Tell No One - French thriller that takes the basic plot of The Fugitive and adds its own twists. Nicely done in a gritty William Friedkin-esque manner even if it is equally preposterous in its own way.

The Godfather- II

Some terrific reviews there, Chax.

Been watching a few Tam movies. . Japanil Kalyanaraman was a super boring revisit of a pretty fun character. The director seems to be so amazed at having got permission to shoot in Japan that at least 45 minutes of the film is just buildings and skyscrapers and the like. There's an excruciating comic subplot about a pair of hicks who wind up in Japan having won an all expense paid vacation. Atrocious film.

And then saw Agni Nakshatram which was a fairly decent film all told. Good action sequences but a pace crippled by both comic subplot and some of the less inspired songs.

Been rewatching Punnagai Mannan and its not half bad. I don't really remember the plot but it is a little less OTT than i recall it being.

Island of Death Immensely fucked up film about a couple who get up to all sorts of mayhem on a picture perfect Greek island. Apparently made when the director saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre, didn't care much for it but realised there was money to be made in fucked up films and decided to beat TCM at its own game. He does so by getting the protagonist (who initially strikes you as a little too uptight but otherwise okay) to first rape and then slaughter a goat. That's a pattern that repeats itself pretty much through the entire film. In spite of its flaws (and there are many), this is a very interesting film that bears viewing given that its narrative is centred entirely from the bizarre point of view of the perpetrators and not the victims. In most films, the victims have annoyed you so much that by the time the killer shows up, you are rooting for them to be slaughtered in all sorts of terrible ways. But here you watch these people butchering essentially nice if sometimes slightly disturbed people (like the aged nympho or the junkie lesbian) and your reaction is one of total repulsion. It's also a movie where the slayings are um...conceptually so horrifying, the lack of very gratuitous blood and gore (more a function of the budget than anything else - the director claims to have wrapped this up in $30000) really doesn't matter.

Didn't see Salt, but the rest from Chacko's post apply. Also, almost finished watching all four seasons of the fantastic 'Mr. Show with Bob and David' from the mid-90s. Very Python influenced, and it's almost like 'That Mitchell and Webb Look' from the American perspective. As far as currently airing TV shows go, Louie has been very entertaining thus far, and Futurama has been living up to my expectations after the shaky start. That's all I've been watching.

@Agni Nakshatram: Less inspired songs? Sacrilege! Almost every song on that soundtrack is super-cool. Need to buy a DVD of that again, mine refuses to play now. Did I tell you all people about the time they showed this movie on TV and my grandmother sat down very resolutely to see what she supposed from the title to be a devoutly religious mythological. After the first two songs (Amala, :wow:)she bade a retreat hasty enough for burning rubber tracks.

Victoria House
Masquerading as a Hindi Z-grade sleaze horror (Beware if that is your sole aim for there is neither of those two qualities) is a rarely paralleled neo-Nazi existential mind-fuck experiment.
Small Examples:

A film-unit comes for shooting to a mostly deserted hotel (possibly the titular Victoria House, though they never say so in the movie) and people totally shit their pants when a photograph of the film's heroine (supposedly famous enough for the hotel manager to say "maine aapki saari filmein dekhi hain") is occasionally found in the hotel premises.

The film producer gives an entire fourth wall monologue about his intentions and his reactions when he goes about looking to get fresh with the heroine through the hotel, peeking into the curiously large keyholes of various rooms.

The CBI inspector (the CBI is called up to investigate a murder committed in a low-budget film unit) comes up with the observation that the men who get killed had sex beforehand, which is especially interesting because they DIDN'T.

Saw Kickass which was asskicking indeed. Good movie.

Kill Bill Complete

Vol. 1 was cool on the whole although my interest levels dropped significantly from the Sonny Chiba episode onwards.
Vol. 2 was far less likable with Uma Thurman coming across as a total blank and lots more of crap dialog.

Halfway through Until the light takes us a black metal hagiography. Only Varg's apparent homophobia (or satiation with gay sex from his prison term - take your pick), prevents the director from blowing him right before the eyes of whoever is watching. I also find it amazing that so much is made of just ONE fucking murder in metal; while rap stars burn through entire gang wars, rape, muggings and drug dealings without raising so much as a yawn. I think its because they are slightly more honest about their motives and are not trying to make glocking someone seem like some sort of an exalted artistic statement. More later.

@ Ravi: Had half a mind to download that one, until i read some reviews which made me debunk the thought. Anyways, hows the soundtrack?

Anyhoo, saw Wall-E today. Wall-E starts off pretty slow, and failed to interest me initially. I got tired of the Disney-cute robot and his sentience. The film picks up when the larger plot unravels, and then drives in a great story, with some superb sequences. By the end of it, i was happy to have seen it.

And Then There Were None - Decent fun humorous take on one of Agatha Christie's really good books, if you don't mind that it chickens out on the bleakness of the source.

Samurai Rebellion - Damn good Samurai movie about a clan leader (Toshiro Mifune) who is initially coerced to accept his Lord's discarded mistress as a wife for his son and then asked to return the woman. Badasserie ensues.

The soundtrack is okay. Lots of ambient wankery and black metchul. The end features an entire segment with Frost who looks and behaves like a huge emo pansy. He breathes fire over some paintings by this awfully bad "black metal" artist stabs a couch and then cuts himself like a stupid girl. It looked like the sort of tantrum which would end with his parents slapping him and telling him to behave.

I re-downloaded Princess a Danish film which incidentally was the first thing I ever got over torrent. After downloading 4GB on a 128 kbps connection with just around three seeders, this got over some 6 months after it started. At which point I realised it was a DVD-Image file of the Danish DVD and had no english subtitles. Me and the ravenus sat through it anyway and found it a reasonably easy to follow film with a fairly obvious revenge theme. Seeing it now with subs, I find we missed a good deal without the dialogue and there are some moments in which this film rival Grave Of The Fireflies in being just incredibly sad.

August, a priest, takes charge of his five year old niece Mia, the daughter of his estranged sister Christina, more famously known as the porn star Princess. August realises to his horror that Mia has been subjected to pretty much every form of abuse there is, flips out and sets off for bloody terrible vendetta. It's got an almost absurdly sentimental conclusion, but I thought it was very in keeping with the spirit of the film.

Saw The Last Exorcism which was surprisingly very good. It is shot in similar style as [Rec] but I enjoyed this a lot more. It has some really tense scenes and it also manages to be different from some of the other exorcism movies I have seen before. Worth a watch.

I just saw Scheib's favorable review of that. Sadly the torrent scene is very pathetic for this film.