Sunday 31 December 2006

Lucky # Slevin

Cool movie loaded with action, suspence and drama. Josh Hartnet has slowly improved his image in this movie and Sin City, after the great disaster in Pearl Harbour for some years ago. Bruce Willis is playing a role which fits him well, and is reminding of the role from Last Man Standing.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Saturday 30 December 2006

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

Lots of people didn't like Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (KANK). Many didn't liked the topic of the movie, and where expecting a traditional Johar/Chopra romantic movie avec Shah Rukh Khan. For those people, KANK was a great disappointment. The movie is about loose marriage relationships and unfaithfulness. This is actually what is happening in today’s world, and you cannot deny it by closing your eyes or ears. So what if a movie deals with this topic with top stars from Bollywood..?

The maker has tried to justify the topic by setting the storyline in US, and probably indirectly arguing that this is more relevant for foreigner desis. Fair enough. But still, I liked the different topic, the production which off course included Johar/Chopra formulas and performances of the actors.

Rating: 5 of 6

Deja Vu

Déjà Vu is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer who has produced lots of action blockbusters (Pirates of the Caribbean, National Treasure, Bad Boys 1+2, The Rock +++), and is directed by Tony Scot (Spy Game and Man on Fire). Based on this I had lots of expectations to Déjà Vu, which further increased when a friend recommended it strongly. And you know what; the movie is according to the expectations! It had cool story line, cool cinematography and editing. The first 30 minutes of movie can be expressed as slow, but as the speed picks afterwards, the first 30 minutes had some things, which you have forgotten which actually are nice details. The end was somehow cliché based, but still it was really good entertainment.

Rating: 5 of 6

Thursday 28 December 2006

Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan

Borat is an ironic comedy about people from Kazakhstan or other earlier Soviet countries. It was surprising funny, and included both simple and vulgar humour.

For those of you who have watched the movie, I will recommend to visit the website of the movie, and look at the layout of the page.
http://www.borat.tv/

Rating: 5 of 6

Wednesday 27 December 2006

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda is an interesting and thoughtful movie about the civil war in Rwanda in 1994. The story is about when the super powers in the West, like US, UK, Germany, France ++, closed their eyes in front of cruel actions in the civil war.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Monday 25 December 2006

Being Cyrus

Saif Ali Khan simply rocks in this movie. He has proven his acting skills in Salaam Namaste and especially Omkara, and continues in this movie.

The movie is about Cyrus, played by Saif Ali Khan, who moves into the life of Sethna family. From there begins a psychological journey where we get known to Sethna family and Cyrus, and people are not obviously what seem to be in their first impression.

Rating: 5 of 6

The Unsaid

I actually rented this movie in the summer of 2002, but I was so tired that I slept during the first 10 minutes of the movie, so I had to hand it back without watching it. Later I found a good deal of the DVD for almost two years ago and bought it. But I did not have motivation to watch it before now.

The movie is a thriller about a psychologist father who looses his son who committed suicide. So the father takes the blame for it, and now he founds a boy who maybe has similar mental problems…

I liked the movie, and it is made by techniques which were popular in the end of 90’s/beginning of 2000’.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Sunday 24 December 2006

Crash

Crash is about racism in today's US. The country is known for being a melt dig with people from lots of different countries, but still there exist racism in the form of day to day activities, i.e. at job, at supermarket, at café etc. The film tells how common people deals with it, and how the affected react to this.

I expected that this film would be similar to Traffic, despite the fact these have different topics. However, the movie was good, but too slow sometimes.

Rating: 4/5 of 6.

Saturday 23 December 2006

Lage Raho Munna Bhai

After waiting for so long time after the release of this movie, I finally watched it. Lage Raho Munnabhai uses fresh comedy, which also was used in Munna Bhai MBBS. The characters are the same, and the movie has the same charm as the previous one. Two thumbs up!

Rating: 5/6 of 6

Pusher

Good movie! Actually it is among first Danish action movies, which sat the standard for the wave of Danish action movies later.
Rating: 5 of 6

Eragon

I have seen posters of Eragon at Lillestrøm cinema for multiple months, and wasn't really looking forward to the movie. The posters were screaming to you that the movie was just another attempt to make something like Lord of the Rings. In addition the name Eragon, which can be compared to the character name Aragorn in Lord of the Rings did not bettered the situation. However, in order to avoid a Friday evening sitting at home, I and friend of mine gave it a chance. I tried to reduce my expectations of the movie to let it get a chance. And it managed to survive, and I will give it 4/3 of 6 points. But still, we have to remember that after watching Lord of the Rings-movies, things will not be the same again. If you watch any movie in the same category, you always compare it to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and it required a lot to beat the trilogy.

Books cannot always be filmed, and it requires a lot of hard work from screenplay writer. In this case, the dialogues in the movie are too boring, and there is nothing new about them.

The special effects in the movie are produced by well known companies which also produced effects for Lord of the Rings and Jurassic Park. The effects he are not realistic, and many times you will see that there are animations and not real stuff.

And one thing for the public in Oslo; your Eldorado cinema sucks! The public there is so-called fjortiss independent of their real age. There were lots of adults there who were talking during the movie, and behaved like worse than children.

However, all to all, boring start of the movie, but managed to keep up with some good effects at the end, therefore:

Rating: 4/3 of 6

Sunday 17 December 2006

Dhoom: 2

There was so much hype about Dhoom: 2, but since I didn't liked Dhoom 1 so much, I did not gave this one so much attention and wasn't looking so much forward to it compared to many people. I experienced that in Dhoom 1, I didn't understood whome party I should take. Was it a traditional cop-and-thief-movie, or was it a try to make a funny movie where the "bad guy" runs away at the end? I understood at last, but it wasn't among my favourite movies.

Now, since I had understood the concept of Dhoom, I knew what a was going to when I wathed Dhoom: 2, and it was above expectations. Hrithik Roshan has not done a bad job, and the chemistry between Abhishek and Uday is even better in this one. The movie also evolves around people and their relations, and do not only focus on action and cool editing board. Good done!

Rating: 5 of 6

Deadline - Sirf 24 Ghante

Deadline is a thriller about a doctor whome daughter got kidnapped.
The plot keeps you watching the movie, despite it has been used numerious times earlier.

The movie seems like small budget movie, which also doen't give so high expectations. However, since it keeps you watching it till the end without boring you, it can be regarded as above expectations. In addtion, when unknown director Tanveer Khan provides you such a movie compared to the more established thriller-director Vikram Bhatt who has given a number of boring movies, the effect of the surprise increases.

Rating: 4 of 6

Saturday 16 December 2006

Cradle 2 the Grave

Good action movie with DMX and Jet Li. It gives you martial art action combined with some typical action scenes in a hollywood movie. The director of this movie has also directed Romeo Must Die, which i like more than this one. In addtion, The One, Danny the Dog and Hero are also recommended movies with Jet Li.

Rating: 4 of 6

Thursday 14 December 2006

Casino Royale

Good action movie, which doesn't follow the same path as previous James Bond movies.

More info will arrive when I watch this movie for the 2nd time. ;)


Rating: 4/5 of 6 (preliminary)

Sunday 10 December 2006

Apne Sapna Money Money

OK comedy, but not extra ordinary in my opinion.
However, the three desi blondies; Celina Jaitley, Koena Mitra and Riya Sen is another reason to watch this movie.

Rating: 4 of 6

Saturday 9 December 2006

Jarhead

Jarhead is based on a book by the same name, and is about a jarhead or US Marine soldier's experiences during the first Golf War. Good movie with some humour.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Sunday 3 December 2006

Inside Man

Cool flick by Spike Lee about a bank robbery. Despite the fact that there has been made similar movies earlier, it is interesting to watch this one. Every character has its agenda, which makes the story of this thriller ongoing. Moreover, flashbacks and flashforwards (= scenes predicting what is going to happen in the future of the story line) are good edited and suits well. Good performances by Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster.

Rating: 4/5 of 6

Tristan + Isolde

A movie about a pair which is about to change the history of U.K. based in the 14/15th century. Good execution, but not extraordinary.

Rating: 3 of 6

Friday 1 December 2006

24 - Season 4

Finally, it was my turn to watch this season. I wasn't that much looking forward to it, but when I began, it was almost impossible to watch something else than this series! In other words, the season was terrific!

After the popularity of the previous seasons, the producers have used more money in this season. This can be seen in the numerous action sequences, so it makes the story more action-driven related to previous seasons. But still, it manages to deal between good doses of action and stories of the characters.

After so many good things with it, it has some bad points as well. The producer behind the series is Fox Corporation, which is also known to be supporting Republicans in the US. If we look at the politics of the Republicans, with there so-called war against terror in Iraq and Afghanistan (both are Muslim countries), who can be the ultimate villain(s) in the series and movies in these days..? Muslims off course! The terrorists in the series are Muslims, which is tending to be a cliché in movies produced in last years and especially in the previous two seasons of 24. Where is the creativity of screenplay-writers? Give us something new, and especially new villains!

For those of you who have watched previous seasons, the screenplay also deals with higher level in the politics and where decisions are really being made (presidency). This time, the president is also engaged in what kinds of methods are being used on potential suspects to get information. Among them, terror is well-known. In this season, I sometime got feel of that makers are trying to justify the use terror in such cases. This can also be related to Guantanamo base at Cuba. The use of media to justify such action taken by US authorities is simply disgusting!

However, the season had a good end and the DVD box was loaded with extra material. For instance, it had preview of season 5, where it is explained what has happened between season 4 and 5. After watching this preview, I am really looking forward to go ahead with day 5. In addition, it included a music video of a song based on the background music of 24, called "The longest day". Really cool music and video!

Rating: 6 of 6