Batman Begins

I could not have missed the opportunity to kick start my movies for the weekend with a Saturday nite show of Batman Begins. And it obviously helped that on a Saturday I had been movie free!!! Sacrilegious I say!!! So I wasn’t going to let this pass. And my respect for Christopher Nolan keeps going up every time I see a movie. I wasn’t watching Batman Begins for the first time mind you. But each time I see it, I build a deeper sense of respect for Nolan who is not just one of the finest directors of our time but also one of the visionaries of cinema. Bob Kane couldn’t have asked for a better director to bring to life “Batman” – the way it was supposed to be.

People must have been doggone bored with Batman by the time this one released. 4 Batman movies had preceded Batman Begins – none of which had told the story of Batman, the way it was supposed to be told. More importantly, there were 3 Batmans in 4 movies. And 3 directors. With the exception of the Tim Burton / Michael Keaton combination, the other 2 not only failed to excite the audiences but also left them with a distaste for Batman movies like never before. Thankfully, Batman Begins came in after a hiatus of 8 years and audiences had probably forgotten the trauma that they went through with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. One of the few movies on imdb that has a score of below 4 (from what I have seen). Thankfully Catwoman (2004) didn’t feature Batman and so people were fine with another Batman movie.

They wouldn’t have regretted spending the better part of nearly 2.5 hours watching the saga of Batman unfold from Bruce Wayne’s “scaredy cat” days as a child with fear of bats to his nerdy looking days when he is studying at college to a point in time where he decides to really follow best friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) advise and decides to really do something about the grime around him rather than just claim to be a good man below his façade. Batman Begins sees the introduction of Ra’s Al Ghul and The Scarecrow aka Dr. Johnathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) both of whom are portrayed brilliantly by Nolan. It kind of sets the tone for the sequels to come where very clearly, the villain would have as much screen time & content of role if not more than Batman himself. A fact that had till then been vastly underplayed with the exception of the first Batman where Jack Nicholson played the role of The Joker.

Batman Begins is the truest and the most sincere representation of the Batman Story that I have seen so far. It was no surprise that the movie closes with the introduction of the “calling card” and sets things up beautifully for Dark Knight. Must watch. 8 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2743468569/

Hitch

V Day on Television would be incomplete without this one. Directed by Andy Tennant who has made Romantic Comedies his core competence in a manner of speaking and has dished out eight full length features in this genre that have ranged from perfectly acceptable to damn good ones like Hitch. So much so that there were 3 of his movies playing yesterday over the mélange of movie channels that we have – Bounty Hunter, Sweet Home Alabama and the one we are going to talk about – Hitch. Surprisingly, he pipped Nancy Myers to the post who I think is the undisputed Queen of the Romantic Comedy and didn’t have a single movie playing yesterday surprisingly.


When Cressida Baylor (Robinne Lee) dumps Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens (Will Smith) while in college, the question he asks her is what most of us ask when we get dumped – WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG? The answer he gets from the new boyfriend – dude you are doing it right now. Alex Hitchens is a quick learner though and realizes that to be successful with the woman you got to have game. “Everyone girl can and wants to be swept off her feet. Its only upto you to find the right broom” (Now that’s a slick one liner. One of many that come up when you are watching Hitch). Hitch now runs a service called The Date Doctor – A very very successful service at that which runs purely on referral. The idea of the service – simple – get the girl to see what she is actually missing out in you. Make you more sellable without portraying the unreal you. And nope – he doesn’t do break ups. He does his own research – on both sides. And he has a 100% success rate on date. All the factors that get Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) to him. Albert wants to improve his chances of getting into a relationship with Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) – multi millionaress whose last boyfriend owned Sweden or something like that . Hitch takes up the task of finding the right broom for Brennaman but doesn’t understand what he is really getting into on his own personal front with gossip columnist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes). Easy to help others but equally difficult to help ourselves right? As he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into Sara, by making all the right moves, he is also reaching closer and closer to compromising the very essence that makes his service a successful one – secrecy. When a close friend of Sara, Casey Sedgewick (Julie Ann Emery) is dumped by her latest squeeze Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan) – apparently thanks to the Date Doctor – Sara takes it upon herself to expose the Date Doctor at all costs.

Hitch is one of the few RomComs that can be given a 7 on 10. Slickly made. Superb dialogues. Clean humour makes it great fun to watch. Well directed. Good use of music. Fabulous edits. Loads of attention to detail. Good solid performances by the entire cast - lead or otherwise. Do you really want me to continue? If you haven’t seen it yet then I strongly recommend that you don’t miss an opportunity to catch up with it the next time. If you have seen it already – watch it again coz you will definitely not get bored not matter how many times you would see it. Pure entertainment. A must watch for every Valentines Day for sure.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi418644761/

The Longest Yard

Never been much of a fan of Adam Sandler and this movie doesn’t really do much for his position on my rating scale (not that he would care). And by this I don’t mean Adam Sandler cannot act. Its just that I cannot keep up with his goofy, slapstick ways of putting himself on screen under the pretext of comedy and qualify to be a good actor. Add to that his capability of taking obnoxious roles such as Little Nicky and making a complete fool of himself on screen. Having said that, he is fairly successful thanks to his brand of comedy being popular with a fair portion of the audience I guess. And even in my books he is miles ahead of the absolutely despicable Ben Stiller.


Paul “Motley” Crewe (Adam Sandler) is a washed out quarterback from the NFL. He was, if I remember correctly, the first player from the NFL to be officially indicted and tried in a court of law for shaving off points in a game. Crewe had managed to get himself into a compromising situation with some not so compromising people it would seem. But it was never really proven in a court of law. He walked away a free man but a much hated man. Throwing a game away and getting caught in the bargain is the biggest mistake any sportsman can make surely. He now finds himself in a situation where he has a rich wife (a very slutty looking Courtney Cox after her boob job) who considers our hero (if we can call him that) to be her boy toy but there is this hole in his life which just doesn’t seem to get filled. That hole is usually called love which is definitely missing in this relationship.

One fine day, Paul decides that he has had enough of this and takes off with his wife’s Bentley, gets into a fight with the cops and some civilians too en route and finally after a high speed chase crashes the Bentley (ouch! Ouch!! Ouch!!!) into a melee of cop cars. A classic example of extremely cruel direction. Before you know it, Crewe finds himself in a Texan Correctional Facility (Cannot call them jails any more is what I hear) where he is given a rather crude welcome from the Captain of the gaurds – Knauer (William Fichtner) who asks him to keep away from the football field during his stay there. A few minutes later he finds himself in the Warden Hazen’s (James Cromwell – don’t ask me what he is doing in the movie) room who wants Crewe to hop on board the Football band wagon and consult the Team of the Gaurds who apparently are hot property in that part of the world. He now finds himself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and add a third element which is an entire jail full of criminals who don’t really like him. Now how in the blazes does he get out of this situation?

The Longest Yard is the kind of movie you would watch on a Thursday evening because its playing on Star Movies and you are too darn tired to sleep and too darn tired to do anything else. You just lie down on your bed and gaze at the TV screen and maybe glance towards your mobile phone to see if you have received a message that maybe more interesting. Now its not a really bad movie considering that its about a sport and about a bunch of criminals beating a bunch of cruel gaurds in a game of touch football and you feel all good at the end of it all. And you really cannot expect “quality” cinema from the likes of an Adam Sandler and Chris Rock pair. You do get several slapstick one liners and a few good ones thrown in to retain the title of a comedy. And at the end of the day despite the lack of direction, you feel reasonably satisfied. 5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi821428505/

Good Night And Good Luck

I could not have asked for a better movie for my 100th review!!! Here is one that missed out in all 6 categories that it was nominated in. In Art Direction and Cinematography, it lost out to Memoirs of a Geisha. In Direction to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. Original Screenplay and Best Movie to Paul Haggis’ Crash. Latly, David Strathairn was pitted against Terence Howard (Hustle and Flow), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Joaquim Phoenix (Walk the Line) and the eventual winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote). In all of the above, one really cannot find fault with the jury. Its like being caught between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea – in a positive manner though. So I guess, they took the easy way out and gave George Clooney the award for the Best Supporting Actor for Syrianna as a way to make up for the losses that he had for Good Night and Good Luck (GNAGL).

Edward R Murrow (David Strathairn) is an extremely focused journalist. He not only believes in but also practices the simple fundamental concept of journalism – Report the Truth. And in the process, he spares no effort in getting the truth out and fighting for the cause of reporting it. He has an agreement with William Paley (Frank Langella), they be all and the do all @ Columbia Broadcasting Services (CBS) that corporate will not interfere with editorial – come what may. He has managed to get his way to date but then his team stumbles upon an opportunity to really take the system on.

Junior Senator Joseph McCarthy (himself through footage) has taken it upon himself to wipe the country clean of communism. And to do that, he would go to great lengths to ensure that people with even the remotest inclination or association with communist meetings or labour unions would be grilled to the core and even sentenced if required. Anyone who so much as dares to speak against McCarthy’s views would be prosecuted. And therefore no one does. Not if Murrow has his way. Murrow and his team led by producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) take up the seemingly suicidal task of showing McCarthy his place in the real world.

My first memories of David Strathairn was in the 1992 movie Sneakers in the role of the blind Irwin ‘Whistler’ Emery. And the second time I remember seeing an extremely sincere performance from Strathairn was in a movie that I reviewed earlier called We Are Marshall in the endearing role of President Dedmond. But then there are roles which people are remembered by. Roles which prompt people to say – “hey isn’t that “XYZ” from “ABC”. What a brilliant performance right”!!! Edward Murrow’s role does just that one for Strathairn. It is going to remembered for a really long time to come for most people. Strathairn is ably supported by the ever cool George Clooney who has also come on tops in his second directorial venture. Needless to say, it will not be his last. Superb performances by the rest of the cast i.e. the ageless Patricia Clarkson, the amazing Frank Langella and the ever sure Robert Downey Jr. make GNAGL a delectable treat for the avid movie goer or otherwise. That it has been shot in Black & White only adds to the charisma of the entire movie. 8.5 on 10 easily. Must Must Must watch if you haven’t.