Posts tagged movie

J Edgar

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3 weeks ago
by siva in

Not a bad movie. Leonardo DiCaprio plays J Edgar Hoover with conviction. As a biopic it is fine. What it excels at is showing the deterioration of the USA from a liberal place towards a police state led by a paranoid man. The manipulations of several Presidents and Attorneys General along the way; the riding over civil liberties; the illegal wiretaps; one could go on…

What is really interesting is how much forward this has gone today. Hoover may have balked at tapping of journalists’ phones, but today that seems like a small thing.

Of course thanks to the fact that Hoover’s secret files were never recovered, one assumes that a lot of the story is “filled in” for the sake of a story. But it is a movie, not a documentary. So the license is there for the taking. Watch the movie for DiCaprio’s portrayal of J Edgar.

Oscar nominations

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4 weeks ago
by siva in

So the Oscar nominations are out. Gary Oldman got a nomination for the role of Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hope he wins. Colin Firth won last year as the lead in The King’s Speech. He was in this movie with a creditable performance too. But it was Benedict Cumberbatch who perhaps should have gotten a nomination for supporting role.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

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1 month ago
by siva in

This has John le Carre all over it. And why not with le Carre as an executive producer. Fantastic, just the right mood being set. And brilliant casting. Gary Oldman as Smiley is just as one imagines from the books. It has been a long time since I’ve read the books, but this is the time to break them out for a re-read.

Underworld Awakening

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1 month ago
by siva in

Saw the movie. Liked it. The movie continues to be stylistically well made. The first half in particular was very good.
The ending could have been a bit better perhaps. Spoiler alert ahead!
You could see the Michael Corvin reappearance from miles ahead. But it was too small a cameo. Perhaps having him rescue Selene from a tight spot again (part 2′s fight with Marcus) would have been a bit much. Also wasn’t the movie reminiscent of Resident Evil with the whole humans are trying to eliminate us and three lab testing and everything?

Which Sherlock?

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1 month ago
by siva in

So the second season of BBC’s Sherlock has started. I have not yet had the chance to see any episode from this season of the series. But last year’s episodes were fantastic. A modern recreation of a classic. The stories and settings thankfully are fully contemporary unlike the Sherlock Holmes movies that we have been seeing.

So the question is: which Sherlock? The big-screen Robert Downey Jr. version or the Moffat interpretation.

Both are retakes / adaptations, which have little in common with the books. RD Jr’s Holmes is more of an action hero than we can ever conceive of after reading the books. Benedict Cumberbatch is further away in time, but feels truer to what Conan Doyle would have identified with. Though Stephen Fry as Mycroft does have a little something.

Overall I would go with the BBC version. It somehow feels right.

On a related note, is Stephen Moffat the only writer left in Britain? He seems to be everywhere. I have long enjoyed his works like Coupling and Jekyll, and he seems to have contributed to the recent Tintin movie. Plus his Doctor Who work. When does he get time to do all this?

Sherlock Holmes – A game of shadows

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1 month ago
by siva in

Good movie in toto. The first half seemed to leave a lot of loose ends, but it was all tired together at the end. Will do a full review later.

New Doctor Who movie?

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3 months ago
by siva in

I read in The Register that David Yates (director of the last four Harry Potter films) has been approached to do a Doctor Who movie. I have quite enjoyed the more recent Potter movies and think this could be a good idea. So the question is, who will play the Doctor?

Clearly Matt Smith could be a front runner for the job if he is still around in the role when filming starts. Or this could be a nice way to introduce a new Doctor and follow up the movie with TV serials. Perhaps they can get David Tennant to come back for a reprisal. I think Hugh Grant could be a great Doctor. He did play the Doctor once before (in a Children In Need special).

I really do hope that it will be a Brit in any case. As El Reg says in the article, you could get someone like Robert Downey Jr who did a fairly competent Sherlock Holmes. What about the other Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch?

Oscar Upset

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1 year ago
by siva in

Looks like a major upset at the Oscars for Avatar, with The Hurt Locker walking away with the best picture and best director awards. Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock won as many anticipated. The latter apparently being the first person to win an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year. It also seems that Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win the best director prize!

Christoph Waltz won an award for best supporting actor for the brilliant portrayal of a Jew-hunting Nazi in Inglorious Basterds.

The Hurt Locker did not even play in theaters here, I think. Hmmm maybe after this win, things will change.

Percy Jackson Movie

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2 years ago
by siva in

Saw the movie Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief today. The movie was well made overall, however the critical reception has been very mixed. That is understandable because it tried to be as different from the book as possible. The director (Chris Columbus) had something to do with that for sure. He would certainly have wanted to make sure that he differentiated this well against the first Harry Potter movie (which he directed also). If you think about it the parallels between this series and the HP series are pretty starkly obvious.

Percy Jackson = Harry Potter, the protagonist who discovers that he is special. There is a prophecy about him. Even in the demi-god (magical) world he is special because of his birth. PJ because his father violated his promise not to have children and HP because he lived.

Grower Underwood = Ron Weasley, the sidekick.

Annabeth Chase = Hermione Granger, the know-it-all wise-girl. In Annabeth’s case literally since she is the daughter of Athena.

Luke Castelan = Draco Malfoy, the antagonist. The roles they play are very different though.

Camp Half-Blood = Hogwarts, nothing more to be said really. There is a magical spell that prevents mortals & monsters from getting in.

Dionysus = Severus Snape, the camp director who immediately manages to antagonize the hero.

Chiron = Albus Dumbledore, who takes the hero under his wing. He is also mis-trusted by those around him.

I could go on and on.

Obviously then the director tried to make this the anti-HP film. So the scenes at camp were cut short and this became a sort of "road trip" movie. What I missed most was the lack of some of the strong points of the books – the interplay between Percy and the various Gods he meets (Dionysus and Ares in the first book). Also, they left out the Oracle of Delphi.

In a way because of the differences between the book and the film, the film became more watchable (the story was new). The characters were also developed differently. All the characters are older in the film than the movie, so there is romantic interplay between Percy and Annabeth, which would have been weird in the book where they are 11-12 years old.

Overall, watchable but don’t expect any real Greek myth stuff. All that has been taken out and this is pretty much a dumbed-down version of the books, which are dumbed-down versions of Greek tales.

Sherlock Holmes

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2 years ago
by siva in

Finally watched the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law. Good movie overall but the story was not up to the standard expected. Plus Mary Morstan & Irene Adler were there but everyone was pretending that they hadn’t met before.
More later.

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