It’s a dark corridor in a not so great looking room. Just that kind that James Bond (Daniel Craig) would find himself in. He takes a few steps. Prepares to take aim, walks into a slightly brighter room where 2 bodies are lying on the floor. In the next room, lying on a single seater sofa is Agent Ronson (Bill Buckhurst) who has been shot and is losing blood. Bond helps Ronson by putting some pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding but duty calls.
There is a laptop that’s lying smashed on the floor. The Hard Drive is missing. The drive that contains the identity of every MI6 agent under cover with several terrorist organizations across the world. Bond is asked to give chase and joined in a by-lane by an unidentified gorgeous dark lady (Naomie Harris) and a chase ensues. They bring a black Audi down but the killer – Patrice (Ola Rapace) gets away on a police bike.
A superb chase sequence ensues that leads you across the streets of Istanbul and then onto the roof tops. All through the chase, you are holding onto the arms of your seat. Unidentified gorgeous dark lady cuts off killer on bridge. Killer is smart and jumps off the bridge onto a train that’s passing by. Bond follows suit. Gun Shots flying all around the place. One gets Bond on the right side of his chest when he is getting into an excavator that is being transported by the same train.
Killer is smart. Tries to delink the two bogies. Bond is smarter. He uses excavator to grab onto the top of the bogie that’s ahead. Crushes a few VW Beetles in the process and jumps onto the front car. Fist fight time. That goes over a few kilometers inside tunnels across the hills. In the meantime, unidentified gorgeous dark lady has overtaken train and is setting up to take a shot.
No clear shot available. M (Dame Judie Dench) orders her to, “Take the bloody shot”. Bond is hit. Falls off the train into a ravine and a river a few hundred feet below the bridge. Cut to Skyfall by Adele that reminds you of Shirley Bassey singing the early Bond tracks. By now, you are quite certain – this is a great Bond movie coming up.
The entire cast oozes complete class. The classic Bond sarcasm still intact. Just enough chases and fights to ensure that the concept of Bond doesn’t take the back foot. Very slow and intriguing build up to the climax. A villain that makes your blood crawl and has unfortunately not been given sufficient screen time – Bardem enters halfway into the movie. If anything was missing, it would have been the women who weren’t available in plenty like they usually are.
For a Bond fan – superb movie. For someone who isn’t – you may not like it. I loved it. Especially the Sam Mendes touch – not someone who you would associate with a Bond movie but then – once a class director, always a class director. Ensure this is part of your weekend. 8 on 10.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi973841433/
Showing posts with label Javier Bardem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Javier Bardem. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 November 2012
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Biutiful
I was done with watching Yeh Saali Zindagi and was desperate to actually watch some quality cinema. I knew there was a show for Biutiful @ 2030 @ PVR Mulund but as luck would have it, I was the first person to ask for a ticket. Luckily a 2nd guy came in. Here was a guy who wanted to see the movie for a second time. And he told me a story about how the movie was being screened @ the Miami Film Festival and the organizers were forced to screen it twice because of the response. Ironic that against 400+ people in each show @ Miami, we were struggling to get 4 in a show. Luckily we got to our minimum requirement of 6 to run a show and I got to watch two of the best on screen talents that this world has seen in the past few years. Both who personify the term intensity on the big screen. Both who believe in the concept of perfection like very few I have ever seen. They go by the names of Javier Bardem (Uxbal) and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Uxbal is a 40 something man who struggles to make ends meet. He lives with his children Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) in a matchbox houe of sorts somewhere in Barcelona. They live away from his wife, Marambra (Maricel Álvarez) because of her addictions and inability to take up the responsibility of the children. He makes his living by supplying cheap illegal immigrants as labourers or for doing odd jobs. His key contacts are the Chinese – Hai (Cheng Tai Shen) and his gay partner Liwei (Luo Jin). The Chinese supply him goods which he sells off on the streets using his African contact base. Other than all of these, Uxbal also has a peculiar skill. I really do not know how to explain this better and so I will put it as simply as I can. Uxbal can talk to the dead and communicate their final thoughts to their loved ones. He is called upon quite often to do this. He isn’t supposed to charge anything for it but accepts any money given because of his financial situation. Uxbal has prostrate cancer and has another 2 months to live.
Iñárritu, in his 4th movie, continues exploring his favourite concept – DEATH. This time around, he narrates the story in a fairly straight forward manner unlike 21 grams where he made sure that people who understood the movie hadn’t taken their eyes off the screen for a split second or like Babel where each of the 4 stories were linked to the other in some obscure or not so obscure way. This one is much cleaner but then it is Iñárritu right. So there has to be a certain amount of – for lack of any other word – poetry – on screen. I cannot describe Iñárritu’s direction in any other way with my limited knowledge of the English language and even more limited knowledge about the movies. Every single cog in the wheel seems to just come together to communicate the essence of pain that a father goes through when he knows that his children are going to be without someone to depend on when he moves on. Or the emotions that a deranged mother goes through thanks to her inability to cope up with addiction. Not forgetting to mention the desperation of an illegal immigrant to ensure that her family’s future is secured. An extremely poignant representation of emotions. Truly a very well made movie. Extremely slow but very well made. 8 on 10 for the movie. 9 for Bardem. But I don’t think he will be able to pip Colin Firth for the best actor at the Oscars.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1483905305/
Uxbal is a 40 something man who struggles to make ends meet. He lives with his children Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) in a matchbox houe of sorts somewhere in Barcelona. They live away from his wife, Marambra (Maricel Álvarez) because of her addictions and inability to take up the responsibility of the children. He makes his living by supplying cheap illegal immigrants as labourers or for doing odd jobs. His key contacts are the Chinese – Hai (Cheng Tai Shen) and his gay partner Liwei (Luo Jin). The Chinese supply him goods which he sells off on the streets using his African contact base. Other than all of these, Uxbal also has a peculiar skill. I really do not know how to explain this better and so I will put it as simply as I can. Uxbal can talk to the dead and communicate their final thoughts to their loved ones. He is called upon quite often to do this. He isn’t supposed to charge anything for it but accepts any money given because of his financial situation. Uxbal has prostrate cancer and has another 2 months to live.
Iñárritu, in his 4th movie, continues exploring his favourite concept – DEATH. This time around, he narrates the story in a fairly straight forward manner unlike 21 grams where he made sure that people who understood the movie hadn’t taken their eyes off the screen for a split second or like Babel where each of the 4 stories were linked to the other in some obscure or not so obscure way. This one is much cleaner but then it is Iñárritu right. So there has to be a certain amount of – for lack of any other word – poetry – on screen. I cannot describe Iñárritu’s direction in any other way with my limited knowledge of the English language and even more limited knowledge about the movies. Every single cog in the wheel seems to just come together to communicate the essence of pain that a father goes through when he knows that his children are going to be without someone to depend on when he moves on. Or the emotions that a deranged mother goes through thanks to her inability to cope up with addiction. Not forgetting to mention the desperation of an illegal immigrant to ensure that her family’s future is secured. An extremely poignant representation of emotions. Truly a very well made movie. Extremely slow but very well made. 8 on 10 for the movie. 9 for Bardem. But I don’t think he will be able to pip Colin Firth for the best actor at the Oscars.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1483905305/
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Eat Pray Love
There are movies where the book is better and there are movies where the movie is better. And then there is the type where both are probably as good. I was a few pages down Eat Pray Love when I could not take the risk of the movie leaving the screens in Mumbai. It had been 2 weeks since the release. Plus my schedules were going downright crazy. Could not catch up with completing the book. So just went right ahead. I am not sure, in which category would EPL (not the soccer variety) fall into but I am kind of willing to stick my neck out and say it would be the third variety.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is a thirty something author who is in a marriage to Stephen (Billy Crydup) which dreams are made of. Settled, big house, well to do husband and her own career going northwards. And the prospect of going the family way also seemingly around the corner. But what if she doesn’t want any of this? What if she is not ready to be a mother? What if she suddenly realizes that the past few years were nothing but a mistake? That she is not the kinds who is willing to settle down in the first place. That her choice of getting married was probably the biggest mistake of her life? – BITCH is what most of us would call her isn’t it?
But then, Ms. Gilbert finds herself in exactly this position. After days on end of crying herself to sleep and trying to figure out what she prefers – Being called a bitch or staying in a marriage that is not what she wants. Liz takes option 1. Which I personally believe is the choice one needs to have the courage to make. Seriously what is the point of being in a relationship, friendship or whatever one wants to call it if one is just not interested – isn’t it? So Liz makes the choice of bailing out on her marriage.
In between all of this on a trip to Bali she meets Ketut Liyer, a medicine man who predicts that Liz would lose everything, come back to Bali for a few months and then make everything that she lost back. True to Ketut’s prediction, when she returns and breaks her wedding, she actually loses everything that she has made coz Stephen decides to take her to the cleaners. Somewhat on the rebound, she finds herself in love with David (James Franco) an actor. But is still not able to find any happiness. She finally decides to quit everything and follow her heart to three places – Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Indonesia (Love).
I am totally in awe of Julia Roberts. I don’t think there is any role that she cannot play. And when there is an opportunity to play a serious character role like that of Liz Gilbert, she comes out on tops totally. Just like she did with Erin Brockovich. The classic example of a method actor. I am certain that she takes the concept of getting under the skin of her character to the highest possible level. The more I think about her, the only word that comes to mind is ETHEREAL. The rest of the cast is quite good but pale in comparison to her just because of the sheer presence that she gets to the screen. And had it not been for the magical Javier Bardem who plays the role of Filepe, it would have probably been called The Julia Roberts Show and not Eat Pray Love.
Director Ryan Murphy is known for the TV Series Glee. Now in the past I have said that TV directors should stick to TV. But Mr. Murphy seems to be out to prove me wrong. Slightly stretched but I guess it had to be for the book @ hand. And specifically, the India segment was probably not handled with the best of finesse. At the end of the day, I think he does a pretty good job out of it. Some poignant moments especially when Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins) breaks down in front of Liz while telling her his story and what got him to India for the past 10 years. All in all, EPL is a pretty good watch. Scores 6 on 10 in my books. But more importantly another potential Oscar nomination for Julia Roberts on the cards.
Elizabeth Gilbert (Julia Roberts) is a thirty something author who is in a marriage to Stephen (Billy Crydup) which dreams are made of. Settled, big house, well to do husband and her own career going northwards. And the prospect of going the family way also seemingly around the corner. But what if she doesn’t want any of this? What if she is not ready to be a mother? What if she suddenly realizes that the past few years were nothing but a mistake? That she is not the kinds who is willing to settle down in the first place. That her choice of getting married was probably the biggest mistake of her life? – BITCH is what most of us would call her isn’t it?
But then, Ms. Gilbert finds herself in exactly this position. After days on end of crying herself to sleep and trying to figure out what she prefers – Being called a bitch or staying in a marriage that is not what she wants. Liz takes option 1. Which I personally believe is the choice one needs to have the courage to make. Seriously what is the point of being in a relationship, friendship or whatever one wants to call it if one is just not interested – isn’t it? So Liz makes the choice of bailing out on her marriage.
In between all of this on a trip to Bali she meets Ketut Liyer, a medicine man who predicts that Liz would lose everything, come back to Bali for a few months and then make everything that she lost back. True to Ketut’s prediction, when she returns and breaks her wedding, she actually loses everything that she has made coz Stephen decides to take her to the cleaners. Somewhat on the rebound, she finds herself in love with David (James Franco) an actor. But is still not able to find any happiness. She finally decides to quit everything and follow her heart to three places – Italy (Eat), India (Pray) and Indonesia (Love).
I am totally in awe of Julia Roberts. I don’t think there is any role that she cannot play. And when there is an opportunity to play a serious character role like that of Liz Gilbert, she comes out on tops totally. Just like she did with Erin Brockovich. The classic example of a method actor. I am certain that she takes the concept of getting under the skin of her character to the highest possible level. The more I think about her, the only word that comes to mind is ETHEREAL. The rest of the cast is quite good but pale in comparison to her just because of the sheer presence that she gets to the screen. And had it not been for the magical Javier Bardem who plays the role of Filepe, it would have probably been called The Julia Roberts Show and not Eat Pray Love.
Director Ryan Murphy is known for the TV Series Glee. Now in the past I have said that TV directors should stick to TV. But Mr. Murphy seems to be out to prove me wrong. Slightly stretched but I guess it had to be for the book @ hand. And specifically, the India segment was probably not handled with the best of finesse. At the end of the day, I think he does a pretty good job out of it. Some poignant moments especially when Richard from Texas (Richard Jenkins) breaks down in front of Liz while telling her his story and what got him to India for the past 10 years. All in all, EPL is a pretty good watch. Scores 6 on 10 in my books. But more importantly another potential Oscar nomination for Julia Roberts on the cards.
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