8 1/2 (1965) - I didn�t really get it. Federico Fellini's universally lauded movie is probably the most abstract and distant thing I have ever seen. I get the crux of it, the difficulty of the creative process, but don�t know how or what all that is depicted is meant to be. It is a film about a director struggling to make a film, in much the same way Adaptation was scripted to be about a writer struggling to write a script. It can therefore be seen as an exercise in self reflexivity and/or a film about the process and difficulties of filmmaking and/or the alienation and frustration experienced by someone who doesn�t know what to do and who is constantly being pressurised both personlly and professionally.

There's some very fluid camerawork and it moves seamlessly from reality to fantasy to memories but I just found that I couldn�t connect with it on any of the three levels mentioned above. It almost felt like you had to know Fellini, the person, to really get into it. Either way, it was an admirable effort but not something for me.

6/10


Sarkar (2005) - Ram Gopal Varma's loose adaptation of The Godfather set in the Mumbai underworld is a disappointing effort from someone who usually excels in that genre. Varma decides to give Coppola and Puzo's film an MTV makeover, relentlessly editing and moving the story forward, so much so that all character development is lost and buried, something that was a key to The Godfather's greatness. It also has one of the most overly bombastic and annoying background scores in recent memory. Some of the performances are good, but their impact is lost as none of the characters are given any time to breathe.

6/10


Clerks 2 - Kevin Smith's followup to Clerks is a decent movie till about 3/4 of the way through. Till that point, it's a low key, reasonably funny movie with some great monologues that are trademark Smith (my 2 favorites being the rant about how star wars is better than the LOTR trilogy and how porch monkey is an inappropriate racist term that should be reclaimed for general use). Then, it descends into 20 of the stupidest minutes in recent cinema, crashing from one bad scene to the next. It goes for funny and sentimental, and ends up being just tragic, ruining an otherwise decent effort.

5.5/10 

with 8 1/2. Everything else he has done
that I have seen is much better in what makes a good film imho, evocation of mood, story, characterization, umph, gusto, pretty actresses and the like. Why this one is considered his best in the general assessment of critics alludes my understanding. Frankly, I thought it was a waste of time to watch. 

8 1/2 was well-filmed and interesting and artsy and stuff, but it never really engaged me. 

so it wasnt just me then :)

Have to say I felt the same abou La Dolce Vita. 

The Host - Joon Ho Bong's followup to Memories of Murder isnt as great a film, but its quite a good effort for a monster movie.

I think it works as well as it does because its quite funny, black humour popping up in many unexpected scenes. Secondly, the creature isnt the sole focus which makes all the scenes not involving it work as well.

It takes on a bit too much (juggling satire, horror, thriller and family drama) which causes it to lose focus occasionally and become uneven in its pacing, but at the same time its that very characteristic that makes it so refreshing and unpredictable.

The CGI is convincing, although a bit shoddy in places, but Bong's audacity to shoot most the creature scenes in broad daylight in long uninterrupted takes (normally a no-no for movies like this) pays off quite well.

7/10 

This was an interesting article despite being on Kotaku:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/top/feature-the-colossus-and-the-comedian-246286.php

The short version is SOTC is featured in the upcoming movie Reign Over Me, and they did it as artistic choice rather than as product placement (I actually believe it since that's the wrong game for them to choose if it was really a marketing decision.)

Still, it would be interesting to see how they use it and whether it actually enhances the movie or not. 

havent seen it, but adam sandler plays a character suppressing his past (wife and daughter killed in 9/11) by isolating himself and playing lots of video games etc 

The Lady Eve (1941) - I find this to be the best of Preston Sturges' films, although it is still nothing more than above average in my eyes.

Thankfully, the slapstick is gone, and this time the reliance is on the dialogue for the comedy. Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck are both terrific and the script is good, but there was still a lot more room for wittier dialogue I think.

6.5/10


Pat Garett and Billy the Kid (1973) - Sam Peckinpah's version of the famous western legend is an odd movie, with brilliant individual scenes, but never quite coming together as a whole. Part of it is probably down to studio interference as he was never allowed to release his intended version. The dvd comes with 2 cuts, one labelled a director's cut, albeit still incomplete, and the other a 2005 restoration which is a combination of the theatrical and director's cuts.

The director's cut is definitely the better movie, if only because it uses the instrumental rather the vocal versions of Boby Dylan's music which is very overused and distracting in the 2005 version. It also has a better epilogue and prologue section which is still good but not as effective in the 2005 version. However, the newer version does include some great new scenes that really should have been part of the original version.

Either way, it's still a worthwhile watch but comes across as a mishmash rather than a coherent vision. James Coburn is great as Pat Garrett, the outlaw turned sheriff who is given the task to track down his old friend, but Kris Kristofferson is only ok as Billy the Kid, the outlaw who doesn�t want to adapt with the times. Some of the dialogue is brilliant and certain scenes show a lot of skill from Peckinpah, but this never quite reaches The Wild Bunch standards.

7/10 for director's cut

6.5/10 for the 2005 version 

Wedding Crashers - probably one of the worst movies I have seen in the last 5 years.

Insipid and unfunny.

2.5/10 

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What an empty movie. :\
Nice to flee from boredom but probably nothing I will watch again. 

highest on-screen body count! a fun movie i think if a bit narrowfocused 

Babel - Its definitely the weakest of Alejandro Gonzales innaritu's 3 movies, but that's only in the context of his 2 great earlier films. I also think this was wrongly marketed, its not really a butterfly effect movie but more about what its title implies, the ability (and inability) of people to communicate with each other. And I think it explores that theme fairly well on quite a few different levels.

There are two problems, the first being the length. Innaritu is at his most self indlugent in this movie and while he gets away with it because the overall result is of high quality, the movie still has scenes that go on for far too long without any great purpose.

The second problem is the occasional scripting pitfall into contrivedness. It is one thing for characters to act irrationally under duress, it is something else to have them do dumb stuff solely so the plot can move towards a certain direction.

Apart from those though, I found it to be very well made, acted and written. It is possibly less accessible than his other two movies as the individual stories are probably not as engaging, but I think the overall result is still of a very similar quality. And the tracking shot to finish it off is also highly impressive.

7.5/10 

what nitin said.
i found the uprising/war scene in the refugee ghetto to be pretty intense. probably because of the long shots and shakey camera - it felt like being a live spectator. 

[b]Hollywoodland[/b] - so so [b]Chinatown[/b] wannabe about a (fictional) investigation into the death of George Reeves, who played Superman on tv in the 50's, after he was found dead in his house with a gunshot wound to the head. The police close it as a suicide case but Adrian Brody's private detective is hired to find out if it was foul play.

I'm all for film noir, but I don�t really understand why this particular story needed to be done in this fashion. The flashbacks of george reeves' life are reasonably interesting with both Ben Affleck and Diane Lane doing well but its unfortunately interspersed with the far less interesting investigation carried out by Brody and also the troubles in his personal life.

It doesn�t help that Brody is miscast and tries too hard to channel somr sort of a combination of Bogart and Nicholson. Allen Coulter, whos directed episodes of the sopranos and six feet under, doesn�t do a bad job but it always feels like you're watching an extended tv episode rather than something from a proper filmmaker.

5/10 

Just saw this last night...wow!

Really well shot, bloody as hell, and spartans are cool :)

Frank Millers influence is obvious in most of the camera angles and shots used, while the film isn't as deviant as Sin City it is very unique in its look and feel, its very refreshing to see a battle scene that doesn't use the horrid "MTV" close-ups and fast cutting that is plaguing the movie business atm.

The narration is not as heavy as Sin City either but its there and is generally very good at giving exposition to the characters and plot.

Go see this :) 

Saw it hours ago and I am still trembling from the awesome action!

The non-action-scenes were a bit boring and annoying at times, but overall a freaking nice movie that one MUST see in the cinema (if one wants to see it). 

The Squid and the Whale - Noah Baumbach's acidic look at a parental divorce through the eyes of the children is a very well written effort that works equally well as drama and comedy.

Jeff Daniels is excellent as the intellectual writer father who is full of himself but also a role model to his eldest son. Laura Linney matches him as the unhappy, affair having wife who also threatens her husband's ego with her writing skills.

But it's the acting by the two kids that really makes this, managing to sell the sad and awakward moments as well as the frequently funny moments that are littered throughout.

7.5/10 

Extras Season 2 - Slightly disappointed, though it's still on par with season 1, having funny scenes but apart from 1 or 2 great episodes there's also quite a few mediocre ones.

I think one of the main problems with this series is that it frequently substitutes cringeworthy for funny. There's a fine art to doing awkward humour, which Gervais perfected in The Office, but here he misses the mark quite a few times.

The other problem is that Andy Millman is just not a character you can have pity on, he's almost like David Brent but this time we're meant to feel sorry for him. I think most of those scenes dont work either.

Having said all of that, when it is funny, it's good stuff. The Ian McKellen epsiode is pure gold.

7/10


Tokyo Story (1953) - Yasujiro Ozu's overlong but great look at the disintegrating unity of a family in post war Japan is hard to describe. There's nothing really about it that can be described as great individually but the whole experience is definitely something that you will remember.

Ozu's style takes a little while to get used to with its static camera, long shots and actors frequently talking straight into the camera, but after a while you can see that it's a finely honed and meticulously planned skill that is quite effective.

The runtime is a bit too long, but that's about the only criticism I have.

8/10


The English Patient - The academy has awarded some very poor films in recent times, and this one is no exception.

Quite possibly one of the most superficial and glossy films ever made, this has exteremly stilted direction, a very poor screenplay and and a comatose centrepiece romance that is never convincing.

The photography is decent but comparisons to Lawrence of Arabia are completely off the mark, most the effect in this movie is from the location rather than skilled camerawork.

Acting is ok, but the characters are quite poorly etched so no one really stands out.

4.5/10 

Titanic - pretty much what I expected.

James Cameron takes every opportunity to showcase his technical expertise, even before the ship starts to sink, and while he is doing that it is pretty spectacular stuff. But as soon as the focus shifts to the thinly sketched characters and their even thinner story, it dissolves into tedium.

Still, the ship sinking last act is very well done.

5.5/10


Twin Peaks season one - Very impressive, had never seen this before and it holds up quite well. I have no idea how this made it on to network tv (let alone become popular), as this would probably still be a cable show if it was running today.

Anyway, apart from some dodgy acting, there is a lot to like here. Its a bit of a retread of Blue Velvet for David Lynch but the atmopshere, music and characters are first rate. Dale Cooper is probably one of the best tv characters in any show, nice work by Lynch, frost and Kyle Maclachlan there.

I've heard mixed things about season two, but I'm looking forward to it.

7.5/10 

Danny Boyle directs well, but once again Alex Garland fails to deliver as a writer. Why they decided to work together again after The Beach is beyond my understanding.

The first half is a pretty cool sci-fi thriller and shows plenty of promise. The second half is absolutely terrible and full of conveniently unexplainable phenomenon, which never seam to serve any purpose other than to extend the film by an hour.

To be honest, the entire premise of the film is flimsy at best so it was wrong of them to take it as seriously as they did. 

I have to say I completely change my mind.

It is still probably the perfect example of a love or hate it film, but I now think that its definitely a great movie. In fact, I dont think Terry Gilliam will ever top this, there is no way he will be able to exercise this much control over a movie and there is no way his movies can turn out as brilliant as this if he isnt allowed that control.

Dont know what changed during the time I last saw it but I now find it to be a fantastic combination of Orwell's 1984 and the antics of the Monty Python group.

It is possibly a bit too long, with one dream sequence too many, and it does lose its way a little in the second half, but this time around I found the opening 80 min or so to be terrifically sustained brilliance.

Jonathan Pryce is excellent as Sam Lowry (a role that was actively pursued by Robert De Niro) and De Niro himself runs with the role he finally got, playing a subversive heating and cooling engineer wanted by the government. The support cast are also great.

Also, maybe it was the print I saw last time, but on the new dvd I really dig the world Gilliam has managed to create. The retro mechanical bureaucratic society is filled to the brim with nice little odd touches.

So yeah, well worth a watch, but make sure you get your hands on the uncut 142 min version.

8/10


The Glass Key (1942) - fairly decent version of Dashiell Hammett's book, although it was better adapted by the Coen brothers in the great Miller's Crossing.

Still, this Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake starrer is pretty good straightforward noir with some interesting characters and events. Some of the stuff Alan Ladd's character does would not fly today without some sort of explanation or redemption tacked onto it and the lack of those make for refreshing viewing.

7/10 

Just saw Grindhouse.

There is a grenade jump in the movie.

For real. 

A Fistful of Dollars (1964) - fairly good movie from Sergio Leone, the start of the famous dollars trilogy, but it's not quite on the same level as the two films that followed or of the movie it was a remake of. It feels a bit too rough and low budget compared to either of For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad & The Ugly or Yojimbo but the stylish direction and Ennio Morricone's excellent score make up for that to quite an extent.

6.5/10


Borat- I know I'm in the minority but I found this to be totally unfunny and also more surprisingly I was not even shocked or disgusted, just...indifferent I guess.

2/10 

!!!!.... I thought this had more of a real plot than the two sequels.... of course the plot was stolen from Yojimbo but Yojimbo and Fistfull are two of my favorite movies...

Compared to "A few dollars more" and "good, bad, ugly" I thought Fistful had the most lean plot, while the sequels had the same spirit but too much fluff...

Drunk as you might expect, but these are my sober opinions nonetheless. 

agree on the plot comment in comparison to few dollars more and the GB&U, but Yojimbo handled that aspect better I thought.

I just think the style is better developed in the later movies and in my eyes, they are better for it.