It’s a week of
movies where the story has been told before but with a minor twist here and
another one there. Most of us have seen
enough and more movies about conmen and their operations and so the formula for
a good one is out there. Focus
capitalizes on this tried and trusted formula for a con movie and manages to
scrape through – but barely.
Showing posts with label Will Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Will Smith. Show all posts
Saturday, 14 March 2015
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Winter’s Tale
Its Valentine’s
Day (or it was yesterday :-p) and one had to expect a slew of either RomComs or
Romance movies. Surprisingly, Akiva
Goldsman’s adaptation of the 1983 Mark Helprin novel, A Winter’s Tale is the
only Valentine’s release that is truly targeted at all those couples who are
very much in love (read louv).
Friday, 7 June 2013
After Earth
I think it is official now. If there is a movie maker who is slower than a snail it has to be M Night Shyamalan. With After Earth, Shyamalan has cleared any other challenge that one could have thrown his way. He has made a slow Science Fiction movie. I am sure the snails would love him for it – finally something that matches their pace!!!!
Friday, 25 May 2012
Men In Black 3
Now this franchise is 15 years old… or should I say 15 years young!!!! 1997 is the first time we were saved from the scum of the universe. 15 years and a sequel later, we have the same team – and that to me is THE most surprising part of MIB III – the same team, coming back to save us from some more scum. Now how is that for a benchmark of commitment towards consistency? Take a bow people. Take a bow!!!
And Barry Sonnenfeld doesn’t disappoint. The director of other hits such as RV and Wild Wild West, teams up with his favourite star – Will Smith – once again to give us some vintage MIB stuff. All with upto date techniques of visual effects. Add to that some really good Alien Effects from Rick Baker – in a movie like this it deserved to be called out separately in the credits. What you get at the end of the day is the MIB essence which people in my age bracket have grown up with. But you also get a product that will appeal to the “children” of today ;) (notice the evident sarcasm).
J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are going about their business as usual saving the earth and reporting to their new boss O (Emma Thompson). But on the last 2 stake outs, J starts noticing something out of place and is not the most comfortable with K informing him that it is above his pay grade. Some more investigation and he finds out that Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement) who has recently escaped the world’s most secure prison has something to do with this.
Boris, with the help of his hot aide, escapes the Lunar prison and using a time machine goes back to alter the course of the universe. He kills K – and that’s only because K didn’t kill him the previous time – and now J finds himself craving for chocolate milk. Are you confused already? Don’t be. Coz all of the above has been done really well in the movie. And rest assured you will not be as twisted around as you are now.
The essence of MIB is retained all through with the quirky dialogues which may make little or no sense to the young and uninitiated. But fear not – coz they have nothing to do with the movie . What has improved dramatically is the quality of visual effects and the emphasis on the aliens. The story line is as always very straightforward but complicated with the use of unpronounceable galaxies and species.
I read this in another review and I quote, “That old canard is right: comedy is not easy. Science fiction comedy is even less easy”. I cannot agree more. 7 on 10 for certain.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3916407065/
And Barry Sonnenfeld doesn’t disappoint. The director of other hits such as RV and Wild Wild West, teams up with his favourite star – Will Smith – once again to give us some vintage MIB stuff. All with upto date techniques of visual effects. Add to that some really good Alien Effects from Rick Baker – in a movie like this it deserved to be called out separately in the credits. What you get at the end of the day is the MIB essence which people in my age bracket have grown up with. But you also get a product that will appeal to the “children” of today ;) (notice the evident sarcasm).
J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones) are going about their business as usual saving the earth and reporting to their new boss O (Emma Thompson). But on the last 2 stake outs, J starts noticing something out of place and is not the most comfortable with K informing him that it is above his pay grade. Some more investigation and he finds out that Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement) who has recently escaped the world’s most secure prison has something to do with this.
Boris, with the help of his hot aide, escapes the Lunar prison and using a time machine goes back to alter the course of the universe. He kills K – and that’s only because K didn’t kill him the previous time – and now J finds himself craving for chocolate milk. Are you confused already? Don’t be. Coz all of the above has been done really well in the movie. And rest assured you will not be as twisted around as you are now.
The essence of MIB is retained all through with the quirky dialogues which may make little or no sense to the young and uninitiated. But fear not – coz they have nothing to do with the movie . What has improved dramatically is the quality of visual effects and the emphasis on the aliens. The story line is as always very straightforward but complicated with the use of unpronounceable galaxies and species.
I read this in another review and I quote, “That old canard is right: comedy is not easy. Science fiction comedy is even less easy”. I cannot agree more. 7 on 10 for certain.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3916407065/
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Seven Pounds
There is a terminal heart patient who answers to the call of Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson). She runs a pressed wedding card business – the one that used to be run in the days of old. The one which had to be worked upon manually to set the print or the one that is semi automatic. Machines which are over 50 years old at least. She is weak but by her own claim – and I must agree to it – used to be – unauditably hot.
Then there is a a blind man who is called Ezra (Woody Harrelson). He works at a call centre for a meat packing business but is a vegan by choice and a virgin by chance. Quite a weird combination right? And an unfortunate combination which one has to accept I guess. He likes the local waitress at a café a lot but has never gotten around to tell her that in as many words. Just doesn’t have the courage.
There is a middle aged woman who has two children – a boy and a girl. She is called Connie Tepos (Elpidia Carrillo). She is a Spanish immigrant – a legal one thought. Divorced. Her current boyfriend is a no good person. He beats her up quite often. And despite the best efforts of people close to her, she refuses to report it to the cops and get her boyfriend behind bars. Sigh. The vagaries of the female mind.
What connects these three to Ben (Will Smith) who seems to be a man on the verge of a suicide and has a past that keeps flashing through his head? Is it the car crash which seems to be a fatal one? One that obviously involving 7 people whose names he keeps calling out in absolute angst. Ben visits each one of these people, representing the Internal Revenue Services, and tries to help them in some way or the other. Connie Tepos gets his house. Emily gets a relief for her tax payments. And Ezra gets a gentle push towards that waitress of his after receiving a very rude earful from Ben.
Written by Grant Nieporte, Seven Pounds is the kind of movie I should have seen at the time of release itself. And I have no clue to how I missed it. The screenplay is written extremely well to figure out the story only towards the end. While one gets reasonable clues as regards the past, one doesn’t really get clarity on the reason for Ben’s actions till the very end. The editing by Hughes Winborne and the music by Angelo Milli create an extremely haunting aura around the movie.
Full credit to director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) for giving us another poignant and heart wrenching story that has been executed to near perfection. But be forewarned that Seven Pounds could result in a lot of exercise for the lachrymal glands. That one of the best actors of our time – Will Smith – leads the cast is just an added reason to watch the movie. I have never seen Woody Harrelson in such a helpless role ever in the recent or distant past. Everyone in the cast seems to have given the movie a 100%. Even the poor Hotel owner who has to endure Ben’s nuances and the horse (read great Dane) that Ben gets along with him for a day or 2 when Emily is at the hospital. Seven Pounds easily makes the cut to anyone’s must watch list. 7.5 on 10.
Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1057359641/
Then there is a a blind man who is called Ezra (Woody Harrelson). He works at a call centre for a meat packing business but is a vegan by choice and a virgin by chance. Quite a weird combination right? And an unfortunate combination which one has to accept I guess. He likes the local waitress at a café a lot but has never gotten around to tell her that in as many words. Just doesn’t have the courage.
There is a middle aged woman who has two children – a boy and a girl. She is called Connie Tepos (Elpidia Carrillo). She is a Spanish immigrant – a legal one thought. Divorced. Her current boyfriend is a no good person. He beats her up quite often. And despite the best efforts of people close to her, she refuses to report it to the cops and get her boyfriend behind bars. Sigh. The vagaries of the female mind.
What connects these three to Ben (Will Smith) who seems to be a man on the verge of a suicide and has a past that keeps flashing through his head? Is it the car crash which seems to be a fatal one? One that obviously involving 7 people whose names he keeps calling out in absolute angst. Ben visits each one of these people, representing the Internal Revenue Services, and tries to help them in some way or the other. Connie Tepos gets his house. Emily gets a relief for her tax payments. And Ezra gets a gentle push towards that waitress of his after receiving a very rude earful from Ben.
Written by Grant Nieporte, Seven Pounds is the kind of movie I should have seen at the time of release itself. And I have no clue to how I missed it. The screenplay is written extremely well to figure out the story only towards the end. While one gets reasonable clues as regards the past, one doesn’t really get clarity on the reason for Ben’s actions till the very end. The editing by Hughes Winborne and the music by Angelo Milli create an extremely haunting aura around the movie.
Full credit to director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness) for giving us another poignant and heart wrenching story that has been executed to near perfection. But be forewarned that Seven Pounds could result in a lot of exercise for the lachrymal glands. That one of the best actors of our time – Will Smith – leads the cast is just an added reason to watch the movie. I have never seen Woody Harrelson in such a helpless role ever in the recent or distant past. Everyone in the cast seems to have given the movie a 100%. Even the poor Hotel owner who has to endure Ben’s nuances and the horse (read great Dane) that Ben gets along with him for a day or 2 when Emily is at the hospital. Seven Pounds easily makes the cut to anyone’s must watch list. 7.5 on 10.
Trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1057359641/
Monday, 15 August 2011
Hancock
If ever there was an award ceremony for the world’s worst super hero movie then Hancock would be there somewhere in the top 5. For the life of me, I have not a clue as to why Hancock was never nominated for the Razzies in the year of release. In fact it was defended quite strongly by the razzies that the movie was actually not all that bad. I beg to differ with the Razzies on this count and retain my point of view. There is hardly a point of view that Peter Berg even attempts to make through the movie. I definitely give credit to Peter Berg for his versatility of acting and directing which very few people can claim to do. But just putting your name in the director’s slot does not a director make right? One has to pay careful attention to aspects that go beyond stating, “Lights, Camera, Action”. There are several elements of movie making that you would be best placed to identify and us amateur film critics would not be so sure about. But I would guess that the list would include, acting, editing, screenplay, dialogues, cinematography, script amongst the more important aspects and would then go on to the lesser ones. Dear Mr. Berg – with all due respect, I would guess you have missed out on almost every single aspect of film making and focused on just putting together 90 minutes of crap based on some really big names in the business of acting.
Well you weren’t all that ill placed Mr. Berg. Quite certainly there would have been enough and more in the world who loved the concept of a normal looking human being who is a super hero. So what if he is drunk out of its wits more often that not? And so what if he causes more damage to general property that most of the bad guys would have anyways caused? It is all supposed to be for the greater good right? Wrong as the people of the city say over a period of time. It is not possible to sustain this random destruction of property in the name of saving human lives and stopping crime. And therefore, Hancock (Will Smith) very quickly finds himself in jail doing some time. But not before he is backed up by a Public Relations expert called Ray (Jason Bateman) whose life is saved by Hancock (what is the probability of being stuck in front of a train at a manned level crossing and the train doesn’t stop but continues to run into you. Obviously there is no one who has flagged the train to a stop earlier). Together Ray and Hancock try to repair Hancock’s ruined image in the market.
The only saving grace about Hancock seems to be the ethereal presence of Charlize Theron. Sadly, it has nothing much to do with her acting prowess and only to do with her looks. But I am not complaining. I could look at her for the rest of my life. So 90 minutes seemed more like 90 seconds. Consistency errors are the hall mark of Hancock and as mentioned earlier, there are no aspects that are basic to movie making which are actually followed in the movie. It may be random fun but it is not a good movie by any stretch of imagination. 3 on 10 is my verdict.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2497904921/
Well you weren’t all that ill placed Mr. Berg. Quite certainly there would have been enough and more in the world who loved the concept of a normal looking human being who is a super hero. So what if he is drunk out of its wits more often that not? And so what if he causes more damage to general property that most of the bad guys would have anyways caused? It is all supposed to be for the greater good right? Wrong as the people of the city say over a period of time. It is not possible to sustain this random destruction of property in the name of saving human lives and stopping crime. And therefore, Hancock (Will Smith) very quickly finds himself in jail doing some time. But not before he is backed up by a Public Relations expert called Ray (Jason Bateman) whose life is saved by Hancock (what is the probability of being stuck in front of a train at a manned level crossing and the train doesn’t stop but continues to run into you. Obviously there is no one who has flagged the train to a stop earlier). Together Ray and Hancock try to repair Hancock’s ruined image in the market.
The only saving grace about Hancock seems to be the ethereal presence of Charlize Theron. Sadly, it has nothing much to do with her acting prowess and only to do with her looks. But I am not complaining. I could look at her for the rest of my life. So 90 minutes seemed more like 90 seconds. Consistency errors are the hall mark of Hancock and as mentioned earlier, there are no aspects that are basic to movie making which are actually followed in the movie. It may be random fun but it is not a good movie by any stretch of imagination. 3 on 10 is my verdict.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2497904921/
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
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/
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/
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