typical me!!!

The last time I read an Ironman comic was years back when I was a kid and probably when he makes special appearances in Spideyman and the Fantastic 4 comics. But only when it was announced that Robert Downey Jr. will play the role of Tony Stark, I was syked.

And yeah, I saw IRONMAN yesterday, one of the special screenings due to the Labour day holiday and oh boy, The movie was a perfect entertainer, funny Super hero movie with pretty good gadgets too. Downey was amazing as the charismatic-playboy billionaire owner of the Start Industries, Tony Stark. He pulled off the role easily.
The suit was amazing, especially after the suit evolved from the rusty unfinished first suit made at afghanistan to the shiny armour with red. Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane was good too.

I guess the Marvel franchise is back especially after few debacles after X-men: The Last Stand, Ghost Rider, Fantastic 4 movies. A total entertainer comes close to Spidey 2(realized that after prestidigitator asked me whether it is better than Spiderman 2)

Like Nicholas mentioned, ” ..I dare you not to get entertained”

Now I’ll have to wait for The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk. Dark Knight is gonna be a joy ride for me(I think, I hope) and I wish Incredible Hulk is good for Edward Nortan’s sake.

EDIT: It seems that after the end credits Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury talks about the Avengers…damn! . Is it true? Did I miss it? Looks I’ll have to see the movie again.

After Rajat Kapoor’s ‘Mixed Doubles’, he teamed up with Ranvir Shorey again and gave us this clever, well acted, black comedy movie called Mithya, (Impostor).

Mithya is about VK,  an aspiring actor, who’d anything to get a good role in films. He takes too much sugar for his tea, hangs around in the sets, lends his voice to cheap cartoons and spends the rest of his night with a bottle of whiskey and a free glass with one gets with it, until life takes an unexpected turn. It so happened that VK resembles a don, Rajabhai. Therefore a gang not so in favour of Rajabhai decides to kill Rajabhai and replace him with VK. As an Actor, from being a junior artist in Movies, VK gets main cast(crucial one) in real life….and series of  unexpected events follows.

The film’s biggest asset are the performances. Excellent cast for an excellent story and screenplay. Thankfully my money was not wasted.

It was one of those (as usual) boring days, so I decided to go out and (as usual) buy some DVDs(pirated). The thing about pirated movies is that you just can’t predict anything. You hope its good, and when you go back home and play it…dang…not even worth 10 bucks. But there are some movies you see among other bad movies and wish that it’d be a good print. So I bought it…..and it was a good one. So, how is the movie?

What would you get when you have two great actors and a good Director working together in a movie? Goose bumps. Especially when both the names come together I think of the oscars they recieved. I always felt that Denzel Washington deserved the oscar for The Hurricane at the time when Russel Crowe got it for Gladiator and Russel Crowe deserved for Beautiful Mind when Denzel Washington got it for Training Day. I was kind of excited before starting the film especially after finding the print was good, but the only problem was that with all the Diwali celebrations hapenning around, it was difficult to follow the dialogues therefore making me wish that I should have rather waited for the movie to release on theaters over here. It would have hit the spot, but then I’d have to wait for a long time for this movie to release in India.

American Gangster reels the life of these two real life characters. Frank Lucas(Denzel Washington) and Richie Roberts( Russel Crowe).

Frank Lucas- Heroin Kingpin from Harlem. Former driver of Bumpy Johnson. After his boss’s death, Frank reforms himself and gets heroin smuggled into the country from Vietnam during the war, sells high quality heroin for a cheaper price to the people therefore becoming a very competition for the other drug dealers. He with the help of his brothers runs the business around in Harlem in a very non-suspicious manner.

Richie Roberts- New Jersey detective. Has and follows his personal ethics, inspite of the corruption around his fellow mates. Divorce e. Juggles between the life of a cop and night law school classes. Goes to the end of bringing down every drug lord and crooked to Justice.

Powerful performances by Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe. Unlike other movies which has multiple star casts, there are no over-the-top exchange of words between these two actors. Normally paced and finishes in a normal manner. Other performances worthy of mention are Chiwetel Ejiofor(Children of Men, Inside Man) and the special apperance by Cuba Gooding Jr. (” Show me the Money”- Jerry Maguire)

After two weeks of waking up early, studying(tried to..also its been a très long time), my GRE exams turned out to be a FIASCO( had some use of learning new words though)

So I took the rest of the day off and went to see a Fantasy genre movie. Stardust. After reading the reviews of the movie earlier, I realized that I still like fantasy genre movie. I used to think that I passed that.

Adapted from the Neil Gaiman’s Graphic Novel, Stardust, The movie takes you in a journey to the other side of the wall for those who are willing sit through it. From the way I see it, Neil Gaiman gave a fantasy story with the usual ingredients, like man taking on a wild journey to bring his love a gift, witches seeking ever lasting beauty, unicorn, pirates et al, except trolls,dwarves, elves and dragons…but I’m sure we had enough of them. Stardust reels around a young man, Tristan who crosses the other side of the Wall( The Wall separates a different kind of world which lives in the time of vagabonds, witches, kings ) to get a fallen star to prove his love, only to be encountered with different kinds of people and situations. Yeah almost everything and Matthew Vaughn(Layer Cake), takes us to the other side of the wall with good characters, great cinematography and gives us a small notion of nostalgia( or maybe not). It does have some bloody, groovy(’gory’ actually) scenes.

Stardust: *ing Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeifer, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller, Charlie Cox, Jason Flemying, Peter O’Toole.

***3/4.

Amazing, the best sequel released this year.

I can still remember the time I went to see The Bourne Identity back in my college days, not having a clue what kind of a movie it was gonna be. At that time I couldn’t connect the dots between Matt Damon and action movie. I liked it. The Bourne Supremacy was even complicated and better.

The Bourne Ultimatum seemed more clever, neat close shot stunts, good editing IMO and had an amazing cast, some of the best actors from my list of good actors, David Strathairn(Good Night and Good Luck), Albert Finnney( Big Fish, Miller’s Crossing) and of course Matt Damon and Joan Allen( The Upside of Anger) too. Shaky camera shots I didn’t mind which by the end I thought it fitted well with the context of the movie making it more original unlike other action movies. Paul Greengrass delivered with very much of ruggedness and style, making this movie pretty much a good experience.

As I mentioned, out of all the sequels released this year this was the best.

****1/2

P.S Well prestidigitator pointed out that it needed more credit than being compared with sequels or movies this year. Maybe the review didn’t hit the spot.

Bourne Supremacy is already there in my top 20 Action/Adventure list along with Star wars series, Die Hard 1, The Matrix . The Bourne Ultimatum also deserves to be in the list.

Even though I abhor the idea of Cricket being watched in every house, every time( mostly because I can’t watch other programmes during that time), I couldn’t help but be excited that Yuvraj Singh had hit six sixes in an over. Finally it was good to watch India bat, every batsman did their thing, but right there when India started to bowl, my mind reached the hate cricket mode. Even though India did win the match, it was a hopeless victory.

…and in the news was about the new ShahRukhKhan movie much hyped up multi cameoed ‘ Om Shanti Om’, was about two distributing companies who bagged the distributing rights for a very large sum of money attracted the Income tax people, and the usual that happens, happened. Apparently ShahRukhKhan underwent physical training to build up a six pack Abs for the movie. Everybody watches the ‘monkey faced’ King Khan, all WOW’ing and OOH’ing like they’ve never seen another guy with six pack abs, both men and women. If one goes to construction site, one can see many men with them. How come they don’t get all that? And mind you, it was the same ShahRukhKhan that made fun of Salman Khan(not in a bad way though) in a Clinic Plus ad.

Last weekend I saw a Malayalam film, ‘Arabi Katha’, which is a story about a communist “cuba” Mukundan. Mukudan will do anything for his pary “The Communist People Party” and will do nothing to bring a bad name to his party.According to him the promised land are Cuba and China, where communism still upheld. But when something terrible happens, he has no choice than to go to Dubai to work. Hence the name “Arabi Katha” (An Arabian Tale) . The movie sends across mixed views to one’s mind about keralites working in the gulf countries. Even though this movie is no heights of Film making, it’s got it’s humorous side and some good characters.

Cast: Nikki Blonsky, Zac Effron, John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfiefer, Queen Latifah, Britanny Snow, Amanda Bynes, James Marsden

My Rating : **** 

Tonight’s show with Jay Leno had Cuba Gooding Jr. and Zac Efron as Guests, that’s when I realised that I didn’t write the review of Harispray. Ususally I don’t fancy anything that is over enthusiastic. Hairspray didn’t turn out to be that, it is a totally energetic musical with a cool cast. Hairspray is a about a young light hearted girl’s dream to make it to a popular dance show, Corny Collins Show and a fight against racial discrimination.

Good songs, good performance by the cast and a special mention about Christopher Walken’ s witty performance who always put a smile on one’s face even though we don’t get to see him dance like in the Fatboy Slim video, but he does dance. John Travolta, did not live up the expectations ( that’s the thing…even though of his previous movies, i still expect him to perfom well everytime). A typical movie to ease off one’s mind.

Finally…. After almost three months of waiting, the movie has released over here. I think the master print of the DVD must be out.

Unlike Fight Club and Se7en, this David Fincher movie is not about thrills. This movie is based on the book by Robert Graysmith, which he wrote based on the case files, who happens to be the main protagonist in this movie played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The movie reels around three characters Paul Avery, crime reporter(Robert Downey Jr.), Dave Toschi, a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) and Robert Graysmith, a political cartoonist(Jake Gyllenhaal) who in their own ways are obsessed about the then serial killer, Zodiac.

The investigation starts off when The San Francisco Chronicle receives letters and ciphers from the Zodiac killer, who wanted the news of his killings to be in the Front page. Paul Avery, a writes the articles regarding the Zodiac. Robert Graysmith, who also works in the Chronicle becomes interested in the ciphers send by the killer. Detective Dave Toschi, comes close to solving the case by catching the suspect, until the Department realizes that the handwriting from the letters and from the suspect does not match.

Robert through his obsession decides to write a book on the Zodiac case files, continues the investigation, getting help from the people who before investigated about the Zodiac.

The case went on for 25 years. The case still remains unsolved. The Zodiac committed 5 murders and took credit for the other killings which he did not commit.

Good movie. Stunning soundtrack. Commendable performances by Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo. Made sit at the edge of the seat for two and a half hours, even though slow paced.

I’ll give it ****.

It’s been a long time since I blogged. Actually I think about posting everyday, but it’s either the lack of ideas or most of the time it’s presnting the ideas in a decent, readable, understandable way. Everybody get’s ideas. That’s blogging and I intend to get better. Someday. I hope.

Over here I’m trying to get ‘Ratatouille‘, and the cbr format of the 52 Countdown series. I just figured out that using bittorrent is different from lime wire. What am I supposed to do?

I saw Paris, Je t’aime a month back, but the thing is that I feel that I can’t give a decent review for that movie. All I can say is that, it’s a good movie and I’ll give it ****.

Die Hard 4.0…that’s what the name of the movie is in India, not Die Hard or Live free. Even though I thought it might suck since it’s a PG-13 movie. It’s like “C’mon what good is a die hard movie when it’s a PG-13 .” Some year for Hollywood, 4 sequels out and one more is on it’s way. Soon we’ll have only sequels. Every movie name will have a number beside it. It’s starting out over here in India. Dhoom:2. Soon for originality it’ll be Dhoom returns, which is not original. We’ll even have Sholay 2: Gabbar Returns.

Anyway I’ll give Die Hard 4.0, ***1/2

But what Happened After the Die Hard movie was the real highlight. It was the day when it rained heavily in Mumbai and I walked in the flood against the current for around 10 kilometers. It was quite an experience. Apparently I along with 3 others were the only ones who was pretty much shocked about the floods in the beginning. Everybody else were having their time of their life. One group were playing cricket(or some game…I can’t remember). Another were sitting on top of somebody else’s car with booze. A group of three were having their evening stroll in the floods.The water was in the height of around 3 feet. I just have to exaggerate it and tell it as a story to my grand kids someday. I’ll be their Hero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truman_Capote

Capote is a film which reels around the life of Truman Capote during his literary phase of his non-fiction novel, ‘ In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences‘, which he researched along with his childhood friend Harper Lee(To kill a Mockingbird). The book is regarding the murder of a family in Kansas. The film shows how Truman Capote manipulates one of the killers, Perry Smith in order to get information for his book as in why he commited the murders.He later sympathizes and then befriends him.

One wouldn’t be surprised why Philip Seymour Hoffman got a Oscar for his portrayel as the gossiping, non-masculine Capote. Actually in my opinion non-debatable. The other actors were good as Philip, especially Clifton Collins Jr. who played Perry Smith. This rather slow film almost got me emphathise with Perry Smith’s character until he murdered the family. Good Film.

Rating : ****