The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Magnificent movie bought to us by the great David Fincher. This movie tells the story of a man who ages backwards, a truly astonishing tale. Technically, the attention to detail is amazing and the movie is filled with visual effects but they are so subtle that it’s truly an achievement. The movie is almost 3 hours long, could have been a bit shorter. Brad Pitt does an excellent job along with Cate Blanchett. The only problem I had with this film is during the end when the protagonist starts to get younger, he becomes smaller in size, like actually physically smaller which confused me a bit. When he was born, he was the size of a normal baby but otherwise his physical characteristics or features were of a much older man like wrinkled skin, cataracts in the eye etc. so similarly I had imagined that as time progressed and he got younger, he would have maintained his physical size but his features would have gotten like a baby, like softer skin, baby face, no hair, no teeth, soft head etc. Even though all that happened, his size also grew smaller which I think did not fit their analogy, technically according to their concept he should have been born as a full size older man in the beginning of the movie. Anyway it’s still a must see movie.
My Rating – 8.4
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Slumdog Millionaire
A lot of hype surrounded this movie when it was released. It is a story of an Indian teen who is a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be A Millionaire?”. Now the movie works well in the first half, it’s a different concept, story runs along nicely, the movie follows the life of the teen (Dev Patel) his brother and a girl from their neighborhood (Freida Pinto), but after the first half the movie becomes as clichéd as ever. I would really like to say the movie had a very typical bollywoodized ending. Everyone is happy (except the bad guys of course) and there are rainbows and unicorns everywhere.
My Rating- 7.4
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Bottleshock
This movie is based on a story about how the california wine makers hit it big when they won the “Judgment of paris” blind wine tasting competition in 1976. The movie was shot wonderfully in the Napa Valley and there were some breathtaking shots of the wineries, but the movie itself did not shine as much as the vineries it featured. Overall it was an enjoyable movie but could have been made much better if the story was not a clichéd angry dad and son, angry dad hates his lazy son, son does something wonderful, angry dad now loves son. The End.
My Rating – 6.8
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Burn After Reading
After watching this movie, my friend goes “What the F**k was the point of the movie? And THAT I said is exactly the point of the movie. This movie follows the story of two gym employees when they end up with a disk from a CIA agent. The humor is a mixture of satire and slapstick comedy, but it works. The characters are great and have unique personalities. Brad Pitt, George Clooney, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand all do a great job.
My Rating- 7
Cloverfield
This movie was tied to J.J Abrams, the creator of the TV show LOST, so I was intrigued by it. The movie was about a monster attacking New York city and the story told from the point of view of a small group. It was shot almost entirely in a hand held style, so people who get motion sickness while looking at screens when playing games, especially FPS, should stay away! The movie has a nice premise and the hand held style shooting helps but mostly hurts the movie, its good because its more realistic but bad because people don’t want to watch the walls and floors due to the aimlessly waving of the camera. The monster looks like CGI and we never really get a good look at it until later in the movie.
My Rating-7.0
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Planet Earth
A superb documentary from BBC with the great David Attenborough narrating (UK Version, the US version is narrated by Sigourney Weaver). This is easily a MUST see documentary even for those who do not watch documentaries. And I highly recommend watching this in High Definition. It contains 11 segments and each segment focuses on a particular topic like Mountains, Poles, Sea etc. A lot of pain went into making this documentary and I believe its one of the most expensive documentaries ever made. At the end of each segment they dedicate the last 10 minutes for a technical and behind the scenes look which is extremely interesting to watch. I don’t even know what to say except please go and watch it now if you haven’t already done so and see everything from the bat caves with billions of cochroaches to the bird of paradise dancing!
My Rating- 10
Apocalypse Now
I don’t even know where to start for this movie; Apocalypse Now is without a doubt one of the best and one of my personal favorite movies of ALL time. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and it takes place during the Vietnam War. A Captain is sent on a mission to assassinate a Colonel who has reportedly gone insane and has taken over a local tribe and set himself up as their God. The story is extremely complex and the movie is not really about the war itself, but more about the way the war has affected and consumed the people who are a part of it. The atmosphere throughout the movie is extremely creepy and bizarre but it works so well with the rest of the film. The acting by Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Lawrence Fishburne, Robert Duvall and everyone else is top notch. This is a movie that should be seen by all because this is art, this is the way a story should be told. And to think there are people who will never watch this masterpiece. The Horror. . . The Horror. . .
My Rating- 9.5
I am Legend
I was looking forward to watching this movie, it is based on story by Richard Matheson about the last man alive after most of humanity is killed or transformed into monsters/zombies by a plague. Now the first half of the movie is enjoyable and even gripping at times, the monsters look menacing and there is a tense but engaging environment throughout the movie and then BAM I think the writer’s strike started and they had to finish the movie, so instead of taking the brilliant ending of the novel (which I will talk about later), they have a totally lackluster ending. Some woman comes out of nowhere and she has had a dream, in her dream she has been told where to go exactly, to find more human survivors. And obviously Will Smith follows her and they reach the human settlement.
Now first thing, the movies title does not even make much sense with this ridiculous ending, coming back to the short story that the movie was based off from, our protagonist is shown as the only person alive (which the movie followed until the first half). But the world is now populated with monsters/zombies and thus they are the majority and they are the normal ones and since he is the different one and also killing the monsters/zombies, it is he who is the monster. Think of monster as a relative term. He is the one who is different and he is the one who will be remembered as a legend like Frankenstein or Dracula etc. Now that would be a movie ending!
My Rating- 6
Children of Men
I had not heard much about this movie when it came out but the plot seemed interesting, so I thought it was worth a watch. It is the story of a dystopian world where humans can no longer give birth and most of the governments are collapsing. A former activist (Clive Owen) helps to transport a girl who is miraculously pregnant to a rendezvous point at the sea. The story itself is simple enough but the movie really shines due to its technical aspects. The first thing I said after I saw this movie was, “Man does this remind me of Half-Life 2”. Half-Life 2 is an award winning video game from Valve and it’s also my most favorite video games of all time. The instant Theo comes out from the train in the beginning with the whole atmosphere throughout the movie, immigrants in buses, cells and the heavy police presence is all a reminder of Half-Life 2. It’s almost like the video game was bought to life. It doesn’t end there, the other aspect of the film was its superb single-shot sequences which were stitched together to give an illusion of one long camera take. The cinematography of this film was beautifully done and I was totally disappointed when COM lost out to Pan’s Labryinth for Best Cinematography in the Oscars.
Many people complained about the story of this movie, asking stuff like “Why can’t humans procreate?”, “Why did that girl get pregnant?”, “What happened at the end, did they save mankind?”, “This movie sucks since it doesn’t answer any of those questions”. Well, the fact is that those are all totally irrelevant, the movie doesn’t care about the “What’s” and “Why’s”, it is just telling a story from point A to point B which I think it does brilliantly.
If Valve ever decides to make a Half-Life 2 movie, Alfonso Cuarón as the director and Hugh Laurie as Gordon Freeman will be the highest grossing videogame movie ever made. I guarantee that!
My Rating- 8.5
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Hello and welcome to my blog of random ramblings and commentaries of everything from movies to documentaries to foreign films etc.