I got to watch L’illusionniste (The Illusionist) again. Ever since I saw the Les triplettes de Belleville (The Triplets of Belleville).I have been thrilled by Sylvain Chomet’s movies. This is the kind of animation movie which reveals new things to wonder about every time I watch it.

The amazing movements of the central character throughout the movie was the main source of enchantment the first time. The story, characters, lighting and the masterly use of 3D and 2D to create a unique hand drawn weathered, warm feel is fantastic. The style is absolutely unique. While there are many animation movies today which share the same look (for e.g. Pixar and Dreamworks Superhero movies Megamind and The Incredibles) Sylvain Chomet’s work is simply outstanding.

In this viewing, I was amazed at the smooth transitions that happen from day to night and night to day. The scene of the Illusionist traveling to Scotland, the one where he is trying to service a car and falls asleep in it and the epic camera fly by of a small town at night time just took my breath away again.

Some screencaps.

The Top 10 Cult Movies of the Decade.

Battle Royale looks like an interesting film.  Moulin Rouge is a good movie, but I don’t think it’s the number one cult movie of the Decade.

Quick Gun Murugun (Dr. Rajendra Prasad),  what do I say about this daring South Indian Cowbhai movie?

It has everything.. action.. camedy.. sangs..and lats and lats of balls.. sorry bullets I say!

Our hero is yeverything that yany decent south indian school-dropout would dream of becoming. His bullets speak when his words fail him. His words of wisdom and love for the locket lady brings tears of joy and fills the heart with warmth of passion.

Rice plate Reddy (Nazar) is the arch villain wanting to dominate the world with non-veg dosas from his evil McDosa corporateion. Helping him in this evil endeavour are such stalwart cohorts like Gunpowder, MBA Rowdy and Dr. DJango.  He’s unstoppable.. that is until Quick Gun Murugun steps into the scene.

Our heroes quest to stop RPR brings him across the scintilating and wannabe Miss India.. Miss Mango Dolly. What may her hobbies be one wonder’s?
I will tell you what they are. They are Cooking and Secretly loving QGM!

The movie has a love triangle and a mother (anni) angle and a trip to heaven on a modified motocart to boot!  I will keep my silents on our heroes re-entry on earth.

All in All..I can canfidently say that ..Yany Yindian who has drunk tha cow’s milk will go watch this movie I say!

PS: It’s worth watching once , but leave your thinking/critical cap outside the theatre. Mind it. ;-)

After watching the Oscars in 2006, I was very curious about the movie Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno), which had won three Oscars and was nominated for six Oscars. At that time I did check out who the director was and found out that it was Mexican director named Guillermo del Toro, who’s earlier Hollywood movie “Hellboy” I had seen.

Lately I got the opportunity of seeing Pan’s Labyrinth and was totally blown away. I would totally agree with one of the reviews in IMBD who said that’s its “Beautiful, violent, magical and Sad…” What stood out for me in addition to the cinematography and the art direction was the acting by Sergi López who played the villainous “Captain Vidal”.

The story is set in Spain during 1944 at the peak of the fascist regime of “Francisco Franco”.  The story is  about a girl who with her pregnant mother goes to live with her step father who is a captain of the Spanish army. The girl Ofelia meets a fairy who takes to an old faun who tells her that she is a princess and must complete three grueling tasks in order to prove her royalty. If she happens to fail then she would never see her real father who is the King.

In the movie the whole fantasy world can be interrupted as being created by girl who wants to escape the harsh realities of life. Well that’s left to the audience.

Guillermo del Toro is going to be  directing “The Hobbit” and I can’t think of a better person to fill Peter Jackson’s shoes.

Cache (Hidden)

I have not seen anything like this movie before. It is an exercise in frustration. It is however an interesting, tense and positive kind of frustration. This type of orchestrated frustration is worth examining.

On the surface, the story is about a famous TV personality (a writer and book reviewer). He receives tapes which show recordings of his house. This recording is very direct, like a security camera recording. Is it a joke? Is it the handiwork of a stalker? The sinister, relentless arrival of tapes with seemingly childish violent drawings creates a tension and frustration between the husband and wife. The images and tapes bring to the surface long suppressed memories and lures the main character into a deeper trap. All the events culminate in a moment of tragedy which is unexpected and shocking.

This story is interesting, but not exactly the main force of the movie. The interesting aspect is the sheer ruthlessness and coldness of the story teller, the director. He offers no explanations. No easy storyline with defined positions for the viewer to hang on to. He is simply like the tormentor in the movie as far as the audience is concerned. The frustration and helplessness felt by the family is similar to the one felt by the viewer. The movie shows something and hides something else.

The viewer begins to pay attention, interpret things and watch out for things on the screen. The tension created by the unfolding movie drives the viewer in the same way it drives its main character.

The curiosity generated and the ambiguity of the movie are balanced masterfully. The director is teasing, or is he? In the hands of lesser craftsmen, this treatment will fall flat, however, here it stays on for days and months after viewing the movie. A questioning begins of the visuals we see. Are there things hidden in all visuals? Is the very nature of visuals ambiguous? Don’t we always bring to bear so many things to what we see, which are not visible, in the form of interpretations?

This brief description itself is actually an attempt to reveal the hidden! It is one of the many attempts I make to look beyond the visible in the movie into the realm it shows by hiding. This is a good movie for people who wish to focus on the silence in speech, the untold in the telling and the hidden in the revealed. You will love it, if you like the process of reading between the lines!

Tales of X9

These dark days when nothing seems to be interesting on favorite cartoon channels like Cartoon Network and Nickolodeon, one wishes that the least they can do is rerun much beloved series like Samurai Jack. While we were talking about the uninteresting shows that are now part of the animation channels, what came to my mind was a few shining moments from the adventures of Jack.

This series quit while it was at its peak. It rose head and shoulders above other shows by achieving the right mix of art, story, animation, music, concepts, characters and dialog. Many episodes would make a lasting impact leaving us with memorable one liners. Like “Lulu, Sweet Thing”

Samurai Jack Episode 40 – The Tales of X9

This episode was a heady mix of the interesting elements of The Terminator, The Hitman Game, in a retro noire gangster futuristic environment. Samurai Jack does not speak in this episode. X9 is the hero of this episode.

X9 is a reluctant robotic assassin in the Philip Marlowe (Raymond Chandler) mould. A cruel joke has been played upon him in the form of an emotion chip implant by the mad scientists hired by Aku. Now, instead of falling behind in his job as an assassin, X9 transcends his robotic limits.

He meets Lulu, goes into retirement and spends his days playing sweet blues on his saxophone. True to the noire genre, evil Aku kidnaps Lulu and forces him out of retirement for one last job; the assasination of Jack.

X9 follows the trail of destruction that leads to the samurai, well aware of his limitations and lack of skill to kill the warrior. However, he has to try, for the sake of Lulu. Lulu, sweet thing!

Antoni Gaudi

This is the third part in the series Visions of Space that I saw. This is a look at how the works of three remarkable architects of the 20th century shaped our modern world. It examines how each one of them use space to express our response to the power of the corporation (Meiss van der Rohe), the power of the State (Albert Speer), and religion (Antoni Gaudi).

The third part is called God’s Architect.

Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí (1852–1926) designed some of the world’s most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks.
So unique and fanatastic was his vision and architecture that it is almost impossible to extrapolate and complete the spectacular, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.

While the Sagrada Familia cathedral is often referred to as the magnum opus of Gaudi, the buildings that showcase the, sensuous, curving and surreal style of Gaudi and his use of very advanced, unconventional methods, his keen and intense observation of nature are the Church of Colonia Guell, The Park Guell, El Carmel and the Casa Mila.

Robert Hughes takes on a journey of exploration as he traces the career of Antoni Gaudi and visits his buildings. His relationship with his parton Eusebi Guell and his staunch faith and celibacy as a catholic christian are quite well explained.How could such a intensely austere man build some of the most sensuous and fantastic buildings? The exploration of this aspect of Gaudi is what makes this part of the series very interesting.

For a person who has never heard or seen the works of Gaudi before, this documentary is a wonderful introduction. The presence of such a formidable person as Robert Hughes stamps the documentary with a unique sense of wonder, awe and appreciation. The interviews with experts interspersed with imagery and music of the best quality makes it an excellent watch for all people interested in architecture, culture, history and design.

Scarface (1932)

The mention of Scarface brings to mind the iconic images of  Tony Montana, the character played by Al Pacino in the 1983 movie made by Brian De Palma. However, it was only recently that I came to know from my friend that this was  a remake of a movie made more than 75 years ago!

This version is considered by many as one of the best gangster noire movies.

Scarface is a potent, uncompromising portrait of the gangster life. While journalists often romanticized them, and many in the public made mobsters into folk heroes, director Howard Hawks’ portrayal of the brutish and ambitious Capone-inspired titular character, played with terrific ferocity by Paul Muni  is brutal and stark.

The pre-noir gangster genre was in many ways defined by the innovative approaches taken by Hawks in Scarface. Tracking and dolly shots, relatively unknown at the time, contribute to the film’s kinetic energy and excellent pacing. The expressionistic black-and-white cinematography by Lee Garmes is married to a screenplay (written by a team led by Ben Hecht) packed with symbolism as well as a rare combination of humor, sex, and violence.

This extremely violent film (28 murders are recorded onscreen) also grafts a racy incest theme (Muni’s character has Caligula-like feelings for his sister, played with remarkable sexual confidence by Ann Dvorak) onto the story line, resulting in considerable pressure from censors (the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) coming to bear on the filmmakers (in this pre-Hays Production Code era). However, after considerable squabbling, producer Howard Hughes finally released Scarface in two formats: one with censor approval and one without, leading to confusion among Scarface audiences at the time.

Ironically, though the movie indicts the violence of the mob figures it portrays, it became very popular largely because of this: in the end, the mobsters lead a very exciting lifestyle and seem to be having a lot of fun wreaking havoc on the world. And, of course, the movie is grand entertainment itself.

A McGuffin

The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock built some his most suspense filled movies around a key concept called a McGuffin. Many famous films of his like Notorious, North by Northwest and Psycho were triumphs of this aspect of story telling. What exactly is a McGuffin?

Alfred Hitchcock made movies for more than 50 years. He was one of the greatest story tellers who was able to make movies in all eras. He made silent movies, movies with sound, black and white movies, movies for the color era and movies for television. In every format of movie making, he had mastered his unique method of story telling. It is interesting to note that he had a number of techniques which he had converted into a number of rules or laws for interesting movie making. One of them is the McGuffin.

A McGuffin is ‘ A device or plot element that catches the viewer’s attention or drives the plot. It is generally something that every character is concerned with.’  The McGuffin is essentially something that the entire story is built around and yet has no real relevance.

In Notorious, it is the Uranium. In North by Northwest it is government documents. In Psycho it is $40,000. None of the audience are bothered about it, yet, the characters, the plot and everything else in the movie is tightly woven around it!

The McGuffin, thus is essentially a nothing around which everything is built. A device for creating tension, suspense and thrills.

Albert Speer

This is the second part in the series Visions of Space that I saw. This is a look at how the works of three remarkable architects of the 20th century shaped our modern world. It examines how each one of them used space to express our response, respectively, to the power of the corporation (Meiss van der Rohe), the power of the State (Albert Speer), and religion (Antoni Gaudi).

The second part is about Albert Speer and is called Size Matters.

In 1979 Robert Hughes met and interviewed Hitler’s architect, Albert Speer, for his landmark series, Shock of the New. Speer died shortly afterwards but in 2002, Hughes discovered the long-lost tape of that conversation and was inspired to travel back to Germany to examine the legacy of a man who was, for a brief period, the most powerful architect in the world.

It covers a very much overlooked subject of urban planning and housing under Hitler’s regime.Speer’s aborted designs bring a fascinating insight into the manipulation of style, space, and size to achieve political and ideological goals.  After watching this episode, the intelligent viewer will undoubtedly become more aware of instances in daily life where grandiosity (physical or otherwise) is used as a subconscious means of fostering collectivism and avoiding criticism.

Hughes turns his keen eye and incisive mind to the life and work of Albert Speer, confidant of Adolf Hitler and the man chosen to construct the sorts of buildings and stadiums suitable to accompany the Nazi leader’s dreams of world domination.

Hughes ponders the role that Speer, with his imposing, austere design style, his “stripped down, modernised classicism”, played in shaping the 20th century and wonders what might have been if his side had won. He also examines the claims that Speer, despite his subsequent denials, had a role to play in the atrocities committed against the Jewish population. Hughes’s profile is aided by the discovery of an old and long-presumed lost audio tape of an interview that he conducted with the ageing architect just before his death in 1981. Touring the little that remains of Speer’s work in Germany, Hughes pronounces it to be “devoid of all fantasy, except fantasies of power . . . Its elegance soon became a crushing orderliness. It was about architecture as ideology: function, obedience, efficiency.”