Movie Geek's Blog

"A reporter's dream of becoming a news anchor is compromised after a one-night stand leaves her stranded in downtown L.A. without a phone, car, ID or money - and only 8 hours to make it to the most important job interview of her life." -IMDb

As a movie enthusiast, sometimes you just love some actors without caring about their insignificance to the film industry. Elizabeth Banks is one of those actor I love watching, I don't care about her filmography or her own performances which is not even worth talking. She is one of those early actresses, I had a crush on.

Elizabeth Banks is the sole reason why I am putting a trailer of a film which looks weak, unpromising and hopeless. Now if this turns out to be good enough, that's certainly a bonus.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

There are many genres of cinema, Action, animation, crime, drama, fantasy, history, mystery, romance sci-fi and there is another genre; Las Vegas.Usually when a film is shot in Las Vegas, the city is like a character in that film. There is a  purpose they set films in Las Vegas. Here is a list of some of the films I have watched, which is shot entirely or partly in Las Vegas:

Ocean's Eleven [1960]

The Godfather Part II [1974]

Rain Man [1988]

Casino [1995]

Leaving Las Vegas [1995]

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas [1998]

Ocean's Eleven [2001]

Resident Evil: Extinction [2007]

Ocean's Thirteen [2007]

21 [2008]

What Happens in Vegas [2008]

2012 [2009]

The Hangover [2009]

Fright Night [2011]

The Hangover Part III [2013]

Last Vegas [2013]

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

If you have watched Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy, you already know the greatness of this scene. If you haven't, here is the background story you need to know.

Gotham City has been saved by Batman from Bane's terror, but there is still something that needs to be taken care of; the Nuclear Bomb. Now this nuclear bomb cannot be defused anymore and for that Batman has to sacrifice his life as he will haul the bomb over the bay with the help of "The Bat" [an aircraft developed by Lucius Fox which replaces the Bat Mobile.

Now this scene was after Batman sacrificed his life. One of the greatest final 5 minutes of a movie.

Rain Man is a 1988 Drama by Barry Levinson, it stars Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise as lead actors playing brothers.

Tom Cruise plays Charlie Babbitt 

Dustin Hoffman plays Raymond Babbitt

Rain Man won 4 Oscars, 3 of which were Best Picture, Best Director for Barry Levinson and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman.

There was many people who were supposed to be a part of this film but it was rejected time and again. Here goes a list of people rejecting a certain part in Rain Man.

Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Raymond Babbitt.

Rober De Niro turned down the role of Raymond Babbitt.

Dustin Hoffman turned down the role of Charlie Babbitt to play Raymond Babbitt.

Dustin Hoffman almost left Rain Man after shooting for a couple of weeks and asked the director Barry Levinson to cast Richard Dreyfuss as Hoffman was unsure of the film's potential and his own performance.

Barry Levinson turned down the offer to direct this film in 1987 and instead he directed Good Morning, Vietnam.

It was Steven Spielberg, who was supposed to direct Rain Man, he made some notes as well in preparation of starting the project,  he later had to withdraw from it as his friend George Lucas needed him to start working on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [1989].

Director Sydney Pollack was the 2nd person to direct Rainman, but he later ditched the film saying he wasn't keen on the idea of a road movie.

Dustin Hoffman originally wanted Bill Murray to play Charlie.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

The day I saw the trailer of jOBS, I could sense that something is terribly wrong with it. Yes I am talking about that Ashton Kutcher movie that looked highly commercial and glamorous. The film came and as I expected, it was not appreciated by many including me.

Why did I sensed so? That's because I saw a better film on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates earlier and this was not even close to what I felt while watching Pirates of Silicon Valley.

A drunken man [Oh Dae-Su] is arrested by the police. His friend bails him out and when this friend was making a telephone call, the man disappears only to wake up in a place that looked like a cheap hotel room. Little did he know that, he will be in that room for the next 15 years, day in, day out? 

Oldboy tells the story of that man.

Time and again, a little tune plays and the room is filled with some kind of gas so as to faint him. He wakes up and notices that the room has been cleaned, his clothes have been changed and his hair and beard has been trimmed. This same routine goes for 15 years.

He doesn’t know who imprisoned him and why. There is a TV in the room being the only source of new information for him. There is a desk with a pen and a journal, he writes, finishing journals one after another. Through TV, he finds out that his wife has been murdered and his fingerprints and blood were found at the place of the crime. Thus he has been framed for the murder of her wife. He also found out from TV only that his little daughter is adopted in Sweden.

TV taught him everything, the martial art, the tragedies of the world and the fact that the world is racing ahead at a great pace. And then one day he has been released; he became unconscious after that regular tune and the gas and wakes up in a Red box only to realize that he is not in that room anymore and that the city where he was taken from has become faster than ever.

His abductor left some cash in his court pocket and a cellphone, intentionally leaving him resourced so that he could survive and find; who did it and why? 

Now this is half the plot, the other half is even more complex, devastating and shows you the truest colors of revenge and vengeance.

Upon being free, he meets a young woman who he saw on the TV as Korea’s Chef of the year. This young woman is Mido. They talk and she comes to know of all he has gone through, she sympathizes with him, cares for him and falls in love with him.

When Oh Dae-su was abducted, for 15 years, he was only fed pot stickers, which is why its taste was imprinted on his memory. With the help of Mido, he visits every restaurant in the city and orders Pot Stickers so as to recognize the same taste, in order to find a trail to his abductor.

In an important scene, when Oh Dae-Su fights with more than 25 of his previous jailers with just a hammer in his hands. In this scene, more than a two dozen men are blocking his way to get him out of a building and because he is so occupied by revenge, he doesn’t even slow down after somebody injected a knife on his back.

In another brilliant scene, Oh went into a restaurant and asks “I want to eat something that is alive.” This shows his starvation is for life and not the food, considering the fact that he has not seen one living person in the last 15 years.

When the film started, Oh Dae-su was a good man who got drunk because he couldn't be with her little daughter on her birthday, and these 15 years made him a hardened vindictive man who reacts weirdly against emotional actions or any other act of kindness towards him.

Once Oh Dae-su finally confronts his abductor, there are some shocking revelations that unfold one after another. These revelations affect the viewers emotionally and mentally. They are shocking and deep. 

All the three performances were class apart, the prisoner Oh Dae-Su [Min-sik Choi], the chef Mido [Hye-jeong Kang] and the abductor Woo-jin Lee [Ji-tae Yu]. 

Oldboy is a harsh film that offers no sympathy, leaves you devastated for what you watched and at the end make you have pity on the characters. This is a film which will be respected even after 50 years from now. Director Chan-wook Park has made something even he will find difficult to imitate. 

This is why I hated the idea of its remake, but Spike Lee remade it and failed miserably. Some films should never be remade, tampered or even touched but only be respected for its existence.

Movie Geek’s Rating: ★★★★★

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[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

I love cinema, irrespective of the language, color, genre or the decade. If it's a good film, I will watch it. I believe 1950s was the most significant period for Hindi films. Some of the most acclaimed films belong to that era; Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool and Awaara to name a few. 

Although I have a few favorite films from each decade after the 1950s, but on the whole I cannot say that they made too many [percentage wise] critically acclaimed films during the 70s, 80s and 90s with exceptions being Shyam Benegal, Basu Chatterjee, Govind Nihalani, Kundan Shah and some more.

However in the last 10 years, a lot has changed with Indian films, the viewers are open to accept new subjects and improvisations in films. They like anything good, meaning if you make a good film, they will not trash it. They may not make a lot of money, but they surely receive critical reception.There is a whole new wave of actors, actresses and filmmakers that are bringing great change to the otherwise cliched industry we have turned into.

Here is a list of some people who has brought a great change in the ways films are made in the new millennium: [this list is in Alphabetical Order]

Aamir Khan

Abhay Deol

Abhishek Chaubey

Anurag Kashyap

Bejoy Nambiar

Ashutosh Gowariker

Dibakar Banerjee

Farhan Akhtar

Homi Adazania

Imtiaz Ali

Irrfan Khan

Jimmy Shergill

Kalki Koechlin

Kay Kay Menon

Konkona Sen Sharma

Mahi Gill

Manoj Bajpai

Nagesh Kukunoor

Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Piyush Mishra

Rajat Kapoor

Reema Kagti

Sanjay Mishra
Saurabh Shukla

Shimit Amin

Sudhir Mishra

Tigmanshu Dhulia

Vishal Bhardwaj

Vidya Balan

Vikramaditya Motwane

Vinay Pathak

Zoya Akhtar

Let me know if I have missed any, it will help me build a better watchlist

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

I told you before how I was introduced to movies in my previous post titled Experiencing Cinema. Here is the 2nd part of that story.

So, I was only 5 when I developed an affinity for movies. With only Doordarshan and its other Channel "DD Metro" [do you remember that other channel] on TV, there wasn't too many opportunities to watch movies. 

Yes, occasionally we used to rent VHS [or VCR] and watch films like "Mohra" and sometimes English films like "Jurassic Park" but watching an English films was a rarity those days.

I belong to a small town and movies used to reach the movie theater here after a good 4-5 months of its release. However they have evolved with time and "first day first show" is a possibility for the fan-boys now. Some of them even installed the Dolby sound system. But since I haven't watched a film here in last 10 years so I can't comment on that. Anyways.

Sometimes when the theater owners could not win the rights of the latest film [I don't know how the cinema hall functions though], they used to show some old films that released a couple of years ago. 

So, in 1995, when I was 6 years old, one day they announced on the loud speaker on the back of a Tempo Rickshaw that from the coming Friday, a film called "Saajan" will play on 4 shows everyday [they really used to do such announcements, if you remember].

I still remember glimpses of the day when I virtually forced my dad to take me to the theater so that I could watch  'SAAJAN' and when I did, I was starstruck after seeing Salman. A few months later, they were playing ANDAZ APNA APNA and I asked some elder brother of mine to take me to the theater, this time to watch Andaz Apna Apna. I used to be patient with other films, but didn't missed any of Salman's film till I was 15 or 16.

I am not a Salman Khan fan anymore but yes I was, I certainly was and even now I can see him on those No Logic Entertainment films he does. At least he is honest with what he promises.

In the next part, I will share what happened during the late 90s and the early 2000s and about my drift to English films.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

Remember how Amitabh Bachchan used to die in most of his films; he died in Deewaar, Sholay, Muqaddar ka Sikander, Shakti and many others. Even Hrithik Roshan dies in a lot of his films. These great performances when comes in a dying role, makes an instant connect with the viewers.

After watching a hell lot of films from the west, I can say that death is equally important in Hollywood as well. Here is a list of popular Hollywood actors whose character died more often than others.

Totally Spoiler free.

John Hurt, who played the role of Mr. Ollivander, the guy who handed Harry Potter his first wand, saying "the wand chooses the Wizard", died 40 times in his career, he acted in 186 films and died in more than 20 percent of them.

Sean Benn, Ned Stark of Game of Thrones, has acted in 100 films and has died 24 times, that is beyond John Hurt if we compare the percentage.

Robert DeNiro died 17 times in the 96 films he has done. Gary Oldman and Johnny Depp have tied their scores with 12 each, only Depp has done this in only 64 films while Gary Oldman took 73 films to die the same number of times. 

Bruce Willis stands next to Depp with 11 deaths in 92 films and the one who is closing in on Willis is Leonardo DiCaprio. 

But even though everyone outnumbered Leo DiCaprio, he beats everyone in percentage. Leonardo DiCaprio died in  9 films out of only 35 films he did. That's more than 25 percent of his films. 

Poor guy, so many deaths and still no Oscar.

Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

Note: Number of films include some television roles as well

If you haven't seen Into the wild, you should. Buy it, download or borrow. But do watch it.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone [also released as Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone worldwide except India, Srilanka, Pakistan and USA] was an absolutely brilliant adventure film. 

The book was a huge success and the people behind the film worked upon every little detail to make the film successful as well. Very often, we come across movies adapted from popular books and feel that the kind of atmosphere and setup you imagined while reading the book was very different than the kind of images you are given to watch. This is something which was perfected in the Sorcerer’s stone, we imagined a similar Dursley’s place and a similarly dark Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; the set decoration was so well crafted.

This is not a film which adults usually wave off; instead this was a fully fledged adventure film for people of all age group. JK Rowling’s book was muscular and vibrant and director Chris Columbus made sure that the movie version does not end up being a cute film about kids for the kids.

It can be very well compared to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, though I am not sure about the latter one. What Star wars must have been for someone born in the late 60s and early 70s, Harry Potter is something like that for those born in the late 80s and early 90s. The supernatural stuff like a three headed dog never looked out of the place and as a viewer I was glued to the screen while thrilled if the trio will be successful in their little endeavors.

Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint were only 11, 12 and 13 respectively at the time Sorcerer’s stone was released. Daniel as Harry Potter was almost like every one of us has imagined him to be. Hogwarts looked dark and comical, which is something I love about Harry Potter films, because computers could make it look real but the director chose to maintain the atmosphere JK Rowling created in her books.

Apart from the three prime characters, the castings for the adult’s role were done fantastically. Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Richard Harris and Robbie Coltrane as Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, Headmaster Dumbledore and Hagrid respectively were the most appropriate choices to make for the persona of the characters Rowling created.

Here is an interesting part from Roger Ebert’s review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone, which he wrote 12 years ago, just after the film was released. Read more about Roger Ebert Here.

“Computers are used, exuberantly, to create a plausible look in the gravity-defying action scenes. Readers of the book will wonder how the movie visualizes the crucial game of Quidditch. The game, like so much else in the movie, is more or less as I visualized it, and I was reminded of Stephen King's theory that writers practice a form of telepathy, placing ideas and images in the heads of their readers. The reason some movies don't look like their books may be that some producers don't read them.”

Harry Potter is a classic which stays with you for life; you will make your kids watch it. It is that kind of film. Harry Potter can very well be put with E.T, Jurassic Park, Star Wars and Indiana Jones. It is the film you grew up with, how can you not love it?

"They say the first part is always the best part, they don't lie."

Note: I have not discussed the plot of the film but other details assuming all of you have already watched Harry Potter films.

Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★★

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

Before you start looking for some official statement like "My dear friends, I have been chosen for the geekiest person alive award", let me clear that the word official was not to be taken seriously. So, let's move with the post.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked the number of films I have watched. So I answered him with an exact number. He was fascinated by the fact that I actually had a definite answer for his question. So he moved forward with another question expecting a rapid fire answer, he wanted to know the number of  films I have watched from the 90s, this time I didn't have a definite answer so I said, "don't know."

That night I thought of making a detailed chart of the films I have watched from every decade. How can I call myself a Movie Geek if I am all social and not indulging in preparing charts or other weird things like that. [Sorry for the forced humor :P]

So I opened the excel sheet where I add the names of the films I watch and distributed the films decade wise. As I was busy with work, completing this chart took a whole week but finally its ready.

Percentage of the films I have watched from different decades.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

At the time when I revealed my theme for the AtoZ Challenge, I promised that I will come up with some interesting movie trivia, this is my first trivial post for the month of April.

Forrest Gump is one of the most popular films we know of. Even if someone is not really into movies, they have watched Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks played the role of Forrest Gump and won the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Oscars and the film won the Best Picture.

Here are some interesting trivia about Forrest Gump:

1. The girl in the school bus was Tom Hanks's daughter Elizabeth Hanks.

2. John Travolta and Chevy Chase and Bill Murray turned down the role of Forrest Gump. Travolta did admit later that passing that role was a mistake.

3. It took only 66 days for the film to pass the $250 million mark at the box office.

4. Gary Sinise's character tells Tom Hanks's character that the day Forrest works on a shrimp boat is the day he'd be an astronaut and next year, Sinise and Tom Hanks appeared together as astronauts in Ron Howard's Apollo 13.

5. After the success of Forrest Gump, Author Winston Groom wrote a sequel novel, 'Gump & Co.' (1995), Forrest Gump happens to meet Tom Hanks in the novel.

6. In the 1988 movie Punchline, Sally Field plays the love interest for Tom Hanks's character; in Forrest Gump, 6 years later, she plays his character's mother.

7. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #76 Greatest Movie of All Time.

8. On the other hand,  The movie was named as one of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies Of All Time" by Premiere.

I hope you like trivia as I do. They are fascinating.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

Sources: Google, Wikipedia, IMDb

My Blog's tagline used to be "The Movie blog for reviews, trailers, quotes and interesting stories." So, I write reviews, put some trailers, mention quotes too but what is missing is some interesting stories about the Movie Geek himself. Now is the time for my first story as a movie aficionado. 

Today, I will share my first experience with films and how it made me fall in love with the idea of movies, so this is how it all started. 

Many Years ago, on a summer afternoon, I, a 5 year old child was lying on the bed with a body temperature of 101 degree Fahrenheit. The TV was on, and the Mehmood Starring "KUNWARA BAAP" was showing. I was shivering with fever and was alone in the room, so without bothering to move forward and change the channel [there wasn't a remote controlled TV in my home in 1994], I just lied there and continued watching that film without much interest. 


In a few minutes, I started to bond with that crippled child [Mehmood's son in the film]or say started to relate with the child's character as I was sick too. After the film finished, I was so sad, I ran to my mother and started crying after witnessing the poor state of the father-son duo depicted in the film.

My mother explained patiently, that it is just a film and everything that they show is only fiction and I shouldn't be sad about it, but a sad child takes things to heart. Just thinking about that poor Mehmood character made me sad, but after a few weeks, when I watched him doing a comedy scene in some other film, I  understood the methodology of films and understood that portraying of characters may not be real and are mostly fiction. This was a fascinating revelation for me, I was so fascinated with the fact that a couple of actors can make common people sad and happy and can make them cry. I respected cinema, thereafter, everything they made. 

This is an important story and I don't wanna cut it short, so presenting it in parts, this was how I introduced myself to cinema or it was introduced to me. I will write a part 2 very soon to tell how my love story with films developed.

-Amritt Rukhaiyaar

[This post is a part of the A to Z Challenge in April 2014. Let's celebrate blogging.]

Note: I forgot the film name but I remembered the plot so I had to Google to find the title.

On April 1st 2014, some hundreds of bloggers around the globe will take part in the AtoZ Challenge 2014. This challenge is like a blog marathon where the bloggers need to write everyday in the month of April. 

It is called an AtoZ Challenge because the first post will be a topic starting with the Letter A, the second post will be about something starting with B and in the same way the last post will be about Z. 

Then there is the blog-break, which is the Sundays. 

So no blogging on Sundays, that will leave for us exactly 26 days to blog. So covering a letter a day is what we basically need to do.

Associated with the same there was another segment called the Theme reveal post, which was scheduled for 21st March, that is today. The bloggers need to write a post explaining the theme of the blogs they will write in the month of April.

Since this is a movie blog, I believe I don't have to talk about a theme. Obviously my posts will be about movies. But let's talk about the theme within the theme.

Basically my blog contains reviews of the movies from the west, but during this challenge, I am planning to write more about Hindi films and foreign language films. Basically, I don't watch commercial films but the ones which have more critical reception. So, you will get to read reviews of some critically acclaimed masterpiece from the world cinema.

Some films will be the latest ones [by latest everything after 1990 is latest for me] whereas some will be old classics. I will also write about my favorite form of films, that is the silent cinema. Silent films used to be ingeniously great and this is the right opportunity to discuss those brilliant films.

There will be some Indian films which the audience trashed, but they were actually good; I will include some of those as well. Sometimes I may come up with Trivial posts; I love Trivia, they are usually fascinating, so I will try to fascinate my readers as well.

I believe, you got a idea of what you are going to witness at THE MOVIE GEEK's BLOG during the month of April. Please bookmark this blog and come back in April, there will be a cinematic fest. 

if you want to take part in this challenge, you can do it HERE

-Amrit Rukhaiyaar