appaloosa - ed harris

appaloosa. a 2008 film directed by ed harris. a movie that is 115 minutes long and extremely slow paced, with actors viggo mortenson, renee zellweger, jeremy irons and ed harris himself.

with a leading cast like that nothing should go wrong right?

right! nothing really did. except maybe it was a little too slow paced with a little less action. i think one would expect more action from a western film.

in new mexico territory, virgil cole (harris) and everett hitch (moretenson) are peripatetic and audacious lawmen, hired by desperate towns as marshall and deputy. the city of appaloosa is afraid of randall bragg (irons), a rancher with wealth and a gang of thugs who escape after every trouble they cause and therefore it is difficult to prove them guilty and get the law to hang them.

cole and hitch are hired and they contrive to arrest bragg and bring him to trial. while all this is going on, a widow, allison french (zellweger) arrives in town. pretty, refined, good natured, polite and smart, cole falls deeply in love and allison seems to return his love equally, however, there is more to allison than meets the eye.

excellent direction. great performances from harris and mortenson, in both the fast action and the slow romance. the fact that one cannot stand zellweger's character in this film makes her perfect and different from her other roles. i wouldnt say this film is over rated. it is a laidback western film with a little romance and quick dual gun fights, even if it just lasts a few minutes.

i am not too much a western film fan, but still, i wouldnt have missed this one. more than real action, i think this film was about character and trust, respect and honour, friendship and freedom.

great watch if you can digest the slow pace (which i can :-))

burn after reading - ethan and joel coen

burn after reading. a 2008 film by ethan and joel coen. with an all star cast that include george clooney, brad pitt, john malkovich, tilda swinton and frances mcdormand, a moviegoer would expect an award-winning plot and script. unlike their previous film in 2007, `no country for old men' which has been highly praised by critics and was recognised with four awards at the oscars, this one was not deemed even for a nomination.

i dont quite know how to rate this movie, not because it seemed like a total mess but because i cant quite understand what the coens wanted to achieve with the audience. i dont really subsribe to movies with happy endings, i am more into a dash of reality in films therefore by right i should have rated this as a star movie, but then, strangely it sort of falls short on being a movie one can relate to.

having said that, i still think the coens must have this crazy distinctive humour to have produced a silly, quirky yet dark comedy in the best traditions of cinematic farce with a couple of surprising moments of random violence thrown in for good measure.

osbourne cox (malkovich) and his wife, katie (swinton) live offbeat lives close to separation. he is supposedly sacked from his job for being an alcoholic while katie is having an affair with harry (clooney) who is about to file for a divorce. katie is advised by her lawyer to get a complete record of cox's financial situation so she copies the files from the computer onto a disk which gets accidentally left on the floor in the gymn where linda (mcdormand) and chad (pitt) discover it and think of a plan where they can make money from ox if they were to return the disk to him. phew...all that in one breath!!

ox has absolutely no idea what these two are talking about when they call him up for a meeting and the `ransom' money that they are demanding. ox, however meets up with them and when he refuses to pay them, they take the disk to the russians thinking perhaps some confidential cia information is in it as most of the information has names and financial details, along with unimportant memoirs that ox had recorded.

it is absurdly hilarious watching the cia agents struggling to figure out who is doing what to whom and how they deal with the trail of destructions idiotically left by a those people who are involved. one gets used to the idiocy and cranky humour, but is sometimes shocked with certain scenes which spell murder, even though it is by accident. for a while one wonders if a situation like that could occur in real life, but beyond that thought, one does not linger anymore.

despite the reviews, i wouldnt have missed it mainly because of the cast and directors. worth watching a coen brothers movie despite the inspites.

street kings by david ayer

street kings, a 2008 film by david ayer starring keanu reeves, forest whitaker, hugh laurie, chris evans

detective tom ludlow (keanu reeves) is an enforcer controlled by elite squad captain jack wander ( whitaker). ludlow is often dispatched as an assassin to take out criminals when wander thinks it should be done that way. great start to the movie, full of action, ludlow bursts into a house filled with korean gangsters and shoots everyone in sight until he reaches his intention of rescuing the kidnapped twins in a locked closet.

ludlow looks for the murderer of his former partner, terry crewes. it happens while ludlow follows him to a convenience store intending to beat him up, but two masked gunmen run in and shoot crewes first. even though ludlow was there at the crime scene, the cops treat it as a robbery completely ignoring what ludlow has to say, and of course, wander encourages it.

the plot and the end is predictable. we know who the bad guy is ten minutes into the movie, but ludlow himself is unaware and is confused and teams up with rookie detective chris evans to find out what really is going on and what he has been missing all this time.

great cast with credible supporting performances, i thought it was pretty good movie but then again, just another typical hollywood one, however, i enjoyed it. then again, you wouldnt miss anything at all if you dont watch it. :-)

righteous kill by jon avnet

a 2008 jon avnet film. robert de niro and al pacino, two veteran and favourite actors of mine.

when we are told of a movie with these two as armed and dangerous veteran nyc cops and with a script writer like russel gewirtz (inside man, one wonders what would ever go wrong with a film like that right?

turk (deniro) and rooster (pacino), partners on the nypd are involved in the investigation of a series of vigilante serial murders. the movie starts with the confession of deniro, explaining the murders commited of people who actually or possibly deserved them. the crime is linked with this murderer writing poems and leaving it at the crime scene for every planned killing he commits.

the intention is to mislead the audience from knowing or guessing who the real killer is. there is a scene where turk plants a gun to put away a vicioius child killer who was about to walk off scot-free. rooster brings this up with the two young detectives who are investigating this case together with them. and this and everything else points to turk being the violent killer. however, along the way, if you are used to watching typical hollywood nyc movies, you would guess the real killer.

the story cruises. and the thriller that is much talked about seems and feels somewhat forced. even though the twist at the end is pretty much exciting, one already expects that the murderer would be someone other than turk, and so who else can he be?

as a film lover, any film lover, hehehe, i enjoyed righteous kill and no, i dont think the two were wasted. i think avnet would have given deniro and pacino enough room to continue the way they would like it. it was good to know that they were the main features of the film.

a good movie with good actors, and a good twist. dont judge it like an expert, it would spoil ur perception, instead, enjoy the flow, no matter how much it drags, and how typical a hollywood film it is, still worth a watch.

the last legion by doug lefler

again, a big gap since i last gave time to my blog. left for india on the 19th of feb and returned on the 12th march, a whole 21 day trip of interesting challenges.

still in the midst of writing my journal. it might take some more time. hope to complete it before i leave for trichy again in july.

after my return on the 12th, managed to complete a few movies.

the last legion. a 2007 film by doug lefler. has colin firth, aishwarya rai, thomas sangster and ben kingsley amongst others.

the many versions of king arthur and excaliber has made every movie connected with it a fascinating watch for me. i know others will or might complain of how badly the movie started or it isn't the way its supposed to be or maybe the actors screwed it up but well, even though i sort of think like them, i still enjoyed it. hehehe. i think if one does not take it seriously, then it is good entertainment and it will keep you engaged.

was it a bad movie. i dont know. i cant say. it surrounds the fall of the roman empire with its last emperor, a 12 yr old sangster (romulus) who would rule for a day before losing it all to guy in a golden mask named vortgyn, who apparently is looking for that same sword which would belong to king arthur one day. for rome to rise to power again, sangster must find the sword that would give the rightful ruler power to attain rome again. aurelius (colin firth) and merlin (kinsley) aid romulus in that direction. mira (aishwarya) is an indian warrior who is sent with them as a guard.

there are some atrocious and unbelievable battle scenes that emerge with ridiculous time gaps of fighters having time to hug and exchange compassionate looks with each other.

like i said, if you dont take it seriously, you will pretty much enjoy it. however, this film does not really follow any true historical events and the overall acts seem pretty unreal and inactive. my conclusion is the same, for a lighthearted movie, its fun to watch.

sex in a cold climate

it makes me a little emotional to write about this. being a movie freak, of any type, i freely give my opinions, mainly balanced ones knowing that perceptions can differ within seconds, however, very few movies touch a chord that brings up the passion in me to write emotionally.

we are ignorant of much of history that powers have managed to bury away from us not because they think we are too weak to accept them but because they are too weak to acknowledge them.

when an order of nuns in dublin sold off part of the convent to real estate developers in recent years, what emerged were the remains of women with scandals buried in unmarked graves. were they prostitutes as the nuns would have readily claimed they were?

the catholic church.

those who know me and have read my blog, please forgive my obstinacy and determination in proving karl marx right over and over again when he stated that religion is the opium of the masses. i don't know... i continue to think that way. he may have said it with some other context in mind but generally, i think we are all followers, we would be absolutely lost if we didnt have anyone to lead us.

the so called prostitutes have been virtual prisoners, confined by the catholic church behind convent walls for perceived sins of the flesh and sentenced to a life of servitude. the place was called the magdalene laundries. another misconception of the bible, mary magdalene was the so called prostitute and therefore wayward women or fallen women who were sent into such a laundry prison, were named just that...the magdalene laundries. and to think they existed until just a decade ago and no one ever raised an objection. makes us lesser beings doesn't it?

and to top it all, just imagine this, they were closed only because they were not profitable enough with the emergence of the washing machine in every home being a possibility. and since i am topping it all, it is more pathetic to know that none of these women were ever given any compensation, not that it mattered, but still, there were no apologies and no regrets.

even though, the magdalene sisters by peter mullan had a more distressing effect and showed real threatening and disturbing behaviour of the nuns, especially the mother superior, the dvd i just witnessed broke me apart.

sex in a cold climate, an appropriate title for a documentary that is so appaling and frightening that you will wish throughout the 50 minutes that it is not based on a true story, that it never really existed.

but it did.

the historical documentary is the horrific true story of sadistic and abusive nuns running a slave laundry factory. (not to mention the sick priests who think these women are their price whenever the sex urge arise). the magdalene laundry in ireland under the auspices of the catholic church's sisters of mercy had young women working under vile circumstances paying for their sins by washing other people's laundry. these girls were accused of sexual or sinful contact with men. this dvd is about an interview with four different women from such an institution, and how they explained what really went on behind those mysterious walls. one such woman's sin was that she was simply too pretty and with her looks she would definitely be a fallen woman unless she was sent to the laundry for discipline. all the four women, eventually escaped from that prison but the emotional and physical scars never left, in fact they literally damaged their entire lives.

i wonder reallly and please help me understand. these nuns have taken vows. what happened? what changed them into beasts and violent prison guards? they spent their every moment delighting in persecuting these young hapless teenagers. what went wrong?

the shameful degradation of the girls being humiliated by the nuns and then what about their families? aren't they beasts too? the movie was only a testimony by the magdalene inmates and even though i have more to say, i wonder why the church never really did anything about this? they did not know?

i ask again. did they not know?

isn't that inexcusable?

was there another side to this story? some measure of good has to be done along with all that is bad right? was there any such good? can we even look for it after knowing what were done to these women? is there a justification for it?

another friend watched this dvd and said she was lucky she did not grow up during those times in ireland, but i say this boldly and with passion, that honestly they are so lucky that i did not grow up during that time. they would have literally been mass murdered.

watch it if u can and know that cruelty did not only exist during hitler's and pol pot's times.

the life of david gale

may 2nd, this year was my last blog. so much has happened, so many books read and movies watched but i haven't made this place my priority. work, family, travel and now studies have crept in as major time stealers. but i met someone recently who shared my interest in films that do not enter the mainstream cinema, and he was kind enough to loan me a few movies for my watching pleasure.

the first one that i would like to write about is the life of david gale. i absolutely love alan parker for mississippi burning and till date the film is incomparable to any, and then later, his evita had a more profound effect, so based on the past directions, did i enjoy the life of david gale? i am not sure but i thought it came forward as a true story, which to me was pretty impressive.

a college professor and texas death penalty abolitionist, david gale and his colleague constance, work for an anti-death penalty organization called death watch. kevin spacey who is gale is accused of rape by a former student. i honestly find it deplorable when someone is accused of bogus rape, as was in this case. gale loses his job and family, develops a drinking habit and is later convicted of murder of his colleague and best friend, laura linney who is constance.

he sits in jail five days before he is to receive a lethal injection when suddenly a reporter is requested by him to write his story. kate winslet is bitsey bloom the reporter. believing that the sentence was just, bitsey was totally unsure of gale's innocence until the interview slowly unfolds, and she sets out to uncover the mystery of what was not known by the media.

a very unique film with a twist of an anticlimax and not a complete focus on gale as in the life of gale. we are rerouted to other characterizations of the main purpose of the film which was to prove a point and to make it understood. the energy of suspense and passion along with the mystery of the whole tragic death of constance was made an achievement in a cause.

as a critic i would naturally find clichés which were negative but on the whole it did not dampen my appreciation of how they managed to hold and keep my attention to the screen until the end of the story.

not a perfect film, but a captivating one, and did it live up to parker's high standard? i don't know, maybe not, the structure of the film and the spirit of the story may have meant to end the story well, especially when the media exclaim at the end that david gale finally achieved in death what he could not achieve while he was alive. i thought it strange though, i think, if one were to really think, there is another side to this and the climax or the anticlimax of the picture, efficiently and obviously betrays the very ethics gale and constance stood for.

well, thats just my opinion, but despite it all, i loved spacey. and winslet, she was beauty in entirety!! :-)