The Tracey Fragments

Year: 2007
Director: Bruce McDonald




















Last few weeks, i've only got around to watching some of the worst movies ever made, including the Christina Ricci starrer Prozac Nation which i had high hopes for, yet turned out to be quite a torture. Bad acting, bad editing, bad everything, put together like a hastily made salad, without the dressing.
Now i really didn't want to write about something i've watched ages ago, like i've been doing the last few times. The Tracey Fragments was probably the only one that i've watched recently that deserved to be written about. It isn't a great movie, but it's well made. A bit confusing though. The director tries the muddled up time line thing, but everybody can't attempt a Tarantino or a Alejandro Gonzalez & manage to pull it off.
The style is interesting though, the screen broken up into several fragment, brilliant editing work. Imagination & reality merging together, at the end you have to work it out as to what was real & what wasn't. There will be bit & pieces that you will have to work on putting together, but if you are the kind who can watch something without being too stingy & questioning about anything & everything, then it's all right. It's the overall image that you are left with that explains this film, like the name suggests, whatever is shown are just fragments & they aren't put together at the end, as you would expect of it.
Ellen Page is good as usual, not as good as Juno i suppose, but she does fine. The others just don't have too much to do.
Overall the movie has a very artsy kind of feel, but is in fact not that high strung if you are used to watching stuff like that. I'd give it a 6 upon 10 maybe. Watch it if you want something to make you feel like you're watching some highly intellectual stuff & yet not want to stress your intellect too much.

Stalker

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Year: 1979














I cannot review this movie beacause I am completely overwhelmed every time i watch it.
All that i can say is, if you haven't seen a Tarkovsky, you haven't seen anything at all. He takes the movie medium & turns it into art & all we can do is watch with wonder, every frame, every dialogue, every little sequence, pieces of a masterpiece.
One of my favourite movies, one i can watch over & over again & every time is like a revelation. You want to freeze every scene so that you can remember it vividly when you close your eyes, you want to memorize the dialogue so that you could keep quoting from it. And at the end, you are left with a sense of having witnessed something magnificent, a deep, rich, full feeling. Very few things can give you that feeling.
True art, in every sense.

Dancer in the Dark

Year: 2000

Director: Lars von Trier

Let me get this straight before i write anything about this movie. I despise musicals. I just don't undersatnd why they feel the need to break into song & dance routines at the drop of a hat, & that not even organised songs, but songs that are just dialogues set to tune. I understand that they are just a genre of movies, & I appreciate all it, just that I can't really digest the concept.  

But Dancer in the Dark stands apart from the crowd. To be really honest, i did find it a little irritating in the beginning, Bjork breaking into song all the time, even at the most serious of  moments. But then i did get into it, especially toward the end, where the story seems incomplete without the singing part. Of course, here all the singing makes sense, it is, after all, a story about a woman who loves singing & dancing so much that it overshadows even her reality. How the music in her soul gets her through all her pain & her misfortune, till her very last breath. All she ever had was the music, a friend that never betrayed her, that never left her alone. And it's about her love for her son, a love that consumes her whole & yet she never complains. It's a heartbreaking story, about how good things don't happen to good people & yet, how their goodness & purity carries them through. 

The most beautiful, phenomenal, astounding thing about this movie is Bjork. It is only very rarely that you get to see a performance of this calibre, she's a natural, she's wonderful. She is a very talented musician no doubt, but she outdoes herself as an actress. She is the one who holds you spellbound to the plot, makes you feel her joy, her anger & her sadness. You need to be quite strong to not cry at the end, at least feel a lump in your throat. I barely ever cry at movies, melodrama bores me more than anything, but i confess, i did cry a little bit at this one.

The tagline of the movie goes "You don't need eyes to see" & it couldn't be more appropriate, not just as the storyline goes, but also for the ones watching the movie. You can't watch this one only with your eyes, you need to watch it with your heart, only when you can feel it, you will realise the greatness of it. 

The Machinist

Year: 2004
Director: Brad Anderson
























If you need one reason to watch "The Machinist", it is Christian Bale. If you were impressed by the amount of weight Tom Hanks lost for Philadelphia or Cast Away, take a look at this movie & be prepared to be shocked. Bale fits into character of the troubled Trevor Reznik, in more ways than the weight, though. His presence is one of the things that make this otherwise okayish movie quite a must watch.
The plot is kinda easy to figure out if you are a movie fanatic like myself, i got it within the first 30 minutes or so, but i still wouldn't call it predictable, you can watch it till the end, almost knowing, yet not completely knowing whats going on, & you have to give it to them, the story is rather interestingly built up. I won't give away any of the plot 'cause then it won't be any fun at all. So there's not much to write about this one.
A good watch if you are looking for a thriller. Nothing artsy about it, yet not even cheap thrills. Does make you think, even if for a moment. And 5 stars for acting. Completely recommended.

P.S. I Love You

Director: Not anyone you should know
Year: Who cares? really?


I didn't bother looking for a photo


I was feeling a bit under the weather & needed to curl up in bed with some ice cream & a chick-flick. Unfortunately, there was no ice cream, & "P.S. I Love You" is probably a disgrace, even to the much forgiving genre of chick-flicks. I read the plot & expected something sad & sweet, maybe not worth much, but still just what you need when you feel a certain way. There's this woman whose husband dies, & then she keeps getting these letter he had written before he had died, to get her life going once again. But what it turns out to be is a romantic tragi-comedy, which is neither romantic, not comic, nor too tragic. There is no chemistry between the lead pair, they start the movie by yelling at each other for some reason you barely understand, then pouncing around in their bed for a while, cut to the next scene, he's dead, she looks sexy, their friends drink & dance & flirt at a bar, which is supposed to be a memorial service or something. Then she goes back home & is really sad for a while, you do feel a bit sad for her & just when you think you should go get the tissues, the inaneness hits you full force. She starts getting these letters, he was the only person who understood her & only he could get her back on her feet, blah, blah etc. And he gets her back on her feet by sending her to sing Karaoke, & to Ireland, where she sleeps with his best friend (eeeew!!!) She comes back & finds that her calling in life is to design shoes, all thanks to his letters of course. Then he urges her to fall in love again, & she kisses whoever is available & immediately after the kiss she realizes that she doesn't love this guy, (of course, we knew it all along, coz he's just not the lovable type) she decides to wait for a better deal.
I have a few unanswered questions though...
Firstly, do all Irish men wear truckloads of jewelery?
Secondly, if he knew he could help her find her calling, why didn't he do so in the 10 years that they were married & could only do it, after he was dead, through a single letter?
There are several more, but i there's no use asking, it's just a silly movie. Bollywood "complete entertainment" flicks are probably a better way to spend your time than watch stuff like this. 'Nuff said.

New Releases

1. The Incredible Hulk:





















An incredible torture of a movie. I went for this movie only because i believed in Edward Norton, i believed he could do no wrong, any movie he stars in was destined to be worth watching. But i was oh so wrong!
There is of course nothing new to the plot. The first half & hour or so, when Banner is hiding in Brazil is watchable, the first fight sequence is also well shot, but what follows is almost another hour or so of the same stuff, the same old fights, the military going in all guns blazing, of course the Hulk thrashes them all. And then there is Liv Tyler! She wears the same dazed expression all through the movie, it's almost funny when she tries to emote. The movie ends, as is anyone's guess, making ground for the sequel, but I sure wont be waiting with baited breath.
It gave me such a bad taste in my mouth that I had to watch another movie when i got home (Woody Allen's "Scoop" which was in fact quite good) to get rid of it. Don't waste your money.

2. Get Smart:





















This one was fun. And to be frank, this was the one we were cynical about at first. You know, the same old spy comedy, Johnny English style, been there, done that. But we were pleasantly surprised. Very soon we were laughing out loud & enjoying every moment of it. Anne Hathaway was lovely as usual. And the plot isn't that much predictable actually, even if it is in some places, it still manages to be funny. And the "glory to the underdog" tendency isn't that prominent either. Overall, nothing much to write about, but a good film to watch if you are looking for some light fun.

3. Via Darjeeling:






















I admit i didn't get this one, but i wonder if there is actually anything to understand.
Firstly KK Menon is wasted opposite Sonali Kulkarni who hams her way to glory. She is completely unwatchable. Secondly Sandhya Mridul is wasted in a role that keeps her in the background most of the time. The ending is abrupt, I like movies that leave things upto the viewers imagination, but this is not the way it is done. The dubbing is just terrible. The only good thing that i can say about this movie, is that the score is nice, the two songs are rather good, it's one of the few movies where you are glad for the songs. I cannot write anything more about it, because i'd have to understand it first & i don't think that can happen even if i watch it a second time, which of course i wont. Avoidable, to say the least.

Khuda Kay Liye (In the Name of God)

Director: Shoaib Mansoor
Year: 2007

At the risk of sounding like one of those saturday morning newspaper movie critics, i have to say this... Khuda Kay Liye is a film which has it's heart in the right place. There are several things that are wrong with this film, in no way is it a classic, but it's worth a watch. The story is told though the lives of three young people, Muslim Pakistani youth, a British born young girl & her two cousins in Pakistan who are aspiring musicians. How their lives are torn apart by religious extremism is the main focus. All three are innocents, all three are victims of acts not their own. All of them have their dreams shattered, & they are scarred permanently, yet the movie ends on a positive note.
The acting leaves a lot to be desired, however the actors playing Mansoor & Mary do a good job. The small appearence by Nasiruddin Shah is of course the highlight of the entire 3 hour film. The score is pleasant, but the songs seems quite unnecessary & just stretch the length of the movie further. Another thing was the lack of subtitles; most of the film is in english, but some of it is in Urdu, which one can understand only in bits & pieces, it kind of takes the steam out of the dialogue.
Overall, Khuda Kay Liye is a good watch, better to get a ticket for the afternoon show of this one than waste the same 3 hours on some useless bollywood flick. You won't regret the choice.

Breathless

Director: Jean Luc Godard
Year: 1966















While watching this movie close attention has to be paid on the technique, because that is what makes it a benchmark in cinematic history. The story (written by Francois Truffaut) is simple. There are several one liners which stays in your head long after the movie is over, one's you would love to keep quoting. The part with the journalists interviewing Parvulesco, Patricia among them, is particularly full of quotes like these.
The characters build up beautifully & naturally.Michel imitates Humphrey Bogart in his ways, & Patricia takes on the expressions & styles of almost everyone she meets. There is something so very dramatic about them, yet they are not overtly so, they are not forced to explain themselves or what they are thinking or feeling, but can be figured out .The climax is remarkable, with the drama being smoothened out every time it has an opportunity to build, it is more cerebral than apparent. The music is sure to grab attention while staying in the background like it is supposed to.
The name of the movie is more a reflection on the story telling technique, hasty, with jump cuts, digressions from the main plot in several places soon returning to carry on the tale & the end without credits or titles, it's almost like a breathless narrator telling a tale, only with images.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Director: Michel Gondry
Year: 2004















You can't help but love this movie. It's a love story, yet it's not one of those sunshine-and-roses love stories where people live happily ever after, or the romeo & juliet style tragic tale of star crossed loves who have all the love in their hearts but are forced to be apart by the cruel world. This is a story that anyone can relate to, a tale of ordinary, imperfect people, looking for a little love, finding it & then messing it all up due to their own complicated minds. When it hurts, they rush into the only thing that they think will make their pain go away... having their memories of each other erased, but at the point of no return they realize that they don't want to let go of these memories. When things get bad, when you just stop trying to see the good in the other person then all that you see is the bad. You can hate a person, yet only when you stand to lose them, even the memory of them, that's when you realize that you can't stand to be without them, that you'd rather live with all the hurt & the things that you find unacceptable in them than live without them. That is what this movie conveys so naturally & beautifully.
The best part is that, the same plot could have been made melodramatic, overbearing on emotions, but it doesn't. It's not a fairy tale. It's about people who could almost be real. And anyone can relate to it, anyone who has ever been in a relationship with someone for some time. Jim Carrey has always been a fabulous performer, & he's at his usual best in this movie. Kate Winslett appears in a completely deglamourised role as the quirky, weird, fiercely independent yet sensitive, Clementine. They both carry their parts without making anything look unnatural or abnormal, that is what makes their characters even more believable.
If you are the sensitive sort, you may even get dewy eyed, especially toward the end, where the last few memories that Joel has of Clementine are being erased & they know that they can't hold on even if they wish to, it's rather touching. The Beck song at the end, "everybody's gotta learn sometime" kind of sums the entire thing up.
Overall, one of my favourite movies, & one of the few i'll watch over & over & over again, but never ever get tired of it.

My Blueberry Nights

Director- Wong Kar Wai
Year: 2007




















I realize that till now i have only reviewed movies that i particularly liked, on this blog. So i decided to make an exception. My Blueberry Nights(MBN), is one movie that i didn't like at all.
Wong Kar Wai's "Chungking Express" was nice, worth a watch. But if you watch MBN expecting the same, you will be left throughly disappointed.
The film opens promisingly. More so because Jude Law is always a pleasure to watch. In fact he is the only good thing about this movie. The first 30 minutes are actually nice, even though scattered & disorganized, as though someone went haywire with the editing job. Norah Jones, in her acting debut, looks heart wrenchingly lovely, but her acting skills aren't really as wonderful as she is behind her piano, doing what she does best.
The sub plots are just silly. They don't touch a chord, you don't feel for the characters, it seems melodramatic & often so irritating that you are tempted to hit fast forward to get to the end, & get over with it knowing that the lead couple get their happy ending, which of course, they do.
The music of the film is one thing that's commendable, with Cat Power & Norah Jones amongst others. But at some places even the music seems over bearing, over done. It would be much wiser to buy the movie OST CD than waste money on the DVD.
There's nothing much one can write about MBN. The Verdict: Skip this one. If you want to watch a light romance, watch Love Actually instead.

Magnolia

Okay, first thing, this movie is Long (yes, the capital L was intentional), but you don't feel it. It holds you in place from the opening scene to the climax, & that is the least that can be said about it.
This is one of the movies that makes such beautiful use of the music that the songs are just not there, playing in the background, but they are part of the story. The soundtrack is by Aimee Mann & there are three beautiful songs, "One" that opens the movie, "Save Me" that ends it & "Wise Up" somewhere in between, which has all the characters singing the verses that just fit in with their varied yet very different lives. Its a very dramatic moment, almost comical, yet its so heart wrenching that it can make most people reach out for the tissue box.
What struck me most about this movie, is the sense of tension that prevails throughout. You sit there, anticipating, waiting for something to happen, but it doesn't, it just goes on as usual. And just when you think its all over, that's when it happens, something that you least expected. It rains. Frogs, millions of them just drop down from the sky, yet nobody seems to notice it much or brood much over it. Their own lives are probably more complicated than it all. Nothing seems weird anymore with the kind of lives ordinary people live.
It boasts brilliant acting by every single actor, but Tom Cruise does an outstanding job, probably his best ever as the flamboyant, chauvinistic yet deeply wounded self-help guru Frank Mackey. Julianne Moore is also brilliant as always.
This film is an experience, many will find it unreasonable, overtly dramatic, yet it is thoughtful & artistic, a beautiful movie in every sense of the term.

Talk to Her

Director: Pedro Almodovar
Year: 2002



















I fail to understand why so many people don't like Almodovar's cinema. Probably its the way he deals rather casually with topics like homosexuality, promiscuity, & sex in general and even murder, without being the judgmental in the least; combined with the way he dramatizes everyday situations. It is often hard to accept a film like Bad Education or even Volver, but Talk to Her is one movie that will appeal to even those who do not quite identify with his genre of movie making.
Talk to Her is a love story, & a tale of friendship of two men brought together at a hospital, caring for their lovers who are both in a deep coma. Its also a story of hope & of sacrifice. It moves far from the realms of morality & political correctness & explores love that transcends all boundaries, even reason and reality.
If you watch this movie being judgmental or expecting a statement or a message, you will be left with a bitter taste in your mouth, but just going with the flow will unravel to you the real essence of the movie. It wasn't made to decide what is right & what is wrong, neither to put the viewer in a moral dilemma, but just to delve into human feelings, "go with the heart" as they call it.
The movie boasts some excellent acting, especially Dario Grandinetti as Marco & the beautiful Leonor Walting as Alicia, though she's in a coma through most of the film.
The riot of colours is an usual treat like in most of Almodovar's movies, but subdued in scenes with Marco & Alicia, probably to bring out the contrast between the lives of the two women & hence their fates. The music is also well chosen, but that is classic Almodovar.
Talk to Her is one of Almodovar's best, & a movie that one will remember fondly a long time after watching it.

Herbert

Director- Suman Mukherjee
Year- 2005













They hardly make movies in bangla like this these days. I watched this movie (on DVD) after watching a series of ridiculous no-brainers, Bong Connection, Kailashe Kelenkari (more a jewelery ad than a movie), Aamra... all touted to be "different", but none hit the mark. But once in a while comes a movie like Herbert, which deserves far more appreciation that it actually got from the audience.
First time director Suman Mukherjee does a brilliant job of this adaptation of Nabarun Bhattacharya's novel. The story unfold though the life of Herbert Sarkar, the orphan son of parents who linger through a ghostly presence throughout the movie, outside his window, observing their child as he lives, his father making a movie of this life of obscurity. The screenplay often ventures into surreal & neo-realistic imagery, though most of the times it is very real & palpable.
Herbert is rather comic, even in his everyday tragedy of a life, almost Quixotic. He loses his parents, falls in love, breaks his heart, witnesses a friends' suicide, gets involved with the Naxal revolution, loses his nephew who was also probably the only friend & "comrade" he ever had, turns first to the occult then swindling people, & finally on the verge of fame & fortune, he is shamed & dies alone, slashing his wrists, leaving just a suicide note that is only the confused thoughts of a insane person to those left behind. Only posthumously does he manage to cause an" explosion" raising the question "Aren't all madmen political dissidents?"
Subhashish Mukherjee, a wonderful theater actor, not often seen on the big screen, brings Herbert Sarkar to life. The other actors also do justice to their roles. The music of the film needs special mention, the background score adds to the drama of the film.
Herbert is no a movie for everyone though, it needs an open mind & acceptance of nuances into eccentricity to fully appreciate it. For anyone who can however, it is a rich, fulfilling experience.

Apocalypse Now

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Year: 1979



















Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece & one of my all time favourites. This adaptation of Heart of Darkness is a visual treat from the opening shots of the helicopters bombing the quiet forests of Vietnam set to the tune of The Doors' The End to the climax with Willard executing Col. Kurtz, this film keeps the audience in a daze. This is one of those movies which are never appreciated fully with one viewing. It requires several, to understand & appreciate each little aspect of it, the music, the plot, the acting, the cinematography... it's sheer genius.
Martin Sheen plays arguably the best role in his acting career as Captain Willard, bored, disillusioned & yet hungry for the adrenaline rush of a mission entrusted to him, to find & assassinate the enigmatic Col.Kurtz who has set himself up as a God-like figure among the local tribes in Cambodia & formed his own army. Col. Kurtz is of course played by the larger than life Marlon Brando.
What follows is a series of events, blurring the lines between reality & imagination, good & evil building up to the inevitable climax, but by that time the movie & the viewer has already crossed the line into a kind of madness & is left almost in a daze.
The use of music in this film is spectacular. The classic opening sequence set to The End, the helicopter attacks set to March of the Valkyries, and the assassination scene, all make astounding use of the music, it almost becoming a part of the scene.
Apocalypse Now is in one word, beautiful, even though it is disturbing. It's best to watch the 2001 Director's Cut, available on DVD which has been remastered & brings out the delicate beauty of this movie, & contains several scenes which were originally deleted. A must watch for every self respecting movie viewer.

Paths of Glory

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Year: 1957



















Like Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory too is understated. There is hardly anything that affects the viewer or catches attention in the first 45 minutes or so of the film, except for the scene where the general goes on asking the soldiers if they are ready to kill Germans & there is this one soldier, shell shocked, with an almost happy expression on his face, foreseeing his death in the battlefield.
Paths of Glory does not directly give any anti-war messages, there are no long speeches about it, no sentimental tear-jerking scenes, but Kubrick manages to make his point clearly.
His one voice of conscience is the Colonel Dax, who ultimately goes about business of war as usual, failing to protect his men from both the enemy in the battlefield & the enemy within. But the movie does manage to affect viewers in a subtle but powerful manner.
Scenes of war are neither glorified nor are they shot in a way as to induce horror. They are rather matter-of -fact & normal. What stand out though are the court martial scenes, with the prosecutor & judges bearing an almost diabolic quality, making the helplessness of the prisoners & Dax more apparent.
The scenes that build up to the firing squad executions are somehow more dramatic than the execution itself. And by underplaying gruesome elements like the shooting of the wounded prisoner, almost dead from his injury... who is "pinched on the cheek a couple of times" to wake him up before he faces the firing squad, Kubrick manages to horrify his viewers in a delicate & lasting way.
Overall, Paths of Glory is one of the most powerful anti war statements on celluloid, ever, along with Full Metal Jacket, & surely one of Kubrick's best.