Some thoughts on recent films watched
I haven’t had the time these days to watch much films. Got caught up in work and liquor. Didn’t even see 99 or the toast of the season – Sankat City. May be will watch them soon. Just a couple of movie updates that I managed to see in the past few days
The killing –
Quite possibly one of the inspirations for reservoir dogs. Multiple characters, multiple povs,multiple timelines, going here there everywhere, this film is a must watch crime caper gone wrong. The end dog sequence might be slightly co-incidental but guess that’s ok. Guess at the end of the crime caper, one has to give the message saying –Crime doesn’t pay. And for all those who like me might have had a bias against black and white Hollywood films, will be surprised.
High point of the film for me – All the sequences of the wife with her husband, whom she doesn’t love anymore. In the end, she says the famous lines to him– “It isn’t fair. I never had anybody but you. Not a real husband. Not even a man. Just a bad joke without a punch line.”
Two jakes-
Could have been good. Nice. Heard Chinatown had a voiceover but it was removed. May be that VO came into Two jakes. Some of the dialogues, quotes, lines are memorable. Jack Nicholson is slightly plump and funnier (if I may say) than Chinatown. What Chinatown was to water, this was to Oil/Gas. Dunno why everyone considers this a disappointment. May be because the climax isn’t that powerful. I liked it. But yeah, I don’t know why Chinatown is better. May be the audience wants something ‘fresh’ and this film does have a hang-over of Chinatown. Do watch it though. “What I do for a living may not be very reputable. But I am. In this town I’m the leper with the most fingers.”
Remember the Titans
The Hollywood chak-de india. Rather chakde india is bollywood equivalent of remember the titans. Football, “the black and white members of the football team” (this quote has been taken from Wikipedia so no one can accuse me of racism), Denzel Washington doing what he always does (don’t know if it’s a compliment or not, but someone pls suggest some films in which he isn’t playing/representing the Afro- American passionate voice. He looks the same in most of his films I have seen), the other actor Will Patton was nice too, American fervor, racism etc etc. bonding between members of different colours. Cliched – yes, Predictable- might be but still a decent watch. Liked it. Some scenes were surprisingly nice and touching. Kuch kuch jagah farjiyapa aa gaya tha. The white captain reffering to his afro american colleague as – “He’s family, Can’t you see the resemblance” thoda zyaada tha (was too much).
The white balloon –
Superb brilliant, WOW. Loved it. Just wanted to go upto the cute little girl and give her a tight hug. Laughed with her, and had tears when she cried. HOW THE HELL DO THESE IRANIAN DIRECTORS GET SUCH MINDBLOWING PERFORMANCES OUT OF KIDS ? God knows. Must watch, highly recommended. The other kids – her brother and the afghan boy are wonderful too. Highly recommended. Just some nitpicking questions
1.Why was the film named white balloon when it could have been “500 tonams” (the currency of iran) ?
2.Spoilers – The last shot when everyone comes together, the shop owner, the afghan balloon seller, the client at the tailor etc etc. Does it have some significance? Was there some metaphor of the world-moving-on ?
3.Just an observation – Unlike Colour of paradise & children of heaven, this film does not move onto the GREAT film territory. I’m not saying White balloon is a bad film. It’s very very good but falls short. I have no idea where and why. May be someone should do a comparative analysis of the three.
White – by Krzysztof Kieślowski.
Liked it a lot. Had tried watching Red some time back and couldn’t finish it. This one was somewhat better. The protagonist looks like a loser-in-love character initially but as the film progresses, goes onto become almost a mirror of shiny ahuja’s character from hazaron khwahishein aisi. Has everything and is well settled but still cannot forget his ex-wife. There are elements of black humor in the film. The 2 franc he has to remember his ex wife, the statue to remind him, and quite a few things which reminded me of the 1st story of chungking express. I still do not know whether the man takes revenge on his ex or was it planned or a sad co-incidence. Whatever it was, this film is a must watch.
Need to catch hold of Blue now.
Tags: World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sankat City is not released yet.
I liked white most among three,imho blue is too abstract and red is too disconcerting.
i was writing a post on ‘white balloon’ and i saw this one from u … really nice movie. the last shot was exceptional, everyone who had earlier appeared in the movie were criss-crossing each others path in the last shot … metaphorical in deed… i think i will go ahead and post it…
Killing and Two Jakes deserve whole posts and not just regulation paragraph mentions.
Is this really u Karthik? Seemed like ur very low or something…doesn’t seem to be ur post….anyways…I think The Killing deserves a post of it’s own…and thanks for the White Baloon recco..
UTV World Movies zindabad! even I saw white balloon, white and 13 tzameti on it recently. white balloon is extremely well made.
Will check out Red and blue.
@sudhir and Dr Chu – Art(icle) is a mirror to the present space & time.
Sorry for the grandiose statement. I hope you get the drift
@KK – reg. your take on the ‘family’ comment on Remember the Titans – I suggest you watch ‘Parenthood’ by Ron Howard (where is that Ron these days) . There is a Jason Robards track that might interest you in this perspective.