‘Runway’ Poster Rips Off ‘xXx’ Poster

Found the trailer in a Marathi paper. I don't even know what the movie is or about (it doesn't even have an IMDB listing, which is very weird), but all I could think of when I saw the poster was xXx. Jeez, if you have to plagiarise a poster, you could at least steal it off of a movie that doesn't play on HBO every other month.

Edit: Saw this in the papers a couple days after posting this. Pretty sweet if whoever wrote that up saw this post, I’m doing pretty good at coming up on top in Google these days. >_>

KEEP RECORDING THIS, PABLO! a.k.a. [REC]

Despite being a zombie myself, I have only a passing interest in zombie movies and zombie media in general, largely because modern zombie media is unscary and also, very often, stupid.

But not this, not [REC]. I didn’t even know it was a zombie movie at first really, because it isn’t advertised as so. No, it’s advertised and appreciated as a horror movie because that’s what it is: a horror movie.

I got this film from 4chan’s /x/ board, where it’s very popular as the scariest film evar and stuff, and they ain’t kidding. [REC] is a very scary movie, and it achieves this effect via intensity. You don’t have Hollywood special effects and other fancy shiznit, it just grabs you by the eyeballs (or bites you by the eyeballs, as one scene would have it) and doesn’t let go.

This is how horror movies are made, Hollywood, sheez. I’m not going to watch the less-scary Hollywood remake of this, called “Quarantine” because I don’t want to see it bastardized like that. [REC] is a horror masterpiece, you don’t remake it.

Goddamn, two scenes near the end: absolutely incredible. Insane.

La Planète sauvage

That was a pretty damned freaky movie. The most surreal film I’ve seen that wasn’t related to Luis Bunuel or Salvador Dali. Also probably the most psychedelic film I’ve seen.

I think the reason it appealed to me so much is because the setting of the movie is something I’ve pondered a lot as a kid myself and the movie captures that exactly as I’d imagined. What I’m babbling about is,

What if we humans, who enjoy trampling over ants and assorted insects, were subjected to the same treatment? What if there was a race of beings that belittled us and our intelligence, squishing us under their feet and gassing us out for ‘pest control’?

The opening scene in the movie is very striking: a woman with a baby is running in the wilderness when she confronts a large blue finger that doesn’t let her pass. It then flicks her away and toys with her by placing obstacles in her path. Eventually, the woman dies when she’s picked up and dropped from a height. The woman’s baby son, grows up to be the protagonist of this twisted movie.

What makes this movie what it is, however, has to be the killer animation style. It’s difficult to describe in a way, but it kind of reminds me of those safety posters they had in the 50s and 60s, with those weird kids with visible red blushes on their cheeks.

Then there’s the incredible surreal artwork; the world of La Planète sauvage is inhabited by bizarre creatures. I’m convinced that the movie’s production crew was high all the way through the production.

Rashomon

I was watching Akira Kurosawa’s famous Rashomon yesterday, and I can see why it’s such a classic film. I think it did have one flaw, which critic after critic has pointed out – it is too monotonous. The film uses only four locations, and the same characters, who are more or less doing the same things over and over – add to that the black and white and it’s a boring, boring watch.

The classic takes place in Japan, where a woodcutter narrates a story to a man who has taken shelter from the rain. The woodcutter claims to have found a dead body and was produced before the court, where four testimonies regarding the incident are narrated, therefore we see a flashback-within-a-flashback. Who is telling the truth? Who can be trusted? Is the woodcutter telling the truth? The entire movie leaves this an enigma, but not as an enigma, but a question that is meant to be appreciated, not answered.

Still, it was an artistic treat, especially the parts devoid of any dialogue for several minutes, or the subliminal commentary on the human condition that runs throughout the movie, as well as the mild eulogy on the subjectivity of truth. While the movie could have used some more originality, I thought it had fantastic editing and soundwork.

I’ll have to look into the ending, though. It was a rather unusual ending – while it does help conclude the film’s philosophical themes, questioning morality and the human condition, as a plot it feels unsatisfying. Then again, to be frank, it was a relief the movie ended at last.

The Judge of All the Earth

“Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?” – Genesis, Chapter 18, Verse 25

One of the movies I’m anticipating along with The Dark Knight and a few others is Watchmen. A fan of the original graphic novel, I was both disappointed and excited by the revelation of the movie. While there is no doubt Zack Snyder can kick ass after making 300, I have a feeling that not even he can do justice to Watchmen.

As Alan Moore himself said, Watchmen the book itself was focused on showcasing how graphic novels are unique in their format – merging the depth and length of a novel with visual cues, subliminal messages and heaploads of layers. I think the novel is one of the finest examples of graphic novel literature, and like the Lord of the Rings, cannot be reasonably transferred to another medium.

Zack released the costumes for the characters and while I love the looks of Nite Owl, the Comedian and of course, Rorshach looks perfect. Ozymandias looks a little weird – I’m not sure if he can do it right.

What I’m keen to see is Dr. Manhattan himself, the ultimate superhero. How will he be portrayed in the movie? Will it have the same amount of nudity the graphic novel had? Will Zack do the graphic novel justice and make a great movie at the same time?

Memento

Just watched Memento, Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece that you have to watch twice – once forwards and once backwards. I like they way the story is told in two parallel sequences, one set that goes chronologically forward, the other that goes backwards.

And so in the latter sequence, the next scene you watch ties in to the beginning of the last scene you saw, making them an intriguing, albeit somewhat frustrating series of revelations. And despite this reverse-chronological order, the movie starts with a clean start, goes on through a detailed middle and finishes with a grand conclusion (which is actually the start of the events).

In a way, Nolan has done complete justice to the protagonist, who has a problem with short-term memory that causes him to never remember anything recent. This leads to our amnesiac hero writing doing everything, taking pictures of everything, starting every scene not knowing where he is or who anyone is except for his ingrained thirst for vengeance.

I think the movie deserves its praise – it isn’t an excellent mystery, but a great experience and some quality film-making.

The Ring

The Cars That Eat People

Awesome.

Mortal Thoughts is meh.

So I saw Mortal Thoughts, a thriller/murder movie starring Demi Moore as the friend of a woman whose abusive husband is killed and the two women become the suspects. The first thing that I appreciate about the movie was its unsually storytelling style. Cynthia, the protagonist is being interrogated by detectives and is revealing the facts as she knows them. After a chunk of talking, the detectives counter her statements and try to get her to admit she was involved in the murder, which brings a different light on the developing story.

Additionally, half the movie takes place in flashbacks, and some of the twists in the story are cool because they are hinted at first in the interrogation, before the flashbacks detail them. Moore and Glenne Headly, who plays Joyce have performed pretty well, with their performances mirroring multiple layers across the story. Bruce Willis makes more of a cameo appearance than a full-fledged role, which doesn’t last more than a quarter of the movie. Still, he was very convincing and as the character required it – annoying.

The movie is pretty atmospheric, with a smooth pacing that grips you to it through the entire 102 minutes. I don’t recall being particularly bored at any point during the movie, which is surprising considering I would have turned off the TV had I known the somewhat generic premise. The movie chooses to make the experience multi-layered and sympathetic, as opposed to the usual murder dramas.

Not a bad movie overall, just not entirely satisfying. With its twist ending, it leaves a few loose threads, but that is bearable, I suppose. The movie ends appropriately enough and doesn’t leave you cringing for more, neither does it leave incomplete. Not a bad watch for a bored afternoon, but not a DVD I’d want to own.

Taare Zameen Par

With recommendation from Sonali, I decided to watch Taare Zameen Par, one of the Aamir Khan’s few films to come out in this decade. And I came out pretty much impressed, well, more so than I had expected.

The movie revolves around Ishaan, a semingly normal boy who abhors studies and lives in a world of imagination that can perhaps only be rivalled by H.R. Giger. So, Ishaan lives in a world of hate, with just about the entire world yelling at him for every reason imaginable, from not doing his homework (a cause I support with every lethargic muscle in my body) to fighting with another kid to failing in the 3rd standard. His life was pretty much summed up by the following poster that was conveniently dropped before the release:

Eventually, young Ishaan is thrown into a boarding school and we see him settle into depression, making way for Aamir Khan to walk in. The film, which does a startling job at realistically portraying urban school life goes downhill from here, as all the immersion wears off and you realize you’re watching a goddamned movie.

Darsheel Safary’s performance is as spectacular as it gets, and one of the best I’ve seen in any Hindi film so far. Aamir does a fine job too, albeit I would have preffered that he let a less famous actor take the role, since his presence tends to stand out in the film a little too much. In fact, the lack of familiar faces and the curt editing makes the first half brilliant, with the focus being on how young Ishaan views the world. In the second half, we see the world from Ram Nikumbh’s (that’s Aamir) perspective, and the changes he wishes to see in Ishaan.

The abrupt change of perspective did not go down well for me, as I could relate with a lot of incidences and situations Ishaan found himself in. I liked the soundtrack as well, although it doesn’t hold up in the second half either, with tracks that were either out of context or plain boring, while the first half has songs that perfectly fit in from an aesthetic point of view.

The movie is much better than I had expected, and shines light on the plight children face everyday (or at least I do, to some extent). It left me contentedly, and a little weary.