Rajamanikyam

Ivan puliyanu, ketta! A must-see movie for anyone who has spent at least a week in Thironthoram. Take Mammootty out and you don't have anything in the picture, but why would anyone take Mammootty out?

Miller's Crossing

One of the Coen Brothers' best films. Brilliant story, awesomely cool characters and a great background score. How did I miss this?

Crash

Crash is one of those people-keep-bumping-into-each-other-thereby-forming-a-plot movies. That said, it is well made and each character is etched out quite nicely. No one is in black and white, heh heh. Yup, worth a watch.

Quills

Starts off very well, but meanders towards the end. Rush hams it up quite well, Joaquin Phoenix and Michael Caine are good as always and Kate Winslett is very, very, pretty.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The book was better. The book was better. The better the book. Whatever.

Dogma

Funny, but not wickedly funny. Entertaining, but not edge-of-the-seat. Good, but not great. A could-have-been film.

Does anyone ever read these subject lines?

There comes a moment every year in a man's life when he looks back upon the year that passed and dwells on the lessons learnt, thereby becoming a better person.

This is not one of those moments.

I started off 2005 by keeping a log of all the movies I watched. I grew weary of this after a few months; blogging became a chore. So now when I look back and try to remember the best movies of the year, I am at a loss. Very few linger in my mind, truth be told. Miller's Crossing is one for sure. Revenge of the Sith is another. Rajamanikyam, perhaps. A History of Violence, definitely. Also Before Sunset, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Black and Crash. Best of the lot? I'd say it's a tie between Miller's Crossing and A History of Violence.

Books read have been few and far between. My reading has really dropped off the past year, what with the new job and the travel. In fact, I can't remember a single new book that I read and liked enough to talk about here. Oh, maybe The Half-Blood Prince, what the hell.

I'm looking forward to some better reading in the new year though, after a few purchases I made recently - Dom de Lillo's Underworld, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomincon, Akira Kurosawa's Something Like An Autobiography, Woody Allen's Collected Works, Samit Basu's The Manticore's Secret (not yet purchased, but consider it done) and John Updike's Bech: A Book.

On a different note, Rachu's favourite song these days (apart from her eternal #1, the song from Shrek, I'm A Believer) is a medly of two popular tunes. It goes:

Santa Claus is coming to town
Laughing all the way.

Indeed. Hope you all had a Merry Christmas.

Just watched <i>Miller's Crossing</i>

I think I'm in love with the Coen Brothers.

Awesome theme score too.

Akira

Entertaining film that brought anime to the world. Nothing compared to Miyazaki's stuff, but worth a watch nevertheless.

He da man!

Up yours, Eden Gardens.

I'm doing a movie quiz

At the Daly Memorial Hall, Nrupatunga Road, Bangalore, on Sunday, 27 November 2005.

Rules
Open to all, teams of 2 members
Entry Fee: Rs. 50/-
The quiz will cover both Hollywood and Indian movies.

Schedule
Prelims: 1000hrs
Finals: 1100hrs

Yee-haw!

Am headin' back home, pah'dnuhs!

Hot Shots! Part Deux

Not all that great, not all that bad. Timepass, as they say. Sends up Rambo, Casablanca and Saddam Hussein. 

A History of Violence

Brilliant film about a small town regular joe who isn't. Great screenplay, direction and fantastic performances by everyone. William Hurt's cameo is superb. An absolute must-watch. 

Herbie Fuly Loaded

Honestly, there was nothing else to do on the flight. 

Time's top 100 books

Time magazine has put up their top 100 books here. I've read only 24 of them, not good. On the silver lining side, there's a lot of good reading to look forward to.

On the beach again

The beach at Galveston. Very cool place, really. 

At the beach

At Galveston beach, just before lunch. Dil Chahta Hai? 

Nasa again

In front of one of the propulsion engines. 

Nasa

The rockets are just mock-ups, but the shuttle thing on top is the real thing. Or so they say. 

i-Haul

Bought a few movies at $2 a shot: The Pianist, Peyton Place and Charade. I also bought A Touch of Evil for $11. Muahahahaha.

Here we go again

Yet another painstaking journey. Yet another stop-over at the Chennai airport. This time round, they have free wi-fi though.

The Frankfurt airport looms ahead, grim and foreboding. Thankfully, I'll have just a couple of hours before my connecting flight to Houston.

Ammo packed: Jonathan Stroud's Ptolemy's Gate and Terry Pratchett's Going Postal. Should keep me alive till I reach Houston, hopefully.

Runway

Run away. As fast as you can. 

Sleepy Hollow

Things come to a head when the Headless Horseman is brought back from the dead. All because one person wanted to get ahead in life. Heady brew, but leaves you with a headache.

Alright, I'll stop. 

Tech talk

Item One: We will do a quick sanitation test and then release for acceptance testing. Lovely. I know we need to remove all the bugs we find, but doing a sanitation test really takes it to the next level.

Item Two: I could not get Manoj's approval. He has gone native. I see Manoj with paint on his face, wearing leaves for a dress and dancing to a tom-tom beat. He is obviously in no shape to approve anything, he's well and truly gone native.

Item Three: Please do the needful. My personal favourite. I get to pretty much do what I want, there's no one more needful than I.

Chocolate

Chocolate is a riot. The movie, I mean. An exercise in how not to remake good Hollywood movies. Also an exercise in how not to slip in scenes from other good Hollywood movies.

Picture this. You have Anil Kapoor and Sushma Reddy walk in to a bookstore. Sushma picks up a book and starts reading from the end. Kapoor asks her why. She goes, "Oh, if I die then I will know how the book turned out". Ha ha ha. Very original.

Stepping out of the store, Anil asks Sushma about her new boyfriend. She says his name is Balakrishnan. Anil says "No, no. That doesn't fit. Balakrishnan can do accounts, he can be the family doctor, but he cannot be your boyfriend". That marks the end of the When Harry Met Sally clips.

Here's another: Anil goes to the vamp Tanushree Dutta's house. He spots old newspaper cuttings of himself and comments on it. She says she needs to change her dress. He eyes her through a semi-opaque glass screen, as she slips into the tiniest of mini-skirts. They go to his office, where she crosses her legs. Anil's eyes pop out. No, she doesn't do a complete Sharon Stone, but the film maker would have us believe she could.

The ending makes you wonder whether the director really understood what The Usual Suspects was all about. Murtuza Arzai my gluteus maximus.

Chocolate

Har har har. An outrageously stupid remake of The Usual Suspects, with a couple of scenes from When Harry Met Sally and Basic Instinct thrown in. It's not even mildly interesting, nor remotely intelligent. 

Nerariyan CBI

Ayyo. This is not a movie, this a long advertisement for four products - AVT Tea, Tiger Biscuits, Kalyan Jewellers and Tata Indicom. Mammootty makes tea ("Very good tea. Very strong"), eats biscuits (the Tiger logo leaps out at you from an advertisement on the road when he's driving), checks out a jewellery store ("This is genuine 916 brand gold") and interrogates a sales person at a mobile store ("I am a TruePaid customer").

As for the suspense: bah! Think of the one person who could not have done the murder and there you go. Oh, sorry for the spoiler.

Kaazhcha

I liked this movie - not so much for the story of a Gujarati boy who winds up in Kerala after the earthquake, but for the marginals, the details that Blessy includes in the movie while moving from scene to scene. The dialogue between characters, the scenes from everyday Kuttanad and the wry humour made for some very pleasant viewing. Mammootty has done a fantastic job after a very long while; his State award is well and truly deserved this time.

Don't miss this one. 

Yavanika

No:1 masterpiece in Malayalam movie, as the promo suggests. It's one of KG George's better works, anyway. Gopi is absolutely brilliant as Ayyappan, the womanizing tabala player. Mammootty isn't half bad either, not to mention the excellent support cast of Thilakan, Asokan, Srinivasan, Jagathy, et al. Worth watching twice, at a minimum. 

Superman The Movie

You will believe a man can cry. No, seriously. You will either keel over laughing or cry helplessly, watching what you had believed to be an awesome movie with great special effects - from what you remember. Hopelessly dated, this is oh-so-avoidable. The 'Can you read my mind' number is especially cringe-worthy. 

Identity

Obviously inspired by Christie's And Then There Were None, this is a half-hearted attempt. Features one of the most stupid endings I've ever watched. Tip: don't try predicting the identity of the killer. It's not worth it. 

Birth

Very cool and very smart movie that doesn't leave too many loose ends. Nicole Kidman is good, Lauren Bacall is acerbic and Anne Heche has a very interesting cameo. Worth a watch, yeah. 

Waqt

Run of the mill family drama. Amitabh again, Akshay again. A few funny scenes initially, but a big yawn later on. Watched this on an inter-continental flight - there was no escape. 

My Wife's Murder

The problem with these offbeat, made-for-multiplex movies is that most people assume they are good. Made for the elite and not for the general public, you know. Has to be good, right?

No. 

Sarkar

Surprisingly good. Just don't compare it with The Godfather, no matter what the critics say. For once, I thought Abhishek was watchable. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

Oh, if Jolie's lips had been a tad smaller, the course of movie history would have been changed.

Or something.