Swati

Inspired by the Five Families of New York City, The Godfather tells the story of how the Corleones are pushed against the wall by their rivals and other upcoming gangsters who want to make money by sources Don Vito deems beneath him, and their retaliation and its consequences. Alliances are formed in secret, murders are plotted, enemies are butchered or blown to pieces without remorse. Don Vito (Marlon Brando) and his sons Sonny (James Caan) and Michael (Al Pacino) are the main characters. The actors bringing them to life have succeeded in their jobs so supremely that these characters have become the stuff of legend. Don Vito's backstory from the novel was pushed into The Godfather Part II, and that was a practical decision as the movie was already three hours long. Sonny and Michael display their acumen for running criminal activities when the reins are handed to them in their turn. Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is the consigliere, or the most trusted adviser, of the Don. We are transported from 1940s NYC ripe with Mafia bosses one-upping each other, to Sicily and Las Vegas. The characters are never shown to traverse great expanses of land or sea in search of destiny or whatever. Neither are they shown to be engaging in life-or-death situations where they have to come out on top using their wits or physical strength or endurance. But the change of settings does meet the requirements of the epic genre. Even though we don't get to see large scale gunfights or something like that, the fact that the Corleones are in all these places helps to form that opinion. The story is essentially about a single family, and you get the impression that the message here is that family is important, and that the lengths you're willing to go to to protect them knows no bounds. The Corleones' peace is fazed when a gangster offers them a deal in drugs. Don Vito expresses his disgust and refuses. This triggers an unexpected ploy for gaining power and upper hand and turns the conflict into a fully fledged gang war. Some characters are displaced, forced to take up arms, or caught in the crossfire. Another calamity strikes when things seem to have cooled down. Finally, the Corleones deal with their enemies effectively and ruthlessly. The victory is theirs, but if it is worth it is for the audience to decide. The Godfather's success lies in its rich story and characters. Often times, great stories come about by accident. The setting complements the plot and the characters, and becoming a character itself, creates a blend that is greater than the sum of its parts. These characters and plot could quite easily have worked in a medieval setting of dynasties warring for control over a kingdom, or any other setting for that matter, but the fact that the setting was New York City and the control over the city meant control over the most lucrative criminal activities, which is a decadent scheme, and immediately paints even the good guys in a bad light, was what in my opinion made The Godfather much more intriguing and enduring. There are many enemies to deal with. The film doesn't develop them at all. The Corleones are the only ones who are explored and developed as characters. At first it seems like it is a story **** of people who have virtually everything they could ever want and the film would only chronicle their exploits as they vanquish this enemy and that. This changes as we move forward and witness the bloodshed. No good movie can come into being without good plotting, believable characterization, classy cinematography and memorable dialogue, and here it is all brought together nigh perfectly. The production design was impressive. The houses and their interiors, and the cars and costumes were fascinating and left me with a desire to be able to witness that world firsthand. The secondary characters may not have seemed to be given much screen time to develop them but the cast is so huge that if they had done it the movie would have been at least an hour longer. The score is so simple and true to the story that you don't need me to tell you that it may be the most memorable score ever. A lot of time is spent in contemplation and silence, as the characters decide what the best course of action should be in response to a particular problem. The dialogue fleshes out the characters very well. The Godfather is essentially a film that looks into the lives of the gangsters at the top of the hierarchy. We only see the comings and goings, and not the handiwork, of the men who carry out the orders of their bosses. No shootouts during the gang war are shown. The intrigue that directly affects the main characters is in itself so destructive and deadly that not once the exclusion of the ordinary mobsters bother me in any way. The Godfather cannot be dismissed as being merely about a mob family and a bunch of criminals. Given his later career, I think it's safe to venture that Coppola was born to make this movie.

After watching all those comic heroes on the big screen, I always wondered how ordinary people, not the ones from the main cast, managed to survive in their entirety. With buildings exploding and guns blaring, no one seemed to get hurt, let alone lose their lives. Of course I'm referring to The Avengers, Transformers, Spiderman and the many others (Nolan's Batman does not count for it is in a league of its own). In this regard at least, Man of Steel has been original in that not only a lot of deaths were hinted at, some of them were shown right on screen without any qualms. Call that creative if you will, or whatever, for better or for worse the invincible man himself could not keep every single human being on the planet safe from death. Henry Cavill is cast as Superman. He is charismatic, charming and good-looking, and perhaps the best cast for the role. Amy Adams plays Lois Lane, the much older love interest. Diane Lane is cast as Kent's mother on Earth. Russell Crowe portrays Superman's biological father, and is seen throughout the movie at key moments. Michael Shannon is General Zod, the villain who equals Superman in strength and skill, essentially rendering the former's physical superiority redundant, for he has followers too which brings the odds of numbers into play the same way any human encounters and confrontations would have. Nolan's involvement is palpable. A sense of realism was attempted to be incorporated. For example, the name Superman is not uttered until three quarters into the second hour. The buildings collapse as the larger than life opponents battle it out. Cars are crushed and fires break out. It's safe to say that people die in great numbers. The first hour is mainly about Superman's origins. We get to see Krypton, the alien home-world, for the first time. Unlike the other instalments in the franchise, Kent is nearing middle age before he decides (or is forced by circumstances) to take an active part in saving people openly. Before that, he roams around incognito and changes jobs and identities if he is forced by his good nature to save someone's skin. Some of his childhood on Earth is also explored. It is around the one and a half hour mark when the larger chunk of the budget for the movie begins to show, and it depletes quickly as the action sequences follow one another in succession until the very end. The film was an interesting take on the superhero concept. A degree of realism was certainly there. The lead was a good choice. And the whole idea of beings of superhuman strength getting it on with each other in the middle of civilization and spreading carnage indiscriminately was something that would have been virtually impossible to depict on screen before the advent of visual effects. But still something was missing. An ingredient which would have perhaps brought it to a final, perfect conclusion. I can't fault it for it for I could not say what they could have done differently. But I had a good time, if not stellar, so I will rate it accordingly.

Scorsese keeps coming back to the same theme and subject matter_ debauchery and its pitfalls. And he has found himself actors who are able to convey his message effectively. Casino deals with this subject in the business of gambling. Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is doing good running a casino for the Mafia in 1970s Las Vegas. Things get tricky as first Ginger (Sharon Stone) and then Nicky (Joe Pesci) come into his life. They're both unstable and careless, and have no vision for their futures like Sam has. Their antics get him into trouble time and again. Like Scorsese's other movies, the plot takes a backstage to the characters and their personal quirky moments. He instead relies on multiple voice-overs to propel the plot forward. The plot does thicken with time, and not for good. It felt like he wasn't sure if he should concentrate on the characters or the plot development. Goodfellas found that balance ingeniously, so did his later movie The Wolf of Wall Street, both of which deal with the same themes. The acting was sufficient, I suppose. De Niro does a decent enough job. Pesci's character is too similar to the one he played in Goodfellas. In essence, he is a character actor. Sharon Stone also did a good job. I couldn't feel excited during a single scene in the entire movie. There was no sense of danger and urgency, despite the breakneck pacing. The film was just a scene after scene of greed, violence and narration. It got old after a while. The production design, which brought the 1970s to life, did a wonderful job. The same camera angles were used as were in Goodfellas. The camera zooms in on people's faces the same way. I found the movie a bit underwhelming. I felt like Scorsese wasn't done with the subject that he started out to tell in Goodfellas, and hence returned to it. He should have just made a single movie about it, or he should have made this one so different from the first that no one could have found any similarities.

American Hustle has a slow, dragging style, which explains why I gave up the first time I watched it before it reached the half hour mark. It felt like the film was trying too hard to create a story, and all the characters felt archetype. But the movie does pick up and become somewhat interesting after that. Though the character motivations are never explored, we get to see the different sides of them which make them all human. The plot is simple yet complex, but what it never is intriguing enough. Some con-men are coerced by the FBI into setting up members of the Congress and the Mafia. They must find a way to do the job without being targeted by them afterwards and yet not get incarcerated. Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is an ageing swindler who has a nice steady income through his various clandestine operations. Things get messy for him when he comes across Edith Greensly (Amy Adams), for he has a wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) who can create a lot of trouble for him if she isn't kept happy. Richard (Bradley Cooper) is the agent who deals directly with him. He is clever and ambitious and selfish, but mostly is a liability who more often than not gets in their way and creates complications as they try to complete their job assigned to them by the agency. Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) is the mayor who is fooled into joining the team in helping the FBI bring down the politicians and the mobsters. I felt like the nominations in the categories of acting were undeserved. On the contrary I'm of the opinion that Renner should have been recognized instead of the underwhelming performance given by Cooper. Sure Bale did a good enough job, and he felt like he worked for the role, with his hair and body fat. Adams, in addition to showing a lot of skin, showed another side of her which I believe I had not seen before. She certainly felt like a better actress. The art department did a commendable job. The hairstyles, costumes, cars, and room interiors were convincing enough. What was lacking was a plot which would have matched the effort put into bringing the 70s era onto the screen. I was amused by some of the characterization, yet was waiting for over the top humour or insight into the business or a plot twist or something. Sadly there was little if not nothing that blew my mind. Other movies have done the job required of a period piece equally well and fallen to pieces without the support of a strong story but this film was spared that fate because of the names of the cast and director. Rush would have been a better consideration for the category of Best Picture. At least it succeeded in entertaining the hell out of me as well as showing the 1970s. It wasn't especially a bad movie, just not something I would have liked nominated for the top prize. It was way over-hyped, and left a bad taste in my mouth when within ten minutes of starting copied Goodfellas in dual voice-over.

Dallas Buyers Club chronicles the struggles of a man suffering from AIDS as he is shunned by friends and finds solace in the most unexpected of places. As he struggles to stay alive, he is forced to use medication that brings him into conflict with the authorities. We follow Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) as his previously cavalier lifestyle is brought to a standstill with the knowledge of his disease. His confession of his illness to a friend has an unexpected effect when he is perceived as a homosexual, even though he clearly loathes them. He straightens up and does some research, and when he discusses this with Dr. Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner), he finds that as long as a treatment is not approved by the FDA, there's no chance he can opt for it, despite its use in other parts of the world. AIDS brings him into contact with Rayon (Jared Leto). His hatred of gays resurfaces. But they are another misunderstood group of people who indulge in their feelings without bringing harm to anyone. Ron is evicted by his landlord and his walls are vandalized. Finally he gives up everything and heads after a rumour in Mexico. On his return he starts the Dallas Buyers Club, and attempts to spread medication not approved by the authorities. Somewhere along the way, he changes and looks at life differently. This development is surprising when it happens, and I applauded when he rose to the occasion instead of going down the easy path. Ron becomes a big businessman, travelling between different countries in order to circumvent law in bringing life saving drugs into his own country. His interactions with Dr. Eve (Jennifer Garner) are a source of great insight into the disease and much amusement on the side. We also get to see some of the hidden life and past of Rayon. Ron finally takes FDA to court to avail his right to his own treatment. Matthew McConaughey has perhaps delivered the most shining performance of his career. Other than weight loss, which is what most actors go for when a role requires it, apart from weight gain, he created a character who was at once a southern hippy and low life yet had a peculiarly uplifting view of life. Jared Leto plays a cross dressing gay man who finds friendship in the reluctant Ron. Together they spend what time they have trying to keep other people suffering from AIDS alive. The script succeeded in imparting useful information about the disease and its possible cures and the development of medicine designed to keep the harmful effects of the virus at bay. But it did not achieve this at the expense of entertainment. The film was comical all the way. We also get to witness the dirty side of society_ the misconceptions people have about the disease and its patients, and their unforgivable behaviour when they unload their insecurities onto the hapless victims. Also portrayed is the behaviour of straight men towards homosexuals. The production design did a remarkable job given that the budget was negligible compared to other great movies nominated for the category of Best Picture. The environment of the 1980s and 1990s Texas, including the cars and dresses, was convincing. The film succeeded in letting us glimpse into the daily life of that era as well as telling a good story with intriguing characters. Dallas Buyers Club is a must watch film because I don't really know any other that has dealt with the subject with this much depth.

Her is about a lonely man, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), who has gone through a breakup and is a bit afraid of commitment. He buys an OS which is far more advanced and intelligent than humans have the capacity to be. The film develops their relationship, with all its quirks and weird parts. It was a funny, thought-provoking and sometimes creepy social commentary. Director Spike Jonze seems to have as much interest in deep discussions about the human condition as he has in mindless, juvenile, cringe-inducing pseudo-documentaries like Jackass. The film opens with Theodore going about being lonely with a handful of friends, one of whom is played by Amy Adams. He works as a letter writer who writes letters for couples and families who are either not literary enough to do that on their own or do not have the time for it. The time depicted is somewhere in the future and frankly I think some version of this is going to come true at some point, given that people have more time for texting than they have for people who are around them. The lack of interest in having meaningful conversations with people who might have the same passions as you might have seems to be increasing. Theodore is a nerdy fellow but is very interesting nonetheless. Phoenix plays him with a subtle, clever approach. I found his characterization very authentic. He was a guy I believe I could come across in real life and not be surprised that he existed. Amy Adams also steps up as an actor, and certainly showed a side of her I did not believe existed. She has grown so much and I hope we get to see more of her this deep conflicted side. But the ultimate praise should be reserved for Scarlett Johansson. She was so successful in capturing my imagination that I was left thoroughly intrigued with a longing for Samantha to be real. The interactions between Theodore and Samantha are for the most part humorous. Theodore is at first astonished at the abilities of the OS, and assumes a mocking tone. But it is clear they have chemistry together from the outset. They hit it off instantly. But when the former starts to be drawn back into his former life we see for the first time how this fantasy was hard to keep up, and he responds accordingly. He is confused and conflicted and has no idea about what he should do. The film did not try to be forcefully funny and clever but found occasions inside the story to be so. The fusion between comedy and romance was met with a craftsman's precision. Samantha is perceptive of the emotions that run around her and sensitive of her lack of a body and the drawbacks of not being able to provide a feeling of human contact, but she tries her best using her voice. However, she is constantly evolving and it is only a matter of time before she becomes so curious about everything that it would be hard to hold on to her. There's a scene where Theodore fears for Samantha like one does for the personal safety of a human being. That I believe was the defining scene of the film as it summed up all the feelings and emotions that had preceded. Their relationship do have some positive outcomes. Given Samantha's extraordinary view of life, she takes certain steps that benefit Theodore in the long run. The futuristic time shown was fascinating. Apart from the little quirky things like having relative strangers write letters for your loved ones, the technology is advanced. There is this 3-D video game where you feel a part of the world of the game. There are also those type of games which are aimed at mimicking real life and making the players feel like they have achieved something, and arguably contribute towards delusions. The score was slow-moving, subtle and emotional. It was used to evoke the emotions that were needed to be evoked during a scene very effectively and without forcing us to. But the underlying theme was always sad and moving, and not bombastic. Thank God for that, for this film was equal parts about depicting some kind of a future which our present might be leading to, as well as being about Theodore's personal life and difficulties with trying to make sense of his life. Her is also a very visual film, lingering on buildings and the environment in the more reflective scenes. Despite everything, I felt like the ending was a bit underwhelming. The movie kind of fizzled out. The final revelation should have been followed up with some commentary or a conclusory scene, but all in all I was left with a feeling that I was better off having watched it. 9.5

Chinatown is one of the most impressive examples of neo-noir I have ever seen. It has got a cocky detective investigating a complex mystery, lots of smoking and drinking, music that lulls the mind, and a hot woman or two. When Jake is approached by a woman who wants to find out if her husband has been cheating on her, he discourages her as not everything that could be found is worth finding out about. Sure enough, he finds that there is another girl and the story leaks to the papers. But then another woman, who is the real Mrs. Mulwray, shows up and threatens to sue him. Mr. Mulwray is frequently spotted around places looking at soil. Mrs. Mulwray lies with her every word. What is she hiding? Jake goes from one person to another in search of the truth. He knows there is something everyone is keeping from him. That is the whole mystery and what he must find out. No one is who they seem to be. People die and he is chased and escapes death several times. Mr. Mulwray is against the building of a dam, arguing that the last one that he helped build resulted in an accident that killed hundreds. The city is against him as they can't seem to understand his reasoning_ LA is going dry and something must be done. There are swindlers at every turn and when Jake comes upon them he is overwhelmed. Mrs. Mulwray is her only ally, and whether he likes it or not, or even trusts her, there's no one else who is going to believe the fantastic story he is going to tell them for the truth. The time and the life depicted_ 1930s was caught authentically with the set design, costumes, cars, rooms etc. Polanski lingers on the environment and lets us become a part of it and feel it completely. Chinatown is as much about the experience of that time as it is about the water dispute and the deaths surrounding it. The sense of despair, so essential to the genre, is exemplified in the ending. From the plot and the intrigue to the mind-boggling mystery to the set design to the character development, Chinatown is one of the most perfect films ever made.

The second instalment has more drama, conflict, engaging characters, and a vicious arena. A way is found to return the champions to the battlefield. But nothing is really what it seems to be. There are layers under which the different characters are working. Catching Fire takes the conflict steadily away from being everything about who survives in the arena to the larger issue, which is the tyranny of the Capitol. Katniss, for the sake of the audience, doesn't know much about what is being plotted in secret, mainly because she isn't the most discrete and patient of people. Gale Hawthorne is developed further before the focus once again returns to Katniss and Peeta. Both of them must form alliances if they hope to have one of them survive. Finnick and Johanna breathe some life into an otherwise stagnant narrative. They are both cocky and witty and peculiar, and talented in the art of killing. Beetee is skilled with the use of electricity. Haymitch is much more cunning and resolved this time around. He seems to have a purpose he is keeping from both Katniss and Peeta. President Snow wants Katniss to make the people of the districts believe that it was true love that made her want to eat the berries alongwith Peeta at the end of their previous expedition into the arena. People are taking her deathwish for a display of defiance. For her part she wants to cooperate so they would leave her and her family in peace. She just wants to live the rest of her life recovering from the mental damage she has suffered from killing all those people. But it isn't working and Snow finds another way for quelling the hopes of the inhabitants of the districts. Hoffman plays the new gamemaker hired by Snow. He is tasked with arranging Katniss's death so the whole issue about the mockingjay would go away. He lives up to his name in his last performance of his life. Sadly we won't be able to see his character in the next two instalments. The stakes are higher than the lives of both the characters. It is freedom that is the goal here and the movie ends in a way which would leave the viewers in no doubt about where the story is headed. The promise is large and I hope that they deliver. I know the last book was a bit underwhelming, so some modifications would have to be made to keep the following two sequels interesting. The theme discussed is the same as before_ human suffering though poverty, hunger, war and persecution. They did everything they could have with this instalment. The budget was bigger. The set design, visual effects, costumes and weapons more impressive. But the reason the movie succeeds is they also went bigger with the characters. They felt more lively and real. If this instalment is any indication, the next two films are going to earn huge sums of money too. Catching Fire has turned the franchise very lucrative. 9.5

A teenager, Marty, finds himself in an accidental time travel into the past where he meets his parents who are young again. He has to create a romance between them so he could be born in the future. Dr. Brown, who invented the time machine in the future, is also his ally in the past, and together they must find a way to send him back to the future. The story takes place in the same town. The world is a different place in the 1950s from the 80s. The dressing, speech, tastes in music, all of it. Marty, as he says himself, has a life in the future he wants to return to. The plot was intricate and the dialogue sharp and witty. The eccentric Doctor can't go a second without putting a smile on your face. Marty's arrival in the past confuses a family living on a farm who take him for an alien. He flees from there and marches into the town still in his clothes from the future. At several instances, it is suggested that some of the popular culture was defined by Marty, such as skateboards and rock n roll. Marty's father, George, is bullied by the same man, Biff, who is also bullying him in the future. Marty starts working on helping his father stand up for himself. He regularly comes into conflict with Biff. George is afraid of any kind of social contact and Marty has his work cut out for him to convince him to ask his mother out so they could kiss and start a relationship. Much of the humour lies in Marty's struggles to spark fire between his parents which was messed up by his intervention. His mother, who should have fallen in love with his father, instead becomes infatuated with him. His horror at this development is funny because you know this is a comedy film and everything will work out in the end. 'Back to the Future' is possibly one of the most entertaining movies about time travel, probably because it didn't delve into hard science and combined elements of both science fiction and comedy.

'12 Years a Slave' amazes with its attention to detail and authenticity regarding the lives led by slaves. It was well researched and refrained from creating drama to add spice. From the very first scene, McQueen wastes no time in plunging us into the daily, ordinary lives of black slaves of the nineteenth century Deep South. Interlaced with the present story that we're being shown where the protagonist, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is already a slave, a series of flashbacks flesh out his previous life as a free man in the North. He has a wife and kids, and leads a normal life just like the white people who surround him. He is introduced to people who promise him good income as a violinist in the capital. He agrees and leaves his family behind in New York for an intended period of two weeks. He is lulled into a false sense of security and drinks more than he should have. When he wakes up he finds himself in chains confronted by men who insist on calling him a slave. I got the impression that those of the African extraction who were born free are inherently different from those who were born into slavery. They think and speak freely and have a different view to life. Those who were born into slavery seem to have embraced their fate. There was an interesting scene where a slave walks into a shop and stares in amazement at Northup when he was a free man in New York. Paul Giamatti plays a slave-trader who has them stand naked as potential customers roam about and inspect them before making a purchase. He divides children from their mothers without a second thought. It is here that Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) buys Northup. McQueen doesn't take it easy on the children we have seen just because we might have developed sympathy for them, for to do so would be a gross betrayal to the ones whose stories no one narrated and their anguish never revealed, and to keep them safe would suggest that this was the norm where in reality it might have been an exception. John Tibeats (Paul Dano) comes across as someone who never might have thought about the ethics of slavery once in his life. He is instantly recognizable. There are a lot of people like him who go about their lives without letting their thoughts stray into areas that demand serious discussions like philosophy, the arts, poverty, war etc. They came into this world to lead their lives like sheep, eating well, wearing and spending extravagantly, and having a general good time. If they were picked up and dropped into a time when slavery was legal, they would not once flinch or utter a word against it as long as they belonged to the group that was doing the slaving. Tibeats resents the fact that Ford has grown fond of Northup, and the latter's quick wit and high words offend him. Northup's next owner, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), puts him to picking cotton in the fields with his other slaves. He derives his own interpretations from the Bible sanctioning slavery, and lashes them accordingly. Sometimes he has them brought into the house in the middle of the night and dance around. Epps's wife is jealous of a slave girl and abuses her constantly. She can't seem to grasp the fact that if her husband paid special attention to a slave, it was his fault and not the latter's. She constantly threatens the slaves and taunts her husband to be more tough on them to keep them in line. When she offers them respite, she expects gratitude. Husband and wife bring the worst out of each other. But Epps is the epitome of psychopathy. He bullies with his every word. It is a constant struggle for Northup not to incite anger and have his master lunge at him with murderous intention. Deaths among the slaves happen without any alarm being raised. Some of the black people have had it easy on them courtesy of their owners. They even had servants and slaves serving them in a few cases. Northup becomes a part of the community, but he still tries to reach his family and friends somehow to inform them about his situation. He trusts in someone who betrays him, and barely escapes death. Northup is finally able to reunite with his family, but not before we witness possibly some of the worst scenes of barbarity displayed anywhere on film. At moments the score is so quiet it's almost imperceptible, but complements the scenes perfectly. The production design and costume design paints a vivid picture of the time. There's a simplicity and mundaneness to everything from the way the slaves toil everyday to their time spent privately. The film was edited with ingenuity. Both narratives develop side by side and complement each other. Instead of a beginning where we might have wondered when Northup was going to be banged up, we see him as a slave from the very first shot. And the flashbacks only come when they are relevant to the present story. Northup's character development was palpable and poignant. McQueen has promoted himself to the A-list with this masterpiece of the highest order.

'Prisoners' deals with kidnappings and serial killers. But there's a twist. This time the father of the abducted child loses hope in the law and runs an investigation in parallel with the police. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is an ordinary father until his daughter is picked up in the vicinity of his house along with the daughter of his good friend Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard). At first he trusts in the detective assigned to the case, David Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), to find their daughters. But when the man suspected in the kidnapping, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), is released due to lack of evidence, he takes matters into his own hands and abducts him in turn. Dover devises crueller forms of torture when Alex doesn't budge. The Birches get involved. Dover tries his best to keep his imprisonment of Alex a secret. Two cases attract Loki's attention as he looks for the girls. The connection between them and the main case becomes apparent as the plot advances. A man runs from him during a candlelight vigil for the girls. He has a sketch made and hunts for him earnestly. There are a few red herrings and then a few Chekhov's guns. There are a few clues for those who keep a watchful eye. By the time the movie ends you feel sorry for some characters you might have been hating until that point. Unfortunately, not much can be revealed about that without risking to spoil the whole experience for the viewer. Prisoners is the sort of film that forces you to think about it for a while after you're done watching. There were a few puzzles I was still mulling over in my head and had to discuss with people to get their take on it. But rest assured that everything that is worth including is included in the theatrical edition. The two investigations eventually end up at the same place, and the ending is bittersweet. I think it was well done, contrary to what everyone else has been saying about it. Roger Deakins lives up to his name. Every scene was exquisitely shot. The film was well edited. At a running time of two hours and twenty six minutes, Prisoners is a fast paced drama that never relents and constantly surprises and amazes at every turn. The characters were well drawn. Hugh Jackman depicts the anguish **** father with poignant scenes. Jake Gyllenhaal portrays the detective as a distinct, somewhat eccentric, and extremely dedicated man married to his job. I couldn't find any weaknesses in the script. The plot only progressed after making sure that everything that could be done to find the girls had been done. There were no imbecile moves made by anyone that contributed to the advancement of the story, except perhaps for one scene near the end, where Dover turns his back on someone he had reason not to. The tension and the sense of thrill was retained through the majority of the length of the film. It was an intelligent film made for an intelligent and vigilant audience, but the way it was shot and edited it also held the attention of those who don't have an attention span to boast of, so the element of urgency is perhaps what may have intrigued them and kept them awake.

Even when Spielberg is making an adrenaline-rushing film instead of ones about topics that are universally considered serious, he does it in his own style. Jaws is filled with close calls, gruesome deaths and general bloodshed, yet the build-up is everything. He makes us wait for the shark, and only shows us bits of its work to whet our appetite. But just when you think you've seen it all, he shows his hand. The shark is truly a force of nature. Hideous, scary, deadly. A suspected shark kill is dismissed as a boating accident. The Mayor, having the city's best interests at heart, persuades the chief of police, Brody, to keep the beaches open for tourists. He reasons that this is their main source of income and they should not endanger that by scaring away the tourists. Even after another death, the townspeople are still adamant in keeping the beaches open. Their livelihood is attached to the sea. The mayor is a delusional man who thinks if he ignores the problem long enough, it will go away on its own. This precipitates in a lot of trouble. The shark's presence is only hinted at for the first hour, in a classic whodunit style. But when it finally arrives on camera, it is overwhelmingly cringing to see it do what it does live. A seasoned seaman offers to catch the fish for a price. The minute all illusion flies about the cause of the deaths, a bounty goes up which brings inexperienced seafarers into the fray to claim the prize. They think of it as a sport. Someone catches a shark and everyone thinks this is the one that made the kills. The third main character, Hooper, wants to be sure and advises on cutting open the belly and investigating the items within. When things get way out of control, the mayor relents and agrees to hire Quint to kill the shark. He is accompanied by Brody and Hooper on this voyage, which takes up most of the second half of the film. The three men lure and assault and do everything they can to kill it. This endeavour makes up for plenty of scares and surprises. Brody is an outsider. We can see his confusion and helplessness as it slowly dawns upon him the enormity of the task that falls on his shoulders. He does his best to convince everyone to do the sane thing, but runs into a wall every time he tries to close the beaches. Hooper is a college boy with a fancy degree. He is Brody's only support for a long time. For some reason he decides to stick around and help out the chief, probably because he has seen how the rest are taking the issue. Quint is the tough guy with a mysterious past. He's the most experienced in the field of fishing. But he names a price the city has to come up with to catch the monster and remove the taint from the island's reputation, so the tourists continue to pour in and keep the economy flourishing. Spielberg doesn't shy from depicting barbarity. The deaths shown are disturbing and bloody, none more than the last one. But where he differs from the typical gory movies is how he handles characterization. We see these people as real men and not archetype characters in service of the story. Spielberg knows the importance of this and that is why he dedicates the majority of the first hour in establishing two of the main characters, and using a portion of the second to develop the third. The score was riveting and foreboding. It established the mood fairly well yet was quiet and unobtrusive. The mechanical shark was very convincing. I went to research it immediately after I finished watching because I was sure they used a real shark. They only included real sharks in scenes where it was just minding its own business and just swimming about. The film never drags for a second. The first half is a set up but has its own scares and special moments involving the animal and the characters. The second half stole the show and completely transformed the movie. We follow only three characters after the mid point. The characterization was fun and felt genuine. Quint shone out especially in one memorable monologue. Spielberg has demonstrated how a summer blockbuster aiming for big bucks should be made. By merging scares and thrills with absorbing characters and narrative, he started a trend which has since been followed every summer after the year the film came out in.

Martin Scorsese returns to showing us a debauched way of life which seems to be his favourite subject. There's plenty of parties, drugs, liquor and sex. Scorsese is the master of depicting the passage of time with imagery and voice-over. The acting was splendid. DiCaprio nails the role of a free of concern stockbroker with more money than he can spend. Jonah Hill does a nice job as a supporting character. The remaining supporting cast, including Matthew McConaughey did wonderful jobs and true justice to their roles. The message here is the same one Scorsese has already dealt with in Goodfellas. Then he followed a bunch of gangsters around as they rose and fell while they reaped what they sow. This time the main characters are a party loving horde of stockbrokers who swindle rich people out of their millions without anything weighing down on their conscience. The subject matter was so intriguing, and Scorsese had so much to tell that I thought that the length was justified. When a movie does not drag for a moment despite going on for three hours, you have to admit that you were glad that it was this long. I'm sure it will be watched and re-watched by countless zealous fans of Scorsese for decades to come. The time depicted is the 1980s. After a stock market crash, Jordan Belfort finds himself out of work. He builds from the scratch, hiring promising but uneducated good-for-nothings who make millions along with him. The trade is so lucrative it is unbelievable. But of course when you attract this much attention, there are bound to be people who would look into your life and try to find your weaknesses, which in this case were hunts for evidence which might prove that the wealth that Belfort has accumulated was acquired by illegal means. So ensues a game of wits where the FBI and the stockbrokers try to come out on top. The tone is always light and humorous. Nigh a scene passes without being followed by a comical one cracking you up. Matthew McConaughey is the first one to show us what the movie would be like. That scene at the restaurant where he mentors Jordan on how to live his life was one of the best scenes. But the movie is replete with such memorable scenes. Both Jonah Hill and DiCaprio delivered such strong performances and were so funny that I couldn't help but applaud them for their efforts. I think they both deserve the nominations they have received at the Oscars. There are more scenes of nudity and sex than I could count, but they were used with finesse. They never seemed lewd, although that word was passed around a lot. Everyone was fond of snorting cocaine. The level of partying displayed left me envious, which I think was the whole point. It had a purpose, which was to make us learn a lesson when the fates of these characters eventually catch up with them. The first hour and a half was about nothing except for care-free sex, earning loads of money and taking in various drugs. I trusted Scorsese to change gears midway and he did exactly that. The movie became somewhat sober but still did not change the mood so much as I've seen in other movies which became atrocious the minute they became serious. The characters clearly enjoyed their lives to the fullest. And when someone is having fun, you can't help but root for them when the bad guys (which might be the good ones in real life) seek to bring them down to their own level. It did feel like Scorsese was celebrating debauchery. But I think the ending was done pretty well and succeeded to show us what you get when you wrong someone. I feel like Scorsese has created a great piece which will be admired in the coming years if not now. But yet I think the film lacked the greatness he achieved with his earlier films like Goodfellas and The Departed. But I might be wrong. Who knows how I'll feel about it if I watched it a couple of times more. It did feel like a film that wanted to achieve more hence the longer running time, and I could not put my finger on anything it messed up, so I might be feeling differently about it if I was asked in a few years' time. But this is Scorsese we're talking about. Even if he makes a film that people will jump to criticize, it's only because we have become accustomed to expect nothing less than greatness from him.

Gravity is one of those few films that attempt to portray the dynamics of outer space as best as it could be. At a running time of only an hour and a half, most of the film concerned the difficulty of the characters to move toward places they needed to be in order to survive. With no friction, the slightest push could set one off on a course taking them far from the home planet. Sandra Bullock delivers a strong performance as a newbie in the field, unaccustomed and uncomfortable with her environment, and she does well. Her every movement is clumsy and awkward. She feels sick, disorientated and panicked. The way she portrayed the character develop from this fearful bereaving person to the strong woman who finally faces reality and understands that while she has been dealt a cruel hand by fate on and off the earth, there's really nothing to do about it than just accept it and then fight for her life with every ounce of strength she has in her body. George Clooney plays Matt, who is on his last mission. He is a jolly figure who engages in humorous and distracting monologues with Houston. But the strength of his character becomes apparent the moment the apocalypse of that world arrives at their doorstep. The space-crafts shown are the International Space Station, Hubble Telescope and Chinese Tiangong. The majority of the action takes place around Hubble, where the characters are stationed. As always, the Russians mess up when they blow up a satellite of their own. The debris starts an accidental chain reaction which destroys every other spacecraft in its orbit, returning every ninety minutes to do more damage. The characters have to use this window to make their way without panicking as that consumes more oxygen. Alfonso Cuarón does well in weaving the entire environment in working to kill the characters. The visual effects were the most believable that I've seen in a long time. The constant was the rim of the Earth, which was a welcoming sight in the wake of the chaos taking place. Tiny water droplets, explosions and debris from destroyed spacecraft were created with painstaking detail and enriched the picture. The effects did not overwhelm everything else and aided in the development of the story. The set design was exquisite, showing the interior of space-crafts, their controls, space suits, floating and drifting spacecraft. There may be a few inaccuracies but they are quite forgiveable in contrast to the spectacle that Cuarón has created. The script was strong, so was the production design and visual effects. The direction managed to capture the sense of fear and confusion of the characters with some very poignant moments. The vast emptiness of space was constantly reminding everyone by its presence to its claim of being the main antagonist of the film. Already being compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, I can only concur that Gravity rivals that only in the departments of entertainment value, visual effects and its ability to affect mood using imagery and music. The former had a more interesting story while the plot of the latter was conceived to suit the demands of the effects, which isn't actually a bad thing but isn't enough to get the movie in the same league as the classics. 9.5

In this film we get to see the Coen brothers' version of a true psychopath. We follow two story lines until they converge and become one. Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is a lunatic who has no conscience whatsoever. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is the man who we root for, even though he is far from being a saint. But the fact that he doesn't kill people over nothing certainly gives him an edge over his opponents in gaining our sympathy. Moss finds a ridiculous amount of money in the desert and decides to keep it. Two sets of sides then follow him around the country as he outwits them at every step. Chigurh is called in and joins the chase, but he has his own agenda, which is to say none that can be understood by a sane man. Needless to say, we get to see a whole lot of shootouts and deaths and close calls. Chigurh was the most enduring character from the bunch. He has two weapons he puts to deadly use at every occasion. A psychopath in every sense of the word, he looks for quarrels in nothing that would suggest to offend a normal person. Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is an aging sheriff. He quips and jokes with a poker face. I thoroughly enjoyed his peculiar sense of humour. Always trying to do the right thing, he feels that he isn't upto the task of apprehending these criminals who have suddenly decided to make the territory under his jurisdiction their battlefield. The title of the movie is probably about him. There were more than a few memorable scenes of violence and gore. The art direction depicted the time splendidly with the costume and cars and cafes. The cinematography captured the beautiful bleak landscape of the southern wilderness with finesse. The open plains and deserts certainly felt like a character unto itself. The first hour and a half nailed the action, suspense and dialogue with a craftsman's precision, and had not one scene that threatened to slow the pace. Despite the entertaining pace, every one of the main characters was well developed and distinct. The gunfights seemed realistic. People actually got injured and had no ability to dodge the bullets. There were a few scenes with conversations reflecting upon the changing times in terms of the violence being perpetrated. Some of the older audience may have felt nostalgic for a bit around this time. The film had the quality that takes the viewers imperceptibly from scene to scene. I've always wondered how action sequences would feel like without supporting score to pump our adrenaline, and relying solely on content. They felt raw and genuine. Coen brothers showed us how they should be done. But if I made a film, I would have some music in the scenes about reflection and resolution. Unlike the other great films in the genre of crime/thriller, this one chose to show what was happening only during the present. There was literally no transtion of time. In that it was like Raiders of the Lost Ark. But that movie had an extended cop-out ending. The minute the main story ends abruptly, we move into a five minute interlude which felt forced and left me restless. There were no visible stakes and instead there were some conversations that were kind of conclusory remarks about what had taken place before. Everything before this had me absorbed in the narrative and that scene had nothing to do with anything that we were already shown. As the pacing was breakneck before this, some of the audience may have felt it to be more dragging even when the film returns to the main story. The extraction of a message or theme should be left entirely to the audience. I would have respected the Coens a lot more if they had the sense to know what should be left out. But since that scene wasn't long, I won't be harsh. But this blunder in editing took away from the strengths of the movie and thus the film failed to leave a lasting impression. The last scene was retainable but forgettable.

The film tells the story of P.L Travers. We follow two narratives_ one of which is a fictionalized account of the writer's childhood in Australia, the other one is about Walt Disney's attempt to have the writer approve of his adaptation of her book and thus sign away her rights. Emma Thompson plays Travers with a dry British humour. She is sarcastic and cynical, retorting with witty remarks at every opportunity. Everyone else goes along with it because they need what is hers. She is less than enthusiastic about having her book adapted and has her doubts about the intentions of Disney's company to stay true to the source material. Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney, a magnate with a view to life only a fourteen year old could have in real life. He is never serious until he is. Wanting to adapt the book he had promised his daughters years ago he would, he relentlessly pursues Travers to sign the document. Annie Rose Buckley plays Helen, a young girl who sees her father, Goff (Colin Farrell) as a hero, although it is apparent from the start that he isn't. But he is a brilliant father and despite his many failures at life this fact makes the young Helen forever hold her father in the highest regard, to the extent that her whole life is affected by it. The young actress showed great promise and I'm already rooting for her career. The supporting cast did a satisfactory job. Paul Giamatti plays a limousine driver, Ralph, who takes Travers to different places. From the Sherman Brothers to Dolly to Don DaGradi, the humour was always there, often in the form of all of them attempting to make her approve of the different aspects of the film they have come up with. Though it started at a light note, it becomes increasingly serious as the woes of life catch up with the characters. But even in the midst of all the drama, a touch of humour here and there helped lighten the mood. The film followed one story in 1901 and the other in the 1960s. Both of these times were captured brilliantly with set design and costume. Add to that the great job done with the acting and writing, I give the film a score of 9.

Pan's Labyrinth is one of those movies whose sound and look is so distinctive that you instantly recognize it. Guillermo del Toro combines great storytelling and elements of fantasy to create a surging plot which succeeds in capturing our imagination, mood and emotions. We follow two story lines. The one rooted in reality is about a secluded small town ruled by a despotic captain tasked with wiping out the remnants of the resistance which has taken shelter in the surrounding jungles. The other one is about a young girl, Ofelia, who is forced to accept the captain as her stepfather. She is fond of fairy tales which she carries everywhere. Whether the faun promising her passage to the virtually perfect world is an escapist fantasy of hers or not is left up to the viewer to decide. Del Toro relies chiefly on score, voice-over and narration to create momentum. The editing was successful in keeping the audience eyeing every dialogue. The fact that the majority must have been following subtitles for the entire length of the movie did not lessen the effect the film has on you, but on the contrary created a world that was mesmerizing. The movie is set in Francoist Spain. The art direction painted a vivid picture of the 1940s through depicting the buildings, cars and costumes of that era. We also get to witness some of the lifestyle of the time. The faun creature, who gives Ofelia tasks to complete in order to gain entrance into the Underground Realm was a particularly unique creation. The work done deserved the Oscar it received. Frequently the story transitions into the fantasy part. We learn about the lost princess, who Ofelia thinks is herself. The pregnancy of Ofelia's mother is a major concern throughout the movie. It is feared that there's an informer for the rebels inside the camp, of whose identity Ofelia comes to learn of. The captain is a megalomaniac who insults people with his every breath and is bent on destroying the insurgency. Despite proof of his madness, Del Toro resists the temptation of painting him as an irredeemable person. He shows leniency now and then, and on one occasion hints that loyalty to him would have worked out better for a certain character. He is a man built for conflict, and actively seeks it. He always carries a watch on him which ticks loudly to keep him on schedule, even in the middle of gunfights. He is also fond of torturing captured people. The action sequences were well drawn and made what was happening clear. Light is used to control mood. The score is poignant and memorable and haunting. The visual effects creates the creatures of this fantasy world which rivals any done by the mainstream Hollywood. A lot of this creativity went into showing how people were killed. The pace picks up during the second half. The resistance becomes bolder and gets reinforcements. There were a few scenes of cathartic killing and blood-letting. And we also learn the final fate of the main characters. Despite the fact that the fantasy element has a marginal effect on the progress of the story, the movie becomes something special with its inclusion. The contrast between a child's wish to be somewhere safe where she would be loved and the skirmishes between the government troops and the rebels finally makes the message very clear in the end.

Rush definitely lives up to its name. The way it pumped blood through my head gave me a rush. But quite a few movies manage to do that, and it was solely not for this that I liked the movie. I loved its art direction. It got me believing that I really was looking through a window into the 70s and witness this rivalry replayed. There are quite a few movies out there vying for our attention. They have thrilling car races or chases, and the intention is only that_ to amaze us with the mind-boggling stunts. But Rush endeavoured to be much more than a film about racing cars. It wanted to make us experience how these drivers live, why they choose this profession, how they feel during the time they are behind the wheel, and how much victory means to them. In that task Rush has succeeded beyond my expectations. It set out to do something I had not even expected of it. So it sets itself apart and should be taken more seriously. Rush is narrated by Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) at key moments of his career. His rivalry with James is spun out of context by the frenzied media. Surely they don't see eye to eye but when such levels of adrenaline are pumping through your veins and you risk everything to gain victory, even the slightest setback makes you envy and loathe your opponent to the extreme. Both the main characters start off as rookies. Their first encounter and tussle may be fictionalised. Both of them are stupendously talented. But they must make their mark in order to gain attention from the big names in the game. Drivers finish the race but the ones making them the heroes in the public eye are the ones with the cars. And they would have to vie for names such as Ferrari and McLaren to even begin to have some kind of a chance to be among those who finish first. I found the acting sufficient for the believability of the characters. James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) came across as the universal bad boy with a heart of gold. He certainly has the charisma to pull it off. Lauda was much more complex. He is clearly the type who aim high in life and are willing to do everything to achieve their goals. So Brühl had his work cut out for him but he surprised and rose to the occasion. There are their other sides which are gradually revealed and make them more human and thus more worthy of admiration. It was nice to see Olivia Wilde given a role in a movie that was not a box office bomb or a disaster with the critics. We are shown glimpses of races around the world intertwined with scenes from the private lives of these two men. The racing scenes were short and well captured. The character development was well done and certainly painted distinct personalities. They joke and verbally spar in their own ways, calling each other names to incite angry responses. No one's the bad guy. They shuffle as the more sympathetic character throughout the movie. I'm glad they didn't resort to add more conflict and contrived fictional gimmicks to offset each other to add drama, which would have ruined it for me. I was constantly waiting for this to happen, for it to slip up and reveal mediocrity, even expecting it, for it is a film about cars, but I was pleased to be proven wrong. You can have a thrilling movie about car racing or you could have a movie about the lives of drivers with sparse action, but Rush combined both perfectly. Everything was in the right proportions. It had the story, the entertainment value, the mood-changing quality and the effects. The races were brilliantly done. The accidents when they happened were rightly worrying and realistic and not exaggerated. The cars themselves were pure beauties. And I found myself agreeing with the line of dialogue that men love cars more than they love women. I dare say that Rush has succeeded in supplanting all car racing movies I had previously watched and become my favourite from the genre. But the reason I loved it is it made me think about the importance of human life and why it must not be risked for thrill seeking and for the entertainment of others who do not have the guts to perform such kinds of feats.

Jackson certainly endeavoured to outdo himself and he succeeded in at least the visual department, with both the visual effects and set design. The photography was breathtaking, suggesting the same sense of wilderness audience must be familiar with if they have seen Lord of the Rings. The bad blood between dwarves and elves is further explored. Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf remain the main characters. The rest of the dwarf company also come in handy. At other times they goof around and keep the mood from turning gloomy. The orcs are more fierce enemies than just being the cannon fodder. The aura of incorruption around the elves is lifted when they behave in quite an ordinary and unnoble way. One new character I felt like should have been given a bigger role than the ones which were was Beorn. We follow three gradually diverging narratives_ Gandalf's search for the Necromancer, Bilbo's and the dwarves' journey through Mirkwood and beyond, and Legolas's and Tauriel's adventures. The visual effects were stunningly beautiful. The creatures depicted, such as the horde of gigantic spiders and the orc leaders, were better done than the ones in the sister franchise. Azog and his son Bolg are the first time a sense of family has been associated with orcs. I especially liked the scenes with the Necromancer and the dwarves' predicament in the forest. Smaug is the best dragon I've seen anywhere on film and tv, and his scenes with the sea of gold in a cave projected a scope out of this world. New places, like the town of Esgaroth, the ruins of Dol Guldur and Mirkwood were created in CGI but looked authentic. The fighting scenes were thrilling and enduring. New characters joined the plot whenever the existing ones ran into trouble they couldn't find their way out of. Lord of the Rings did that only in the first instalment, and those characters remained important, like Aragorn and his buddies, and their quest remained relevant and sometimes became more important. Here, Legolas just walks into the film and so does Bard, conveniently at times when the dwarves most needed them, and their stories become central for no apparent reason. Legolas should have only been included if his interaction with the company and his impact on the narrative had been so essential to the onward flow of the plot that had he been removed the story would have crumbled. His inclusion was just a fan service. The natural growth of a story to include these characters was not visible, and their stories were irrelevant. This is a sign of weak storytelling. I guess this could be argued for against Lord of the Rings too but at least it didn't claim to follow only Frodo. Lord of the Rings was a tale that you felt about and cared for. Maybe it was because of the fact that the visual effects did not outshine the indomitable strength of the narrative and its emotional impact. The Hobbit series may not be memorable, or it may be but only because of Jackson's attachment, for quite frankly it was a show-off of the advancements of visual effects. Maybe if they had stuck with the decision to make only two films there would have been more enduring scenes at regular intervals instead of empty action gimmicks presented with nothing at risk. No character's life is ever seriously threatened. While that rang true to some extent for the second and third instalments of the Lord of the Rings, here not one character sacrifices his life for the benefit of others, even with a ridiculously large fire-breathing dragon as their adversary. For this reason I feel The Hobbit series is in the same vein as Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The stakes skyrocketed after Smaug comes onscreen, and the film improved manyfold, but unfortunately it takes two hours to reach him. While the Lord of the Rings was distinguished with Gollum's entry in The Two Towers, this time it was Smaug who allured and amazed and fascinated. One more film franchise rescued by Benedict Cumberbatch. His voice was haunting. Legolas seemed like a different character. He's haughty, disrespectful and reckless, and occasionally needs saving. I explained this development by observing that he was young back then. He engages in sword duels when there really is no need for it. His fighting skills in LotR was effective in that he doesn't feel the need to showcase his abilities and only does what is necessary to kill his opponents with the least amount of energy and with a view to overcome the odds of the orcs pitted against him. The movie tended to drag before the tempo being picked up again by the action sequences. What they did better was the start and finsish of the film, which were promising and spiked interest immediately. It felt like an amalgamation of some very great scenes which when brought together didn't really help either Bilbo and his ring story or the main story about the dwarves' kingdom. This movie only roused my wonder with the visuals but had absolutely no impact on my emotions.

The Big Lebowski is about a man who has lived life on his own terms, failed at it, but still has no regrets. Every scene with the protagonist, the Dude, is ripe with little quirks of his character. He is a perpetual chiller. Some of the supporting cast also made for good comedy, chief among them Walter, who is a Vietnam veteran angry with the world for no good reason. The humour mainly came from the characters of the Dude and Walter, whose inept skills of detecting mess up everything that could make things easier for the world, themselves included. Some hoodlums mistake the Dude, whose real name is Lebowski, for a millionaire and extort him. They decide to piss on his favourite rug, which makes him want to seek compensation from the rich man. Needless to say, things escalate unexpectedly when this man's wife is seemingly kidnapped and he asks the Dude to take the ransom money to the rendezvous and potentially identify the kidnappers. His involvement in the affair seems to be to the detriment of all the concerned parties. Things go wrong from the beginning as the pair, the Dude and Walter, lack a reasonable voice and go along without planning anything. There's a plot that moves the movie forward but the focus is on the lifestyle of the Dude. Everything else works to portray his life as fully as it could be. What the movie does extremely well is insert quick-witted quips throughout the length of the movie, often when you won't be expecting them, which certainly had me cracking up every other moment. There was a lot of serious talk going on in the guise of dialogue. A comedy it was but to be able to discern these little moments of enlightenment every other while made me respect the script a lot more than I would have if the intention had been just to make me laugh at goofy lines. That was a work of genius and deserves recognition. There were a lot of secondary characters which lighted up the moments. There was this rival of the main duo at the bowling alley who seeks to incite confrontation with every word of his. Walter always seems to want to stand up to bullies and makes big statements and bold moves, the majority of which end up creating trouble for the Dude. Thrown into the mix is the rich Lebowski's daughter (Julianne Moore) who believes that her father's trophy wife is faking her abduction and wants the money for her own. So she sets the Dude on her own personal agenda to help her prove that she's right. The Dude is pushed around by everyone who comes into contact with him, from the rich Lebowski to his daughter, the kidnappers, a porn producer and even the police; and much of the comedy originates from this. They all just barge into his private space whenever they feel like it and bully him. But nothing ever shakes his exterior and his values of pacifism never leave his side. Even for a man as passive as him, trouble seems to find ways to bring itself to him. There are some scenes of such hilarity that I literally had to double over and hold my stomach. There was also a fair amount of profanity and nudity, and the Dude is a compulsive smoker of weed. The narrative during the first half was strong and carried the movie very well. The second half seemed to lose a bit of steam, as the plot became somewhat convoluted. But what you have to understand is the bigger picture_ which is not to get the plot which is by no means difficult to follow, but witness a chapter in the life of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski while he tries to enjoy his life. I feel like Jeff Bridges deserved to be lauded for his portrayal for the character much more than he did for his other roles. For such an intelligent comedy, which is a rare brand, I feel like it deserves a perfect ten for the effort and achievement in creating compelling characters that succeeded in making people laugh yet be a bit brooding and make statements about politics and war under the layer, if you care to look for them, without diminishing the entertainment value of the piece in the least.

An epic about the expansion and construction as the frontier pushed toward the pacific, interlined with one man's journey to make someone pay for what he did in the past. From the outset, Leone makes it clear that his focus on portraying the life and environment of the West would supersede any need to tell the story. His self appointed task of showing all the mundane happenings and goings on of this world is well achieved. A train station is shown where the typical protagonist of a Western, who never has a name, engages himself in a shoot-out while in search for a man named Frank. Focus shifts to McBain and his family who owns a land in the middle of nowhere. He is clearly suspicious about something that is going to happen and we are rewarded with what it is almost immediately. During this conflict we are introduced to this Frank that the first man was searching for. A woman enters the story right around here who becomes more involved in the plot as the movie progresses, so is another character by the name of Cheyenne. She suddenly finds herself the centre of attention among outlaws and rail-road companies. The treatment of women is summed up quite clearly the way men behave with her. She is initially a woman who is well dressed and of a noble birth by all accounts and if even that could not gain her even the lowest level of respect, nothing could. The latter is the more engaging of any characters in the script, and thank God for his presence. As the plot thickens, the mysterious man looks for Frank, Cheyenne seeks to clear his name in an incident involving multiple killings, and Frank helps his partner acquire land in the path of the envisioned rail-road to the pacific. The first two decide to stick around and help Jill with something that would honour the memory of the man who was killed, while Frank does all he can to take the land he needs to build the rail-road. Frank asks the man twice who he is, to which he lists the names of some of the men he has killed. It is not enough that Frank should die. He needs to suffer while thinking about why this man wants to kill him. To this purpose he is even saved by this man. And surely enough, when Frank cannot take it any more, he himself goes after the man to find out the reason. At this point we finally learn the secret. I felt like the movie lost steam an hour and a half into it and after that it felt like a task just to finish watching it. It was a narrative mess. The Man has every intention to come across as mysterious and awe-inspiring, but I found it frustrating after a while. He seemed to be content with wasting other people's (including the audience) time. I found Cheyenne much more interesting. The dialogue was sparse. Only Cheyenne knew how to say things that would make people laugh and keep humoured, which was essential given the length of the movie. The plot develops linearly but Leone decided that it wasn't doing it for him and jumbled up everything. Some plot jumps took place, one of which infuriated me the most. The cinematography captured the bleak landscape of the West. The score was slow paced and introduced tension during the key moments. The set design depicted the life at the frontier with the wooden towns, horse-drawn carriages, sweaty people, all that. Considered the greatest of Leone's work, I could not agree in good conscience. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was a hell of a lot more fun and had engaging characters, even though it had a fraction of the budget for this movie, proving once again that great movies need not be created through extravagance. Here, the characters seemed bland for the most part. They seemed not to know where they had to move in service to the story and wandered around aimlessly. There was not a single scene that cut it out for me. The only thing that Once did better was portray the daily life and toil of ordinary people in the west. The movie failed to make a major impact on my emotions and senses right until the last shoot-out, which speaks for Leone's idea of greatness_ bore people so much that they have to see the timer several times to make sure the movie is headed forward. While it can be argued that the movie depicted the general life in the west quite effectively, I for one feel that story always trumps the need for grand style and an urge to make some kind of a statement. There's no doubt that the setting needs to be strong, but the characters need to be much stronger, which in turn should give way to the plot.

Three thugs come into information about a certain treasure hidden somewhere in a graveyard, which precipitates in a battle of wits and endurance that takes us through deserts, prisoner-of-war camps and battle encampments. There's never a dry moment, well except for the weather. The Ugly, Tuco, is a low-life, good-for-nothing, petty thief who has an unwritten contract with Blondie a.k.a the Man with No Name (Clint Eastwood) which the latter usurps, making him want to seek vengeance. Some might find him the most sympathetic one because he talks about his life, which the others don't, and we know that he didn't know any better, or things might have been different. He overestimates his intelligence and suffers for that at the hands of the other two. But if he sets his mind to something, he will take such offence that he will pursue his enemy to the extreme. The Bad, Angel Eyes, is singularly portrayed as the villain without redeeming qualities. Early on he kills a child to distinguish himself from the other two, though the others are not so much saints and Tuco is a rapist. Their life is hard and given the circumstances the other two might have done the same in the heat **** to save their skins, but the important thing is that they are not shown to do so and this is what immediately sets him apart and paves a separate path for him. The Good is not so much good in character as in looks. The Man with No Name roams the desolate landscape in search for bounty. But since he appears to be the protagonist, he may come across as the most sympathetic one from the three. He is a man of few words. Initially it feels like he may get overwhelmed by the barbarity displayed by the other two, but through a combination of wits, deceit and an unmatched prowess at gun toting, he displays a skill at killing that often intimidates his peers. Each of them kill with impunity and without remorse, sometimes over nothing at all. As they pursue this treasure, their paths cross several times. They change sides at first opportunity. They cannot sit down and talk about splitting it because The Man could never agree to that. Whether Angel Eyes would have is never really explored. While these three compete for gold, in background we are constantly reminded of the Civil War. The battle sequences near the end were well shot and captured the chaos of a battle as accurately as it could be on the camera. The camera pans out and shows us the opposing sides and their positions. Glimpses of the war are shown throughout the length of the movie, sometimes a makeshift hospital in the ruins of a building, cannon balls landing in towns and streets, armies marching. No side is shown to be the more sympathetic one. No slaves are shown, not one. Leone clearly did not want to be caught up in a debate. The story he wanted to tell had little time for such discussions. But what he did want to show was the futility of war. Countless suffering youth is shown time and again. What I loved about the movie is that it was more than just mindless killing and violence. Plenty of time is spent between action to let us reflect on our surroundings and what is going on in there. Hardly a moment is lost in a scene which does not have a bearing on later events. Everything is intricately plotted, meshed together perfectly. Leone spends a lot of time creating tension through silence. Even amidst all the carnage, the tone is always playful. Leone doesn't let the movie get too serious, often flanking scenes of death with humorous ones. There is a fair amount of convenient coincidences throughout the movie but if you start paying attention to them and seek them out deliberately, it would distract from the whole experience. For as much a serious movie as it is, the intention clearly had been to make a movie that could be enjoyed several times without overbearing with the serious part. Some of the scenes stretch the imagination, like Blondie's ability to shoot off the hats of people from far away. The score is iconic and added humour and a sense of thrill to the action it supported. The set design was fabulous. The towns, houses, rooms and their furnishings shows almost perfectly the world of that time. The eye for detail was impressive. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Costume was spot on. Cinematography really helped paint a picture of the action taking place. The last sequence was riveting as the three stand in a Mexican stand-off. This is where we finally realize that the other two, no matter how cruel they could be, are really at the mercy of this mysterious person who is not named once. There was never a time these two could have outsmarted him. While they fidget about, The Man remains passive, defying every expectation. Nevertheless, the way luck plays its part in saving his neck time and again had a greater role than any other, without which no one could survive in this world.

The message here is that life is full of joy and happiness, even in places you won't expect. We experience the asylum through the eyes of McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) as he arrives there and gets into the routine. Some suspect that he is faking his insanity to get out of a jail sentence. This debate is never really explored in the movie. He may have been a little unorthodox but surely enough he is sane most of the time, except for the occasional rips in the exterior when we can't really be sure, like when he claims to be able to lift a certain heavy object and use it to make his escape. And he does not seem to be especially concerned about being thrown between people who are clearly more disturbed in their minds. He only loses his cool when he is being repeatedly pestered, which I think most people would. He feels constrained by authority and almost immediately after coming to the facility attempts to meddle with the schedule set in place for the patients. On several occasions he disregards rules and regulations entirely and creates serious trouble for the institution. Occasionally we delve into the lives of some of the other patients and learn about their experiences before they were committed. Nicholson delivers a once in a lifetime performance. McMurphy is so full of life that you can't help but be drawn to him. The plot takes you to wherever Mac decides to take us, and it is a ride of wonder. The secondary characters were well realized and quite fun to watch. The interactions between them were the source of much of the humour in the movie. Some treatments allegedly used for the benefit of the patients are also highlighted, like Electroconvulsive therapy and Lobotomy. The way the staff keeps control over the patients has the same underlying threat of force or punishment to keep them in line just like in a prison. Towards the end, McMurphy sacrifices his own interests to show his friends what life is like on the outside. By embracing the joys of life, he embodies its values more than the ones who claim to be assisting the people in this madhouse. I always wondered how people went mad, and why so few came back to sanity. Though it may present a dramatized version of it, it was moving when it came. And the fact that 'normal' people expected 'mad' people to behave in a certain way, and maybe even welcomed it, is perhaps the reason when somewhat disturbed people when admitted into institutions only deteriorate as they conform to the commonly accepted view. Perhaps a bit of understanding and love may be the key to make the disturbed people believe that they are indeed wanted and should make an effort to resolve their unresolved issues, and be more resolute and assertive about their needs. This isn't the kind of movie to depend on cinematography and score. It's very simple and straightforward. Sometimes having glitter only ruins the effect, and I'm glad that's not how the movie was made. The focus was on acting, directing and screenplay. When these departments are well looked after, you can have a good decent movie without the need of an especially big budget. Not many movies would be able to achieve the same sense of belonging one could feel for with people declared clinically insane, and I feel like it speaks for the strength of the director, Milas Forman, who has a knack for portraying out of the ordinary individuals in situations that are themselves quite extraordinary.

Takes off in a completely different direction from the original. While the first one was more about the fear that arises in people in the face of an unknown and deadly danger, this was more about an all out open warfare between humans and an overwhelming army of aliens, hence the title. I could see hints of James Cameron's other memorable character, The Terminator, in the Ripley of this instalment. I could sympathize with some of the secondary characters, the ones who were well developed, but couldn't care less about the others, who I rightly recognized as cannon fodder from the outset. This time around, a child survivor is thrown into the mix, a girl called Newt. She is a primary character and I found her portrayal very satisfying. The action sequences were shot extremely well. They both enthralled and kept the tempo running. James Cameron's direction captures every scene with subtlety and precision, a technique which he improved over time and used in delivering a greater film a few years later in the shape of a sequel to another franchise. But this movie amongst his other works proves beyond any doubt that he has all the makings **** action director. The effects did not necessarily jump out at you. They seemed to be at the same standard as the ones from the original, even though this was made seven years later. The score was slow paced and haunting. Ripley seems different from the first movie. She feels like another character. And as it is mainly an action flick, this change is not explored. In Alien, she was a flawed heroine. But here she just fills the boots of a main character, firing guns, killing stuff, and hardly ever pauses for reflection. In essence, she brings nothing new to the table, even though the movie ran for two and a half hours. A lot of this time was spent developing the other characters, some of which were fairly well realized, so some amongst the audience may be more satisfied than I was. Why I couldn't give this movie a perfect score has a combination of reasons that ultimately has to do with my personal preference. Cameron is clearly intrigued by ideas and stories of heroic men and women struggling to survive against odds ordinary mankind may not be able to cope with. These larger than life super monsters often create much of the action and drama in many of Cameron's other movies too. Ridley Scott's Alien was a simple science fiction, albeit significantly more plausible, tale about a parasitic alien species who reproduce by inhabiting living organisms and killing them eventually. Cameron does not explain how or why these species came into being, where the Queen came from, or what happened to the ship where these eggs were found at the start of the first film. He simply saw an opportunity to expand the idea into a highly charged gun blazing blockbuster. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. On the contrary I believe his Terminator 2 is amongst the greatest movies ever made. But Terminator series was his own creation and he made it that way. It was his child to mould as he pleased. This was not. Here I was hoping to see a sequel which would continue the story Scott set out to tell, a kind of story which would encourage philosophical discussions. I enjoyed the movie for other reasons, though I could not help but feel a little disappointed. I came out of it thinking that Cameron was not capable of delivering a movie that could amaze holding the same concepts the original did. He could have easily retained all the gun fighting and flame throwing but may have dotted the plot with a bit of discussion related to the origin of the species, the engineer species, or anything logical and reasonable he could come up with. If he thought this was not possible, he could have at least addressed the issues by putting the words into the mouth of some character so we would have known that the characters are thinking the same thing but had their hands full.

Raging Bull is not so much about boxers as it is about the everyday life of them. In this case, Jake LaMotta is an insecure piteous brute of a man who knows no better. He does not inspire admiration as athletes in other sports might. The story is not about someone getting somewhere, but about the experience itself, with all the highs and lows, and the final decline. The plot follows two brothers as they see good and bad times together as the elder LaMotta challenges this boxer and that during the 1940s. The Mafia who runs the show always seems to have a hand in everything and keep the belt out of his grasp. Jake's obsessive behaviour toward his wife Vickie also makes up the major part of the plot. Her every gesture and remark is taken out of context and exaggerated beyond reason. Robert De Niro tackles yet another complicated character for his friend Scorsese. Jake is a whack job who aims big but doesn't know how to present himself. Joey LaMotta (Joe Pesci), Jake's brother, is his manager. He is also short on temper but at least he's sane enough to recognize the importance of keeping up appearances and does his best to keep his brother's public image intact. Joe Pesci does a decent job portraying him as a tentative over-shadowed little brother who has accepted his place and goes along with the occasional bullying until it's too much. Jake never seems to fully accept his good fortune of getting it on with his sweetheart Vickie (Cathy Moriarty), who he suspects of cheating at every turn. This suspicion threatens everything in his life. At first you might feel sorry for what he has to go through but as his family begins to suffer by his maniac outbursts, you can't help but be sympathetic to everyone but Jake. Vickie seems without emotion at first but as time passes some hints of her humanness pass through the filter. Moriarty does a splendid job in making her a sympathetic character even in the middle of the endless hints at her infidelity. She plays her with a laid-back, subtle approach, and feels plastic at times until she shows her quirks occasionally. I admired her greatly, and felt like if a woman carried herself like this, she is bound to have her man, or men in general, follow her around like puppies. Shot in black and white, the picture evokes a time when this was the standard. All the details to bring the 40s to life are captured perfectly_ the bars, clubs, cars, dresses and so on. The cinematography was a stroke of genius. Raging Bull is not a sports drama. Actually, after the first few fights are shown, seldom is time spent inside the ring. We witness more of Jake's life outside in the world, where he is not hidden under a guise and has to fend for himself. The movie never attempts to explain how Jake became like he did. Scorsese trusts us to derive our own meanings. He just shows us the scenes of violence, love, family and then moves on to the next scene. His touch is light and imperceptible, yet his signature is all over it. But unlike his other movies where everything sort of explains itself, I feel like this lacked the cohesiveness of his other works. Scorsese was successful in portraying the experiences of sudden fame and wealth and its effects but it was too vague for me to feel anything. Apart from a few scenes between the brothers which brought me close to tears, other times I just didn't feel anything at all. Raging Bull may be more liked than Taxi Driver, but in my opinion it was too ambitious and failed at some level. Goodfellas is where Scorsese eventually succeeded in getting everything in precisely the right amount as they are needed to make a film work. Whether the movie worked perfectly or not is immaterial in the wake of De Niro's performance, and this movie should be watched just for **** Academy finally recognized his talent and commitment and awarded him the Oscar for Best Actor.

The subject matter deals with dreams; lucid dreams_ the ones in which we are aware that we're dreaming; dream-like states_ which we can't distinguish from reality; and last but not the least, dreams within dreams. It challenges its viewers to keep an open mind and demands absolute concentration and sheer force of will to follow the plot. Nolan does his best to ease the most difficult parts down our throats through putting the questions we may ask in the mouths of his characters. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a fugitive after being suspected in his wife's death. Far from home, he yearns to see his children again. He resorts to use his considerable knowledge about dream states in stealing for various organisations to earn his living. When an opportunity presents itself to clear his name and pave the way for his return home, he jumps at it. But his feelings of guilt about the death of his wife render him unable to let go of her and thus makes him want to keep her alive in his dreams, which messes with his job when she repeatedly interferes. The movie initially plays with the notion of stealing an idea from someone's brain while they sleep. Then it proposes something even more ludicrous_ planting an idea so that it will take shape and make that person embrace it as their own. This is termed as inception. Fischer (Cillian Murphy) is heir to a corporation that his rival, Saito (Ken Watanabe), seeks to split. For that purpose the latter hires the expertise of Cobb, who assembles a team that consists of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his second-in-command; Eames (Tom Hardy), who impersonates people inside the dreams; and Ariadne (Ellen Page), who designs the dreams. No movie experience can prepare you for what comes next and you have to rely totally on Nolan's ability to guide us through the maze. But you have to suspend disbelief and accept the movie's logic at face value that his vision is likely to happen in some world that exists somewhere, for there's no fun to be had through questioning things. The characters discuss things that we're likely to experience while we're dreaming, like the way we perceive our environment and time itself. He then uses these to construct an elaborate plot in dreams, in other dreams and dreams. It's not hard to follow. You just have to pay attention to every line uttered. There's plenty happening to keep us occupied. Shooting, car chases, skiing, rappelling, explosions and so on. No couple of minutes of expository dialogue follows without mind-blowing jolts into electrified action played to booming music. The best sequence has to be a character's solitary stand against a small force inside a revolving and later gravity-less corridor. The cinematography was masterful. The action was captured splendidly. The visual effects were spectacular_ the best among them a city folding on itself, another one falling to pieces, among others. Hans Zimmer should be credited with composing a spellbinding composition. The main theme that Nolan tries to discuss is perhaps the relations between parents and children. The main plot follows Fischer's relationship with his dying father, who he has never got along with. Cobb seeks to exploit this to complete the mission assigned to him. Cobb's own longing for his children is contrasted with this. The editing managed to keep the suspense high throughout the run. When dialogue seemed to lower our guard, it wasn't long before something jumped out at us. Some movies when getting down to the more serious part of the story seem to forget about the pacing altogether, which becomes their undoing. Moments of talking were interlaced with action flawlessly. While it is clear that Nolan uses the opportunity to arouse as much complex discussions about dream states as James Cameron did with his own and others' ideas in his earliest movies, he still condescends to include as much exposition as possible. Dream states seem to provide a superb platform for gravity defying stunts and the opportunity was not lost on him. He crammed as much action as he could without overriding the most basic of messages. The movie is the most thought-provoking during the first half when we're being educated about the physics and rules of the dream world. As Star Wars had proven previously, a film may not have to be scientifically correct to be received well both commercially and critically. I don't know if Inception does not depict proper science. People have not let this stop them from watching movies that thrill them before. They aren't going to start now. But for what its worth, Inception has better grasp on science than the former. But it doesn't succeed because of that. It succeeds because it succeeds in entertaining the hell out of us, or me at least. Some films and literature force us to think out of the box, about things that are not necessarily rooted in reality, and it is only during these times when feelings of awe are most evoked. Inception was successful in doing that.

Starts in the same manner of good old goofy fun as the first film did. We can't get enough proof of Kirk's style of reckless, life-threatening circus stunts which the Starfleet still seems to take for unusual leadership qualities. By my count he should have been court-martialled a long time ago. An incident in which Kirk saves Spock's life fails to make him notice why the captain risked all to go after him. Kirk is demoted soon to be promoted again. He and his crew are sent to hunt down a mad man named John Harrison on a planet controlled by the Klingons. Needless to say, conflict takes place time and again to spice up the narrative. There's plenty of opportunities for everyone in the crew to display heroics. Harrison played by Benedict Cumberbatch was the most interesting part of the movie. Frankly, he is the reason the sequel managed to distinguish itself so well from the first movie. There is not much else going on that does that. Coming with a definite advantage in the acting department, the intensity and raw emotion he brings to the screen make him the most enduring character. He is a baffling individual. Another important character who plays a role in the conflict is Admiral Marcus, who heads the Starfleet. A female character also joins the cast. Spock steps up as a character. Many of the most crucial scenes were centred around him. We see more of his half-human portion. I'm coming to believe that Chris Pine only seems to come into his own when he is playing Captain Kirk, who seems to have the same attributes he has in real life. The plot was intriguing, and oddly, what kept me excited was the fact that more than halfway through the running time, I still had not made up my mind about who the real villain was. The fighting scenes were thrilling and kept my adrenaline pumping. The score was riveting and an improvement over the one from the last film. The visual effects were spectacular. J.J Abrams took it a bit easy on lens flare this time around. Alien species were better handled. Nothing seems to zap someone out of the story faster than an alien interacting with humans as if it were nothing. It immediately makes the sceptics cry out in protest about the non-seriousness of the subject matter, so please no funny looking alien sidekicks for comic relief. If it doesn't achieve anything to advance the plot or show something extremely important, it is probably for the best that they stay out. Klingons, however, do not count in this argument, for they are essential to the story, or will be, hopefully. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The climax was mind-blowing and so were the visual effects. We get to see some very nice-looking new spaceships. The Klingon vessels looked the best and oddly the most like the aircraft from our world. The narrative did not suffer from the focus on the effects, set design, costume and make-up. In pursuit of creating a world which felt real and complete, Abrams did not lose sight of the object of telling a good story. At two hours, the movie felt short. I was ready to go for a bit longer. A few more scenes with Harrison could have perhaps succeeded in bestowing upon the movie a timeless quality. He could have been the Joker of Star Trek's universe. Though people would always prefer a good story over an amalgamation of quasi-science and debates about whether something qualifies as science fiction or not, I'm nevertheless pleased that Star Trek universe was brought to mainstream attention with such flare by Abrams. Star Wars may still be the most beloved for reasons other than being set in space (I've always believed that it was liked because of the characters and the conflict rather than the fact that it was set in space), I'm still content that Star Trek managed to show us something that could actually be our future rather than something that is absolutely impossible. For sticking to the limits imposed by the genre, I shall always admire Star Trek more than Star Wars, for the latter would be much better described as a blend between science fiction and fantasy. A sequel outshining a first instalment is not so rare, but I've still seen too many which were botched up and left me **** of the whole notion. Fortunately, this was not one of those times.

This is primarily an action movie, and it does its job of thrilling us with brilliant action sequences one after the other more than satisfactorily. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Indiana Jones, a professor of archaeology at an unnamed university. Don't let his profession fool you. In his spare time, he likes to go on prolonged hunts for antiquities. This hobby of his takes him from South America to Nepal to Egypt. He finds trouble everywhere he goes, or trouble finds him. Indy is not interested in riches, but seeks to hand over each discovery he can to the museum. But Belloq, his nemesis, seems always to be one step ahead of him, and he has powerful friends who then have more friends of themselves, always among the local population. Shooting frequently breaks out wherever Indy goes, buildings explode, henchmen die and so on. The main plot follows Indiana Jones on the search for the lost Ark, which the **** are digging for with the help of Belloq. An object that is a key toward finding it is with Marion, Indy's past love interest. Circumstances force them to go on the search together, but they must do this before the ****, who would stop at nothing to bring the Ark to Berlin for the Fuhrer, to use as a weapon. The pacing was too fast at times and little time was left to develop the mythology and the importance of the Ark. We were expected to come into the film with a crash course on it. What the movie excels at is not making us Ark enthusiasts, but letting us glimpse what most treasure hunts must feel like to the people who pursue this course of action. All the action might have bored an average viewer if not for the quirky lines that crack you up, uttered by the characters in the face of impending death. Indy doesn't seem to believe for one moment that all those bullets flying over his head could really hit him. Often times, he uses his whip to slash at opponents and as a fulcrum to propel himself forward or lower himself or hold onto something. It serves nearly unlimited purposes. Set in 1936, the movie captures the look of the time as well as any other movie could. We have the cars, motorcycles, planes; and the dresses and uniforms and weapons. All this combines to create a very convincing world in which we absorb instantly. The movie has more than its share of explosions, car chases, shooting, fist-fighting and all that. You hardly ever pause to reflect, or become bored for that matter. You never learn how the **** find out which ship was Indiana travelling in. All this is good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but what I couldn't digest was the ending. It isn't necessarily bad in any way. Actually it failed to make any kind of impact on me. It kind of fizzled out. I feel like it should have held true to the joyride which came before it. Go out with a blast, not with a fizzle. Surely greats like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have done better. It was too deus ex machina. I found it anticlimactic, and it lessened the effect the movie had on me until then. Hailed as a great movie by many critics and audience alike, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the ride. But I can't concur in good conscience that this movie was great in light of the ending of the movie, though I will be fair and rate it as it deserves.

2001 is a visual and audio marvel. The visual effects and the set design were decades ahead of its time, and still look exquisite in the twenty-first century. Many of its techniques were imitated, and a greater number were inspired by it. The movie starts around the time humans came into being. Two tribes of apes clash over a pond of water. One is driven away. They discover something that perhaps gives them intelligence, which they use to defeat their rivals. The plot jumps into the future where a similar object, which might have been left behind by intelligent beings some four million years earlier, is discovered on the moon. A team is sent to Jupiter to further investigate the matter. A number of themes are explored in the movie, the chief among them is our curiosity to find beings who are at the same level of intelligence, if not more, than us. In that pursuit, the humans of this future world have invented a supercomputer to assist in the voyage to the distant planet, but which eventually malfunctions and is prone to consider its logic superior. This is an early example of technological singularity depicted on the big screen. The technology of the future world (which we still have not arrived at more than a decade after the year 2001) is dominated in outer space by the Americans and the Russians. The spacecraft carry passengers to and fro from space stations where research is being carried on. All this mystery would have created a sense of urgency, but Kubrick downplays it and concentrates on the narrative instead of resorting to cheap tricks. This movie is not about tension and drama. It is quite clear that Kubrick, by deliberately keeping the pacing in check, wants us to have a look around the world he has created and reflect. The images are original but the music is classical, and they blend so well I couldn't help feel engrossed in the narrative. In the genre of science fiction, there is no parallel, chiefly because other movies have concerned itself with complex ideas, and though they may have succeeded, can only be watched a limited number of times. But 2001 is such a basic sci-fi flick that it never aged. Even after more than forty years since it came out, 2001 still manages to hold its own against other films in the genre in the departments of visual effects and art direction. By keeping the story simple, Kubrick has ensured that its ideas do not become outdated, and succeeded in bestowing a timeless quality upon the movie. He said somewhere along the lines that everyone will take its own meaning from the movie, and has made no attempt to explain the ending. This is the same approach he later applied with another movie of his, The Shining, but which in my opinion suffered because I could not see the coherence in it. But here, by keeping his ambition in check, and showing only what is necessary to the onward flow of the narrative, he has excelled. 2001: A Space Odyssey is my favourite Stanley Kubrick film.

This is hailed as the best work of science fiction out there, if not the best ever. Star Wars becomes a more serious franchise with this instalment. Some time seems to have passed during which Han Solo and Luke Skywalker have grown as thick as thieves. They now look out for each other more fiercely. The conflict escalates as the empire assaults the rebels' new base, forcing them to flee. Luke along with his trusted squadron must engage the enemy while the civilians make their escape. A battle ensues in which Luke outsmarts several adversaries and then escapes himself. In the disorder, the three main characters are separated from the rest, and from each other. Luke embarks on a journey to learn to become a Jedi knight, an ancient order of knights that was mainly destroyed but still has one member from whom Luke must learn the trade. Darth Vader chases Leia and Han across the galaxy, anticipating their every move. Han and Leia, pursued by the Empire, seek to hide in an unusual place. We are introduced to a new character called Yoda, who teaches Luke everything he can to help him fulfil his destiny. We are also shown for the first time the face of the Emperor. A new city is introduced into the story that gets by on mining. It is there the climax of the movie takes place. A duel between our primary protagonist and antagonist takes place, culminating in a line of dialogue that has since its uttering fascinated fans for decades. Most of the alien creatures are in costume or mechanical, and are jittery at times. But the visual effects and set design seemed to improve the nearer we got to the end, especially when we get to see the Cloud City. Some of the elements distracted me from the story and prevented me from taking the movie seriously. All planets have atmospheres that humans, and every other being there is, can breathe in. Even in space, you can do without a helmet and suit but put on an oxygen mask just to be on the safe side. Mynocks, and one other creature, can live in outer space without the need for respiration. Lucas makes no attempt to show how this could be happening. His disdain for science becomes more apparent. At one point Luke lands on a planet that has snakes and lizards. If Star Wars takes place in a separate galaxy from the one Earth is in, how could our animals be a part of the ecosystem of this alien planet? Lucas should have stuck with his imaginary alien animals, no matter how ridiculous they looked, for the inclusion of earthly animals made me rethink the intro about this story taking place in some other galaxy. But you have to ignore serious debate about science fiction if you are to enjoy this film. Take it as you would any fantasy film. As this film expands upon the mythology of the franchise, it becomes clear that that is where Lucas had intended for us to take our thoughts, even if we are to swallow the whole notion of the Jedi and their supernatural abilities associated with the Force. The Force is a mysterious entity that often takes sides in a conflict and bestows power upon worthy individuals from time to time, but I can be wrong. Because there is Darth Vader to consider. Only Lucas would know the full answer, and he has chosen to use sparing words in order to keep the aura of mystery around it. The Empire Strikes Back is the most lauded instalment in the series, and rightly so. It has inspired and influenced many other works in the genre. For that reason it would forever remain in the minds of movie lovers. But if one is to consider it independent of its impact, and choose to scrutinize it with an eye to its value as a piece of art, it falls short in my opinion. Serious work involving logic and reason would always fascinate me more than an adventure tale where the story develops as you go along, and science can be sacrificed at every other turn for the benefit of entertainment.

We get **** right into the conflict that took place long ago on a galaxy far far away. Princess Leia is in possession of some secret documents that may help the rebels' cause against the tyranny of the empire. She is captured by their commander of forces, a black-armoured Darth Vader. On a desert planet we meet young Luke Skywalker, who dreams big but has to help his uncle tend to his lands. He joins the conflict on the side of the rebels on Obi-Wan Kenobi's behest. They come across an ace pilot named Han Solo who agrees in return for a ridiculous amount of money to transport them to where they need to go. The empire has a huge space station called the Death Star, which can literally blow any planet they want to, and this is what the party runs into inadvertently. Then follows a battle of wits and good luck as they escape capture on the ship while also trying to rescue the princess. In the last half hour we are introduced to the rebel main base hidden on a moon of some unknown planet. They must battle it out with the Death Star before it destroys the moon, which I found odd since the empire seems not to care much about anything, surely destroying the planet would have been an easier and much quicker way to destroy the moon, but I digress. Luke Skywalker rises to the occasion and shows the sign of promise he was destined for, according to Kenobi. What pulled me out of the story is the complete failure of Luke to convince me how normal people behave when their close ones suffer in some way. He seemed without a soul. At one point a planet is destroyed, which according to one character had millions of people living on it, but not a single f*** is given. No one sheds a tear, not even the character whose homeland it seems to be. At one point Kenobi remarks about how the stormtroopers, the foot soldiers of the empire must have done something that needed a great marksmanship, yet later we witness their complete incompetence in the field they were hired for. I must also make an observation that Star Wars is not a science fiction film, but a fantasy set in space. The galaxy is more like a single country, with planets like the different regions, some barren, others populated, with plenty of space to hide oneself. Perhaps science fantasy, as some people have called it, is a much more apt description. Lucas uses all the old elements of fantasy. A large dangerous world filled with fiendish villains, a boy at a farm who is called to an adventure and finds that he has a strength that someone who may have had years of learning and practice and much bigger resources could not hope to have. To his credit, Lucas establishes from the get-go that whatever follows has already happened a long time ago in some other galaxy. Its up to us if we want to see serious science fiction or a narrative with interesting characters set in space and other planets. Perhaps the fact that it was set in space is why this movie was so successful. People just didn't care if it was impossible. Star Wars, later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, must have been revolutionary for its time. The box office earnings show us how well the movie was received and made George Lucas a wealthy man overnight. But after decades of advancement in special effects, the sorry budget becomes more than obvious. That wouldn't have turned my view much if the story had been well handled, which was not. I couldn't really care about this conflict. Only when the three main characters are bickering between themselves is the movie entertaining. Lucas clearly had children in his mind as the target audience when he launched Star Wars, and it shows. It distracts from the story so much I couldn't ignore the gimmicks. Lucas realized to some extent that the audience were expecting more serious work from him, and the next instalment was a much better movie overall.

Ridley Scott is a master of world-building, no matter how small it is. Here he took us to a windy planet but mainly the setting was the spaceship Nostroma. A crew of seven is forced to investigate a signal from an unknown vessel. So a series of gruesome events unfold. Scott takes half an hour to introduce us to the characters and after that it is a ride of pure thrilling fright. All the characters are sufficiently drawn and explored, but none more than the action-girl Ripley, the like of whom I have not seen elsewhere. She is a force of nature. The movie works because the characters that populate the environment are engaging and their fear feels real. What fascinated me was the fact that the major decisions taken by the crew are what probably I would have agreed to myself. What I mean is the plot did not come into being because of someone's idiocy, as it tends to in lesser films. Their main concern was survival and all other things were secondary. The art direction and visual effects were jaw-dropping. Given that this movie was made in 1979, that's a huge achievement. On the contrary, I feel like modern space films tend to look cartoonish. The set design was very convincing and the feeling I got was that this actually happened somewhere in the universe but was only shot in the past. Weird but true. The only part where I felt the movie was really old was when the Mother computer comes to life, otherwise the interior of the ship was fascinating and I certainly believed Ridley Scott's vision of a future mega spaceship. The director's cut looked and sounded better than ever. The creature alien is a parasitic organism that is at once frightening and intriguing, and has more than one trick up its sleeve. Just when you think you've got it figured out, Scott throws something more sinister at you than before. The suspense was palpable, and that is where he does best. The movie builds up from scene to scene, the previous one being out-shined by the new one constantly, until the climax when everything goes wrong at the worst possible moment. Scott proves himself a master of not only how a film should look and feel but also the narrative, which is where most modern science fiction films fail even though their effects get better and better. There is not much to discuss about the plot without ruining the effect. The source of the alien species is not discovered, which I hoped in vain would be revealed in the sequel. And an explanation about the other alien is perhaps asking for too much. These were answers that I sought from the film before I was zapped from all logic and reason and forced to witness the horror these beings were capable of inflicting. Scott included absolutely everything that was needed to make the film work. I feel like he should have taken reins to make the sequel as well. Maybe we could have learnt something new about the aliens but who knows. Ridley Scott may disagree, but I feel like this is his best work. It's a true masterpiece deserving of all the praise it receives. It could easily have been caught up in the trappings of the haunted house genre, but Scott skilfully manoeuvres it around to where he felt like a sense of awe and mystery would be evoked along-with the thrills associated with the genre. I have always felt like there is at least one great movie to be made in each genre, which awaits the right director, and Scott was perfect for this.

For Jackson to shoot The Lord of the Rings with a local crew in New Zealand, a country at the edge of the world with little stake in its doings, is a marvel which may only be repeated by Jackson himself. Apart from the international cast, the people who were actually working to bring us the trilogy, like special effects, were Kiwis. The majority of this credit must go to Jackson for his leadership and vision, and for succeeding in hiring an able team. The Return of the King is the concluding chapter in the trilogy. The story is picked up where it was left off at the end of The Two Towers. We are shown a glimpse into Gollum's past. The rest of the fellowship reunite at Isengard. Saruman's fate is omitted from the theatrical edition, which I always found odd given his importance in the previous instalment. It is a time for festivities in Rohan in the wake of the victory at Helm's Deep. An accident shows us Sauron's plans for Minas Tirith, the legendary capital of Gondor. The fellowship breaks again in a different way. Gandalf rides to the city to find the steward reluctant to lift even a finger for its defence. Needless to say, things work out and Rohirrim ride for Gondor's aid. Faramir, dejected by his father, rides out in a last ditched effort to reclaim Osgiliath. A family heirloom is returned to Aragorn which he uses to find help in the most unexpected places. Another plot device if you ask me. If you keep an eye out for them, they become very obvious. Jackson could have lessened its impact or omitted it entirely, making sure the battle was won through the prowess of battle commanders, which he failed to do so. As Fellowship never purported to show us a huge battle at all, and did not have to resolve it, I will forever hold it in higher regard than Return. The Two Towers resolved its battle much more satisfactorily, but Return has got much more on the former in other areas, so the second place goes to the latter. Orcs begin the attack on the city. Gandalf leads the defence. The battle looks grander than the one at Helm's Deep, the besieging armies and weapons more awe-inspiring. The special effects used to bring this conflict to life were stunning_ showing the destruction of architecture by the catapults and the loss of men and Orcs; as well as bringing to life Shelob, the giant spider. The scene of the Rohirrim cutting through the Orcs on their horses is possibly the most spectacular. Oliphaunts and Nazguls join the fight. My previous apathy for Eowyn is cured after watching the extended version, in which she develops significantly. In fact, she is the only female character in Middle Earth who is of some worth, and I like where her story took us, climaxing in a very satisfactory way in the middle of a battle, pitted against only the most important antagonists. The main trio_ Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, are absent from much of the fighting, as the other two accompany the former on his journey of self-discovery. I was earnestly hoping for them to join the fight, which they did (Legolas displaying some very impressive killer moves), but it was so ridiculously short. Four minutes. Believe me, I counted. In this regard The Two Towers was much better, as well as having more memorable scenes with the Gollum. Frodo's inevitable clash with Gollum goes full circle. Sam displays unprecedented strength of character and resolve, and the Hobbits thrive without much help from men. Men ride once more to aid Frodo in his quest to rid them of the ring, and a final battle sequence follows, after which it is destroyed. In epilogue, we learn about the fates of the Hobbits, Aragorn and Gandalf. The extended edition had some interesting scenes which enriched the characters and the story, but also some which betrayed some ineptitude at editing. One scene had a character utter the exact same dialogue to persuade someone in the span of a single conversation. Surely a rewording would have been more effective. I scoffed at a particular attempt to blossom an affair between two secondary characters. Such things should have been hinted at in the epilogue. No one is interested in that stuff when the stakes involve the end of the world. Finally, a discussion about the extraordinary tally at the Oscars. Eleven well-deserved wins out of as many nominations, in fields as diverse as art direction, costume design, make-up, sound, original score, original song, editing, visual effects, adapted screenplay, directing, and Best Picture. In the end I would observe that the extended editions of the first and second instalments, three hours twenty and three hours thirty-three minutes respectively, enhanced the tales while the third one, a crushing four hours, did not achieve anything of worth.

This is where the story gets interesting. While Frodo and Sam continue on their separate journey to destroy the ring, Aragorn and the rest are caught in the battle to defend Rohan against Saruman's orcs. They choose to stay and help them. In other places we are introduced to talking trees called Ents. The first two hours has more travelling as the characters struggle to reach places they need to be, often confronted by orcs or other men, and even the land itself. The people and culture of Rohan are introduced. Some new characters are introduced, the most interesting among them Eowyn, her brother Eomer, and Faramir. They are woven into the main story seamlessly. In fact I would have loved to watch Eowyn given a bigger role, seeing that there are no female major characters in the story. This is also the instalment where we get the full dosage of the creature called Gollum. As interesting as he is when interacting with other characters in his **** manner, he is more intriguing in his monologues where he converses with himself, in a split-personality, between his two identities of his former somewhat sane self Smeagol and the villain Gollum. Andy Serkis is one hell of an actor. All his movements and expressions bring to life a character unprecedented in the history of cinema. The CGI used to create him does an incredible job in making him seem like a real creature roaming around the human-like characters, and it makes for a fun yet a piteous sight. Gandalf comes back stronger than ever. He was my favourite character from the first movie, but is outshined this time around by Aragorn, against whom everyone is a minion in stage presence. The latter becomes quite a legend in the extended version when a bit of his past is discussed. The main battle sequences are much more satisfying as Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli take a leading part in the fighting. Rohan defends itself by sheltering inside their fortress, Helm's Deep, while the orcs lay siege and charge repeatedly. All the rest shall have to be seen to evoke the full emotional impact. In the tradition of most epic films, Saruman the second-in-command is the main villain for this instalment. Sauron is the one behind pulling the strings. People who may have had problems with Fellowship regarding the character development of characters such as Legolas and Gimli need not worry, because while they only come onscreen after an hour and a half in Fellowship (there was a lot of other stuff going on with the Hobbits, Gandalf, Aragorn and the Ringwraithes for us to even begin to think about anything else), they were there from the start in The Two Towers. They have larger roles and kill more orcs. Despite everything, this movie felt as a continuation of an on-going tale and set up the next instalment when it ended. I would have held it against it if Peter Jackson hadn't done such a wonderful job bringing such magic to his version of Middle Earth. I believe that with minor tweaks, if it hadn't been the requirement of the story and this movie had been separate from the trilogy, it would be hailed as among the finest pieces of cinema in the genre of fantasy. But when discussing the greatest movies, I believe a film should qualify on its own merits. I must hold it in comparison against a great film from another franchise, The Empire Strikes Back (though it cost The Return of the Jedi in story), and come to the conclusion that it just missed the mark of greatness. Having said that, there were some sequences that were more memorable that any in the other instalments. One of course is the defence of Helm's Deep, for its ingenuity in the field of battle and tactics in general; the other are the scenes with the Gollum, who had a longer screen time than he had in The Return of the King. It was well acted all around. The cinematography was up to the highest standards held by Jackson. The special effects as always couldn't have been better without ruining the effect and look. The score sounded better than ever. This had to be the lesser of the three films, because as most trilogies go, the middle instalment is more often than not a chance to develop the characters and introduce new conflicts, and cannot function independently as the first instalment can, which is why the latter are often more liked than the sequels. In one regard in which it did a better job than the first movie, is it gave the orcs some semblance of dialogue, so while the illusion of their just being war-mongering brutes is not **** completely, it still presented them as beings capable of thought and some reason. I had a lower regard for The Two Towers, which was a disappointment to a certain degree, until I watched the extended edition which includes some light hearted moments and develops some secondary characters like Eowyn and Faramir significantly. This, among other things, turned my score from a generous 9 into a well-deserved 10; and tilted my preference in favour of The Two Towers over The Return.

To describe this movie as merely epic would be a gross understatement. As epic movies go, it has all the diverse conflicted characters, fighting against insurmountable odds, clash of interests, difficult decisions concerning life and death, matters of the heart and so on. The movie starts off with an introduction to the present conflict pervading Middle Earth. Sauron is established as the main villain. Not much is shown about his past. We do not know why these people are fighting against each other. You'll have to read The Hobbit or The Silmarillion to catch up on that. The rest of the first half hour is used to establish the abode of the Hobbits, The Shire. Then the pace picks up as the main characters leave and we get to witness the vast abundance of Middle Earth, and its people and races including the Elves, who are the most intriguing of them all. Aragorn, also called Strider, is the action go to guy. Far from home and not ever wishing to return, he literally strides into the story and takes command. He is the person most people would form a bond with, I know I did. Then there are others like Legolas, an elf; and the dwarf Gimli. They form the core among the group. And Boromir the son of the steward of Gondor, whose family has taken care of the affairs of the state with the departure of the last of the kings. Gandalf the grey, a member of the order of wizards, is the old guy counselling and protecting our protagonist, Frodo Baggins, on his quest to destroy the ring that can wield a power greater than any other. Their journey is perilous, the odds pitted against them deadly. The Ringwraiths, servants of the Dark Lord Sauron, seek to return the ring of power to their master and cannot rest until they have done their duty. The Orcs or Goblins, a dark twisted species, are the footsoldiers of the evil side. As if this was not enough, the ring has the power to influence those around it toward claiming it for themselves and fight to the death for it. As Frodo's uncle Bilbo was the previous owner of the ring, it is felt that he would be better able to withstand its effects. Peter Jackson has the talent to capture the sense of the epic with the camera angles he employs. Always in fear of failure to grasp the location of the visited places and their relativity to each other, I was amazed how easily everything became clear. The special effects were revolutionary for its time. The art department did a commendable job with the sets, costumes and make-up. The locations used for shooting were serene and exquisite, making me want to visit New Zealand where it was shot. The score did a wonderful job keeping you on the edge of your seat and never letting you really relax and lose the sense of urgency, though the greater credit for that feat has to go to the editor. I also watched the extended version of the film, so I can understand the decision to cut out several scenes of relative unimportance to the plot, but I found their presence to be complementary and fulfilling. Fantasy movies are always hard to do right. People watching them are willing to be swept off their feet, yet slight inconsistencies could be disastrous. Jackson commits none of those mistakes. Fellowship is my favourite from the trilogy, as it focussed more on the characters. The major battles are part of the sequels, which some might find more alluring. This is a fantasy movie which was done perfectly, in my opinion, and the others in the genre should be held against it for comparison. Extended edition felt more satisfying. Lady Galadriel had more scenes with the main characters, so did Aragorn and Boromir talking and arguing with each other. A bit of Galadriel's palace was shown. In the final skirmish with the Orcs, Boromir's and Aragorn's scenes were increased, making the sequences which felt rushed before more fleshed out and satisfying. A bit of humour was added too.

From the outset, you are treated to some dazzling cinematography, special effects and set pieces. Everything looked and felt so ahead of its time. This is a classic example of neo-noir_ shady characters and a lot of detective work. The mood was consistently dark and forbidding. I haven't seen such impressive world-building elsewhere. The plot followed a bunch of replicants, who are kind of cyborgs, on the loose. A blade runner, someone whose job is to track and kill them, is set on the case. Some detective work follows until the confrontations. I especially liked the character of Roy Batty. He was the charismatic smiling yet menacing leader of the replicants. The villains were the best part, very conflicted and engaging, perhaps more so than the protagonist. That's what I loved about the movie. It was less about the plot than an opportunity to peep into a highly complex, morally corrupt future world which despite everything, was extremely appealing. It was a pleasant surprise to see Harrison Ford not portraying his self, even though there were hints of his attempts to do so but were mostly suppressed by probably the director. The technology and architecture, and the general cityscape depicted was exquisite in its advanced and yet run-down state, like the future we were watching had already started to decay and deform, and we missed its pinnacle of prosperity. This Los Angeles of the future has little to no sun, a lot of rain, smog and an apparent Chinese majority. Except for the latter, where it is replaced by the Hispanic community, I think LA is headed that way. I especially liked the feel of it. The sense it evoked was one of deep, brooding hopelessness. The movie set the standard for much of the sci-fi flicks to follow. This has to be one of the most puzzling movies I have ever seen. A single viewing may not yield feelings of grandeur and praise but a hint of disappointment. Only when I watched it again did I embrace it fully and connected with some characters, oddly from the wrong side of the conflict. The Final Cut version was ripe with such spectacle and detail that it would be worth it even if all else failed. The score, retro electronic music, enhances the experience and pleasure. A joy ride from start to finish, and a masterpiece in its originality and imagination.

The moment we are introduced to the main character, it's clear what the war has done to his mind. He is in a haze. Part of special operations, his tasks often involve assassinating people deemed hazardous to the war effort. He is not expected to think for himself. Actually the dossier he is given over his next target he only opens to read once he has set off for the mission, and it's instantly clear that even if he could find sympathy for his target, he must at all costs finish the mission. The focus here is of course on the Vietnam War. A colonel has gone renegade and needs to be killed. A captain is sent to do the job. On his way he comes across various units, one of whom treats war as a picnic outing. Human nature, it would seem, would politicize almost anything. Video cameras roll as soldiers pretend to be caught in an ambush. Officers having their pictures taken for publicity stunts. This would have been disturbing in itself, this total disregard for human suffering, of the people of the land they have invaded and their own wounded and killed. But it is apparent that these men only do these things to feel normal, or whatever passes for normal during a bloody war. As the captain travels up the river, the banks are littered with unattended dead. No one has the time and the interest to bury them. The whole pointlessness of war is shown with poignant imagery. One would think two wars that caused the deaths of tens of millions would have been enough to teach mankind the lesson of a lifetime. Still about one and a half million Vietnamese had to perish, not to count the dead of several other wars. And the lesson is still not learnt. It becomes more disturbing as Captain Willard goes deeper and closer to the source of the conflict. Command structures have completely vanished. A mass hysteria seems to have gripped these men. They joke and laugh like maniacs and kill with complete apathy. This before Willard has even reached his destination. But nothing prepares you for what awaits him at the end of his journey. The colonel has gathered himself a cult following of native Cambodians and Vietnamese among some Americans too. That place gave me the creeps. The film explored how the violence and cruelty of war alters the nature of men fighting it, especially wars of an imperial nature. How the soldiers become desensitized and dehumanize everyone, suspect everyone, kill with impunity. They may not be aware of this at the moment, but killing a human being, even one you will always consider somewhere between your pets and an insect, will have an effect on you. Coppola succeeds in showing this message loud and clear. Martin Sheen tackles his character with a relaxed laid-back approach. He is in no rush to reach his destination. The journey is the real part of the story. But when he does reach the colonel, even after everything he has seen on the way, including his own slip of character, he still is surprised at the colonel's doings. Marlon Brando plays a lunatic with extreme precision. This being a war movie, the scale of the human involvement and military machinery was captured effectively. The costumes and make up department did a wondrous job. The equatorial climate has everyone perspiring constantly. You know that they hate the weather, the country, the jungles, and most disturbingly of all, the people. Their dead count for nothing and they lie and rot. I must admit that this movie made me very uncomfortable and unsettled at times. The way some of the characters seem to lose their minds is palpable and frightening, like losing it is itself chosen as a way to remain sane in the face of such devastation of human lives.

Possibly the most entertaining gangster movie ever. Goodfellas is based on a novel named Wiseguy (which means the same thing) and is narrated by the character of Henry, who we follow as he enters into the underworld at the age of twelve. Every minute is used to build suspense and drama. The plot follows three relatively small time gangsters_ Henry, Jimmy and Tommy_ who fall way in over their heads with the Mafia and the law enforcement, and the repercussions of this conflict. I found the characters of the latter two especially captivating. The direction was mesmerizing. The camera angles used reminiscent of an old beloved era. The dialogue and the voice-over were used in conjunction to propel the plot onwards, skipping over seemingly insignificant details and moving onto more exciting parts of the story like a great novel. The art direction and the soundtrack were spot on and created an atmosphere of the 1970s quite successfully. This is a period piece and was stylized only to the extent that it wouldn't spoil the effect that Scorsese set out to create. In essence, by focussing on substance over style, a picture much closer to reality was created. And that was the beauty of the film. Gangsters are interesting of themselves and showing them in their raw form was much more alluring. How they behaved, spoke, lived and settled disputes was shown with painstaking detail. Clearly a lot of research has gone into it. Some great movies stick to developing the plot and sometimes succeed in also developing the characters, like The Godfather; others are more successful in relating the sense of the passage of time and have a minimal plot, like The Shawshank Redemption. Goodfellas does both of them. The plot about the trio's troubles with the Mafia and their many heists would have been quite enough for a lesser film, but what makes it truly great is its success in also letting us take a glimpse into the daily lives of these gangsters as the years pass by smoothly from scene to scene. No gangster film is complete without a few violent murders and Goodfellas is no different, but Scorsese takes no pleasure in it. He moves away from them gracefully after he's made sure we've seen enough to understand what's going on. I did not find it gory in the least. Scorsese takes a much lighter tone than the more traditional crime movies. There were so many quick-witted quips and retorts, and scenes of pure hilarity, that never for one second does one find themselves in a gloomy and despairing mood. We're shown a lot of other characters too, but they only feature to enrich the world of the three main characters and their experiences. We do not linger too long on anyone to drag the narrative to a standstill. Scorsese does this so successfully that despite this, I still managed to find some of the other characters, especially Paulie, quite engaging. There are a lot of movies depicting crime but they are deliberately stylized to make the characters likeable but what I loved about this movie was Scorsese did not set out to achieve that but succeeded in this feat only by sticking to reality and depicting gangsters as they had lived themselves. And since these psychopathic beings by virtue of their lack of inhibition were quite charismatic to begin with, this charm seems much more genuine and infects us with their extraordinary personalities. All things considered, I think Scorsese has been more than successful in making a perfect film. If I did not have a nostalgic attachment to the story and characters of The Godfather, even though it was released sixteen years before my birth, I would have jumped on the bandwagon without a second thought in hailing Goodfellas as the finest gangster film, and perhaps the greatest film ever, of all time.

I kept delaying watching it for months, maybe because I was intimidated by the length. Who wouldn't be? Expanding a three hundred page book into a trilogy made me think Peter Jackson was having a hard time letting go of Middle Earth. And if all of the three movies were to be this long, he was at a risk of ridicule for over ambition. But if the first instalment is any indication, he succeeded in creating a fulfilling beginning to this new adventure fairly well. This time we follow a group of dwarves and a young Bilbo. Gandalf is the only major character from The Lord of the Rings to feature in this movie. Thorin the dwarf king replaces Aragorn as the thick skinned leader of the group. The cinematography was up at the same standard as from the previous movies. It was shot with the Red One digital camera, with a frame rate per second of 48. It looked different and dare I say better than the previous trilogy. The pacing was controlled with ingenuity and never for a moment did the movie drag. It was a constant shuffle between action pieces, dialogue, imagery and visual back story. But between some of the major plot points, I sensed that there was a lack of direction. It was like Jackson was trying to show us how these creatures lived instead of telling us a cohesive story as he did previously. Martin Freeman is a much better actor than Elijah Wood and this works in favour of The Hobbit. Bilbo is much more engaging as the lead adventure seeker. Orcs and even Trolls seem to be more than just the cannon fodder as portrayed previously. They actually form some kind of societies and hold prolonged conversations, and display that they are capable of rudimentary intelligence. Thankfully Jackson dispenses with the stereotypes associated with these species to a certain degree. The lost kingdom of the dwarves, Rivendale and the underground Orc city were created splendidly. The camera pans though the environment and gives you a sense of the enormity and beauty of these places. The sheer scope of this CGI is mind boggling. The amount of money spent on the movie is quite palpable. The score was refreshing and kept the tone light. Lord of the Rings is simply a much better story than The Hobbit. The best was the Fellowship in my opinion. But The Hobbit still is better made than The Two Towers. It may be because the Fellowship was a much more interesting story to film, or because it was a realist tale, but I decided that The Hobbit lags behind the former in nearly every aspect. They are not even in the same league. But this is the mistake right here. These stories should not be compared at all, for they belong to almost different genres. LOTR was a mature tale about war and suffering it brings while The Hobbit is more of a children's adventure fairy tale with a fair amount of humour, where no one dies and everything sorts out in the end, almost Deus Ex Machina-style.

Nicholson is predisposed to play such a character. The acting was just sufficient, nothing extraordinary. But there is no denying that it was a two and a half hour ride of pure thrilling scare after scare. There were some great individual scenes, like the ones with the twins and the bathtub woman, but they felt very disjointed and did nothing to affect the plot. There were some great concepts, like Danny's alter ego, but they all came to nothing. It could have been the greatest horror movie of all time, because at first glance it had all the ingredients to make one. I felt like the director wasn't sure if he believed in ghosts or not. The result wasn't very impressive. You either commit to that it was all in the brain and stick to the insanity spilling out of it accordingly, or you admit that it was all supernatural. Nevertheless, the build-up to the scares, and the scares themselves, and the subtle unsettling scenes with the twins, all combined to give the ultimate mind-boggling horror experience. The second time I watched it, more flaws jumped at me. The individual scenes manage to enthral you, but when you take the time to reflect on it, the incoherence and the lack of flow in the story, the director's dilemma to whether stick with supernatural element and explore it, or the mental breakdown of the protagonist, becomes more visible, and the result isn't pretty at all.

An instant classic. Ripe with witticisms and sharp retorts. This is the only instance I actually liked haphazard storytelling, because it actually succeeded in evoking certain feelings, where some of the characters were alive in some story lines and dead in the other, and this made you think what it would have been like if these characters had gotten out in time. There were long portions of dialogue dedicated solely to humour, and others to theological and philosophical discussions. There are three stories running in parallel, which often come into contact with the others without affecting them, and are told in a non-linear way. Among Tarantino's films, I believe it's second only to Django Unchained, which was much more coherent and awe-inspiring, albeit with seemingly unnecessary bloody violence and an inflated running time.

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. A mega party of celebrities at James Franco's house goes awfully wrong when the Apocalypse strikes. Just when you think you've got the movie figured out, it twists and surprises again. It makes you laugh even when people are dying all around. The celebrities play their own parodied selves_ backstabbing, lying, cheating at every turn. You think you can spot the good ones until they do not conform to God's minimal standard of being raised into Heaven and saved from the demons. And sometimes the ones you think are going to get the worst of it redeem themselves and are saved. The mood is comic even with the fires of hell burning all around and everything going to s***. The concept of the Apocalypse is taken from the Bible and adjusted for comedy, but the bad guys still pay and the good ones still make it to Heaven. I don't get the people hating on this. If you're so afraid of being challenged out of your comfort zones, maybe you should stick to the feel-good movies where you might always be able to predict everything and feel so safe as not to be amazed at all.

Never really takes off but meanders on. The acting was just OK. There were some good jokes. In the end I found it very generic. I couldn't care about Adam at all. Very plain and unimpressive. Cannot recommend it. They tried fusing comedy and drama but failed at both.

Despite its many weaknesses, it was entertaining. It was not dumbed down for the non-geek people and I'm glad for that. There was an instance of an unexpected extended nudity sequence so be aware.

Highly unrealistic and implausible. There were plenty of good enjoyable moments though, but I feel like if I hadn't watched it I wouldn't have missed much. Spend your time elsewhere on better movies, or read a book.

The dynamic between the young rookie and the experienced cop is caught very nicely. Both the leads (Freeman and Pitt) do not disappoint. They argue and protest against each others' theories and methods. Paltrow turned out a nice supporting performance. Kevin Spacey yet again amazed and enthralled with the finesse with which he captures the idiosyncrasies of his characters. The cinematography was wonderful_ creating an atmosphere of claustrophobia, forcing people together who would rather prefer to remain cold and distant. The constant rains weigh down on the mood and that is exactly the feeling one should feel in a movie about a serial killer. The gore was unrepentantly included where it was absolutely required to get the right feeling for the scene. The movie never shies from the subject matter. I wasn't very impressed with the ending the first time I watched it. I found it underwhelming in the light of all the awesome stuff that had preceded. The villain, however, was played with perfection. But I still thought some imagination could have gone into it. I don't mean that it should have been a happy ending. I just felt that it kind of fizzled out. It was only when I watched it afterwards that I accepted the director's vision. It was his movie and I had to accept it, and I began to see his vision as more realistic and logical. And then I realized that this movie was a masterpiece. It was pure perfection. The sense of depth and splendour it evokes makes me certain in my belief that this movie is a classic. It has to be David Fincher's best work.

Felt probably a bit over acted. There were some great scenes_ sometimes shockingly violent, other times downright hilarious. There was a fair amount of erotic nudity so be advised. But it also tended to drag a little bit. There was simply too much extraneous detail. The score was lively. I think the lead actor did a wonderful job, if not the others. It was a satire of the modern age justice system where it prefers to mend the ways of hardened criminals instead of sticking it to them. The dialogue was tailored to the circumstances and didn't feel natural. I watched it with an objective mind, as I watch everything else, but I couldn't shake the feeling toward the end that the audience was somehow required to feel bad for Alex as the society turned the tables on him. How he conveniently ran into the same people he had wronged in the course of a single day is beyond my tolerance for the device known as the suspension of disbelief, which is there to help enhance entertainment, not to infuriate by insulting people's intelligence. The worst part was that I predicted the ending precisely. I just feel like documenting just the events of his life without the underlying moral of the story would have been a better way to go about it. And I seriously don't believe celebrating Alex's depraved urgings was very responsible. But I never hold it against a movie for doing that. If someone is attracted to crime by watching crime movies, it's hardly the director's fault. Everyone is responsible for their own actions. The plot, though, was sufficient for the story that they sought to tell. I recommend that everyone watch this movie at least once. However, I can't say with certainty that I'm going to enjoy watching it again, for it's a bit long and there simply wasn't much going on to warrant such a length.

Such a strong narrative. All the ingredients of what makes a good drama in the right proportions. The goodness inside people in the most Godforsaken places, and the moral corruption some of us could suffer from if given power over condemned people. You have to make your own mind about Andy, whether he is innocent or not. He believes so, but all evidence points to the contrary. Robbins plays him in a subtle, laid-back manner. He's hard to figure out. Then there is Red, played by the masterful Freeman, who is in for the long haul and doesn't know if he is ever going to breathe free air again. These two characters make the heart and soul of the movie. There may be a message here. Without being overt, we sense as the years of these men's lives are wasted before our eyes, especially Andy since you can't really figure out if he is guilty or not. But the ways he finds to engage himself, do something good. There is plenty of humour and the drama never exceeds the limit where it might become painful. The action is sparse and is shown in an expository fashion. The tone is objective. And Freeman's voice guides you through every scene. The camera angles used, and the overall cinematography was genius. It was like being guided though a maze by an expert in the field. The dialogue was crisp and refreshing. The score quiet and unobtrusive. The world created, or in this case just the prison, seemed so real and complete. You could feel the inmates' emotions related to the place. All this may give the impression that it may be hard to sit through it, but quite surprisingly, like all great movies, despite the deep, absorbing discussions about life, the movie speeds through from scene to scene without effort. I had the feeling I have when I'm reading an especially engrossing novel I cannot put down. I guess this is what happens when the work of great directors, screenwriters and cinematographers fuses to deliver a product that exceeds anything that a single department could achieve at its best. This one did not just have effort put into it but also soul.

Does not waste any time at all. Every minute is utilized to set up suspense and action. And when we reach the climax, everything suddenly becomes ambiguous. You are not sure about what really happened, just about the things that matter the most. Kevin Spacey acts splendidly. The first time I watched it the plot twist at the end made me a fan of the movie. But not so much on the second viewing after a gap of eight years. Frankly, apart from the awesome ending, it wasn't a very great script_ just a nicely plotted crime thriller but not very special. But I truly believe that everyone should watch it at least once, and don't talk about it before doing that because some smart-ass may spoil it for you.

The first hour was brilliant. How Jean Valjean cheats authorities and his fate time and again, and how he finds redemption in a child. It was touching, and the feeling could have lasted had not what followed would have followed. Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway acted with such finesse that it would take something especially non-human not to feel for them. Even the songs during this duration were better. Alas, the feeling could not last. The movie quickly degenerated into a sort of love triangle. Who could give a damn about them when we'd just been exposed to possibly one of cinema's saddest protagonists? Yet the director persists and spoils any good feeling we might have about the movie, and we are on the brink of begging him to bring Valjean back. Fortunately the tone turns serious again and the plot focussed on the revolutionaries. But the lustre from before was lost and could not be regained. Not to mention that Eddie Redmayne is the most unmanly, overrated actor today. At over two and a half hours, it leaves you deeply exhausted to your bones. I was left with a headache, which shows I didn't enjoy the movie as much as I had wanted to. I couldn't help comparing it to Sweeney Todd, which was also a musical, but didn't go over the top and kept dialogue and singing balanced. One more Best Picture nominee that in my view didn't deserve to be nominated for the category.