Tiny Little Fractures

In an attempt to spend a weekend doing truly nothing I think I succeeded reasonably well. I did manage to get my car serviced and…well…that was about it in terms of productiveness. In order to spend the rest of the blissful two days of doing nothing I watched movies back to back. Here’s a breakdown:

Fearless – Jet Li’s last epic martial art, whatever the hell that means. It was quite entertaining and I enjoy martial arts epics just as much as the next person. It was quite well done, the action was lavish and actually made me miss my martial arts days a bit…oh well…there simply isn’t any time anymore.

Passage to India – This movie had Alec Guinness (err…I guess that’s Sir Alec) as an Indian professor, some other chap as a bloody annoyingly subservient Indian and, well a bunch of horrendously snooty English twats. I’m not sure what the whole plot was about, something about a mistaken case of rape, etc, etc. I was a bit disappointed by David Lean’s film (he directed Bridge over the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia) mainly because it didn’t seem to have any point. Oh well…

Equilibrium – P’s recommendation was an absolute trip. Quality matrix like fight scenes, Christian Bale putting in a stellar performance and for some reason Emily Watson’s magnetic eyes made for a very enjoyable watch.

Eragon – hmm, now I’m a big fantasy addict both reading and watching. This was the first time though that I watched a fantasy movie without reading the book first. The technical stuff was amazing, but a dragon with Rachel Weisz’s voice? Eh…Also the movie seemed to lack any substance, despite Sienna Guillory looking, well looking absolutely fabulous. These elvish genes I tell you, if I didn’t like Sri Lankan girls so much I would definitely go for an elf (well maybe after Persian).

Last King of Scotland – Wow! Just wow! Along the lines of Hotel Rwanda it was a brilliant movie! Just don’t eat a buryiani while watching it, as I discovered much to my dismay. It brought back vague memories of a book I had read a long time ago about the craziness that was Idi Amin and boy was he crazy. I highly recommend the movie as a watch. Oh yeah and Kerry Washington is all kinds of hotness (well when she’s in one piece anyways).

When Harry Met Sally – ok, ok I know…it’s a chick flick, but I like it! For one thing Meg Ryan is very,very cute (anybody see a common thread in these bite sized reviews?). And I really, really needed a funny, cute movie to watch after the Last King. You know, just to cheer myself up.

And that was it, a random series of movie reviews. And it’s back to work tomorrow…sob…

I hate going to the cinema by myself, in fact I hate it so much I’ve never done it. Well there was this one time when I wanted to see Return of the King for the uhh…conveniently forget number…time, but I didn’t have a choice because everyone else had seen it and no one wanted to accompany me because I have a tendency to get involved in the movie a ‘bit’ much, along the lines of cheering on the Elves and entreating them to “cut off that Orcs’s head” and ‘watch out behind them!” But watching a movie alone has always seemed to me the preserve of old pervs checking out some mediocre soft porn movie and wanking off furtively in the back row since they are probably unaware of how to use a computer or have access to a decent internet connection.

Despite my reservations I went to see The Namesake today alone. The sibling refused to accompany me begging off on the grounds of college and all the mates (well all two of them) were at work, it being a working day. The Schizo Shitzu looked at me with a look of benign puzzlement when I checked with him and then went back to sniffing his arse. So off I hopped by my lonesome to the only cinema within a 100 miles that was showing the film. And what a cinema it was, one film showing, one person playing the multi-faceted role of box office person, ticket checker, door opener, etc. and a rather bizarre spectacle of a chap in a posh suit behind the candy counter. Odd I say, very odd…but I got myself some Reeses Pieces and settled down to watch.

Now I like Mira Nair, simply based on the fact that Monsoon Wedding is one of my favourite movies. I must say she didn’t disappoint. Initially I was a bit meh, the acting seemed a tad wooden and the plotline rushed. But towards the middle, boy oh boy did it get good. I reckon it stood up pretty well to the book, which I read last year and there was so much I recognized in the movie. Max’s self-centeredness when confronted with grief in a context she couldn’t understand, the father’s inability to express himself, Gogol’s initial rejection of his cultural background, the fact that just because the girl is Bengali (insert Sinhala/Buddhist or whatever cultural background you may be, even marginally) DOES not mean it will work out and the coming to terms that Gogol and Ashima come to.

Tabu, despite having a silly name I for some reason associate with something out of the seamier depths of the Kama Sutra, was awesome as was Kal Penn and Irfan Kahn. The latter was very good in an understated way, actually so understated that initially it came across as a bit wooden. The chemistry between Irfan and Tabu was actually pretty good in a reserved, South Asian manner (big up to arranged marriages, if I can score a girl like that!). And Tabu has the most expressive eyes I’ve seen since Nandita Das, some of those looks…whoo…what a guy would not do for a girl to look at them like that (think wrestling great whites, talking sense into George Bush kind of acts of bravery)! Kal Penn was good as well, he did sort of have his moments of awkwardness and there was only one actress I didn’t like and that was Zuleikha Robinson, to me she was just not convincing for some reason.

The Namesake is going to take its place alongside Monsoon Wedding as one of my more favourite movies, movies that I can instantly relate to and sort of experience in an ‘outside looking in’ manner. I found out later that Jhumpa Lahiri was actually in the movie and was a bit crushed to realize I had missed her. Cos she’s quite the bird.

Yes I know its an old movie (relatively) but then I’m not that cool. And yes its been nominated for Academy Awards and all that trollop but here are my rather simple observations on watching what was indubitably an awesome film.

1.  Do not under any circumstances give your kid a gun, especially a high powered rifle. I don’t care how many jackals you have wandering around your backyard, kids wil be kids and wilk take a pot at some American tourist or some such. This will not end well, in fact you’ll be lucky if you don’t end up with a Apache chopper up your arse instead of a Moroccan bullet in the back.

2.  Wear a bullet proof vest when traveling in Morocco.

3.  Mexican people know how to party but don’t seem to drink as much tequila as one would expect, in fact I seem to drink more when I’m partying.

4.  Border guards, immigration officials are cunts. Actually I already knew this having experienced in full living colour at the French embassy in LA, resulting in my boycotting France for the next ten years.

5.  Again this like the gun point may seem like an obvious point but don’t under any circumstances get into a car with a drunk driver, unless said drunk driver is Bounty, P,  R or Chinky Pinky. But especially not with a drunk Mexican when one has to cross the American border, come on…that’s just asking for trouble.

6.  Morocco only seems to have one ambulance.

7.  Fat, white Brits who can’t seem to give up their colonial hangovers should get a punch in the snoot.

8.  The desert’s damn hot and red is not a becoming colour to wear in it.

9.  Your best friend hooking up with someone you fancy is never a good thing.

10. Japanese girls need to learn about trimmers and apparently don’t wear panties very often

11. Aforementioned Japanese girls and guys seem to have some rather odd mating rituals involving multi-coloured drugs, cheap whiskey in ridiculously small amounts and water fountains.

12. Japanese clubs seem to have as bad music as Sri Lankan clubs, though better light effects. I reckon this combined with some elements of numbers 10 and 11 might make a visit worthwile.

13. Being deaf would suck…and this to me is the most profound thing I learnt from Babel.

If you do want a more profound treatment about the movie check the original link, or skiddadle your mouse here. Me, I loved the movie, composition, colours, acting…all bloody marvelous. And of course it did feature a Japanese girl in a plaid skirt without knickers, bloody marvelous, I’ll say again.

My second post in response to being tagged, thanks to the Canadian wanderer (I think that’s a fairly close approximation of to rastiadu karaya right?). So here goes for an expose of my rather poor taste in movies. Oh yeah can someone please explain to me what a meme is?
 

1. Popcorn or Candy
- Candy every time, bags and bags of M&Ms.

2. Name a movie you’ve been meaning to see forever
- Willow, yeah you heard me, Willow. Put this down to playing the game as a kid on my Nintendo back in the day and an unhealthy obsession with fantasy based movies, games and books.

3. You are given the power to recall one Oscar: who loses theirs and to whom
- I don’t really follow the Oscars but….I would probably take the Best Actor and Best Movie Oscars from Tom Hanks and Forrest Gump and give it to Morgan Freeman and Shawshank Redemption.

4. Steal one costume from a movie for your wardrobe. Which will it be?
- Costume? What about what some of the outfits from Lock, Stock, Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, or maybe even Layer Cake…would those funky, slick outfits fit the bill?

5. Invite 5 movie people over for dinner, who are they? What would you feed them?

- Morgan Freeman (Shawshank Redemption is one of my favourite movies)
- Nandita Das (stole this one off you Rastiadu!)
- Edward Norton – absolutely brilliant actor
- Natalie Portman (hotness, and more hotness)
-Jet Li (ask for some punching points)

Homemade chicken curry and parippu anyone?

6. Your favourite film franchise is?
- My geeky side loves the “original” Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Also like Deepa Mehti’s Fire, Earth and Water, especially Fire and Water.

7. What is the appropriate punishment for people who answer cell phones in the movie theatre?
- Phone set on high vibrate (if there is such a thing) and shoved where the sun don’t shine

8. Choose a female bodyguard
- Princess Leah in the famous gold bikini and a lightsabre…cough….cough…possibly too much information there.

9. What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever seen in a movie?
- Hayden Christenson in Star Wars who single handedly nailed the last nail in the Star War’s coffin. Oh yeah and on a more serious note…the fuck upped backstabbing in Closer, makes me never want to have a serious relationship.

10. Your favourite genre (excluding comedy and drama)
- Fantasy movies (not the sex kind you pervs!) and martial arts.

11. You are given the power to greenlight movies at a major studio for one year. How do you wield this power?
- umm…greenlight a movie I guess? Well greenlight some movies that are actually somewhat intelligent…shoot the person who proposes the next Scary Movie.

12. Bonnie or Clyde
- who?

Who do I tag?….hmmm….Evil, who doesn’t seem to read this blog anymore..shock..horror! bastard….

So I just finished watching Unleashed, and what an experience it was. After all the reviews I thought it would be a lot gorier than it actually was. All in all I was pretty impressed, cinematography was excellent, story was excellent (well the screenplay was by Luc Besson, so what do you expect?) and the music by Massive Attack was pretty cool as well. What I was most impressed by was Jet Li’s acting, looks like he’s a bit more than just a mindless martial artist like Van Damme, etc. Well I’m not a film critic so I think that review should stop there. I do have to say however that if I had known Luc Besson was involved in Unleashed I would have dragged my lazy arse out of the house and watched this movie when it first came out in the cinemas. Besson is in my opinion one of the finest filmmakers out there, Leon for one has a similar mix of sensitivity and violence to Unleashed. In both films the violence, though it is very graphic does not overwhelm the film. The characters as well in both films are amazing, in any other movie apart from Besson’s Bart in Unleashed and Stansfield in Leon would be comical, but not in those two movies. That is of course in no small part due to the genius of Bob Hoskins and Gary Oldman.

If I had to pick a movie that I really love out of the many that I’ve watched it would have to be Le Grand Bleu (The Big Blue, not to be confused with the crap Deep Blue), also by Luc Besson. This movie has an amazing soundtrack, composed by Eric Serra. The soundtrack neatly encapsulates the soul of the 80’s, a decade of which I’m irresistibly fond of. Any time I hear the soundtrack I’m overcome by a wave of delicious nostalgia. The film itself is magical and has an ethereal, timeless sense. The ambiguous ending is another triumph, leaving the story unfulfilled but with a sense that Jacques has finally reached somewhere that he belongs. All in all one of the finest movies I’ve seen, now if I can only find a copy of the director’s cut in Sri Lanka.