Cinemascope

t men – anthony mann – average noir drama about two undercover agents going undercover in the mob.
it's a wonderful life – frank capra – true blue feel good. jimmy stewart is all american goodness and an angel walks the earth.
the girl who leapt through time – japanese anime classic about a girl who leaps back a day to make a love affair happen- and fails many times. lovingly drawn. science fiction meets coming of age
robot carnival – a series of anime directors playing with robots. the fun ones are the ones with humor. the tedious ones that try make profound the man/machine divide.
the other guys – when the hero cops die after jumping off a building the other guys take their place. loser buddy cop comedy. almost funny.
macbeth – orson welles over the top melodrama set in a craggy landscape. the norse goth chiaroscuro is all very dramatic.
it happened one night – dil hain ki manta nahin with more sweetness and beauty.
shame – new york city and a strange sexuality / morality drama. sex obsessed man in crystal clear skyscrapers and his sister a crumbling wreck
yojimbo – akira kurosawa. epic drama where a traveling samurai plays one clan against another in a a small village torn into two.
faster . dwayne johnson is released from prison and goes an a revenge rampage.
the all round reduced personality .helke sander. terrific film about a berlin. a single mother photographer and another group of women photograph the streets of berlin. long track shots of berlin.
ghost world. sad bitter enough telling of the graphic novel where two girlfriends in small town america spend time being cynical outsiders while vying for acceptance.
le chinoise- godard’s experimental staccato parody(?) on chinese communism and its glamour among the french youth of the 60s. difficult.
of gods and men – true story set in algeria that is based in a christian monastery surorunded by gradually increasing violence. the monks try and withstand but are kidnapped and murdered.
bridesmaids – too nasty to be completely funny. a crisis emerges when one of two girlfriends decides to leave spinsterhood and get married. jealousy rears its ugly head.
money ball – sports film in which brad pitt along with a number cruncher saves a baseball team.
tintin. the animation is lovingly recreated comic book. much nicer than i’d like to admit from steven spielberg. cant complain. and i love snowy though haddock could be better.
father son and holy war – anand patwardhan’s rant making wild and entertaining connections across gender and violence. shrill but that’s the point.
war and peace – another patwardhan classic agit-prop- long anti bomb story. why cant we live happily with one another?
diary of a country priest – bresson and a hero who is an ailing young priest in a small village. not quite ‘a man escaped’
news from ideological antiquity . eisenstein marx das capital – alexander kluge making a film about eisenstein’s aborted film on das capital via james joyce’s ulysses. verbose pontificating galore- except for that fabulous short by tom twyker that catalogues al the material on a street in berlin. cameraman
all that jazz . bob fosse. semi autobiographical musical classic with many over the top and more than slightly annoying songs scattered through. the man dies at the end- i think. ‘the wall’ with broadway songs.
agora – rachel weisz plays greek mathematician woman who is killed for not toeing the line of the new catholic powers in alexandria.
melancholia – lars von trier’s diptych of women suffering. the wedding party of the dangerously on the edge kirsten dunst in a mansion on the edge of the world. and in the second part apocalypse is coming as a blue planet collides with the earth. metaphors and meanings overflow. but the premise still seems very silly. i laughed at all the profundity.
the birth of a nation – d w griffith’s silent extraordinarily racist film about the birth of the kkk. i cant believe it’s political incorrectness.
line of beauty and grace. jock surges takes photographs of beautiful people – mainly naked women in beautiful places. i find them boring. as did i this fanmail.
exit through the gift shop. banksy. twisted doc on the boom of street art which documents the creation of another scam “street artist” thierry guetta. fun.
shanghai. dibakar banerjee’s first mis-step is still very good. more than slightly moralistic the film still manages to make some indelible images of bureaucracy and small town india. the language is where he falters and also in the evocation of place. the decision to make the town a generic indian city- i didn’t think helped.
rowdy rathore – rocking good time. prabhudeva cracks it again this time- in spite of being saddled with akshay kumar.
the saroj khan story – saroj khan is a diva. the story arc is pretty much predictable like a hindi film- but seeing her in the background at aaiye meherbaan is a real trip. and it has madhuri dixit too. so there.
27 down – i am supposed to like this film- but i could not get over the predictable story telling- though some bombay train images were fabulous in black and white.
supermen of malegaon – it is good that the film in the film is a comedy. we laugh then at the places where we are supposed to laugh and not at the people making the film. warm loving film.
a nous la libertie – rene clair doing a chaplin and a tati. two scoundrels let loose on a phonograph company wreak havoc- but also make the factory the incredible machine making for much leisure.
gangs of wasseypur – pissed me off so bad with its idea of bullying as humor. and badly made too. and manoj vajpai hams his ass off.

autumn afternoon, yasujiro ozu- post war japan comes to terms with the trauma of war and what it does to a family through intertwining stories of the young, the middle aged and the old. military songs are played in bars and sung along with, marriages are arranged and broken. the camera moves in systematic perpendicular movements intercutting between the interiors of offices, restaurants and homes; and fragments of the city.

appunti per un film sull'india, pasolini - a 1968 film in which pasolini searches for a actors for a proposed film where a king sacrifices himself to a starving tiger. in sharp left wing rhetoric he conducts interviews with intellectuals and politicians and men on the streets.

phantom india, louis malle. also 1968 7 part documentary on india by a traveling Louis malle. gorgeously shot all over the country in color. we forgive the orientalism and understand the sarcasm and cant forget the images- dancers in chennai, bal thackeray in bombay, vultures plucking out the eye of a dead bullock.

l'eclisse, antonioni - a drifting story of a woman trying to find love or meaning in a new life- she moves from event to event, mother to lover. the film lifts to another level in the last few minutes when a deserted city waits for an appointment that might never come. the city is itself the narrative.

frost nixon, ron howard - biopic about the famous interview in which nixon admits he was mistaken. and david frost pulling the confession out of him. a war of words. entertaining.

tropic thunder, ben stiller - in which a crew filming a war film actually ends up in the middle of a war. silly and fun. robert downey jr plays a white man playing a black man.

cabaret, bob fosse - liza minelli in berlin in between the wars. complicated relationship issues and a need to be famous.

brief encounter, david lean- the railway station becomes the place for an illicit relationship to begin and swiftly end as the meetings become more and more public. rachmaninov piano concerto 2 plays gorgeously throughout.

the iron lady, phylidia lloyd - meryl streep does thatcher imitations and wins and oscar. where is sokurov when you need him?

fried fish, chicken soup and a movie premiere, mamta murthy- mamtas cinema city film is a making off in manipur. intelligent, fun.

the descendants, alexander payne- george clooney finds out about his wife's affair as she dies in a hospital room. at the heart of it all is ancestral land in paradise. a film about bourgeois american ideals. the american dream and its pastoral beauty.

extremely loud and incredibly close, stephen daldry- the son of a 9/11 victim searches the city for the owner of the lock of the key in a blue vase. warm fuzzy feel good american family dramas seem to be in.

the artist, michel hazanavicius- sentimental mirrors to hollywood's past. the conceit of the silent film only sometimes makes for interesting punctums in otherwise and entertaining but bland film.

hugo, martin scorcese - much better homage- this time an american returns the gift by paying homage to a french master. georges melies allows for some gorgeous images. the railway station in paris, the clocks...

beginners, mike mills - oscar winner christopher plummer in a soft romantic low fi drama about a father who comes out to the world after his wife for many years dies. ewan mcgregor is the son who eventually falls in love with a french actress visiting los angeles.

certified copy, abbas kiorastami- a day in the life of a traveling author and a single mother. they flirt and speak of originals and copies until their lives begin to reflect each other and possibilities. copy or original. intellectually might be interesting but actually a bore.

suddenly last summer, joseph mankievicz - tennessee williams over heated play gets cinematic treatment when the lines are delivered in as deadpan a sarcasm as katherine hepburns, and when the seductress cousin in as drop dead beautiful as elizabeth taylor. yet the film seems false. the sequence of the cannibalistic boys being the most memorable.

a dangerous method, david cronenberg- again the possible darkness of the exploration of sadomasochism, male chemistry and bonding- all seem tepid and safe. keira knightley makes faces quite a bit and the jung / freud love hate is not quite right.

naked civil servant, jack gold - a greta biopic about quentin crisp- gay icon of the 1930s to the 1970s. playful and fun. it rarely - if ever- gets into the sad gay life stories of so many such films.

grey gardens, maysles brothers - masterpiece observational documentary by the maysles in which a mother and her daughter go at each other in a fading mansion by the sea. objects are the residue of another life- longed for. another time.

raw deal, anthony mann – a man wrongfully convicted escapes to go claim the reward for taking the fall aided by his femme fatale girlfriend and her polar opposite- the sweet social worker. silly film.

mera naam joker, rak kapoor – raj kapoor indulging himself in this trudge through the women in his life. the sexuality fo the young rishi kapoor is rather nicely done- in misty hills and boys homes; the russian trapeze artiste story is the most forgettable and pointless- but the self reflexive song picturisation where he pulls bits from his earlier films is interesting; and the final half with padmini playing the boy woman is fun while the sex shift thing lasts. the end is of course made gorgeous only because of the incredible picturization of jaane kahaan… puppets and circus lights. scale shifts and melodrama.

maya darpan, kumar shahani- a illusory mirror? the rajasthani haveli is the prison where a woman listlessly walks through corridors and courtyards, takes long leisurely walks in the hot desert sun and flirts with a romance of sorts with an engineer from the city. dreams of assam and green fields haunt her days. she longs to escape but is held by tradition and duty. until she decides to throw it all away.

mirror mirror, tarsem singh – illusory mirrors from fairy tales- snow white recast as cool. julia roberts makes for a pretty good wicked stepmother. the visuals are stunning- especially the over the top costumes. the prince is cute too- becoming a puppy dog. the jokes are risqué enough for it not to be maudlin- and the end song- i believe i believe i believe i believe… is when tarsem singh lets his bollywood upbringing shine through.

golmaal, rohit shetty – ajay devgan, sharman joshi and tusshar kapoor in this comic caper about the boys running away finding shelter in a blind couples house. loud crass and watchable enough- though i cant really remember much.

the best of youth, marco tullio giordana – mega epic, 6 hours long about three generations of italian middle classes told through two brothers – one becoming a doctor the other a policeman. communist rebels, mafia and love, children and madness in one long long very watchable film.

memories of murder, bong joon-ho – korean dark murder comedy, where a serial killer in a small town has been killing and raping women in the fields when it rains. he plays a song on the radio every time he commits a crime. a small town detective and a city cop try (unsuccessfully) to find him. reminded me a little of the more recent turkish ‘once upon a time in anatolia’. but this was much darker and nastier.

avengers, joss whedon – a smash-up of all the biggest names in the marvel universe. the fun is in watching them fight each other as much as it is in the villains taking over the world. hulk is adorable, black widow hot, iron man is perfect as is thor. i did also not mind hawkeye. i don’t think it it possible for me to see manhattan being demolished by alien invaders without connecting it somewhat to 9/11. propaganda works. from both sides.

whos afraid of virginia woolf, mike nichols – on a saturday night demure college professor and his wife entertain their guests- a biology blonde profesor and his mousy wife, by playing vicious vicious games with each other. claustrophobic, terrific performances and some sharp writing.

don 2, farhan akhtar – farhan akhtar wants so badly to be hollywood- it makes you sad. the plot is a predictable bank robbery and has holes all over the place. shah rukh sneers his way through some terribly misplaced cool lines, poor priyanka scowls her pretty face and lara dutta’s natural warmth is flattened into happy moll-ness. none of the oomph or energy that made the original – i mean the amitabh bachchan one- so enjoyable.

a man escaped, robert bresson – bresson’s world war 2 prison escape drama. precise and exacting- every gesture is perfect. sharp. brilliant.

Le portrait de petit cossette – akiyuki shinbo – three part ova in which objects are haunted by the spirit of a girl murdered by her lover in 18^th century france. The first part is disjointed fragments, the second more conventional in its structure with plot development, while the third is an explosion of images and sounds- none of which makes complete sense. 


captain america, joe johnston - the world war 2 story, tesserats, frozen heroes and a evil leering villain- worse even than the nazis. the silly costume and the jingoistic patriotism is couched in innocence to make it palatable. it is no longer the age of rambo.

Bombay ka babu: when dev anand arrives running away from a murder he thinks he has committed he arrives in a hill town and impersonates a runaway son (the same man he has killed). suchitra sen plays his sister/lover. the incestuous tug to the relationship is super interesting until then end when the bambai ka babu gives up his love for the sake of his adopted family. for a change the village is the corruptor in the form of the scheming villian who convinces anand to impersonate the son.

Ram ke naam: anand patwardhan's landmark documetary about the babri masjid demolition folllows the journey of the cavalcade as it attempts to demolish the mosque ot make way for the temple. as in most agit prop documentary the argument is flat and so are the characterisations- often though his brow beating and villain casting become too pat and he ends up ridiculing the 'common people'. the time that the film rises above i when it looks at the issue through its periphery- like the man with the lost spectacles on the bridge.

Audition. : Takashii Miike ultra violent sweet looking for love story that goes horribly wrong when the audition for a future bride reveals a mad monster girl in the guoise of a delicate ballet dancer. the turn from the sweet wry humour to the dark end with amputated legs builds slowly and hits hard.

Belle du jour: catherine deneuve is stunning as the pristine beauty soiled in mud. a bourgeois upper class wife of a doctor her fantasies for sadomasochism lead her away in the afternoons into an upper class whorehouse until her paramour in the other life stalks her home.

The Last emperor: there is of course the famous shot where the young newly croned epereor runs out of the the curtain clad interior into the courtyard of the forbidden city. The film cuts back and forthe between an older emperor in ajapense prisoner of war camp and the story of his life as he grew up within the forbidden city into a young man in the swining 20s. As a clash of value systems- western ideals of freedom and individuality clash with tradition and collectivism of the chinese tradtition. everyone speaks in english- which is grating sometimes- and peter o'toole's grand scottish teacher is often the valuse system that we are supposed to identify with

Sangam. Vyjayanti in a swim suit as Gopal teases from a tree.  Piano songs that frame one of the vertices between the other two. The love triangle is a screen geometry that multiplies in time. Plots, song lines, spaces triplicate in unending triangles in triangles. Looks exchanged and ignored. Har dil jo pyar karega... Men choose men over the grieving woman. the triangular patterns Replicate in mountain tops and flight formations tricolour. every relationship is haunted with its missing third point. and then Bagpipes and accordions are symbols of European obsessions. So much of the film meanders in Tourism and the plethora of Commodities in the fashion boutiques of paris.

Aah: does love save raj kapoor from dying of tuberculosis? nargis and him  fall in love over letters except that she is impersonating her sister. its all very tragic and morose.

Camera buff:kieslowski's bitter sweet film about a factory clerks romance with a camera he buys for documenting his growing chld until the world of art takes over his being. from the joy of the  the documentation of a life And the love of the world to the strange rituals of nuclear attack Drills with gas masks on. he ends up looking for Something over tranquillity. his obsessions for 'showing' end up in sacrificing a friend and losing his wife- yet he can only see it through Turning the camera on himself.

The cranes are flying. socievt socailist realism in High perspective. a City of bridges and infrastructure in  A liquid dappled light and shadowland. Faces and bodies move within this tapestry like smoothness. when out hero dies in the middle of the film in his mind the swirling trees remind him of that crazy rush up the stairs to meet his love before he left the city. the heroine is the strong suffering woman at home as the menfight on the front.

Just cause: a run of the mill courtroom drama with sean connery being duped by a man who he thinks is innocent. 

Wilde: the oscar wilde story with stephen fry brilliant as oscar and jude law bratty and self obsessed as bosie.

Rosencrautz and Guildenstern Are dead. watching hamlet from the periphery, these two dont know hat there is a play going on. instead they participate int he action from the edge. in between stombling across the great discoveries of the Experiments of Galileo and Newton they veer between being on Stage and off stage. its all very philipophical and profound- but more than a little tedious. 

Badlands. terence malick's foray into the violence of youthful energy and desperation against the tedium of suburban america. martin sheen is a boy from the other side of the tracks whose edgy charisma seduces the pretty girl into murder and a trip across the animal landscape of the americas. 

The visit. ingrid bergman returns to the town of guellen as a rich heiress out for revenge agains the very town that threw her out. but now she has her eyes set on the life of the ex-lover who dumped her for the daughter of a rich town merchant. she floods the town with commodiites and gets the townspeople to act agianst its own.

The night of the hunter. charles alughton's brilliant thriller. the killer preacher follows the boy and his sister down the long river. chrisitanity and murder, gospel music in the air, a body under water whoe hair swims like seaweed and the murder sequence in the church like attic- black and white noir drama. 

Carefree: intantly forgettable little musical rom com about a psychoanalyst falling for his patient. happy little golf dance.

Barry Lyndon. the film unfolds like a novel. its not only the chapters and the omniscient narrator but time stretching across to allow you to think and the almost model like actors going thorugh the motions speaking carefully enunciating every word. the stor is about the rise and fall of adventurer barry.

The Lion in winter: the castle is filled with the heat of language. katherine hepburn and peter o'toole play the queen and king bickering over who gets to be king among their three sons. each has their favourite. the homosexual lionhearted hero vs the idiot child. between them is the cool calculating machine.

Zelig: woody allen brilliant and funny mock documentary about the amazing zelig who became whoever he was in the company of- a republican, democrat, chinese or eskimo. chameleon. it would be too pat to say the film is about capitalism and the crisis of identity. it is .. but so what?

Easy rider. the flash fade cuts between the sequences were like a the kicks of a motorcycle until it cruises down the highway smoothly. the film is like a dream or a nightmare about America and freedom. loved it.

The man who shot liberty valance. moral of the story : in civilizing the west men like gary cooper brought with them the constitution, but the men who made it possible were gunslingers like john wayne. sacrificing themselves for the great american nation.

the french connection. terrific action sequences and the amazing chase scene below the structure of the train rushing across the city. it is a gritty city of garbage on the roadsa dn drug dealers everywhere.

agneepath. vijay dinananth chauhan refuses to deal in drugs- but does everything elese. great action sequences at the ganpati visarjan. and mithun makes an ass of himslef with that terrible tamilian accent. i have heard they got rid of this character for the hritik roshan remake. understandably.

the sweet smell of success- the machinations behind the scenes of the american publicity mechanism. tony curtis is to break up the love of a girl and her jazz player to be able ot satisfy her nasty columnist brother. like dangerous liaisons- a tragedy where words are knives.

kes- to keep away from his future as a miner in the depths of the earth, the boy keeps a falcon. lovely training sequences on the outskirts of the mining town.

mashaal- yash chopra in bombay spends time in a slum called dogarbhatti where a newspaperman reforms local goon anil kapoor by sending him away to bangalore. when the boy returns the tables have turned. again, some surprisingly good action sequences.

ankahee: amol palekar's boring and regressive take on the old debate on science vs faith. his father predicts that his first wife is going to die so he marries another girl who has mental problems and proceeds to cure her with sex. what an ego trip! when the other girl kills herself she saves the wife.

the last picture show- a coming of age drama about two friends in a nowhere texan town. the vixen blonde seduces the both of them on her way towards escape. black and white longing.

on the waterfront- terry malone cant imagine life outside the waterfront- his only world- the only place where he could have been somebody- a contender. brando is droopy eyed angst when he betrays his godfather to the cops.

film socialisme- godards' most recent film is a three part meditiation on eurpoe, palestine and of course film itself. shot in digital high saturated sharpness- the film is in three sections. the first on a cruise line headed for nowhere, the second in a suburban gas station and the third a trip across the europe's most famous cities. dense allegories pack the film and tear it apart brilliantly for most- except for the mid section whcih is just plain awful.

steven spielberg's version of the j g ballard semi-autobuigraphy is ste in the shanghai of the japanese invasion and the second world war.

tree of life . 

gorgeous to watch absoultely. the ambitions of the film are incredible. like tarkovsky- to take everyday life and turn it into something philisophical profound. except here i did not get much except for meditations on christianity, darwin, family and death. no quite the masterpiece it wants to be.

more video art than film. zidane the footballer through many many cameras in one match. no voiceover- just him and the ball.

three episodes where a blonde little girl reveals herself ot be destruction itself. like an atomic bomb. could any other country have imagined the destruction of hong kong in such a simple swish. it disappears. the second episode takes a war machine and makes it come alive eating its crew; while the third is a dramatic departure into the future.

anime again. this time it stars samuel jackson as a cool dude samurai looking for revenge. he wears the headband that allows him to challenge the evil samurai who killed his father.

twilight of the dark master . tsunami is the hero trying to save the earth from the evil dark lord. lots of sex and violence.

the underworld and the earth have come to a truce that some evil terrorists want to destroy. women turn into spiders as the world is saved by a noir detective from an american film (almost) and his hot demon partner. half blood is the answer.

tokyo city has embedded within it sites full of explosive potential. the dragons of heaven fight the dragons of earth over domination of the world. terrific animation.

not the osamu tezuka animation- instead a dreamy watery world of orientalist sexual innuendo. lovingly drawn.

pedro almodovar's funny short inspired by an oscar wilde story where a father sacrifices his son for a dance from the seductress salome.

something like a war. classic documentary on gender and birth control. women speak of their bodies and control by the state and by men.

amit dutta's unfortunately flat film on a 1700's rajasthani artist. over composed and stilted- he rearranges the paintings in symmetrical immobility. wide angle vistas and a sound design that echoes the music and lets the birds twitter incessantly.

an encounter between the city and the wild. the primitive being the tribals that brings out repressed sexual desire in the all concerned. beneath all of our sophistications we stay primitive.

one after the other. in a trance of dumbledore and hogwarths. playing quiddich. the third got dark very suddenly and stayed there for the rest of the films. not really that fantastical- for real otherworldliness go to anime.