of politics. At a more subliminial level is an America, or at least some of its minorities, gasping for breath and clamoring for its constitutional right to be just left alone, the right to smoke weed and have one-on-one consensual relationships, without judgementality creeping in. This movie is worth a watch at this time - none of the fervour of say a Lions for Lambs or the Michael Moore kind, but no less effective in delivering a clear undertonal message of individual freedom. Quite a change for Kal Penn from The Namesake, is it not?

Cop or Criminal?

One of the best gangster movies ever, The Departed is a Martin Scorcese triumph of 2006 that finally got the great director his just desserts at the awards sweepstakes. DiCaprio and Matt Damon square off superbly in a cat-and-mouse game in the ganglands of Boston. The former is an insider spying on the redoutable Nicholson, while the latter uses every trick in the book to keep the police off his foster father. The thrill of the movie lies in the continual deception, the characters in shades of gray, the fact that virtually every second sentence in the movie - especially the colourful utterances of Mark Wahlberg and Nicholson - are eminently quotable, and the amorality of it all - especially towards the last fifteen minutes and the breakneck pace of events in the same. The Departed refines the gangland genre, and the study of characters, especially that of DiCaprio and Matt Damon, is unforgettable.

What a Good Movie!

Spartacus like Ben-Hur exudes grandeur. All I can say in summary is that they dont make movies like that anymore, because they dont make men like that anymore. I am a great fan of Gladiator, but Russell Crowe would come across as Crocodile Dundee in the Colloseum compared to the toughness of Kirk Douglas and the guile of (Sir) Lawrence Olivier. A long movie but engrossing in the fullest - I especially liked the little vignettes, like two Romans casually discussing politics while two men fight to the death, a few feet away. I would think Maximus' throw of his sword at the stands in Gladiator and the memorable lines "Are You Not Entertained?" are a tribute to Graba's throw of the trident in this movie. Yes, we are entertained and much moved. Thank you.

Mummy Mia!

I would not be surprised if The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was the result of a vast conspiracy to clinically destroy the perfectly good franchise. Maria Bello is ashen and would have come across with better chemistry with Brendan Fraser were she cast as his mother. In other casting gaffes, Luke Ford looks pretty much as old as his father. The script is hideous with the China fixation now becoming de rigeur for Hollywood. Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh find themselves utterly out of place smack in the middle of some really poor casting. Even the special effects dont cut it - the only redemption being the endearing troll-like yetis. A movie that will be forgotten in a hurry. Lets hope John Hannah does survive the box office and the critics and make it to Peru for the next installment.

No Accident

Jackie Chan's rise to global superstardom is s carefully orchestrated as his action sequences. Choreographed action, some intrigue, a damsel or two in distress - it is especially the first where he stands head and shoulders above the Hollywood physicality with his sheer ingenuity and improvisation. The Accidental Spy builds on the genre with action and intrigue scattered globally. There is also some emotional content to boot. Worth a watch on a Friday night over Coke, popcorn and surely not too much intellectualizing

Dont Ababndon This Till The End





An underrated movie. Or perhaps, most viewers did not have the patience to make it through till the end. Abandon stars Katie Holmes in an unbelievably drab milieu, chasing McKinsey dreams and trying to grow over the shadows of her missing boyfriend, in a super-slow buildup where you practically give up any hope of redemption of the movie. And then, suddenly, over the last two minutes or so, it changes dramatically. It would be fair to watch this movie at 2X forward till the last ten minutes or so - the latter being the only reason that I am writing about this strange movie at all. You will be hard pressed to guess the genre of this movie till the end.

A Thought-Provoking Planet

Though Planet of the Apes is a relatively old franchise, it is quite entertaining in terms of lightly exploring arguments about man coming to confrontation with a comparable intelligence that has travelled along a different evolutionary trajectory, only just. Mark Wahlberg exudes a Matt Damon style thinking physicality but cannot match the latter's intensity. This is not the best of Tim Burton. The "What If" questions that emanate from coming to confrontation with a comparable intelligence are quite amusing at the very least.

The Lesser of 2 Great Movies

Compared to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight has had spellbinding initial commercial and critical acclaim - not least because of the outstanding performances of Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. The script is taut, the action delectable - great to see Hong Kong resplendent!, and the moral agruments for and against a vigilante compelling. The rise of the Joker this time around is not through cheap stunts and barely believable capers, but quite akin to the rise of mafia mob bosses - ruthless, violent and gritty. The soundtrack retains the tension-inducing elements of the previous edition. An unmissable movie, only a fraction short of the previous edition

Raising Eyebrows




Raising Arizona seals it for me - I now count myself among the bonafide fans of the Coen Brothers. Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter are on opposite sides of the law - come together in an unlikely marriage and an equally unlikely heist to snatch a kid from a set of quintuplets. Over sevaral escapades with escaped convicts, bounty hunters, psychotic storekeepers and bosses with questionable morals, the couple are struck by a fit of remonstrance and get round to "doing the right thing". The movie has an undercurrent of morality running through it quite unlike the unmitigated eccentricity of O Brother Where Art Thou. This would be the best starting point into the Coen Brothers for its balance of quirkiness and convention, the latter in exploring conventional themes of family life

Curiouser and Curiouser

O Brother Where Art Thou is an exceedingly peculiar movie even by the Coen Borthers' standards. Three escaped convicts make their way to "treasure that is not the one they seek" through a medley of characters that typify the Depression-era South just preceding the advent of technology and the end of an isolated way of life. Interspersed with much music, including the Johnny Cash "You Are My Sunshine", this is a strange romp through an era in America. You never know quite what to expect next and the ending is just as abrupt.

Han-Cock-And-Bull

It seems that Will Smith's superhero/last-man-standing fixation is not unlike some adolescent complex that started with Independence Day, continued with I Robot, MIB and I Am Legend and has sadly survived stellar roles in movies like The Pursuit of Happiness and Ali. Hancock is a tawdry attempt to invent a hip-hop superhero who forms an unlikely on-off screen pair with - you'll never guess - Charlize Theron - remember her Academy Award for Monster - who too takes a fairly unidirectional nosedive in the quality sweepstakes. This is a truly poor movie that has absoultely no redeeming quality except the now hackneyed special effects - if someone is attempting to create a superhero genre and a great and spellbinding series, they would be lucky to survive their first edition with their fingers intact - much like what happens to the guys who call Hancock a#$hole in the movie

Wild Rollercoaster Ride




Wild Things with its erotic overlay and a plot that has twists so numerous you would have to recapitulate for your benefit once the movie is done, reminds me of the recent Bollywood Abbas-Mustan flick Race which is another slick thriller with an implausible number of twists. It is impossible to guess at the number and the surprising points at which the twists occur - but that is hardly the point. The movie is a swish set Beverly Hills 90210 style sneak peek into glamour and intrigue not unlike a tabloid relay. Its fun, its pretty much pointless, and above all its sizzling in an obvious kind of way. Treat this post as a refreshing break from the heavy fare that precedes (and is likely to follow!)

Fish for Life

Not everything your dad said was a lie. Tim Burton (Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks!) has a heartwarning tale of a father who is given to, well, minor exaggerations about his considerably exaggerated life, in Big Fish. This movie reminded me of the fraility of the male ego in Beowolf and its constant need for compliment, as well as a sense of passing through history with insouciance in Forrest Gump. The skepticism of his son, and his finally being convinced, touches the heart. No wonder that feelgood movies are getting increasingly popular in the choppy waters that happen to be our lives and times

Child's Play

While the eponymous Pan's Labyrinth keeps a child's fantasy in its own realm, Guillermo del Toro's latest offering - The Orphanage - is a Shyamalanesque take on the supernatural. Interwoven with many traditional elements of the horror flick (isolated house, seances, dark corridors, unfamiliar attics) is a very human tale of a mother-son relationship gone horribly wrong. The former movie does not cross the line into the supernatural - the latter does. The tragedy of the mother, wrought with a burden that she will never be free of, unless she dies and joins her son, is agony that quickly washes away the horror flick motifs and leaves the viewer with sadness in no little measure. Guillermo del Toro has through two movies carved out a genre for himself - this is not the fairytale of Hogwarts or Narnia, nor the brooding urbanity of The Sixth Sense or The Happening - this is of our childhood morals transcending our adult skepticism

Inside an addiction

We are in the nicotine delivery business. The raison-de-etre of the Brown and Williamson tobacco company, and indeed of any tobacco manufacturer, becomes clear. And it takes a man beyond despair (Russell Crowe as Jeffrey Wigand), to eke out a victory over his former employer, with no little help from Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) - alienated from family, work, the legal system and the general public - in The Insider. The irony of the WSJ, the bastion of capitalism, triggering off a chain of events that led to a $246 billion settlement with Big Tobacco, the largest public action litigation in history, is not lost upon the audience. The movie however stands out not as a morality tale by any means, but on account of Russell Crowe's superlative performance that foreshadows the grim reality of Jim Braddock in Cinderella Man and the shuffling erudition of John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. Watch this movie back to back with Thank You For Smoking and you may well kick the habit.

Not Quite Beverly Hills

There is sheer force about Oldboy that one would be hard-pressed to find in any Hollywood movie. From consumption of a live octopus, to cutting off one's tongue, to the final terrible secret and the astonishing ending in the context of that secret - it is a psychedelic experience with enormous shock value. I began expecting a fairly simple storyline whose intensity was largely confined to the protagonist's reactions during the long confinement. I was shocked to see that the movie had barely begun at his freedom. There have been cheap imitations - having seen the original now, I believe that such passion would have been impossible to render in a medium like a Hindi movie.

Dark, Dark Continent

One point of commonality of Hotel Rwanda with Blood Diamond is the profiteer, utterly circumspect about business malpractice, and then somehow suitably converted by the sheer force of events. However, while the second is fairly narrow in its focus on characters, the former draws up a wider canvas on the genocide and its antecedents. Don Cheadle intersperses an otherwise good performance with great moments - witness the scene where his frustration with his tie breaks into the larger anomie with what he has seen that morning on the road. Africa at least in pockets has not changed much from Joseph Conrad's the Horror, The Horror... we should be thankful for India and its polity, I suppose, where the incessant chaos does not (by and large) cascade into large-scale insanity! On the movie - the performance to watch for is that of Sophie Okonedo who from a comfortable existence is metamorphosed by the turn of events into the very epitome of distraughtness. An important movie on an important topic. Worthy of noting that the genocide in Rwanda possibly claimed a million lives, while the one at Srebenicza that received as much if not more press, claimed about eight thousand. Yes they are Africans after all, dude