Change Your Image
deepesh-355-609949
Reviews
Sin City (2005)
Awesome movie:-
This is one of awesome movie Sin City is the most exact adaptation of a comic book ever put on film. It's not one hundred percent the same, but it is as close as anyone is ever likely to come. Frank Miller's Sin City comic stories are a loving homage to the Mickey Spillane variety of pulp crime novels, and a showcase for the chiaroscuro technique and brilliant use of negative space that he had experimented with for years in the pages of Daredevil and Batman. Co-director Robert Rodriguez has taken three of Miller's stories and used the panels as the storyboards for the film adaptation, almost without alteration. The result is a mélange of film noir and the pulpiest of pulp crime novels into a new and extremely stylish piece of crime drama that is relentlessly entertaining.
Miller's potent black humor translates easily to the screen and lifts the often grim subject matter, keeping the film entertaining through the darkest of landscapes. And it does get extremely dark – figuratively and literally. Sin City is a world of shadows, captured in beautiful black and white digital photography, where the sun never seems to rise. Rodriguez and Miller delight in sending their heroes into labyrinthine hells almost beyond imagining. It would be depressing if it weren't so much fun.
Into this frenzied mix, Rodriguez has brought his own visual talents to create one of the most stylized films in years. He follows Miller's panels in lighting and composition, but adds his own sense of timing and splashes of color to create something new – call it film noir pent. It's Rodriguez strongest and most assured film since From Dusk Till Dawn. Quentin Tarantino steps in to guest direct a tense car sequence where dead Jack Rafferty becomes the voice of Dwight's nagging self- doubt.
The Apartment (1960)
The Apartment
Hammond, like so many of his colleagues at 'Time Out' put more emphasis on appearing cool rather than giving real thought to any art form. There's something worryingly fascist about them at London's premier magazine. But they're delusion is that they are the voice of London. The sales of the magazine speak for them as do the viewing figures for Eastenders speak for TV. 'The Apartment' is not worthy of only 3 stars. This it not only my opinion, but the opinion of most (prob incl 'The Wally') cinema goers who have any knowledge of film history.
Giving every film 3 stars may indeed make your publication look coolly apathetic, but when you start giving it to classics too it just begins to seem you don't know what you're talking about.
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather
A defining film in the history of cinema, The Godfather introduced a legendary filmmaker and several acting greats in the telling of an Italian American dynasty undone by the tragic circumstances of their criminal exploits.
Of the many themes which The Godfather touches upon, it is that of "family" which resonates the most. The film is based upon the novel by Mario Puzo (who co-wrote the screenplay) and many sub-plots were minimized or thrown away by director/co-writer Francis Ford Coppola, himself an Italian American and family man. He knew that the only way to make Puzo's sprawling novel work on screen was to focus on the familial relationships within this crime story, whether it be father to son, brother to brother, or husband to wife. In this world blood is not only thicker than water, it is holy.
Coppola opens the films with an interesting shot of a pitch black screen giving way to a desperate figure, an undertaker pleading to Mafioso patriarch Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) to revenge the savage beating of his daughter. It is the wedding day of the lone Corleone daughter Connie (Talia Shire), and no Sicilian can refuse a request, which Don Vito takes on with reason, while also subtlety enforcing his position as a man to be respected and feared.
Brando's casting was a coup for Coppola, for three reasons. First, it exhibited the brilliance and innovation of Brando's thespian prowess, creating a wholly new mafia figure within a world of stereotype. Second, it re-established Brando's standing as a major player after years of being labeled "box-office poison". And third, it points to Brando's influence as "godfather" to a generation of actors, many which play his children in this film.
Plot wise, The Godfather begins with the attempted assassination of Don Vito from a rival crime family unhappy with his refusal to enter the narcotics trade. With the Don temporarily out of the picture, it is up to his sons to run the Corleone clan. There is hot tempered Sonny (James Caan), meek mild Fredo (John Cazale), adopted son of Irish ancestry Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), and the fiercely independent Michael (Al Pacino).
It would be Michael who comes through as successor, and as a result The Godfather is as much Pacino's film as it is Brando's, introducing himself with a revelation of a performance.
Fight Club (1999)
"This is Jack's Post-Modern Masterpiece" - Fight Club (1999): Blu-ray
Who would have thought it? Marla Singer is the sanest, most honest person in the entire piece. Even through all her hypochondria and emotional rollercoasterism, she puts the cracked combination of Tyler Durden and "Cornelius/Rupert/Everyman" in its place. Revisiting David Fincher's fascinating post-modern masterwork Fight Club on Blu-ray for its 10th anniversary reveals a wealth of these kinds of previously undiscovered gems. What about Chloe, the dying woman so desperate for a last act roll in the hay that she advertises her various pleasure devices during her support group? There's Raymond K. Hessel, the freaked out liquor store clerk who becomes Tyler's first (of supposedly many) "human sacrifices" and, Lou, the faux Mafioso who gets a 'mouthful' of Fight Club's foul purpose. And of course, there's Robert Paulson, the big softy with "bitch tits" who ends up representing the most powerful of Project Mayhem's many ubiquitous symbols.
Far beyond Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, who play the rebel yell yin yang of a split personality with revolutionary leanings better than any single actor ever could, and a director so in tune with the material that it seems to be flowing directly out of his own Id, it's great to see this adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's perturbing novel get the afterthought critical respect it so richly deserved (and yet missed) the first time. Yes, Messageboard Nation loves to rewrite the history books on all their favorite films, and to read their various rants on the subject, you'd swear this was 1999's most heavily praised and commercially successful film. In truth, the controversial nature of Fight Club's material - which many saw as a celebration of mindless violence and individual brutality - saw it as one of the decade's most divisive efforts. Only in hindsight did it become the black-eyed Mona Lisa.
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now is one of the best films about war ever made
One of the crown jewels of Zoetrope Studios, Apocalypse Now infamous for its director's over-budget and over-schedule process. The six-week shoot ultimately took 16 months. The project was plagued by problems. Coppola shot nearly 200 hours of film and took almost three years to edit the project. Despite multiple glitches in the process, the final product is a gripping and incredibly disturbing image of the murkiness of war and the depths of human depravity. Despite it being one of the greatest films of all time, parents might want to consider the film's psychological suspense and extreme violence before letting their teens watch it.
Apocalypse features outstanding performances by Sheen, Fishburne and Forrest. Robert Duvall gives a disturbing performance as Lieutenant Kilgore, a man who finds surfing and combat compatible activities and the character credited with one of the films most famous lines, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." The film went on to garner two Academy Awards, six additional nominations, and won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Good Work, Zombie Hand!
"We chose," says Dana (Kristen Connolly), the Final Girl in The Cabin in the Woods. As the Final Girl in a slasher film, Dana has arrived at her proper place, the place you anticipate from this movie's start. She's been witness to her friends' terrible fates and is now decoder of the horrific puzzle. In this case, she means that she and her friends—who all decide to spend a night in the titular cabin and who all go in the titular woods.
In other words, Dana's realization that she and her friends "chose" is both her fate and your payoff. In other other words, slasher aficionados know their own places, a point made extra-clear by Scream, though you surely knew it before then: watching a movie when you know the rules means you anticipate what's going to happen, and anticipation—of the victims' terror, their abuse, and their terrible fates—is key to your pleasure. You expect types of victims and monsters, as well as blood and screaming and diabolical violence. You expect kills.
The Cabin in the Woods delivers all this and something else too, a framing device that's established in the very first scene, when Hadley (Bradley Whitford) and Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) head off to work, chatting about the office pool and what they anticipate. Thus the movie, like many movies before it, incorporates a veteran audience to mirror its own veteran audience. They frame a story that is familiar by definition: Dana and her friends are packing for their trip, each arranged according to a limited range of types: Dana's the Final Girl (so designated by her lack of a boyfriend), Jules (Anna Hutchison) is the sexy girl, affiliated with a handsome, jockish, and also book-smart boyfriend named Curt (Chris Hemsworth). He brings along a date for Dana, his new wide receiver Holden (Jesse Williams), and they bring along the requisite stoner, Marty (Fran Kranz), whose fuzzy truth-speaking will not be recognized by the others until it is Too Late.
Their adventure in the woods goes as you expect: they meet the creepy guy in overalls (Tim De Zarn), here named Mordecai and presiding over a last chance gas station, with rusting pumps and a sign that says "Closed." He spits and squints and essentially embodies a warning to go no further, a warning the kids ignore and you appreciate for its combinator's earnestness and mordancy. The kids don't get much that follows, which is, of course, their job. They head to the cabin (Clover's "Terrible Place"), where they settle in for an evening of seemingly transgressive and completely predictable behavior: they smoke dope, play Truth or Dare (which leads to Sexy Girl's display of her gumption when it comes to sex), and wander into the cellar when the door slams open on cue.
Sherlock (2010)
One of the greatest 1.5 hours of television
SPOILERS Man, did I like this episode. This was great television. First of all, I'm not really familiar with the Sherlock Holmes stories. So the ending, at least the part of Moriarty shooting himself, I did not see coming. Somehow I still have doubts he is dead, thats what this show has done to me. However, I don't see anyway he could have faked that. For Sherlocks death, I couldn't believe he was death, and he wasn't. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that it has something to do with Molly. And also with the kid who was kidnapped, I mean she must have seen him if she would yell like that. So in that case, there was somebody who looked like him or so. You could say maybe Jim Moriarty dressed up like him, but still, he is shorter then Sherlock so I would imagine a kid would remind that even under stress. And somehow the biker who knocked Watson on the ground could be in on it too. As far as the hit-man and what the previous commenter said, I don't see the problem, they just follow Sherlock, so if Sherlock can make it somewhere, they can too. I had two other things about them I can't figure out. For one, two of them where shot, but somehow I thought that these two were two of the assassins who would have killed all Sherlocks friends. I am right or wrong. The second thing is, Moriarty said that they only would stop if Sherlock jumped. Oke, I can believe that, but how do they all know if he jumped or not and when to kill the friends? Because only the one on Watson could have seen him jump, and I doubt if they phone each other to tell that it is done. So why did the other two stop. However this doesn't really matter to me. I found it a great 1.5 hours to watch. The acting, the story, everything was right. The timing and the speed of storytelling. Never a dull moment. I can't wait for the next season (if it comes), and I am curious on how they gonna explain Sherlock not being dead. All in all I think this show is "underrated" and needs to get more attention
The Avengers (2012)
The Avengers
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans. Directed by Joss Whedon. 140 minutes. Opens midnight Thursday at major theaters. PG Agent Phil Coulson will love The Avengers. You surely will, too, if you recognize his name. Officious but lovable S.H.I.E.L.D. sleuth Phil is one of many Marvel Comics minions Joss Whedon summons to his energizing superhero adventure, making this first blockbuster of summer 2012 something of a geek drill. It helps if you go to the film having already seen the two Iron Man movies, plus Thor, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger, all released between 2008-11 and leading up to this ensemble nerdgasm. But you don't have to sport a propeller beanie to enjoy The Avengers, and this may be the highest possible praise for what director Whedon and his co-writer Zak Penn have wrought. They've cannily crafted a saga guaranteed to pass muster with the Comic- Con cognoscenti, without forsaking regular popcorn munchers who just hope to see the planet get saved with maximum firepower and a few laughs. Whether you love or merely like The Avengers, it will likely all come down to the performances and not the perfunctory plot or the on-the-fly back story. You don't need to know Agent Phil's connection to the Marvel multi verse to appreciate Clark Gregg's expanded and surprisingly emotive take on him here, as a combination of fusspot and fan boy. And past knowledge of two iffy Hulk movies isn't required to marvel at the nuances that newcomer Mark Ruffalo brings to the green-skinned beast, even though "the other guy" within mild-mannered Dr. Bruce Banner isn't revealed until the 80-minute mark of this 140-minute bladder test.
Also new to the team and the evolving Avengers narrative are Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow, a lethal gymnast who demonstrates early on that a chair makes a dandy weapon, and Jeremy Renner as special agent Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, whose arrows aren't quite the Robin Hood anachronism they appear to be. Robert Downey Jr. returns in fine scathing form as billionaire playboy Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, the ferrous phenomenon who shields everything except his sharp tongue. It's pretty much business as usual, meanwhile, for the two most dislocated Avengers: Chris Hemsworth's Thor, a Norse god fallen from the heavens; and Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, a Second World War super soldier still shaking off decades of deep freeze and culture shock. They've all been brought together by eye-patched persuader Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., a global version of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. "It's sort of a team," Stark glibly says of the Avengers, and "sort of" is the operative phrase for much of the movie.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Awesome
Awesome movie, Based on the Stephen King novel, Shawshank Redemption is a delight from first scene to last. The opening is a brilliantly done sequence with Andy's (Tim Robbins) trial inter cut with his actions on the night of his crime.
Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a man convicted of double murder who is sent to jail, eventually befriending other lifers including Morgan Freeman's Ellis Redding. Exceptionally handsome adaptation of Stephen King's short story "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" (in the film version, it's really Raquel Welch, not Rita, who aids in the ultimate twist). On the surface, it's another prison-genre picture with the usual stereotypes such as a rotten warden, a cruel guard, a few homosexuals, and a quirky old-timer who doesn't want his parole. However, the film's emotions run surprisingly deep, justice is well served by the conclusion, and several of the cast members carve out amazing, three- dimensional characterizations.