It’s one of those rare movies that makes you think and raises normal human problems in an extreme situation and deals wonderfully with the human condition. When the credits roll, it’s clear that we could all use some of the lessons Hanks learned, because the film is much deeper than being just about simple survival. The film is about being human, something many of us still have to learn.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Cast Away
It’s one of those rare movies that makes you think and raises normal human problems in an extreme situation and deals wonderfully with the human condition. When the credits roll, it’s clear that we could all use some of the lessons Hanks learned, because the film is much deeper than being just about simple survival. The film is about being human, something many of us still have to learn.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Untouchables
Cast:
Kevin Costner as Ness, Sean Connery as Irish-American beat cop Jim Malone, and Robert De Niro as Capone.
Director : Brian De Palma
Year : 1987
imdb score : 8.0/10
Plot:
Brian De Palma's film about Eliott Ness (Kevin Costner) and his struggle against Al Capone (Robert De Niro) in Prohibition-era Chicago is one of the best crime/drama movies in the last 20 years. Right from the start, we are introduced to the violence and corruption that gripped the city during these tough times. We understand that Al Capone all but runs the city, and when a clean cut, straight-shooting treasury agent (Ness) enters the picture, we know right away that this assignment will be far from easy.
It's lucky for the good guys that Ness somewhat accidentally recruits Jim Malone. Malone is a tough, street-wise, beat cop that seems to know more than could possibly be good for him about Capone and how and where his alcohol smuggling operations are run. Throw in a promising young police recruit in George Stone (Andy Garcia) and a wrong-place-right-time accountant in Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith), and you have your band of 'Untouchables'.
Elliot Ness and his team earned the nickname "the Untouchables", for Capone's failed attempts to bribe them on to his payroll. No matter what Capone tried, he could not deter Ness and his team from their pursuit of justice.
This quartet really starts getting Capone's undivided attention after successfully breaking up some very profitable smuggling operations. This is where the movie gets its punch. With Ness hitting Capone where it hurts, his money, and Capone doing likewise to Ness with respect to his family, it really is a man-to-man prize fight. For anyone who has taken a history course in recent memory, we know that Ness is the last man left standing, with Capone eventually getting indicted on tax evasion charges. Not the way you would prefer to take down Capone, but effective nonetheless.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
50 First Dates
Cast:
Adam Sandler,Drew Barrymore
Director: Peter Segal
Year : 2004
Plot:
Henry Roth (Adam Sandler), a Jewish marine veterinarian in Hawaii, meets Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore), a beautiful blonde, at breakfast.
Both Henry and Lucy enjoy the company of each other and feels the start of a serious relationship occurring. Approaching Lucy the next day, Henry is confused when Lucy fails to recognise him. This is the moment Henry discovers that Lucy actually suffers from short term memory loss and can't remember each individual day.
Henry has to win Lucy’s love every day, since she is suffering from a short-term memory loss, he has to come up with a new idea to make her fall in love with him all over again, each and every day.
shawshank Redemption
Plot:
Andy Dufresne (wonderfully portrayed by Tim Robbins), is innocent, however. Convicted of killing his wife and her lover (a crime for which he clearly had a strong motive), he really "didn't do it". Of course, as his jailbird friend "Red" (equally well- portrayed by Morgan Freeman) puts it, "Everybody in here is innocent." Well, Red is "the only guilty man" in Shawshank Prison. As their friendship develops, Andy learns the ropes of prison.
All the actors were terrific, and the film is intelligently plotted. Although normally it's hard to find likeable criminals as film characters, Red's personality is strangely genial. Andy's quiet knowledge is also interesting to watch; you always know he's thinking several steps ahead of everyone else around him.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Life Is Beautiful
Cast:
Roberto Benigni , Nicoletta Braschi
Director : Roberto Benigni
Year :1998
imdb score : 8.4/10 imdb rank:#87
Plot:
1939 Arezzo, Italy.
Guido and his friend arrive in town. Guido, who's Jewish, is a funny, happy, naively sophisticated, imaginative man, who falls in love with a school teacher(Dora). With his wits and his imagination, he wins the heart of the teacher, who in spite of having agreed to a marriage proposal with an other guy, doesn't hesitate for a moment to run away with Mr. Guido, who was just a waiter by then. They have a kid who always enjoys the special imagination of his father. During WWII, the happy family gets swept off to a concentration camp, where the father, in order to make his son believe that the predicament is just an game his family is participating in, uses that very imagination and makes his son believe that it is a game they are playing and the 1st prize is a tank. Various levels of creativity are used by Guido to protect his son in the camp, where the old and the children are killed because they are not strong enough to work.
Roberto Benigni writes, directs and stars in Life Is Beautiful, an Italian film that has won three Oscars and nominated for four others. Benigni plays the role of Guido while his real-life wife, Nicoletta Braschi, co-stars as Dora.
Life Is Beautiful is a funny but heartwarming film. Benigni really gets into his character. His humor and charm in the film not only impress Dora, but woo the audience at the same time. There’s no doubt that Benigni deserves the 1999 Oscar for Best Actor.
Awards:
Oscars Won
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Best Music, Original Dramatic Score
Reviewed by Mr.Shankar:
Chinatown
Cast:
Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston
Director : Roman Polanski
Year :1974
imdb score : 8.5/10 imdb rank:#59
Language: English
Plot:
Chinatown , perhaps acclaimed director Roman Polanski’s finest movie. It’s a classic movie, and it’s highly regarded for a good reason. It’s well-crafted, engaging cinema with a great eye for detail.
Jack Nicholson plays Jake Gittes, a cynical wisecracking private eye with a past. A former police officer in Los Angeles, where he still works, he is hired by one Mrs. Mulwray, played by Diane Ladd, to spy on her husband and produce proof of his affair. Jake gets the proof, which somehow winds up on the front page of the local newspaper.
The next day, another woman, played by Faye Dunaway, shows up in his office and demands to know if Jake remembers ever meeting her before. When Jake assures her he has never met her, she reveals that she is the real Mrs. Mulwray and therefore, by his own admission, she could never have hired him to spy on her husband. Her lawyer serves him with some legal documents with the comment he will wait for the reply from Jake’s attorney.
Worried about his reputation in what he refers to as a small town (the movie takes place during the 1930s), Jake decides he needs to get to the bottom of things and fast. His investigations slowly peel back layers of deceit and untangle a very snarled web of intrigue and secrets with everything leading up to a fateful meeting in
The way in which the mystery is gradually revealed, with every answer leading to further questions, is heightened by the directing and editing. The camera work is simple and elegant, with a minimum of shots compensated for by fluidity and efficiency.
Reviewed by Mr.Varun:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Taxi Driver
Cast:
Robert De Niro , Albert Brooks, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Peter Boyle, Cybill Shepherd, and a young Jodie Foster.
Director : Martin Scorsese
Year :1976
imdb score : 8.6/10 imdb rank:#38
Language:English
Plot:
Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle is 26, a loner in the mean streets of New York City, slipping slowly into isolation and violent misanthropy. In solving his insomnia by driving a yellow cab on the night shift, he grows increasingly disgusted by the low-lifes that hang out at night: "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets." His touching attempts to woo Betsy, a Senator's campaign worker, turn sour when he takes her to a porn movie on their first date. He even fails in his attempt to persuade child prostitute Iris to desert her pimp and return to her parents and school. Driven to the edge by powerlessness, he buys four handguns and sets out to assassinate the Senator, heading for the infamy of a 'lone crazed gunman'...
Shot on the streets of New York in the summer of 1975, Scorsese and director of photography Michael Chapman were set out to focus not just on Travis, but document the world he lived in. New York became its own character, and the street scenes pound with a hallucinatory intensity; gritty, sad, and at times, disturbing.
The film plunges us right into the heart of darkness, through impressionistic imagery, acute dialogue and character, and the fear and self-loathing of performance.
Awards:
won the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
American Film Institute recognition:
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies #47
AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills #22
Scent Of A Woman
Cast :
Al Pacino, Chris O’ Donell, James Rebhorn, Gabrielle Anwar
Director : Martin Brest
Year :1992
imdb score : 7.7/10
Language : English
Plot:
Scent of a Woman tells the story of a preparatory school student who takes a job as an assistant to an irascible, blind, medically retired Army officer. It is a drama about the human condition and how two men with their own different sets of problems could help each other out in an unlikely situation. From two different walks of life and with two entirely different directions in life, Charlie and Frank discovered a deep bond and helped each other discover what they were missing in their own lives. Frank was on the way down and Charlie was on the way up, but they each had become lost in their own paths. In helping Charlie continue on his ascent into life, Frank turned his own life around, but it took Charlie´s devotion, admiration and respect for life to keep Frank from completely crumbling. Although the film´s title would never lead one to believe the movie is a deep and though provoking dramatic ´buddy movie,´ it is exactly that.
Awards:
It won the Academy Award for Best Actor (Al Pacino)
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Hotel Rwanda
Cast:
Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, Sophie Okonedo as Tatiana Rusesabagina
Director : Terry George
Year :2004
imdb score : 8.3/10 imdb rank:#105
Language : English/French
Plot:
Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is the black assistant manager in a Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, Africa. It is 1994 and civil was broken out outside the walls of the four-star lodging and the now-in-power Hutu tribe is bent on getting revenge on the previously powerful Tutsis. Paul, a Hutu but non-political, only wants to save his family from the coming slaughter, but soon realizes there is more at stake – the lives of over one thousand people, Tutsi and Hutu alike, who come to find sanctuary at “Hotel Rwanda.” He saves 1268 refugees from certain death by hiding them in the hotel. Paul Rusesabagina risks his own life to save hundreds of others because he could not turn his face away.