I Spy

Unbeknownst to his family, lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) is tasked with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell), a CIA spy behind Russian enemy lines, for Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a KGB spy captured in the US. While negotiations go well, Donovan also looks to get stranded American student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) released, in what would become a 2-for-1 exchange if it comes through successfully. Based on true events, and with all the genius of Spielberg and the Coen brothers, Bridge of Spies is a must-watch

15/20

Leading from the Front

Captain Phillips, of the movie of the same name, delights with the return of Tom Hanks, who will lead the crew of the ship Maersk Alabama through the attacks of a Somalian pirate crew. Faced off with a pirate crew led by captain Abduwali Muse (Barkhad Abdi), while the crew are overwhelmed initially, soon the power and might of the US navy overwhelm the pirates in question. The movie is not just an action sequence – it exposes the aspirations and vulnerability of a people who are facing some pretty hard choices for improving their lives. Touching not thrilling in the balance, Captain Phillips – and the men he faces off with – all all winners in this sea encounter

14.5/20

One for the Soul

If Crash and Babel tried to - and, to much commercial and critical acclaim, did succeed in doing - work the theme of interconnected lives, Cloud Atlas takes it more than a step further, in interconnecting lives through different times in history. So it is that we find that an act of kindness in the South Pacific circa 1850, a musical piece (Cloud Atlas) conceived and composed by a penurious musical genius, an incident involving nuclear safety in the 1970s, the strange events in the life of a spurned publisher in England circa 2012, a clone's coming of age in Neo Seoul in 2144, and eventually the search and discovery of a better life beyond a bleak post-apocalyptic future - are not just intertwined - in a way, they are sequential. Directors Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer must be commended for holding it all together in an intelligible and emotionally charged movie. Quite moving, if not quite deep, Cloud Atlas is definitely worth a watch

14.5/20

Christendom Overdose

Dan Brown’s eponymous novels clearly do not translate to the silver screen. While The Da Vinci code was merely insipid, in Angels and Demons, the latest edition, the incredulity of generating antimatter in a pilferable bottle in Zurich that Implodes in 24 hours (remember cold fusion in Moscow in The Saint?), the agony of following antagonists that need to commit heinous acts in indecipherable patterns, the casuality of interaction between papacy and the hoi polloi, and the overarching theme of an irrelevant conflict in today’s day and age (Illuminati vs the Church) – if it were not for pleasant movie halls and the visual spectacle that is Rome, this would be agony compared to its predecessor’s light torment. Besides, Tom Hanks is ageing and in a merely ageing kind of way, ie not the graceful Harrison Ford way

9/20

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.

Minority Report

To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, delightfully nuanced, skips clear of being a morality tale, and delivers a dispassionate tale of a black man wronged and perhaps killed in custody, during the Depression. What is remarkable about the movie is that the setting of the context is done through the eyes of children. It is only the trial scene and subsequent events that are delivered without intermediation. Hard times make for a setting of ambiguous relationships and definitions of rightfulness. In contrast, The Green Mile attempts to be lyrical, magic and reality interweaving in a closed world of limited characters cast firmly in black and white. The movie struck no chord with me. I suppose that to a majority this was a heartwarming tale - just seemed a tad fairytale to me - the dumb big black guy that endears us with his powers of healing, the magical mouse - seems to be a cruel joke to those that actually wait on death row, bereft of such magical diversions

Watched Kevin Spacey in 21 - a timepass flick on MIT maths whizzes ruling Vegas, and the victimized nerd finally getting his moral compass in order and going one up on his guru. Give it a miss

Five Degrees

Crime and Punishment and perdition lends itself easily to the moviemaking medium. Before I begin to sound like the celebrity hosts at the Oscars with their hackneyed one-liners let me quickly say that I just happened to catch up with several movies of the same genre in rapid succession, and cannot currently resist the temptation to rank them in a continuum ranging from the purely amoral to the redemption tales.

Joint #5: The Flock and Lonely Hearts: Do you like your porn served freshly killed and/or amputated? Gorno (gore + porno) is apparently the new rage - with movies like Saw and Hostel running into several delightful sequels. Thankfully movies like The Flock (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473356/) serve as some degree of anodyne. Did anyone notice the resurrection of a leaner meaner Richard Gere? Adventurous war photographer in The Hunting Party, and keeping tabs on crimes of passion offenders in The Flock - this movie shows the lengths of depravity that affection can lead to. Same with Lonely Hearts (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441774/) - John Travolta, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek light up the screen and make you retch at the sheer inhumanity of man

#3: Zodiac (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/): David Fincher in another brilliant movie about an obsessive chase of a serial killer. Watch for Robert Downey Jr as the obsessed detective here. What does one make of the futility of the search, many years on? Little, it appears. A movie with lots of drama and few conclusions. Fincher is consistently brilliant

#2: Cleaner (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896798/): Samuel L Jackson is singularly missing from this blog so far. This movie is about those that clean up post a death in the family. Things get messy as crucial evidence is "cleaned" from a murder scene. The movie goes on into explore the moral ambiguities in the protagonist's past, and the effects on his daughter. It ends with a lot for the small family to clean up, with a little help from a friend. Playing around with shades of gray and degrees of right and wrong, an otherwise hackneyed theme is well executed by Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes, and Ed Harris - the last being in a pivotal role

#1 Road to Perdition (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257044/): What is it about Tom Hanks? (Well - there was Paul Newman and Jude Law here too, but, really?!) In Forrest Gump you cry as this man, oblivious to walking hand in hand with history, lives by the simplest of tenets. In Saving Private Ryan, we have no trouble believing that this man is a schoolteacher as well as a consummate leader of men on the battlefield. In Apollo 13, we live the space dream gone horribly wrong and rejoice at survival against all odds. Really, what is it about this man?! The perdition of Mike Sullivan Sr (Tom Hanks) lies in protecting his surviving son from the damnation of hell that is likely to eventually befall all gangsters on account of their chosen path. If I were to attempt to summarize this movie in a single sentence, I would say thus - Tom Hanks is a gangster, is unfairly set upon, avenges his family, and is survived by a son untainted by evil. And having summarized thus, I can categorically say that such a summary completely fails to capture the evocation, the emotional highs and lows, and the superb performances in the movie. This is among the best movies that I have ever seen, period. This is about legacy, about what you are remembered by, about what you live by. In a Depression and in a world of gangsters, and with your hands tainted by innumerable killings in the course of your profession, if you are remembered by your son for your goodness and resolve, you are truly noble. If the Corleones draw you by the sheer thrill of their acts and way of life, the perdition of Tom Hanks actually makes you believe that a gangster can be truly noble at heart
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PS: American high society is pretentious (who isn't?) and flaunts many trappings of Brit high society while never failing to castigate it at the same time. Saw Woody Harrelson in an unexpectedly brilliant role in The Walker (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783608/) where he cleans up his complicity in a high society murder with reserve and panache! And on Mr Hanks - a relatively simpler role of leveraging disgruntled CIA officers (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and high society ladies bored and with nothing to do, really (Julia Roberts) to spark off - hold your breath - a counter-offensive against Russia in Afghanistan(!) in Charlie Wilson's War (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/)

Looking at these posts, I cant help feeling that we live in a Golden Age of movies with so many brilliant performers and scripts, both new and resurrected, aided by the greatest heights cinematography and sould editing has ever attained thanks to technology. And that in itself makes maintaining a movie blog (currently with zero readership) worthwhile.