Terminator Salvation

one of the most anticipated movies of 2009 was terminator salvation.but i must say i wasnt too awed by it. how can one imagine terminator without arnie?i never can but one must not let go off chances when one is being shown hollywood movies for free.in this case a very good friend of mine took me to watch terminator salvation and paid for the tickets.the movie is the fourth of the terminator lot;judgement day has taken place and the machines percieve the humans as threats to their existence and is bent on eradicating humanity.john connor played by christian bale is one of the leader of a team who leads his team to resist this eradication.there is no use trying to tell the story because there is very little 'story' as we call it. its basically action that we are paying to watch,extravagant action and fighting scenes between the machines and the humans. the story cathes up in the second half when we are shown that john's purpose is to save kyle reese,his father from the future,who has been taken prisoner by the machines.i would rate the movie as average;to me the best was the the second one - terminator:judgement day,where we had arnie off course and also linda hamilton as sarah connor and eddie furlow as the young john connor.christian bale was just the reguler action hero,nothing extraordinary and his acting was one dimensional.without arnie the fim lost its dramatic element which was present in the previous three;it was predictable and flat. even if it was hugely anticipated it became one of the worst big budget summer release for quite some time.

The Changeling

well i am sorry again for my prolonged absence was away because of my part 1 exams. they ended on the 2nd of july but after that i must admit i got lazy. this time i am going to write about one of the movie which was present at the 2009 oscars - the changeling directed by clint eastswood.well before i begin lets get one thing straight,i WORSHIP angelina jolie.she is just one amazing woman who has gone through a lot in her life;and i am happy to say that i have seen most of her movies. the story is set in the early 1930's in the city of los angeles, which was known at that time the city of angels;but ironically in this very city of angels lived a group of people who did everything in their power to change this city into a city of nightmares.christine collins,played by jolie is a single working mother,who comes home from work one evening and finds her son,walter missing. even if the police are informed about the imcident walter still remains missing and months go by. it is at time that reverend Gustav Briegleb played by malkovich publicizes Christine's plight against the lapd for its incompetence, corruption and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by its "Gun Squad", led by Chief James E. Davis played by feroe. with most of the people turning against government the police,after months of searching claims to have found walter collins. even though 'walter' claims to be her son,christine realises that she has been handed out a totally different boy to take care of. she is forced to take care of this child but is very unwilling to do so and when she tells the captain of the physical discrepancies which exist between 'walter' and walter and questions their mode of working,she in turn is questioned about her capabilities as a mother and is forced into the psychopathic ward at the la county hospital. however with the growing pressure of the reverend and the people who believes in christine's innocence the police once again are made to search for a number of missing boys in the county.during this investigation they come across a serial killer,Gordon Northcott who was the one who kidnapped all these young boys and tortured them to death.he was assisted by his nephew who was a canadian and thus was under police custody for illegally crossing over. he told the detectives about his uncle's deed which resulted in northcott's capture, his trial and finally his sentence to death. now i must say i am totally biased against jolie and i mean totally. to me nothing she does can be wrong or even mediocre. to me she is and always be this great and wonderful woman that walked on this earth.the movie was good,after all it is a clint eastwood movie we are talking about.so was angelina jolie's performance;she won herself nominations for the best actress for the baftas,the oscars,chicago film critic's association awards,14th critic's choice awards,2009 empire awards,the golden globes,irish film and television awards,london film critic's circle awards,rembrandt awards,screen actors guild awards;she won the the best actress award for the satellite award and the 2008 saturn award.jolie's performance was forceful but understated;she shed her movie star persona to appear vulnerable and resolute as christine collins.the mental trauma that christine had to went through when she was locked up in the mental ward was similar to what she had previously portrayed in girl,interrupted which won her the oscar for the best supporting actress category when she was only 24.now i agree that this performance of hers was no way near to lisa rowe,but as i said that i am biased about her;so i just hoped,hope against hope that maybe this time she would actually win the oscar for the best actress. but the fact that she didnt proves that the academy chose wisely when they voted for kate winslet.if you are jolie fan like me i would its definitely a must watch and even if you are not i would suggest to give it a try after all its a clint eastwood movie and if you are a movie buff, u dont find his stuff boring;the story is told in such a manner that only a hardened cynic will be left unmoved by the haunting and sorrowful saga.

North Country

This movie made me realize that men are actually scared of women. Well nothing personal against the guys out there but its what I perceived. I don’t think the guys are gonna take it too kindly but as I said before its nothing personal and its definitely not an attack or anything on their masculinity or anything, so please don’t get me wrong. North Country is based on the real life incident in the iron mines of north Minnesota, how women were sexually harassed by their male coworkers. The time is the early 1990’s and there is a worldwide crisis of jobs. It is at such times that women decide to come out from their houses and get work for themselves. The only place where the pay is good in north Minnesota is the iron mines but it is dominated by the men. Even though the pay is good, the work involves a lot of risk which is why the proportion of men to women working in the mines, even in the 1990’s is 30:1. Now why I said that men are scared coz this is the time that they felt or thought that the women were gonna take away their jobs, steal away their livelihood, the only one that they had in the neighborhood. But what they didn’t realize was that the women had equal rights to earn a living and fend for themselves. The movie revolves around the life of josie aimes played by charlize theron, a young mother of 2 kids who leaves her abusive husband and comes back to her home state and starts working in the iron mines. Her father has been a miner all his life and he doesn’t take it too kindly of his daughter’s working at the mines. This strains their relationship further, since their relationship is not a happy one. From her first day at her new work place, she notices that her male co workers aren’t too delighted to have them around and makes horrible vulgar jokes at their cost which amounts to sexual harassment. But it’s the men who run the show and the women workers cannot protest about their miserable working conditions. But josie decides she has had enough of their stupid jokes and sues the management of the mine for sexual harassment and as always happens, she wins. So that’s basically the story, but there were quite a few flaws in the movie according to me. For example josie’s life: if an abusive husband is not enough, with whom she has a daughter, she was sexually abused by one of her teachers at school and as a result of which she gave birth to a son; and now she’s sexually harassed at her work place. I mean it seemed that all the bad things happened to one person only. And the most important flaw was the lawsuit: how could she win it? I mean I know that lawyers are s’posed to be great talkers but how can you just talk your way to victory when you have no evidence, no proof on your side. The film however also explores the troubled relationship between a son and a mother (josie) and also between a daughter (josie) and a father. But I should say that theron’s performance disappointed me and she clearly did not deserve the oscar nomination for the best actress category. After all, my expectations from her was high after she portrayed the ‘monster’ aileen wuornos.

Mystic River

Oh God! This movie… what should I say… haunts me. I dunno whether ‘haunt’ is the right word or not, but boy after watching this movie, all I could hear was the background music of Mystic River, scored by clint eastwood and see the faces of sean penn and tim robbins. Hats off to them! It’s no wonder that both of them earned an oscar at the 2003 academy awards for the best actor and the best supporting actor category respectively. Mystic River is adapted from the novel with the same name written by dennis lehane and directed by clint eastwood. The movie begins with 3 friends jimmy, sean and dave playing hockey on the streets of boston. It’s evident that the three of them are really close friends but they move apart after a tragic incident. On that fateful day, dave was picked up by a ‘cop’ for destructing public property. This guy was no actual cop and dave was taken hostage where he was sexually abused. After 4 days in captivity, dave manages to escape but things are never normal for him. The three friends drift apart; thus a friendship which was supposed to be for a lifetime, turned into a mere acquaintance. Years pass by when another tragic and horrific incident reconnects these 3 friends: jimmy’s 19 year old daughter, Catherine is brutally murdered, dave is a suspect and sean played by kevin bacon is one of the investigating officers. Tim robbins my God! He was just mind blowing as the troubled dave: a sexually abused child, now a 30 something old father of a son who still has nightmares about that tragic incident that robbed him off his childhood and innocence, whose wife doesn’t know of his ugly past- he was just great. Sean penn as the father of the murdered teen, the local mob boss was good too, but he had a negative stint in his character, this brash punk attitude that made me dislike him. But the best part of the movie I must say has to be the ending, such an unexpected one, it just takes you by surprise. It’s as if someone grabs you from behind and you are scared, speechless shocked everything. And it is for this reason that clint eastwood is clint eastwood and which is why we were supplied with such gem of a movies like million dollar baby, letters from iwo jima, flags of our fathers and now gran torino. And when the movie ends, all you see, all u hear is dave’s face and the background score titled ‘Mystic River’. At least I did.

the curious case of benjamin button

see, i am keeping my word, i am writing about new movies now. this movie hasn't been released in india yet, but i got hold of a pirated version from a friend of mine and saw it. the movie is based on the short story by f. scott fitzgerald and is directed by david fincher. the story of the movie is very new if not strange; it tells the tale of benjamin button who was born an old man and actually gets younger as he ages. this movie reunites brad pitt as benjamin and cate blanchett as daisy after they acted together in babel. benjamin is abandoned after birth by his father thomas button as his mother dies after giving birth. tom leaves his son on the steps of a nursing home and is found by a black nurse,queenie played by taraji p. henson who won herself a nomination for the best supporting actress at the oscars. queenie adopts the baby and names him benjamin and cares and treats him like a normal child. the movie then revolves around benjamin's whole life - how benjamin gets a job at a boat and how he is caught up in the second world war since the boat was enlisted in the u.s navy, how his father later reconciles with him and leaves his button factory to benjamin, how he and daisy decide to live together and have a child who benjamin names caroline after his mother and how finally benjamin persuades daisy to marry another man since it would be difficult for her to raise both caroline and him, since he was getting younger as he aged. he sells his father's ancestral house and even the factory and provides for daisy and caroline and leaves new orleans for a trip around the world. however after many years when caroline is 13 benjamin goes to meet daisy at her dance studio and even gets to meet caroline and frank martin the man daisy had married. by this time benjamin looks like a teenage boy, his age closer to that of caroline's then daisy's. in the end daisy goes to the same nursing home where benjamin had grew up and looks after him since by this time he is a 5 year old boy with dementia. finally benjamin dies at the age of 85 as an infant in daisy's arms. the whole life of benjamin was read out aloud by caroline from benjamin's dairy which he had left behind with daisy. as daisy lay in her deathbed in a hospital in new orleans she asks caroline to read the dairy aloud so that caroline knows who her real father was. the movie ends with hurricane katrina raging outside downs the elctrical system and as caroline steps outside the room for a brief while, daisy breathed her last her last wish of seeing benjamin for a last time. brad pitt has won himself nominations for the best actor category for the baftas, oscars, golden globes and screen actors giuld awards. he did well but i don't think he has a chance of winning an oscar since he couldn't even win the baftas. and i personally feel that if jeffrey goines in 12 monkeys couldn't win him an oscar, i doubt whether benjamin button will. cate blanchett was ok, not the great katherine hepburn that won her the oscar as the best supporting actress oscar in the aviator, but she was ok. but the best was queenie played by taraji p. henson, she deserved the nomination; whether she'll win or not is a different issue but she did real well. well in the end i'll just say that if u have some leisure time to kill u can go watch benjamin button, it wont bore u.

dev d

i know, i know its a hindi movie but i really liked this one. i actually spent my own money to go watch a hindi movie! the story is the reguler devdas story but its the acting that actually gets you. abhay deol as devender singh dhillon aka dev was amazing, he gave one heck of a performance and deserves kudos for it. paro played by mahi gill was good as well, not the typical shy dumb girl, but a girl who has no qualms of having sex before marriageand actually asks dev to make love to her. chanda whose real name s lenny is played by kalki koechlindoesn't match mahi's performance and i would say that she was ok. her emotions were kind of plastic and one could realise that she didn't free herself completely and held back herself; her hesitancy was very eye catching. she may have spoken proper and correct hindi but the accent didn't do her any good. but i suppose if katrina kaif could make it big in bollywood why not her? theMMS scandal that made lenny turn into a sex worker wasa real life incident in delhi itself and so was dev's drinking-driving session where he ran over a number of people. dev goes to bed smoking a joint and emptying 2 bottles of vodka only to wake up in the morning for more joint,coke vodka and cigerettes. its as if dev s passionate about his drinking and drugs. the movie has it all- sex, drugs, booze, the only thing missing is rock and roll. but i would congratulate anurag kashyap for making such a bold movie - its watchable.

jai ho garibi

ya i know its been a long time since i wrote, i actually got lazy but here i am and i am gonna write about a lot of movies now that i am here. lets begin our proceedings with hottest movie in the circuit - slumdog millionaire. ok its a good movie,but not a great movie and i honestly don't agree to all the hype that has been created about it. the film is made in india and has an indian cast - thats it, the director is british,the producer ,scriptwriter everyone's british, so its basically a british movie and i dunno why we indians have to be proud of a british film.poverty certainly is more photogenic and danny boyle proves that again when he decided to turn vikas swarup's q and a into slumdog millionaire.jamal malik, a boy from the slums of mumbai participates in the nation's favourite reality tv show - who wants to be a millionaire, for what? to search for his lost love and the winnings come secondary to him. thats typical bollywood, yuck! but what surprised the whole nation was that this 'slumdog' actually answers all the questions and gets the 1 million rupees! but how could a boy from the slums possibly know any of the answers? as he is hauled of to the police station and is interrogated for suspicion of being helped from an outside source, he recounts his whole life in a flashback and how at different points of time in his life he got to learn new facts which ultimately helped him win the money and his love. the song-dance scene at the end was ABSOLUTELY unnecessary. didn't expect that from danny boyle, bet he got a bit carried away since he was making an english movie with the bollywood cast in the land of bollywood. 'jai ho' seems to have gripped the nation into frenzy, not me though; even in the uk and us since a.r.rahman won a bafta and has an oscar nomination to his name for this song. dev patel and frieda pinto were nothing extraordinary and don't deserve any special praise. they shouldn't have recieved the nominations for the best actor and the best supporting actress at the baftas. pinto has hardly 2 and a half scenes in the movie,so people are just acting stupid about them. its not that a remarkable movie to have recieved 7 baftas and 10 nominations for the oscars. it just lets the world know how wealth and poverty coexist in india and its the poverty that has captured the imagination of the outsiders yet again.