Unbroken

November 14, 2024 Leave a comment

Genre: War/Action | Year: 2014 | Duration: 138 mins | Director: Angelina Jolie | Medium: DVD | Trailer: HERE | Language: English | My rating: 5/5

Favorite Dialogue: “A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.”

Unbroken is based on an inspiring true story of Louis Zamperini, a World War II bombardier, and an Olympic athlete whose remarkable life story is chronicled in Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010). The film is a powerful tale of human spirit and forgiveness.

The story follows Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), who survives a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean, captured by the Japanese navy and endure years of brutal treatment in prison camps. The film spans Louis’s early life, childhood and his troubled youth, athletic achievements, and his experiences during the war, first as a Bombardier and then as a POW. 

Jack O’Connell delivers a compelling performance, capturing both the vulnerability and strength of Zamperini as he faces unimaginable hardships. The supporting cast, including Domhnall Gleeson as fellow soldier Phil, and Takamasa Ishihara as the sadistic camp commander “The Bird,” contribute significantly to the film’s emotional weight.

Angelina Jolie’s direction is visually stunning, emphasizing the stark contrast between the beauty of nature and the brutality of war. The cinematography portrays the vastness of the ocean and the starkness of the prison camps, effectively immersing the audience in Zamperini’s harrowing journey, combined with Alexandre Desplat’s evocative score.

“Unbroken” excels in showcasing the inspiring and intensity of Zamperini’s ordeal, making it a powerful portrayal of the strength of the human spirit. However, the film differs from the original book in balance. While the book is more focused on his post-war journey of forgiveness and healing, the film focuses more on his suffering.

Overall, Unbroken is a visually compelling and emotionally charged film that pays homage to Louis Zamperini’s extraordinary life, and is certainly a must watch. For me, the DVD of this film is a collectible too.

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The Man Who Cried

October 31, 2024 Leave a comment

Genre: Romance | Year: 2000 | Duration: 100 mins | Director: Sally Potter | Medium: DVD | Trailer: HERE | Language: English, French, Yiddish | My rating: 3.5*/5*

Favorite Dialogue: “Lola: One should never look back. One should never regret. Never.”

This romantic movie by Sally Potter has no chemistry between its co-stars, Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, even though I quite liked their individual performances as Fegele, a Russian Jew with elfin features separated from her father as a child in 1927 and later re-named as Suzie when she escapes to England, and Cesar, a Romani gypsy with brooding countenance . And therefore there was no heat and the romance seemed sterile. 

Fegele’s father leaves for the promise of wealth and better future to the land of opportunity, America, intending to bring his daughter over later. However, after he left, a band of raiders attacks Fegele’s settlement, and she is bundled off in the middle of the night by her grandmother with few gold coins to take the ship to America. She ends up living in a foster home in England. After ten years she leaves England and joins a musical troupe in Paris, with the goal of making enough money so she can go to America to locate her father. She keeps her identity as a Jew a secret – only her roommate, Lola (Cate Blanchett), her roommate’s famous opera-singing lover, Dante (John Turturro), and her landlady know the truth. With World War II looming, Suzie and Lola escapes Paris, and after some drama Suzie reaches America and finds her ailing father in Hollywood.

This beautifully recorded and scored film of love, loss and human character is worth a watch.

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Frequency

October 24, 2024 Leave a comment

Genre: Sci Fi | Year: 2000 | Duration: 118 mins | Director: Gregory Hoblit | Medium: DVD | Trailer: HERE | Language: English | My rating: 3.5*/5*

Favorite Dialogue: “John Sullivan [Jim Caviezel]: Ya’know the past is a funny thing, we all got skeletons in closet and ya never when one is gonna pop up and bite ya in the ass”

Frequency is about time travel and alternate paradoxes, baseball, father (Dennis Quaid as Frank Sullivan) and son (Jim Caviezel as John Sullivan), aurora borealis, and New York city. John, who’s a homicide detective in NYPD uses a Ham radio to connect and communicate with his deceased father 30 years in the past through the miracle of extraordinary solar activity, and alters the course of events and saves his father from death as a fire fighter for FDNY. 

Even though the film has competent acting and direction, the script seems poor. Moreover there are several factual errors in the movie. One of my favorite errors is that, when Shepard and his partner are looking for Frank on the docks, the camera pans to the left and we see a flash of the World Trade Center just before the cameraman catches his error. It was built between 1970 and 1977, not 1969! As past events change, so do John’s old clippings and framed photos, updating themselves every time somebody who died doesn’t.

This science fiction about alternate realities and the cosmic relationship between cause and effect is an interesting watch. 

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Joker: Folie à Deux

October 5, 2024 Leave a comment

Genre: Psychological Thriller | Year: 2024 | Duration: 138 mins | Director: Todd Phillips | Medium: Theatre (PVR-INOX) in 2024 | Trailer: HERE | Language: English | My rating: 5/5

Favorite Dialogue: I HOPE YOU GET CANCER (autograph to a prison guard), signed with a sad smiley.

Joker: Folie à Deux is a bold, unsettling, dark, and subversive sequel that dares to explore madness as both a personal and shared experience. While it may not resonate with everyone (as was evident with nearly empty theatre), the film is an ambitious character study, elevated by outstanding performances from Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. This film is one of the most unique interpretations of the Joker mythos, weaving together psychological drama, abstraction, romance, and musical surrealism into an unforgettable cinematic experience.

Picking up where the first film (2019) left off, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, is confined in Arkham Asylum in Gotham City, where he meets Harley Quin (Lady Gaga). Arthur Fleck as Joker is nothing less than brilliant, haunting, and unforgettable. He is as disturbing and tragic as ever, but this time with a quieter menace that builds alongside his relationship with Harley. Their twisted relationship serves as the film’s emotional and narrative core. The chemistry between Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga is one of the film’s strengths, with their performances drawing both fascination and discomfort as they navigate a romance defined by shared trauma and chaos. 

Director Todd Phillips shifts away from the gritty realism of the original, blending genres and taking inspiration from Hollywood musicals. The visuals are striking, often juxtaposing Gotham’s decaying, grimy backdrop with the characters’ vibrant fantasies.

Needless to say, Joker has been (and will always be) my most favorite comic book character, the most kickass supervillain ever created.

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Rowdy Rathore

June 24, 2020 Leave a comment

Theatrical Release Poster

Genre: Action | Year: 2012 | Duration: 140 mins | Director: Prabhu Deva | Medium: Theater (PVR-EDM) in 2012, repeat on DVD in 2020. | Trailer: HERE | Language: Hindi | My rating: 3/5

Favorite Dialogue: “Rowdy Rathore: Don’t angry me.”

Rowdy Rathore, a remake of the Telugu film Vikramarkudu, was supposed to be a come back film for Akshay Kumar as an action hero. Even though there’s several good sequences of action throughout those 140 minutes, it somehow lacked the punch of Khiladi Kumar, especially with no story or plot whatsoever, the characters are easily forgettable. Prabhu Deva has used all the tricks that goes in making a successful Telugu hit in this Hindi remake – song, dance, crass humour, romance, thunderous action and a fearless supercop out to outsmart a bunch of fearsome goons. Comic scenes are not so comic, and what really made me laugh was the dialogues in Bihari Hindi of the villains and the way it was delivered UP-style with southy twang. After a very long time, I got to hear words like, ‘Pagalet’, ‘Baklol’, ‘labarchantis‘, etc. Prabhu Deva made Akshay Kumar wear multi-colored pants forgetting Akshay’s style and using Telugu tricks, reminded me of Raja babu of 90s.

The story is of a small time crook Shiva (Akshay Kumar), who is obliged to get in shoes of his look alike, Vikram Rathore, a fearless cop who dies with severe head injuries during a fight, to rescue a fictitious village Devgarh in Bihar, from its despotic feudal lord.  Shiva falls for a girl from Patna, Priya, played by the buxom Sonakshi Sinha, whom Shiva refers as ‘Mera Maal’ repeatedly, and who could have done better than just showing her midriff!

This low-IQ, deafeningly loud, unapologetically crass, regressive drama full of mindless action is my re-watch Movie of 2020.

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