July26
Sensational, grandly sinister and not for the kids, “The Dark Knight” elevates pulp to a very high level. Heath Ledger’s Joker takes it higher still, and the 28-year-old actor’s death earlier this year of an accidental overdose lends the film an air of a funeral and a rollicking, out-of-control wake mixed together. In “The Dark Knight,” Ledger makes all other comic book screen villains look like Baby Huey. Like Shakespeare’s Iago or Richard III, like Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter or Javier Bardem’s implacable murderer in “No Country For Old Men,” this is no Method maniac, asking or telling anyone about his character’s motivation. At one point Ledger throws up his hands and says, agitatedly, that it’s a waste of time looking for a rationale behind the Joker’s smeary psycho-harlequin makeup.
“I’m a dog chasing cars,” he says. “I wouldn’t know what to do with one of them if I caught it.”
Director and co-writer Christopher Nolan, who fashioned the screenplay with his brother, Jonathan, has created the most ambitious and sleekly beautiful of all the superhero screen outings. A handful of others—” Superman II” and ” Spider-Man 2″ come to mind—may have fewer loose ends and a more exhilarating spirit. They’re certainly shorter; this one is 152 minutes. But “The Dark Knight,” which improves upon the solemn authority Nolan and Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne brought to ” Batman Begins,” has an atmospheric shimmer all its own. Its unsung hero is cinematographer Wally Pfister, who makes every interior and exterior a thing of burnished, menacing beauty. Shot largely in Chicago at night, greatly aided by production designer Nathan Crowley, this is the most nocturnally insinuating entertainment since Michael Mann’s “Collateral.”
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June12
Review for the other movie which I watched today in office. Still I have 2 more hours to stay in office. I am planning to watch another one. Maybe I could post a review for that too. Cheers!
Jackie Chan and Jet Li join forces on-screen for the first time in this lavish action movie.
Jackie Chan has said for more than 10 years that he’s wanted to work with his friend Jet Li, but plenty of fans probably figured they’d have long white beards — or long white hair — before the two action stars finally got together. With “The Forbidden Kingdom,” it’s finally happened. In this adventure-fantasy — and love letter to the conventions of martial-arts movies — Chan and Li each have dual roles: Chan plays an elderly Bostonian shopkeeper and a “drunken master” for whom wine is an elixir of strength. Li plays a monk well-versed in the martial arts and, even more magnificently, appears as the wiry, mischievous Monkey King, a mythical Chinese figure with the ability to transform himself into 72 different animals or objects. The bad news about “The Forbidden Kingdom” is that the picture built around these two stars — it’s directed by Rob Minkoff, who made the wonderful “Stuart Little” movies, as well as “The Lion King” — isn’t quite worthy of their skill and charm, and the plot is far more convoluted than it needs to be. The good news is that the picture is so good-natured, it’s easy enough to disregard many of its flaws. “The Forbidden Kingdom” is lavish in its approach — it attempts some rather extravagant battle scenes — yet it still seems modest in its goals: It’s more interested in being a Saturday-afternoon entertainment than a blockbuster.
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June12
Still Dozing in office as not much work today. Downloaded few movies today.. one being 88 minutes and the other being “The Forbidden Kingdom”. Some review for the movie… In this post review for “88 minutes”.
Al Pacino tries hard to make this squirrelly thriller worth your time. Above is the Movie trailer
Director: Jon Avnet
Screenwriter: Gary Scott Thompson
Starring: Al Pacino, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Amy Brenneman, Deborah Kara Unger, Benjamin McKenzie, Neal McDonough
The only reason to see an Al Pacino movie these days is Al Pacino. And maybe that’s not even a good enough reason. In Jon Avnet’s listless, squirrelly and ultimately nonsensical thriller “88 Minutes” Pacino plays Jack Gramm, a star forensic psychiatrist and professor responsible for sending a man whom he believes to be a serial killer, John Forster (Neal McDonough), to the electric chair. On the day the sicko is scheduled to die, Gramm receives a mysterious call on his cellphone: He has 88 minutes to live. But trust me, it feels more like around 236.
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June6
Paramount Pictures
Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
Steven Spielberg’s beloved adventure series has built its own Temple of Hype — but the latest installment manages to surprise and delight.
A few months back, just before the release of Chak De India,” I happened to be standing near a poster for the movie at PVR Bangalore. A young man, who looked to be in his 20s, walked up and, after spending a few seconds surveying the image of hockey playing girls in their quaint get-ups — like hockey players from another world — said to his girlfriend, a little wistfully, “I don’t know why, but I want to see this.”
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June6
Ram Gopal Verma’s “Sarkar Raj”, which brings together Bollywood’s first family in a movie for the first time, will hit theatres across the country on Friday.
“Sarkar Raj”, a sequel to the hit “Sarkar”, marks Amitabh’s first venture with Ram Gopal Verma after their box office disaster “Aag”.
The movie, seen by many as being inspired by the life of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray, also features Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai together for the first time post marriage.
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