New Sense

This months Top 5 movie recommendations are movies featuring from 1940 classic based in Budapest to a 2009 Telugu movie sequel that simply blew my mind away… Also my movie of the month is about con-men trying to con a rich Rachel Weisz.

Three Amigos

A Steve Martin comedy again is a part of this list after Bowfinger made it to last months list. Personally I find Steve Martin’s movies very out of the box and for the same reason have some unique comedy written in them. Three Amigos is the story of three out of work actors who are invited to Mexican village to help rid the village of its bandits. Written in a spoofy version of the Seven Samurais genre western, Three Amigos has its moments of absolute hilarity. While there are moments(esp the songs) where one feels tempted to skip forward but the movie is still worth a watch.

The Shop Around the corner

This 1940 movie about pen pals was the inspiration for the Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan starrer “Yo

u’ve got Mail“. In the original the story revolves around a shop in Budapest and the lives of its employees. James Stewart & Margaret Sullavan play the roles of a manager and newly

hired employee that cant stand each other. Their constant bickering at each other happens unknown to the reality that they are corresponding via letters as anonymous pen pals. Will they realize that the person they hate the most is also the person they secretly are in love with?

The beauty of this movie is in its antiquity and type of film making. The dialog writing and delivery has been long lost and its wonderful to once again experience it. The acting is exquisite not just of the lead but also of the rest of the cast. A must watch for all romantics.

Karthik Calling Karthik

Karthik calling Karthik is one of the new age style thrillers that is clearly aimed at entertaining the audience right thru the narration. The story is of a transformation of Karthik, a (for the lack of a better word) ‘Loser’ who is treated like a door mat by everyone to a confident man for whom nothing is out of reach. The clincher is that the transformation is triggered by late night phone calls by someone with the same name as the protagonist and who knows everything about him. The caller gets him to fix his life and even attract the affections of a colleague for whom he has had feeling for what seemed like forever.

The movie takes a twist when he is instructed to not tell anyone about the late night calls but he breaks the agreement by telling his lover about the life changing calls. Fearing the worst they try to discover the identity of the caller, this infuriates the caller making him to take revenge on Karthik and attempting to ruin his life… Who is this mysterious caller? Will he destroy Karthik’s life? Can he be stopped?

In a nutshell, the movie works… Its very easy to think of a concept like this and mess up the execution but the movie does justice not only to the characters but also to the intelligence of the audience.

Arya 2

Arya 2 is the sequel to the super-hit Telugu movie Arya. The sequel starts afresh (without much relation to the original other than the lead actor’s name) and talks about the friendship between Arya and Ajay, both orphans. Their friendship begins at the orphanage despite Ajay’s disinterest in being a pal to Arya. Arya has blind faith in Ajay who can hardly stand him and after Arya steps aside to let Ajay be adopted, he believes their friendship is cemented for life. In adulthood Arya convinces Ajay to get him a job at his software company where Geetha joins as an employee. Arya and Ajay both fall in love with her but its Arya who consistently tries to get her attention. Frustrated by his attempts and knowing how much Ajay is dear to him, she tells Arya that she loves Ajay. Arya decides that he shall not let anything come in the way of the love birds and goes overboard trying to get them together.

The movie sounds very typical but what is the clincher is the amazing understanding of game-play right thru the movie. The only other time I was this impressed with the conceptual game play in a movie it was done by the Joker in the The Dark Knight. There are situations where Arya makes decisions that seem a bit crazy but they make absolute sense in a few minutes as it appears he has taken into account both moving probability and motive of others involved indirectly in the situation.

Dialogs are fast paced and the brilliance of the writer is evident as. Arya’s character is one of the best ones I have seen written for screen in South Indian cinema. The comic sequences are original and sometimes the absurdity of the choices leaves you laughing your guts out.

This was the first Telugu movie I have seen in a long time and I absolutely loved it. Its a pity that the movie did only averagely in the box office, I would have loved to see more movies written this way.

Movie of the month:

The Brothers Bloom:

Con men don’t come better than the team of the Brothers Bloom. Starting right from their childhood, Stephen(Mark Ruffalo) is the genius behind the cons and Bloom(Adrien Brody) the protagonist in his intricate stories. Stephen believes that the best con in the world is the one in which both the con men and the conned get what they wanted. As Bloom hits his mid thirties he decides to quit the business as he fears that he is losing his identity to the ones borrowed for the cons. Stephen lures Bloom with the promise of one last con. The mark is the beautiful and lonely heiress Penelope Stamp(Rachel Weisz) who spends her time learning hobbies on her own. Complications in the con arise after Diamond Dog, the nemesis of the brothers returns and it seems like Penelope may be very different than other previous marks… To add to the confusion Bloom looks like he is falling in love with Penelope and thats what Stephen had warned him about all along…

The crispiness and unpredictability of The Brothers Bloom is the best part of the movie. The acting is top notch and the writing is brilliant. All the while you are not clear as to what is the con and who all are involved. As con movies come The Brothers Bloom is easily one of the best. A must watch.

  

The attraction of movies with smart cons is two fold, one the charisma of the con men(and women) and the other the brilliance of the con itself. Sadly Badmaash Company shows only a spark of the attraction and then falls flat.

The trailer of the movie promised a smart movie involving beautiful people who wear disguises to outsmart others and then go about their evenings blowing away their winnings in fancy casinos… In the movie we realize thats only half quarter a part of the story. The audience is then inflicted with cons involving defective pairs of shoes and gloves! Just as we sit and wait for that smart con, we are greeted with a spectacular bank loan con…
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There is something truly enigmatic about black and white movies. I had the pleasure of watching a couple of movies a few days back and the experience has made me a fanboy of the black and white movie era.

Sherlock Jr. was the first movie I stumbled upon, the silent movie from 1924 is a fun story about a movie projectionist who wishes to become a detective one day. His ambitions are put to a test when he finds himself wrongly accused of a crime he didnt commit.
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2009 was another good year of film watching for me. I watched exactly the same number of movies as I did in 2008. A number like 119 is hard but a total pleasure to repeat.
Instead of throwing up stats I will list out a bunch of movies that I thought were really good. I will skip the obvious suspects(Avatar gets enough publicity as it is ) and point out movies(that I watched in 2009) that werent that popular but were great in their own regard.
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2010 has so far been a year of major change for me. It started quietly and serenly in the plateau of Hampi, it was so calm that the onset of the new year was only known by the colorful rangoli that the local residents had put in front of their doors.

The next few days went partially in rediscovering the lost love for the stage and waking up to the beauty of the video camera. In the last 10 days I have written 2 short films and worked extensively on one. My initial purpose for being a part of the exercise was to warm up to concepts of movie making. Next thing I know I am cast into the movie(albeit a small role but thats based on screen time only ) and told to re-perform a comedy play (which I was a part of back in 2008).

Adding to that I have been around for about three birthdays (my friends will say I was barely there) and traveled from one end to the other end of bangalore more than a few times…

I guess that is one way to start a year