Lone Survivor - Engaging at the beginning but fizzles out.

One of the main reasons to watch this movie today was Mark Whalberg. Having amazed the world with a terrific performance in The Shooter, one cannot be mistaken for expecting the same from MW in this similar Sniper-Lead movie. However, those who expected a Shooter like movie will feel disappointed.

Basically the movie is about a team of 4 Seals who are on a mission to take down a head of Taliban who has recently killed as many as 20 Seals and the Bargam US Base decides enough is enough and sends these 4 men to basically avenge their mates' deaths and of course eliminate a terror threat. But during a hideout they encounter a goat herd shepherded by the villagers, who are inbred with hate for Americans. The seals catches them, only to release them later on rules and human grounds and try to scale the highest peak and escape before getting caught. Fate thinks otherwise as those who are released blows the whistle about the Seals trekking in the hills. They are surrounded within half way by terrorists who begin ambush on the 4 seals. Movie goes into great details and explores the nook and corner of the brutal attack of the terrorists on the seals and their retaliation.

Based on true events and the book on the same title, The Lone Survivor is not a recount of the struggle to escape (say, Rescue Dawn) nor a heroic and single handed survival and escapist stint of a prisoner of war. Instead, the movie takes an unsung path of a mission gone haywire due to unexpected turn of events for the 4 Seals. The aghast, so near yet so far feeling of the seals waiting for rescue, only to see their own helicopter shot down, that follows are to be seen to be believed.

Technically the film is flawless. Superb cinematography capturing every sniper shot in great details, the aerial views, the slips down the mountains to name a few and The background and sound design, all three that will make you feel a part of the movie, that you are actually there with these soldiers, fighting.

Having said all that, the movie does drag a bit. The strength of the movie is its weakness too. It goes into details so specific that at times you feels the pace could have been much better.

On the whole The Lone Survivor is salute to all the Navy Seals, the Marines who risked their lives in the operation red wing. It is stunning and engaging mostly but fizzles out in the middle.

YUTHAM SEI – Ode to Movie Making!!

So here's Gowtham back with a review of Yutham Sei.. Welcome back mate..:)

What do you call a movie that is more than breath taking?? I haven’t seen one until I saw this movie!! A murder mystery, thriller, non psychotic killing spree, evidence based medical explanation for all the on screen happenings- and all this relating to a social element. Mysskin (the director) just goes “OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST” to showcase that his “CLOCKWORK ORANGE” of a movie has been “INCEPTION”ally envisioned in such a way that “THE PRESTIGE” of his entire casting is based on the “TRUE GRIT” of all “THE FIGHTERS” and “DARK KNIGHTS” irrespective of them being “GOOD, BAD OR UGLY”!! Mysskin is “GODFATHER”!!

Movie starts off with very crisp editing sequences. Watch every scene carefully. Listen to every character’s on screen name carefully. Movie starts off with some sequences which are meant to be disturbing but this guy just delivers the platter and smashes it on your face and you are made to accept it. 2 murders take place one after another. The case is handed over to CBCID and it falls into the hands of Cheran who is made to accept the case in spite of his very recent personal loss. What is his personal loss?? (Hold that question right there.) The case unfolds slowly and steadily. At one stage this murder case can proceed only when another case is re-opened. Exactly at the interval point you are made aware of what is happening on screen to a decent extent. What is the inexplicable link between Cheran’s personal loss and the murder case that he has taken up?? Mysskin does not waste a single split second to say something else than what he wants to say. This is a no non-sense film. Soon after interval, the story is very cleverly unscrewed and that bolts us with a jolt. You HAVE to like it, for this technique of story telling is uniquely universal. He does not say anything but he says everything!! (Pls do not think I’m over awed or going over the board or I’m acting like a crack pot. I’m just so on a high after seeing such a movie). He very clearly portrays what Y.GEE Mahendiran does and why he does so. In fact Mysskin forces you to form the entire storyline on your own. He just shows you the conversations. There are very few movie makers who consider the audience as intelligent individuals!! And Mysskin treats you as one!! Thanks to him!! The entire mystery of all the murders, and the mystery revolving around Cheran’s personal loss, is solved 20 mins before the climax. Even after the mystery is solved you’ll want to know what happens next. Now comes the most intelligent part of his direction!! Mysskin just makes you to sit tight through the last twenty mins too!! What a befitting final sequence of shots!! Excellent closing scenes to Y.GEE, his family and the protagonists!! Many thrillers and mystery subjects have been made in tamil and Indian cinema. But one such phenomenon happens very rarely!!

The casting crew – perfect!! Cheran pulls off a Jason Bourne stuff with immeasurable ease and grace. His supporting group has their roles to play and they play it with perfection. Dialogues are razor sharp. BGM – blows your mind and racks your brain, silently and slowly. I really haven’t seen such camera angles in any motion picture. I ain’t saying this is the best. All I’m saying is that, it is one of a kind and is really innovative. A special mention has to be made about the person handling the scissors. Picture perfect, clean cuts are made so that editing lends beauty to the movie making. Kudos to the editor!!

You hear only what the director wants you to hear. You watch only what the director wants you to watch. And sometimes you would really want to know what happened in the end of a particular shot. And Mysskin just cuts it at the penultimate step and delivers the ultimatum with such a silent thrill that it either makes your heart or breaks it completely. Lot of murders happen on screen and none is shown to us and yet the images are so violent!! It is not necessary to show knife piercing the guts in order to show us a brutal killing. A stronger aversion to blood and a deeper impact of a killing can be left on the audience even without showing them directly. This is what Mysskin does to us. When is the last time you saw a movie and felt like really solving the puzzle??

Movies based on anti-social elements need not be high budget ones, and it is absolutely not needed to have all commercial elements, it just needs to have an intelligent captain with a really willing & talented crew & a small ship with basic amenities – it will sail very smoothly!! Where was Mysskin before CHITHIRAM PAESUTHADI??

4.25/5.0!!

Will come back soon with my take on road to the Oscars!!

Road to the Oscars: My Picks

Right on time for the Academy Awards. With 3 more weeks to go for the Oscars, I thought I could share my experience of watching the nominated movies.

Anyways, 127 Hours, True Grit and Black Swan are superior contenders for the best picture award. Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) for me is the winner for best director, though I'd have voted for Christopher Nolan for Inception (had he been nominated). Best actor and actress awards can be given blindfolded to Colin Firth (The King's Speech) and Natalie Portman (Black Swan). So will Christian Bale, his first Oscar (supporting actor, The Fighter). Nolan deserves his first Oscar for Screenplay (Inception). Best Anime, Toy Story 3. Alice in Wonderland was mind blowing in Costume and Art Direction. So Oscars in those fields for that.

Its really difficult to pick the best in the music department, Rahman, Powell, Zimmer have all taken Music to different league in 127 Hours, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, respectively. But best song for me has one clear winner, 127 Hours: Rahman, Armstrong and Dido for that amazing "If I Rise". The song has inspired me so much. Inception should get the Oscar for visual effects, but Harry Potter can give serious competition. 127 Hours, The Social Network and Black Swan were all scissored well. So best editing can go to any of these three.

I could see only these fields through my eyes. Still few more areas left, about which I don't know anything. So I have not talked about them. The Social Network swept off other awards, but it will be interesting to see whether it can get the same recognition at the Oscars.

Hope my picks prove right..!!

Inception - Surreal Awesomeness

On my way home after the watching Inception, I was wondering "If I am going to write a review of this movie, how would i start, structure and end it?" Such was the script, story and the context. Not once did I want to take my eyes off the screen or start to imagine how hot Marion Cortillard (Mal) is for I knew deep down that if ever Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight) is going to Write, Direct and Produce a movie, he wouldn't let the audience want to take their mind off from the screen. Inception, grips you from start to finish. It is not a run of the mill futuristic flick, with slam-bang action, bazookas vomiting bullets and the tallest skyscrapers you can ever imagine.

Inception is surreality surrounded by awesomeness.

The mind is the scene of the crime. The dream is real. An idea can change the whole context of your life. These three lines get repeated throughout the movie and not once do you feel, they are repeated. Nolan proves once again why he is THE BEST. Toying with timeline throughout the movie, Nolan weaves the dream around us through perfectly casted characters in Di Caprio (Cobb), Ellen Page (Adrianne) and Lewitt (Arthur).

The script, cannot be termed as fantasy. It really is what we experience in everyday life. Nolan has tweaked a so familiar concept into something monumental. The concept is dream.

Nolan plays with our ability to catch what he wants to tell. Through Cobb, Nolan tells us how easy it is to invade into other people's dreams to steal their idea, or much better, to plant one!! Trapped in the Corporate Wars, Di Caprio as Cobb, plays the perfect Con who can pull off any heist if he has access to a human dream. Di Cap has played the most difficult role of the movie with such determination, that you can feel him taking you through this uniquely scripted masterpiece.

Music by Hans Zimmer (Sherlock Holmes, Pirates of the Caribbean) strikes the right chord. Moving with the pace of the story, Mr.Zim orchestrates majestic and mystifying tunes that add to the surrealism!! His usual fast violin and strings play with your ears and makes you focus more into the movie

The cinematography and the CGI makes your jaw drop, especially in the scenes where a full speed train crashes into road, Scene where Adrianne takes Cobb through pedestrians of Paris and the scenes in climax where they are in the sleep and third level of their dream. These can only happen in a Chris Nolan movie. It is indeed time to call this UK born director, the greatest ever. Only Nolan can think and create something like this. Something that can make you feel your dream is REAL!! Finally, in the land of movies, Inception will be a religion.

No wonder it is rated 9.1/10 in IMDB.

Up-Soars to new height

Thanks to my college mate Vinod i got the opportunity to update my blog. This review belongs to him. Here it goes...

Forget the logic, sit back and enjoy the adventurous magic. An adventurous, heartfelt movie from PIXAR. A perfect mixture of fun, comedy, adventure and action. With mesmerizing music that wins the Oscar for Original Score 2010.

Starts in Black n’ White age where Carl Fredricksen who was a kid then is amazed, seeing the adventurer ‘Charles Munts’ on screen. Charles was alleged for forging the skeleton of the beast of Paradise Falls. Being accused, he leaves to South America to bring back the best alive.

On his way back home Carl meets Ellie, who is yet another admirer of Charles Munts. They (actually Ellie alone) talk, talk and talk and eventually get married as they grew up. Ellie wants to go to Paradise falls as the adventurer.

Carl and Ellie lived a peaceful life. This part of the movie goes in silence with mild background music and not a single word out of their mouth.

Ellie dies when Carl was back with their ticket for South America. Even then Carl talks to her as if she is alive. Carl was sentenced by the court to move to the house of retired men after injuring a workman, even when it was an accident.

Get your stuff packed. We are about to fly!!!

As two men came to take Carl away, Carl gets back into his house for one last time.

With the slipping of a huge cover, rises myriad colored Helium gas filled balloons, lifting the whole house along with. With the jaws falling open everyone looked at the flying house with amazement. As the house passes by a room of a little girl, the colors fell on the wall of her room excite anyone.

Carl flies all alone to the Paradise falls as Ellie wished to. Suddenly he hears a knock at the door. And he couldn’t believe to see Russel, a chubby little boy who needs to assist an elderly to get his last badge to become a senior explorer, there. With no other go finally Carl lets him enter his house.

After the storm and devilish rain they reach an unknown place.

And there, the majestic view!

As the clouds disperse slowly there appears the paradise falls with all its beauty. Carl sees they got stuck exactly at the opposite end of it. Neither Russel nor Carl could climb up to the house after they fell down from it. So they decided to walk the distance by foot, pulling along the floating house with them.

In the jungle, Russel finds ‘Kevin’ (that is how he calls the monster bird which likes chocolates and himself). A dog with electronic collar that makes it speak was after the bird to capture it for their master. Carl tries to get rid of the bird and the dog, but fails. Soon they were arrested by few more dogs and taken to their master. Helpless Carl has to go with the dogs the opposite direction to paradise falls.

As they arrive Carl gets surprised by seeing Charles Munts whom he and Ellie admired all their life. Carl gets to know that Charles is after Kevin, so he decides to save her. And there the clash of the oldies begins. With the help one dog, who wanted Carl to be his master, they escaped from that place. But soon they were hunted down with Charles’ tracking system.

Charles puts Carl’s house on fire and takes away Kevin. When Russel decides to leave Carl behind and goes after Charles to rescue the bird, Carl feels guilty for not saving the bird. So he flies back, after dropping Ellie’s Chair beside his, on Paradise falls.

The fight between Carl and Charles looks real, just the way if two old people have to fight. The ‘rising of the hand to punch and getting frozen in the middle way’ are funny and brilliant.

Being rescued, Kevin joins his family happily as there won’t be any more Charles Munts’ dogs chasing her again.

Russel receives his ‘Assisting the elderly’ badge from Carl with all the Charles’ dogs sitting at the back seats and applauding.

*** THE END ***

Full of fun that brings out laughter for sure, loads of love and adventures make UP a worthwhile watching entertainer.

4.5/5

The Green Mile – Worth the 3 hrs Spent travelling along this mile!!

Have you ever seen a movie which runs for as long as three hours?? And if at all you’ve seen one, did you feel that some scenes could’ve been cut down?? Well, with this movie one will never feel so!! We haven’t seen a movie so fascinating with just ten characters in it!!
The movie actually takes place during the period of recession/ regression in the U.S. Those who are being sentenced to death are sent to the Green Mile. The ‘E’ block is where they are kept and it is run by Tom Hanks and his colleagues. The floors of the Mile are fluorescent green in colour, and the moment you notice it you realize that you are in for a master piece!! The story is quite simple and yet complicated to explain. (We do know that this is a clichéd sentence but couldn’t restrain ourselves from using it, simply because the movie is really so!!)
The inmates of the Mile are a faith Healer, a psychotic child molester and two other people who are about to be hanged!! The other two guys to be hanged are portrayed well and the director creates sympathy in the viewers mind for them!! The entire movie is about the huge faith healer and the reason why he’s in jail. His story is well connected and well enacted out. Macdonald’s role is a surprise as the story moves on. One of Tom’s juniors' is an arrogant miscreant who learns his lesson. Tom’s boss and his family also come in and go. The most joyous and enthralling character in this movie is a sneaky little RAT!! All the others express themselves by speaking and acting, whereas this one just says nothing but plays a role of his life. The faith healer- well your heart will feel heavy for him, at the end!! The rat and Tom go on to become best buddies!! They kinda live forever.

After reading this you might even think that what’s there in this movie to be shot for 3 hours?? But then please do watch it for yourself and find the answer. Never ever has a movie, so lengthy, travels at such a pace. You will never feel that it really took 3 hours for watching this. Can’t call it a master piece, simply because this is not about art or an aspect of direction. This movie in plain words is all about life and the bad things in it happening for the good ones on earth. This movie is all about what you actually believe in and what you actually want to believe in!! Appearances do mislead us!! What we tend to presume is not what actually happens!!
This is based on Stephen King’s book. His other books that have been made as motion pictures are the Shawshank Redemption and The Shining.
We haven’t said anything about the artists at all, because it is the characters which you can remember after watching this epic tale of life and death!! Sit back and watch yourself the two extremities of living beings on earth- Life & Death!!
And please don’t think that this movie or we are preaching about life. Neither of us are!!
In a line, Green Mile is a piece of on screen Literature work well crafted and well served!!
Scores are- 4/5
Story and screenplay-1. Cinematography & art-1. Characters-1. Direction-1.

The Negotiator- Terms Well Served

By Gowtham and Arunan

Hey there!! Glad to be back!!!It’s been a while since we wrote a review. Well, exams and other boring stuff gobbled up sometime. It is not that we dint watch any movie (we can never stop doing it), we just couldn’t muster up enough time to write some. Sorry for keeping you all in the dark so far. And so now, Lights on!!

We saw this movie without any expectation. You know..the lazy weekend afternoon movie..But just for the fact that Kevin Spacey was involved in the movie we showed some interest for watching it. The screenplay, dialogues, Direction and the way the characters performed in this movie left us dumbstruck!! We were like “How did we miss this movie for so long!!”

Well the movie starts off with a bang!! Samuel.L.jackson is portrayed as the protagonist and he deals a hostage situation in his own ways of doing things. The next 5 mins we are just given a sneak preview of his family and friends. And then people hold your breath because this is an excellent roller coaster ride on which you are on board!! The movie moves at a frenetic pace!! Sam’s friend is murdered in front of his own eyes. And the reason is because Sam’s friend knows certain details regarding a conspiracy. And then as usual it is as usual the protagonist who gets caught and is produced in the court. And now Sam himself takes an office bearer along with his assistants as hostage!! And then some scenes of wit and excitement ensue. In comes Kevin Spacey and the movie takes a turn. Kevin is handled the task of negotiating with Sam and bringing back the hostages. Now, how does the latter convince the former?? How does the former convince the latter that he is really not the one to be punished?? Who killed Sam’s best buddy? Who are the one’s involved in the conspiracy? How does Sam expose the conspiracy? These are some of the questions which will be answered in style as the movie unfolds itself.

The dialogues are etched out neatly and sweetly. Sam-Kevin duel is one of the best ones to be seen!! Every time one scores over the other. Who wins at the end- is the real surprise!! Thrillers like this have to be crisply edited. And that is achieved perfectly in this movie. You can never complain of a single moment when the screen story lags. Credit goes to the editor. The screenplay is original and authentic. Casting is perfect. Bringing out thoughts on the screen is very difficult and the director somehow nails it with ease and grace!! It is not that everything is so good in this movie; it’s just that things are definitely not at all bad in this one!!

On the flip side, as Danny Roman, the ease with which Jackson moves through and gets the people hostage is far fetched. The typical clichéd climax with the culprit being outwitted is a let down to an engrossing thriller like this one. Still the excellent duos, Jackson and Spacey steal the show in this work.

Sometimes movies made in Hollywood are so silent with the promotion but then they are the ones that leave the audience awestruck. This is one such movie according to us. We, for sure, liked it.

Rating : 3.75/5!!

Casting-1. On screen performance-1. Dialogues-1. Technical aspects- 0.75.