K7's Blog

Been watching a lot of movies and my thoughts:

1. Dream Girls - Some amazing performances, a stunning Beyonce and some stupendous choreography. A friend of mine went there half-asleep and came out fully awake.
2. GURU - For all the expectations, was disappointed. The story was not convincing enough, but have to give it to Abishek on a great performance, was it better than the short but groovy  performance by Mallika?, that I have no answer for!
3. Blood Diamond - The more I watch Leonardo act, the more I start to like him as an actor. A story touching a very delicate subject, thank God I do not ever remember using the precious stone(s).
4. The Pursuit of Happyness - Not mightily impressed, do not know why. The story was good and so was the performance of the actors, but, I felt that  the story was a bit too heavy, maybe it was because I was tired even before I started watching the movie, then again, can’t I expect the movie to invigorate me?

I remember an episode in Seinfield where Newman uses this expression: “Beauty with Brains”. I don’t know if Kim Van Kooten has brains (of course, she does), but she can definitely act like a pro and yeah she is a beauty.

If u have got the time, watch the movie Phileine says sorry, a nice movie about a young lady following her love to NY.If you don’t mind some suggestive erotic scenes and if subtitles don’t repel u, the movie is guaranteed to to entertain you.

Did I say, she was attractive, well that was the whole point of posting this on my blog.

Memories of a Murder

[img] courtesy: http://www.nexbase.net/

One of the perks of living in the western world is that you get to experience a lot of cultures. A few days ago I was casually surfing through the TV channels and was glad that I did, for I saw this very nice Korean thriller Salinui chueok.A very interesting thriller (based on true incidents). If I were to say the story is about a serial killer (?) whose victims are mainly attractive young females, most will feel that this is just another film about a psychopath. My impression was along those lines when I read the tag line on the screen.Nevertheless I decided to watch as I had the time and also wished I could see some beautiful Korean actors. Not many beautiful female actors but I was struck by the believable characters and good acting of the leads. The pace of the movie was ideal, with many twists that would keep you guessing.Brilliant soundtrack (a Japanese music director for a Korean film!). Unlike many Crime/Murder/Thriller movies this movie thankfully had some humorous moments-even though it wouldn’t make you pour your guts out- but definitely does blend in with the whole movie. No wonder it was big hit in South Korea.

Lock stock and two smoking barrels

Another wonderful movie I got to see recently. The story revolves around 4 friends who also happen to be thugs. The movie is about how these friend end up owing about a million pounds to a bigger thug and how they try to pay him back. Lots of goof-ups, dead guys, laced with some nice dialogues. Humorous to the hilt!

Kung Fu Hustle

A action movie that I hugely enjoyed. Thanks to Hemanth. Some wonderful background music, what can I say? Wonderful, wonderful Comedy.

City of God

I can’t say I ever wanted to be a gangster, maybe a lawyer, a scientist, etc…but no not a gangster.Well I ask myself did I ever want to be what I am, I can’t tell.My father is a banker, his father was a temple priest and I guess my ancestors were all priests.It’s highly unlikely that any of them were gangsters.Now I might get into a different profession someday and my descendants probably do something different (for a living) from their antecedents. Probably one of them is going to b a gangster. Point is a normal middle class Indian has a very little probability of being a Gangster.I guess it can be applied to middle class families around the globe. Take for instance Brazil and the colorful Rio, fernando meirelles confirms the point.But I do seem to like gangster movies like Nayagan, Godfather, Good fellas, Pattiyal, Pulp fiction and yeah City of God. Not to mention the gangster/mafia novels like The Sicilian, Fourth K, Omerta and a few others. If I were given a list of people and asked to pick the gangsters out of the list, my first step would to eliminate anyone under the age of 20. I would have been terribly wrong, City of God is about Gangsters who are mostly Kids. In fact the main gangster in the movie is named ‘Kid’ until he got his name changed.I cannot read long passages on a computer and hence I tend to limit my posts to few 1000 words and I will briefly tell why I felt the movie was so good.

• I watched the movie with subtitles (characters in the movie speak Portuguese) and after I watched the movie I read somewhere that one can follow the movie with the sound/subtitles turned off, I tried it and it worked.Credit to the director/ actors.
• All the other gangster movies in some way glorified gangsters (if they form the main character(s)), this movie doesn’t.
• Non linear nature of the movie, brilliant story telling.
• Superb acting by mostly non professional actors.
• Highly realistic,
• and as the director says, the movie is about hope, in some way hoping that children born in slums/poor families need not have to become a gangster to survive.
• and yeah some of what the director says in the interview here

Mudhal Mariyadhai

I am mostly a very reserved person, I could go without speaking to anyone for a number of days without any problem. This movie is full of great songs/dialog’s.If I could watch the City of God without subtitles/sound, I wouldn’t do this with this film. Don’t watch this film if u don’t know Tamil, and if u do know the language, please watch it.

Kamal Hassan is a very talented Indian actor, in Devar magan he was Sivaji’s son, an excellent film with wonderful performance by Kamal.There was this particular scene just before Sivaji dies, when they r talking, the camera first shows sivaji expressing a feeling and then it shows kamal expressing the same (of, I guess father-son affection), and just that one scene made me realize that even a veteran/versatile actor like Kamal is not even close to the dizzying talent heights the late Sivaji had reached.Anyway, it is therefore assumed that Sivaji gave a splendid perfomance in the movie that is part of the title of the post. The move has some excellent songs and conversations that are lyrical and extremely enjoyable.Bharatiraja did a great job penning and directing this movie.Illayaraja proved why he is so well respected in music circles.At different stages in my life, I liked different female actors.Amala, Manisha, Kaishma and so on. I found them attractive, but Radha( one of the or the main female leads) of the movie is a class apart and that is how I will remember the movie- the movie that revealed to me a beauty named Radha.Maybe it is her character in the movie that I enjoyed, neverthless, the Aishwaryas, priety Zintas, madhuris and the rest do not make to k7’s list of eligible “saha dharmini’s”.