Am in the annoying position of having THREE unfinished films to get back to - Anvil - the story of anvil; Inglourious Basterds and Moon. All of these have been very compelling and I have no clue why I'm not done with them yet. Tonight. Tonight. Tonight. I'm gonna make it right.

Asterix and the Laurel Wreath

I'm not sure if I liked The Limits of Control, which director Jim Jarmusch refers to as 'an action movie without any action'. As an audio-visual experience, sure it's got its strong points, but the movie leaves way too much to interpretation. Chalk it up to thickness or laziness, but I haven't gotten around to deconstructing (or should that be embellishing?) it since I watched it.

Mary and Max, on the other hand was great (thanks to Ravi and GoreD for recommending it). Completely disparate characters, similar only in their dysfunctional nature, become pen pals through the strangest circumstances, and the movie is equal parts an exposition of each character through their rambling correspondence and the stuttering development of a great kinship between the two. It's randomly funny, vicious and emotionally well-crafted all at the same time. Since we proved that most of us suffer from assburgers, it might hit close to home as well.

Also finally watched The Hangover - some pretty funny gags and decent characters made for an enjoyable one-watch movie.

Tried to watch 9, but the 720p version is taking its toll on the lite PC at home, so will probably have to get the standard version from somewhere.

ravenus wrote:
And they DID get Sho Kosugi to play Master Ozonu, which makes it rock 10 times more than it did when I saw it, ahahaha!!!
Aha, so it rocked 1/10th as much when you saw it?

Rahul Chacko wrote:
ravenus wrote:
And they DID get Sho Kosugi to play Master Ozonu, which makes it rock 10 times more than it did when I saw it, ahahaha!!!
Aha, so it rocked 1/10th as much when you saw it?
You have dishonored the Ninja. You must die for this.


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As expected Drood is showing great signs of bloat with asides about Wilkie Collins gay brother and the lives and failures of people in Dickens's inner circle. Simmons has (probably) done an assload of literary research and has fallen into the Amitav Ghoshian trap of letting everyone marvel at the extent of his erudition. What works for the book though is Simmons' chops as a writer and the fact that being a litt student myself, I DO find a lot of this very compelling. It just makes the book a harder sell to the non-literature types and/or to people who do not have a consuming interest in Victorian England.

ravenus wrote:
You have dishonored the Ninja. You must die for this.


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Whut?! Ninjas are mercenary dogs! You cannot dishonour that which has no honour.

Planning to watch Up today.

Re-read Ichi The Killer after a long time and it's still fucking awesome. Anybody read Planetary #27 yet? I'm doing that next.

I always wanted to be a Ninja. Who didn't? Ninjas are bad-asses with no fucking moral code unlike those Samurais, though Ronins are cool.

Classic Shaw Brothers, Japan Vs China. One of the best action set-pieces ever.

The Limits of Control The story is pretty much anything you want it to be and yeah, there is a story in there somewhere. Just with a lot of empty spaces between the lines. The hero goes through the entire film hardly saying a word and it's the supporting cast that plays around him. The basic premise is of a man in Spain engaged in what looks like a complicated diamond smuggling operation and awaiting news of his next assignment. He meets a bunch of strange characters who talk in an incredibly cryptic manner as he sits and exchanges matchboxes with them. There's also a very naked and very hot Paz de la Huerta waiting for him every night in his room. The soundtrack is terrific, the movie's slow but never got boring and overall I'm not even going to try figuring this out and it seemed like a movie that could be anything you wanted it to be. Supreme artistic wankery of the highest order.

Black Dynamite Holy shit, this was awesome. A spoof of the glory days of Blaxploitation with Michael Jai White (Spawn) as the titular hero out to get The Man for the death of his brother. This movie is a laugh riot from start to finish with accurate homages to the genre, references sprinkled through out the film, gratuitous nudity, a devious plot by The Man to distribute Malt Liquor that shrinks the black man's penis into the size of a 2 month old snapping turtle, a nanchaku aided finale with Black Dynamite taking on a Kung Fu enabled Richard Nixon and too many ridiculously funny scenes to count. I had awesome fun watching this movie but I'm guessing a certain appreciation for Blaxploitation is a must to get this movie.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans So Herzog didn't just do a remake after all. Yeah, it's loosely the same as the Abel Ferrara/ Harvey Kietel film in that this one is also about a corrupt drug addict cop with a love for sports betting but Herzog's taken the film in a slight black comedy type direction instead of the total bleakness that Ferrara did. The story is set in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina when Nicolas Cage is a cop who jumps in to save a drowning prisoner and ends up hurting his back. The rest of the movie, the man's walking around with what looks like severe back pain and six months down the line he's lifting drugs from the evidence room to help him ease his pain. At the same time he's investigating the murder of a family of Senegalese immigrants and trying to make a case. Cage is superb in this. The best I've seen him since Adaptation at least and probably better than he was in that movie too. The hallucinations are fantastic and his over the top on edge rendition is funny, jarring and when he gets down to doing the nasty, quite disturbing. You don't ever want to meet a cop like this fellow. Eva Mendes looks really hot and does a decent job as his hooker girlfriend but this is a Cage movie out and out and overall I liked this a lot. Bizarro ending that strangely enough fit the tone of the movie perfectly.

Saw Paa last night expecting it to be a lulzfest and got totally schooled. This is one of the best Bollywood films in recent times. Just so we can get this out of the way real quick, there's nothing edgy or angsty about this film and yes, it could have probably been trimmed a good twenty five minutes or so. But its a really nicely done old school Hrishikesh Mukherjee-esque story with some terrific scripting and jokes and an abso-fucking-lutely brilliant performance by Amitabh. Who'd have thought the old man would still have it in him? He's utterly convincing. Mad props to Balki for having been able to make the guy do a role where he actually had to work at acting and not just coast along on /indignation/autopilot. Highly recommended. Especially before Camel Hassan decides to remake it and cocks it up totally.

General Knowledge wrote:
Black Dynamite Holy shit, this was awesome.
Oh yeah, the trailer for this looked pretty kickass. Especially this part:

Guess this is the best place to put this in, kya?
Just saw "The Rise & Fall of ECW" - if i were the Wrestling Observer, i'd rate this 6 on 5 stars. I am a mark (well, sort of) but the DVD made for a great 3 hour watch. The story about the small time independent wrestling promotion that tasted big league success but never quite really managed to hold on to it was well told, with correct interviews and visual footage. I still think that if this were to be financed by someone other than the WWE, it would've included a lot more in terms of 'inside dope'. Definitely recommended for every fan of pro wrestling. And if you've never been one, then you sir, have missed out.