Friday the 13th [2009]: another "bloody" attempt
On the 13th day of this 30 day blog challenge, I was really not sure which film I should talk about, then the number 13 struck a chord and now it seems so logical that I decided to write a review for Friday the 13th.
The first Friday the 13th film, the original film was released in 1980. Since then, we have seen its sequels, remakes, character wars with another franchise and god knows what not. To start with, this is a better film than most of its predecessors, 11 it is, still not too good. If you are so keen to watch a film about killings and bloodshed, this is not a bad choice to make. There are certainly weirder films people watch in the name of blood and gore, then why not watch Friday the 13th.
Jason is still doing what he was doing back in 1980, killing people or say a group of people and then being killed and return impossibly to life making a way for another sequel. By far, Jason has went through a lot, drowned in water, being hit by ax, sliced by a machete in the shoulder, buried, resurrected, thrown to hell, researched, frozen, chained and thrown into the lake, but no matter what, Jason does return.
Even after 12 films in the franchise, its IMDb rating is still crawling in between 4 and 6, its very clear, viewers have had enough . It's time Jason should hang his boots.
Movie Geek's Rating: ★★
Cast: Danielle Panabaker, Jared Padalecki, Derek Mears
Directed by: Marcus Nispel
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Author: Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past [2009]: Some Michael Douglas Charm
As a Screenwriter, when you are really not satisfied with the plot of your script, you ask the director to cast some of the hottest actors around and the same film becomes pretty much watchable and in rare cases, immensely enjoyable. Something like that happened with Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
It was weak on the plot and the director cashed in on Matthew McConaughey and Michael Douglas. what appeared to be an ordinary romantic comedy turned out pretty much enjoyable with some good performances by Matthew McConaughey and Micheal Douglas.
Connor Mead [Matthew McConaughey] went to attend his younger brother’s wedding and after the rehearsal dinner he gets a visit from Uncle Wayne [Michael Douglas], now Uncle Wayne was the man who taught Connor everything there is to know about having women, but the catch is that he has died many years ago and he is a ghost now. He also gets visits from ghosts from his past, present and future girlfriends. all of them trying to show him his flaws with women.
I didn't really like the whole movie, there was many weird moments when you will feel like fast forwarding the film and running into the final conclusion straight away. But what keep you to not do that is watching the perfectly cast Connor and Uncle Wayne, it was like written especially for McConaughey and Michael Douglas respectively. I could go on watching Uncle Wayne for hours. I love flamboyancy if it is sexy enough and thus Uncle Wayne is certainly one of my most loved flamboyant characters.
If you are a Michael Douglas fan or if you like Matthew McConaughey, you should give it a try for once. How I loved Emma Stone in The Amazing Spiderman, she is a total waste in here. Jennifer Garner didn't had too much to do but she did manage to impress with whatever little part she was given.
Movie Geek's Ratings: ★★★
Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Michael Douglas, Emma Stone, Jennifer Garner, Michael Douglas
Directed by: Mark Waters
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Author: Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Pauvre Pierrot [1892]: first of its kind
I love to study history, and it can't be more fascinating than to know about the history of cinema. Silent films are the pioneers in Cinema and this post is dedicated to a significant silent film that may not have been talked about much.
Pauvre Pierrot is a silent film directed by Émile Reynaud. It was unique considering the time being, it was the first animation short film, first in color [hand painted], first with a background score and the first one with a narrative and plot.
What's The Plot?
Arlequin and Colombine are lovers, one night Arlequin sneaks into Colombine's house to meet her. Meanwhile Pierrot knocks at the door and the lovers hide, Pierrot starts singing in an attempt to woo Colombine but Arlequin scares him without making himself visible to Pierrot, thus the poor Pierrot had to go away.
Why is it important?
Though it has a run time of 4 minutes only, I find it interesting enough. It is interesting as an experimental film, imagine the joy people must have had on their faces watching a "story" on screen for the first time, A man, a woman and a second man being teased by the protagonist, that too in color; it must have been fascinating, like watching stars on earth. It is important to preserve history and admire it for its existence in the first place. Do watch it and you may like the idea too and feel the achievement it had been in 1892.
It is a french film and was released on 28th October 1892 and is directed by Émile Reynaud. You may be interested in another historical piece of work; Sallie Gardner at a Gallop.
Abhishek Bachchan's Mani Ratnam Connection
If we go back in time and have a look at Abhishek Bachchan’s Career, you will be mostly disappointed, well at least I am, but, it doesn’t mean that he lacks the finesse of a good actor. On three different occasions, someone brought it out of him, and this someone was no other than Mani Ratnam.
Mani Ratnam gave us Abhishek’s raw performance as Lallan Singh in the film YUVA. Yuva made directors and producers rethink about Abhishek and he certainly has a filmography that is being added with 2-3 films every year because of Mani Ratnam’s effort to fetch the actor out of him in his 3 films; Yuva, Guru and Raavan.
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Abhishek debuted in 2000 with the film Refugee; it was also Kareena Kapoor’s debut film, it took him 4 years to finally make an impact on the audience and that was because of his performance in Yuva. Yuva was arguably his breakthrough performance. In the next three years, we saw Abhishek’s mediocre performances in no less than a dozen films before GURU happened; although I liked his work in Sarkar in between Yuva and Guru.
Guru garnished his career once again; people started believing in his potentials. Mani Ratnam made him comfortable around his territory, which is playing the hardened characters, where he is really excellent and natural. Abhishek delivered his dialogues well and looked totally convincing as the maverick entrepreneur.
Even before people started to take him seriously, he started to disappoint again, right after Guru, Abhishek came up with bad films like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Drona and Laga chunari mein Daag. Except for Paa, he couldn't do really well in the next half a dozen or more films that came after Guru and now he needed another good performance for his career to continue, so Mani Ratnam came to the rescue once again with Raavan in 2010 and Abhishek got another hardened character to play.
While Yuva and Guru were critically acclaimed good films, Raavan was snubbed by many. I personally liked Raavan, so much that I downloaded the Tamil version as well to see the difference in performances by the lead actors. Vikram who plays the cop in the Hindi version played the role of “Beera” in the Tamil version, now Vikram is a fine actor; he is certainly one of the best they have down there in the Tamil film industry but Abhishek did a better job than him playing the same character.
It’s such a waste that an actor who had the potential in himself all through could never utilize it except for a couple of occasions.
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Tag :
Trivia
When Sally outsmarts Harry
This post is written in the spirit of movies and I expect the readers to take it that way.
Harry and Sally are sitting in a restaurant, and is talking about Harry's last night sex with a stranger woman. Harry is bragging about how he satisfied the woman and sally tells him that it's not necessary that he actually satisfied her and that women do fake their orgasms often. Harry doesn't seem to agree and says if a woman will fake an orgasm with him, he'd know it in the first place. Sally, just to prove herself right, fakes an orgasm then and there in that restaurant while dozens of people looked. A middle-aged woman, fellow diner sitting at the adjacent table admires Sally's womanhood and tells the waiter "I'll have what she's having."
This quote is listed at #33 on American Film Institute's Top 100 Movie Quotes. It is the only quote on the list, which is the only dialogue ever said by the actor saying it. The fellow Diner was director Rob Reiner's mother Estelle Reiner.
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Million Dollar Arm: Trailer Preview
If you remember, I promised yesterday that I will write a review today for the trailer of the sports film I am most excited about. So, here I am with the Trailer preview of the most anticipated sports film to be released in 2014.
This film is "Million Dollar Arm." It is based on the true story of American Baseball Agent JB Bernstein who stages a reality sports series in India in an attempt to find skillful Indian Cricket players for playing in the US as Baseball Pitchers. The cast of this film includes some really accomplished actors like Jon Hamm, Alan Arkin and Bill Paxton.
Jon Hamm plays the role of JB Bernstein, while we will get to see the talented Suraj Sharma, who impressed us with his breath taking performance in Ang Lee's Life of Pi. Suraj will play the role of Rinku Singh who along with Dinesh Patel [Madhur Mittal, remember Salim of Slumdog Millionaire?] will be brought to USA to be trained by Tom House; the baseball coach played by Bill Paxton. There are glimpses of acclaimed Indian actor Darshan Zariwala and a little bit of Pitobash [the funny guy from Shor in the City].
This film is "Million Dollar Arm." It is based on the true story of American Baseball Agent JB Bernstein who stages a reality sports series in India in an attempt to find skillful Indian Cricket players for playing in the US as Baseball Pitchers. The cast of this film includes some really accomplished actors like Jon Hamm, Alan Arkin and Bill Paxton.
The music of the film is composed by AR Rehman, and is directed by Craig Gillespie. This film looks more promising than Draft Day, I must say. While Draft Day looks sharper and may have some games for us to watch, this looks more inspirational, the typical "coming of age" sort of film. I am little more hopeful about this film. It is set for an initial release on May 16th, 2014.
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Draft Day: Trailer Preview
I love the sports genre, every time there is a sports film announced, the movie enthusiast in me gets excited and prepares itself by watching and re-watching some of the greatest sports films. I particularly love it, sports film never disappointed me, whatever I have seen, I liked them all, and loved most of them.
Now, this year can be a real treat for someone who loves cinema from the sports genre, because there is going to be two big releases in the sports genre in the months of April and May. I am gonna talk about the one which is going to release earlier.
This film is called Draft Day.
Kevin Costner is back with another sports film, he shifts his focus from Baseball to American Football this time. It is about the struggle, Sonny Weaver, the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns does to acquire the number one draft pick for his team. Sonny appears to be kind of a maverick, who has his stubborn but productive ways with the team. The cast includes Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Tom Welling, Denis Leary and Frank Langella.
Jennifer Garner is perhaps Kevin's love interest. Denis Leary plays the role for the coach of the club and Frank is playing the role of Harvey Molina, who owns the team. There is some cool soundtrack, the music is composed by John Debney. The trailer looks neat and I have big hopes from this film. This film is directed by Ivan Reitman and is set to a release for April 2014.
Tomorrow, there will be another trailer preview for the bigger sports film, which I am most excited about.
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Five reasons that defines the greatness of Oscar Awards
All great films and great performances may not win an Academy Award but all Academy Awards is given to some great film and great performance only, so not winning an Oscar doesn't mean that film wasn't great, but winning an Oscar guarantees the fact that there was something very good about that film, it may be the costume designing or the music or any technical award.
Let's talk about how the Oscar Awards is conducted, considering which here are five reasons which defines the greatness of Oscar Awards over the awards we have here in India.
1. Best Dressed: Actors in the west take it rather seriously when they dress for an occasion as big as the Oscars. There is dress code and everybody follows it. This makes the whole place painted in black [as they usually wear Black Tuxedos] whereas in the Filmfare award function, people are dress up in their own choice of clothes and do not follow the dress code as usual. This makes them look weird collectively. Some of them are dressed in Tuxedos, some wear nice formal suits, some wear Blazers and some even come with a shirt and jeans so as to look casual but collectively they end up looking unprofessional.
2. An AV for every nominee: This is something I really respect Oscar Awards for, there is an AV for every Nominee for any award at the Academy, be it an award for Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration or Best Film Editing. Now this AV doesn't just show us a clip of the movie nominated but explains the whole process briefly with which the costumes were selected for a certain film or the way the set of a film was decorated. Sadly, here at filmfare, we don't even think of such an idea, as if its a waste of time learning about the hard work these talented people have given to a certain blockbuster film behind the scenes.
3. Every Winner gets to talk: This is an extension to the point I just mentioned above, it is as important as the AV. Oscar is one of the greatest things that can happen to a person associated with movies, so even a winner for Costume Designing or Film Editing or any other technical award for that matters, gets the podium and is allowed to express themselves on the greatest achievement of their lives, that is Oscars. Here at the filmfare, it is somewhat out of the question, only once in a while, we get to hear a 10 or may be 15 second speech for someone winning a "LESS IMPORTANT" Award. Its a shame that we treat the lesser known people in the crew of a film like this.
4. An Oscar is hard to get: Even for an actor who has done great work through out his career, it take decades to hold an Oscar that officially belongs to them. Popular Actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Samuel Jackson, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson and many more great actors have been doing remarkable work from last 20 to 30 years, but still hasn't got the Academy Award, this dent in their achievement chart makes them respect the competition they have in "Hollywood." Peter O'Toole had been one of the most influential actor for more than 40 or 50 years but never won an Oscar. This keeps the Actors starve for better performance with every new film, thus ultimately raising the bars of the whole film industry. Where as, here in India we shower them with Awards based on their popularity, SRK has no less than 14 filmfare, and Amitabh a little behind him, even that is okay, maybe their so called performances was better than others, but mostly they get awards for their popularity and not their performance [because their have been ignored performances by Irrfan, Manoj Bajpai etc]. But what I don't understand is the way our young actors are pampered with the BEST ACTOR DEBUT Category. This Category spoils the actors and these young actors stop working hard thereafter, as you can see that many of the people who won that award, usually didn't worked well later in their career.
5. Best Picture is the most prestigious Award: At a Bollywood film awards, the most anticipated thing is the Best Actor Award. There will be many questions and guesses leading to find out the opinion on who is it gonna be. Where as in the west, it is not who but which is it going to be, I mean, the film, that ultimate film which many hundreds of people collaborated to make it worth watching, a magnum opus, a masterpiece, whatever you want to say. After all, the hero of the story is not actually the hero of the film, its a collaborative process and it should be treated as the most prestigious Award, so the BEST PICTURE it is, the most anticipated thing.
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| The words in bold are the most important things at Oscars and Filmfare ------------------------- PS: Since Movie Geek's Blog is trying to determine the greatest movie ever made as voted by its readers, will you please take a minute to vote for your favorite movie(s) on the right side bar of this blog? |
Orphan [2009]: Disturbing yet Intelligent
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra
To begin with, Orphan did surprise me, I thought of it as another B-Grade thriller with an obvious revelation at the climax, but no, it is really worth your time and money, it is actually one of the good films made in 2009. Yes, it is.
Orphan tells the story of a married couple, who just had a stillborn baby, decides to adopt an intelligent 9 year old Esther to fill that vacant space, the stillborn baby could have filled but Esther is not only a bright child who can paint like a pro, play piano and do everything perfectly, there is something strange about this girl, something really frightening.
Orphan is disturbing and gruesome but still very intelligent. By the time you will figure out that this girl is no ordinary child but is someone who posses demonic spirits, you will be punched in the face with that genius revelation, that brilliant thing, you never thought of.
The couple; Kate and John, already had a son, Daniel and a daughter, Max. Esther bonds quickly with Max by using sign language as Max is deaf. Daniel is not most friendly though with her. But still Esther succeeds to manipulate each one of them but Kate. Kate could feel that Esther is not quite what she seems.
This film has an amazing script which is executed excellently. If you have had enough of bad films, in the name of horror, you should watch orphan. It is a clever film with some great acting performances by most of the cast, but one who stands out is Isabelle Fuhrman as Esther. Isabelle delivers a powerful performance and her work is beyond the question that whether a viewer likes the film or not, because even if someone finds the film a mediocre piece of work, nobody disliked the way she portrayed Esther.
Orphan didn’t win any award and yes it didn’t deserve as well. Horror or Thriller hardly wins Oscar Awards anyway. Nevertheless there were certainly a dozen or two better films made in 2009. As a bottomline, I would say Orphan is certainly one of the most underrated horror films in American Cinema.
Movie Geek’s Rating: ★★★½
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PS I love you [2007]: Romantic or Depressing or both..?
Cast: Gerard Butler, Hillary Swank, Harry Connick Jr.
Directed by: Richard LaGravenese
Today I am going to write about the 2007 Richard LaGravenese film P.S. I Love you based on the book of the same name by Cecelia Ahern. This story has a couple where the man expresses his love for his wife even after his death.
Time changes everything in a relationship, attitude towards life, priorities or even people involved in it, but one thing that sticks is Love. Love never change.
For the first 15 minutes, we see Holly [Hillary Swank] and Gerry [Gerard Butler] arguing over some silly issue, still loving each other passionately, before the end of the night. We see a 9 year old married couple, an optimistic Gerry and a restless yet loving Holly, for they are still not totally settled considering their financial stature.
The next scene, we find out that Gerry has died because of a brain tumor and a little funeral ceremony is going on, that’s when we realize this film is not about a whining wife and a playful husband, but something sad but more romantic than that.
The lead actors, Hillary Swank and Gerard Butler have done a fantastic job and looks totally in love with each other; I guess this was their only film together, so the casting was well improvised.
After Gerry dies, Holly receives letters from Gerry, which he scheduled in a way that it will reach Holly only when he is no more. Each letter asks Holly to do a certain thing, like celebrate her birthday, go to a karaoke, get dressed properly for a girls night out and a few more so that Holly could stop mourning for Gerry’s departure and move on.
Emotionally, it will make you feel sad but romantic; logically, the same set of events will make you feel depressed and may be weird about love. It depends on how you choose to address this story, using your heart or the brain.
My favorite part of the film is when Holly returns from Gerry’s funeral and make consecutive calls to their basic phone only to listen to Gerry's voice mails on the answering machine, meanwhile trying to get some sleep. You may wet your eyes there.
PS I love you has beautiful songs, the kind, you keep with you in your music collection. “I love you till the end” is perhaps the one I believe is the signature song of this film.
This film was way too long, they could have told the same story in an hour and 30 minutes. You "cannot" watch PS I Love You twice [not at least in a year], it lacks the charm we felt while watching "The Notebook" or "A Walk to Remember." Apart from that, it was a pretty decent film.
Some say, it’s a tearjerker film, others say, it’s a romantic comedy, I’d say it’s plain Romance between a woman and the memories she has of her deceased husband and everything that follows. You don’t have to feel sad for Gerry’s departure or have pity on Holly’s solitude. Just respecting the writer’s idea of portraying love will do.
Movie Geek's Ratings: ★★★½
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Sallie Gardner at a Gallop: first ever moving picture
Directed by: Eadweard Muybridge
This blog post talks about a significant film for a movie enthusiast and all those who likes to study cinema, it is often mentioned as the first silent film ever made, I have even read people mentioning "Sallie Gardner at a Gallop" as the first ever "Motion Picture".
This blog post talks about a significant film for a movie enthusiast and all those who likes to study cinema, it is often mentioned as the first silent film ever made, I have even read people mentioning "Sallie Gardner at a Gallop" as the first ever "Motion Picture".
There are 2 common reactions I have read about this short film; one simply questions the inclusion of this work in films because it is hardly even 1 minute and has no plot or something and the other talks about its significance in cinema which is followed by longer silent films with a plot and then into advanced form of films with a story and dialogues leading a way to full fledged technically sound films.
This is a work that includes 24 picture shots of a horse used in continuous succession to make it look like a moving picture, thus the name Motion Picture.
My WatchList for January 2014
With hours and hours of movie watching, another year came to an end. I hope you watched mostly good cinema last year.
I watched some of the greatest films in 2013 and studied a lot about cinema, film making, foreign cinema [non-English or Hindi], a couple of books on movies and everything that adds to the history of cinema.
In 2014, I am planning to watch no less than 400 films [new and re-watching and on TV], so apart from everything I catch on the TV [let's say 100 films], I have planned to watch 25 films a month otherwise, that is on my system or DVD.
So here goes my list for January 2014 excluding the ones I will catch on TV. This list contains 19 good to great English films and 6 well received Non-English films, which contains a Kannada, a Tamil, a Hindi, a Brazilian, a French and a Japanese Film.
1. Seven Samurai [Japanese]
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
3. It's a Wonderful Life
4. The Lord of Rings Trilogy
7. City of God [Brazilian]
8. Se7en
9. Silence of the Lambs
10. Caché [French]
11. Shame
12. Rush
13. Election
14. Manhunter
15. Sunshine
16. Half Nelson
17. The Road
18. Before the Devil Knows You are Dead
19. Soodhu Kavvum [Tamil]
20. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag [Hindi]
21. The Ghost Writer
22. The People Vs. Larry Flint
23. Lucia [Kannada Film]
24. Riley Rewind
25. The Bank Job
Some of these are films I have watched before and some of these are films I am gonna watch for the first time. So, this is it for the resolution, will watch lots of movie and will not waste a moment of my time doing worthless things when I am not working. The Movie Geek's Blog wish you a Happy New Year. Happy Movies. Happy Cinema.
This list is well represented on LetterBoxd: Have a look.
This list is well represented on LetterBoxd: Have a look.
-Amritt
Tag :
LetterBoxd,
Lists
Golden Globes 2014: Nominations, Reactions and Predictions
The nominations for Golden Globes 2014 has been revealed now and we have some interesting nominees this year. Some great performances have been left behind, which I will talk about later in this post, but first, lets find out who made it to the final list of nominees.
Best Motion Picture - Drama:
Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama
Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave
Idris Elba for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips
Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club
Robert Redford for All Is Lost
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama
Cate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Judi Dench for Philomena
Emma Thompson for Saving Mr. Banks
Kate Winslet for Labor Day
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Christian Bale for American Hustle
Bruce Dern for Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street
Oscar Isaac for Inside Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix for Her
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Amy Adams for American Hustle
Julie Delpy for Before Midnight
Greta Gerwig for Frances Ha
Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Enough Said
Meryl Streep for August: Osage County
Best Director - Motion Picture
Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity
Paul Greengrass for Captain Phillips
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave
David O. Russell for American Hustle
Alexander Payne for Nebraska
Best Screenplay - Motion Picture
12 Years a Slave: John Ridley
American Hustle: David O. Russell
Her: Spike Jonze
Nebraska: Alexander Payne
Philomena: Steve Coogan, Jeff Pope
The fact that Golden Globes give separate Best Pictures for Drama and Musical or Comedy often disturbs the movie enthusiast in me. I am a movie fanatic who believes that a good cinema is simply a good cinema irrespective of its genre. This ideology of separate Best Picture Awards questions the quality and effort with which a Musical or a Comedy film is made against a Drama or the other way around. As a viewer, I have never felt that a good Musical is less than a well made Drama in any circumstance, but since this is the way golden globes award is celebrated, there is no use debating about it.
For the Best Picture in the Drama category, there exists some well deserving films like 12 Years a Slave, Gravity and Rush, though they missed a couple of films that should have made to this list according to me. Films like Prisoners, The Place Beyond the Pines and Before Midnight are films which are appreciated by the masses and the critics as well, so their exclusion is quite disappointing in a way. Moreover if this category was bound to include only 5 or 6 films, I strongly believe Prisoners was a better film than Captain Phillips and it could have replaced it from the list of nominees.
For the Best Picture in the Musical or Comedy Category they must have selected the best films because I haven't seen more than half of those names and I can have no opinion about it, though I have watched a film called Five Dances a few days back and was completely in love with the film, I hope the other nominated ones are better.
No comments on the Acting awards, just remembering a few great performances that could not win a nominations. The most effective one among them is Hugh Jackman's performance as Keller Dover in Prisoners.
Movie Geek's Predictions:
Following the patterns Golden Globes has chosen cinemas for each of these awards in the last decade, I have a few guesses of my own. I have made some predictions and I believe many of my predictions will be correct if I have closely followed Golden Globes in the past. Here goes my list:
Best Picture [Drama]: Gravity
Best Picture [Musical or Comedy]: Inside Llewyn Davis
Best Actor [Drama]: Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips
Best Actor [Musical or Comedy]: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Wolf of Wall Street
Best Actress [Drama]: Sandra Bullock for Gravity
Best Actress [Musical or Comedy]: Amy Adams for American Hustle
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity
Best Screenplay: John Ridley for 12 Years a Slave.
Lets see if my predictions match with the actual winners of the Golden Globes 2014.
Do check the full list of golden globes 2014 nominations at IMDB.
-Amrit Rukhaiyaar
Bullett Raja [2013]: Tigmanshu Dhulia compromising on quality to make it more appealing to the masses
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Jimmy Shergill, Sonakshi Sinha, Vidyut Jamwal.
Directed by: Tigmanshu Dhulia
Also featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
So, I watched Bullet Raja last night and I am hugely disappointed now. No it is not as rubbish as "Dabangg", "Rowdy Rathore" or "Singham" any other shit they are making in the name of action films these days.
Directed by: Tigmanshu Dhulia
Also featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
So, I watched Bullet Raja last night and I am hugely disappointed now. No it is not as rubbish as "Dabangg", "Rowdy Rathore" or "Singham" any other shit they are making in the name of action films these days.
I am disappointed because Tigmanshu Dhulia made this film, if this was made by Prabhudeva, I would have said that he improved a lot as a Director, but "Bullett Raja" is below standards for someone like Tigmanshu.
It was clearly visible that Tigmanshu was more interested in the commerce of the film and not on how the film is made. When we talk of Tigmanshu, we can't resist thinking about "Haasil", "Saheb Biwi aur Gangster" and "Paan Singh Tomar"; such is the standards he has set for himself in the Hindi Film Industry.
This is the story of 2 extrovert young men [Jimmy Shergill and Saif Ali Khan] from the state of Uttar Pradesh, who despite of all their resistance fall into the dirty politics of the state, eventually turning them into local gangsters. With time, they evolve to become two of the most feared gangsters of the state. But the execution was just not good enough and it was like they actually wanted to be a gangster only.
So, what could have been a really good gangster lord cinema, took a romantic turn and the film went to self destruction. There could be a romance angle included in an intelligent way but it appeared like they forced a heroine in between the plot only because a hero needs one.
Tigmanshu often cast the same actors in more than one of his films, and Jimmy Shergill has been working with him since Haasil in 2003. Jimmy was good but not as great as he was in Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster, he has great acting skills and it was disappointing seeing him do an alright job.
Sonakshi Sinha did what she has been doing since Dabangg, she becomes a part of every plot where there is no use of a heroine and when they actually need an actress, why whould someone cast Sonakshi, anyway ?
Vidyut Jamwal had a little role though it was an important character in the film. He has shown more expressions than he generally shows in any of his films, but one who really did something great in this otherwise mediocre film was Saif Ali Khan, Saif was really good as a middle class man and immersed himself deep into the skin of the character of a local UP guy. The fact that he has done great acting playing a metro-sexual in cinemas like "Love Aaj Kal" and "Cocktail" fascinates me even more when I see him playing a small town guy. He did a great job in "Omkara" as well, and this was another instance when he shown how versatile an actor he is.
This film has a good story line but is hugely commercial that makes it a mediocre cinema. Tigmanshu Dhulia fans are going to be disappointed.
Movie Geek's Ratings: ★★
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Movie Geek's Ratings: ★★
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PS: Since Movie Geek's Blog is trying to determine the greatest movie ever made as voted by its readers, will you please take a minute to vote for your favorite movie(s) on the right side bar of this blog?
American Pie [1999]: Not just another Sex Comedy
Cast: Jason Biggs, Alyson Hannigan, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Seann William Scott, Eugene Levy.
Directed by: Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Also featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
American Pie was released in 1999, the year when some of my most favorite films released, which includes American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, The Green Mile, Sixth Sense, Cruel Intentions, Magnolia and of course American Pie. In fact even Wikipedia believes that 1999 was the year that changed movies.
Directed by: Paul Weitz, Chris Weitz
Also featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
American Pie was released in 1999, the year when some of my most favorite films released, which includes American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, The Green Mile, Sixth Sense, Cruel Intentions, Magnolia and of course American Pie. In fact even Wikipedia believes that 1999 was the year that changed movies.
This film has a pact, some friendship, love maybe, some hilariously awkward father-son encounters and Steve Stifler. Now if you haven't seen this film, watch it for the stifmeister. American Pie is about the gang of 4 pretty loser high school buddies, losers in matters that include woman/girl, otherwise they were pretty cool.
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| When I will write about the most loved characters in Cinema, Stifler will certainly make the top 5. |
The directors Paul and Chris Weitz made sure that every character is equally hilarious and important in their own way. So if you ask people who their favorite American Pie character was, they will all come up with different answers. Jim was the lead according to many, while many believes that American Pie is all about Stifler.
This is a funny film which is immensely enjoyable and have some really hilarious dialogues by everyone. Most high school sex comedies ends up being the pursuit of the most obvious element that is getting laid but this one is different.
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| Noah Levenstein and Jim Levenstein, having the "hilariously awkward father-son" moment. |
I'd say even if you get offended by Sex Comedies, I will still recommend this film to you because there is much more to American Pie than being just another Sex comedy. Try to ignore the offensive parts and understand the sarcasm, it has some really genius humor there. It is a gem in the comedy genre of Cinema.
You gotta taste the first piece of this Pie.
You gotta taste the first piece of this Pie.
Movie Geek's Rating: ★★★★
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