forrest_gump Blog

He is David!

forrest_gump — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:53:00 GMT

Based on Anne Holm's novel, it is about a 12-year-old boy named David (Ben Tibber) who, in 1952, flees a Bulgarian forced-labor camp (set up to enslave those who oppose the new, post-war regime) and makes for freedom. He has been given an envelope whose contents are secret and told that Denmark is where he needs to take it.

David's first means of escape, however, is a ship bound for Italy. This is a slight detour from Denmark, but it does allow him more opportunities to meet strangers of varying degrees of kindness and to have a number of quaint Dickensian episodes as he makes his way back north: staying with a wealthy family, doing odd jobs for odd people, getting into tussles with pugnacious little boys, that sort of thing. Much of this material, in the mid-section of the film, feels like a sidetrack, marked by lovely European scenery but not much point.

It is not until David reaches Switzerland and encounters a kindly old woman named Sophie (Joan Plowright) that director Paul Feig -- best known as the man behind TV's "Freaks and Geeks" -- finds his way again. David has only known the cruel life of the labor camp, having been put there with his now-dead parents at an early age. Sophie, on the other hand, has lived several peaceful decades in a world where there is freedom and beauty. Heartbreakingly, David has learned never to trust anyone, making it Sophie's responsibility to help him see that there is good in the world, too.

The language on-screen is at all times English, once with a verbal warning that if David listens closely enough, he’d be able to pick up on foreign dialects, but the ability to do so here is a lazy resort. (As he stays with an Italian family for a brief time, the dining interlude suggests that the family has never sat down to eat together before.) Everyone sounds British and everyone speaks like the British, and is therefore never much of an awareness of the potential for cultural exploration and excitement. Much of the rest of the movie itself is a lazy attempt to replicate a base effect of this child’s perspective in a huge world; the progressive plot is straightforward and banal, the flashbacks are rudimentary, over-blown and over-emphasized, the characterizations are generic and cartoonish. Yet for all the reliance on childish elements and the storybook illustrations in place of scenes, the movie actually contains very little action to advance the winding course of the words that are so effortlessly spoken. The words creak with calculated composition (“You have to look at paintings differently than other things. More closely, listen what it tells you.”) that never sufficiently capture the foreignness of the situations or individuality of people.

Its a simple film which initially got potential to explode but unfortunately failed!

Yet another Robin Williams ANtiboitic!

forrest_gump — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 07:33:00 GMT

Now, "Patch Adams" is about a physician who violates the rule against emotional involvement, an infraction which brings him in conflict with the administrator of a hospital and dean of his medical school. By the conclusion of the film he has gained the enthusiastic approval of everyone else--the girl of his dreams who was repelled by him at first meeting, the roommate who challenged his way of thinking, the kids in the cancer ward, the nurses who pretty much said "let Patch be Patch," even the head of a medical disciplinary board that considered expelling him from school. Patch Adams is probably going to be your hero, especially if you've ever gone to the typical full-of-himself, godlike doctor who may hardly make eye contact with you or call you by name or refer to you by anything except a case. He clowns around wildly with the deadly sick kids, using an enema bulb to make a red nose; he insists that a diabetic being studied by a group of medical students be called by her name and not "the diabetic," when making the round he wears shirts that Hawaiians would consider loud. He's a genuine human being. But alas, he's not the sort of guy you'd want for your own physician. While he pricks the pretensions of the pompous practitioners, he goes to the other extreme instead of finding the golden mean. You want your professional to be highly sympathetic, even get somewhat emotionally involved with you and your background. But for laughter, you'd best do what the late editor of Saturday Review magazine, Norman Cousin, did when he was hospitalized with a fatal illness. Rent Charlie Chaplin movies, look at the Marx Brothers, laugh laugh laugh. But you don't want your doctor wear a Pinocchio nose or an enema bulb, do you?

Though Patch Adams may not be your cup of curative chicken soup, the movie, which is based on an actual person, is involving and emotionally fulfilling, if quite a bit over-sentimental. Conventionally directed like a TV story by Tom Shadyac and based on Hunter Doherty Adams's own story, "Patch Adams" begins in 1969 when Adams voluntary checks himself into a psychiatric hospital, a suicidal wreck. There he discovers that he has the gift to reach his fellow patients, something the head psychiatrist is unable to do since the latter does not even look his clients in the eye. ("You suck at helping people," Patch says, even though the year is 1969.) Though middle-aged, he decides at that point that he wants to help people and, with the aid of his brilliant mind, is able to enroll in medical school and attain super grades with a minimum of studying. He falls in love with one of the few women in the class (the adorable Monica Potter who looks about twenty years his junior) and with the help of an empathetic classmate, Truman Schiff (Daniel London), he converts that ultra-serious student to his philosophy. His ideology can be summed up, "You treat a disease, you win you lose...you treat a patient and I guarantee you'll win." Much of the film is taken up shtick performed by the title character, played wonderfully and with sincerity by Robin Williams, who has sprung back from his role in the disastrous "What Dreams May Come." As Adams, Mr. Williams finds that he can draw laughter from people of all walks of life and ages, as he demonstrates in speaking to a convention of meat packers where he jokes, "In New Zealand they found a new use for sheep...wool." As the school's dean, Bob Gunton is appropriately villainous, a man whose serious stature is threatened by this great bag of fun. Their personality clash leads to Adams's near dismissal from the school for violating just about every rule of proper behavior in the book, but Adams brings out the humanity of other doctors, such as one played by Josef Sommer (who is, by the way, exactly the sort of physician I would like to have rather than Adams) and the head honcho played by Harve Presnell.

Normal rated easy going movie...but u will like it if u like robin williams films,u will love it if u love robin williams..!

Another shitfilm from seagal

forrest_gump — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:28:08 GMT

it was just a real bogus one from seagal..i dont know how can he do these sterotype films so continously???gosh!!!!

One hell of a movie!

forrest_gump — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:57:00 GMT

sin city

Sin City is the kind of movie you have to talk about. The kind of movie you can’t shut up about. Whether or not you like it, it’ll ignite a burning desire to share what you’ve seen with others.

Sin City is a shocking, revolutionary success.

The city lives up to its name. Vile, corrupt, and rotting from the inside out, this is someone’s vision of hell made real. The city is filled with murderers, thugs, rapists, and death. Violence is a way of life in Frank Miller’s world, and so the film itself is filled to the brim with it. Some may find it difficult to take. Though the black and white stylized look of the movie softens some of its more brutal blows, the bloodshed is laid on so thick it’s almost palpable. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Sin City is three separate stories held together by a few common threads. Three characters live in this city, and in their own, sometimes utterly twisted ways try to bring justice to a wasted, fetid world.

We begin with Bruce Willis’ Hartigan, a sure sign that Willis is eternally type cast, since he’s again playing a beaten down, honest cop on his way to retirement. Willis of course slips into the role almost effortlessly, and though we’ve seen him take on this type of character before, Sin City makes it impossible to be tired of it. Hartigan’s journey is the most pure of the three. He’s a genuinely good man, probably the city’s last honest cop. His struggle to do the right thing puts him through hell, and while unlike the others his story isn’t one of failed redemption or vengeance, it’s about something much more complex. Basic nobility, righteousness, maybe even love. He’s fighting to protect Nancy (Jessica Alba), a skinny stripper who in an odd choice by Rodriguez doesn’t take her clothes off. For the rest of its running time, Sin City doesn’t shy away from nudity. Carla Gugino has an extensive and artistically beautiful full nude scene, and deserves credit for being brave enough to do what was needed. So does Bruce Willis, though his is heavily shadowed. But Jessica Alba refused to take off her clothes and I think her character suffers for it. Rodriguez claims it was his decision (but then every director says that), but I’m not inclined to believe it. There’s something awkward about a girl surrounded by depravity dancing in the middle of a strip joint with her clothes on. It’s like a piece that doesn’t fit in an otherwise no holds barred story of chronic urban rot. Refusal to do nudity aside, Alba’s acting isn’t exactly up to snuff either. Surrounded by stellar, big name veteran performers, she comes off weak and hesitant. I never really got a good feel for Nancy Callahan, except to note that she frequently looks lost. Is that Alba out of her depth, or is her character really that chronically confused?

We meet Marv (Mickey Rourke), an obviously brutish thug with a hideous face and mental problems that require pills, pills which he hasn’t taken in days. He’s spurred on to seek justice through a simple act of kindness. No one has ever been so kind to him, and when Goldie is, it changes him. He tries to avenge her death the only way he knows how, by bringing death to others. Some of them are innocent. Marv knows it, but can’t stop. It’s Mickey Rourke that makes Marv’s tale Sin City’s strongest, most affecting story. Coated in freakish prosthetics and viciously murdering his way through the city, he makes Marv a sympathetic and layered character, though he spends a lot of time sawing off heads. His story is one of twisted, unnatural redemption: A psychotic killer trying to redeem himself by slaughtering the right people. He’s so natural; Rourke slips into the role like it’s a second skin. He steals the movie, it’s the role he was born to play and Mickey tackles it with relish.

(Clive Owen) story is a little more complicated. We never know who or what the man has been; only that he’s not someone to be messed with. He befriends a waitress and becomes entangled with her old abusive boyfriend named Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Things go poorly, and with the help of the hookers in Old Town Dwight makes Jackie Boy very very dead. Big mistake. They’ve killed the wrong man and risk open war between Old Town’s vicious, independently run whores and the pimps, gangs, and thugs who used to run their little section of purgatory. Dwight fights to save his slut friends, and in doing so terminates a lot of Irishmen. Clive is battered and beaten looking here, his face lined with shadow, a caricature of hard living. His bright red Converse sneakers stand out amidst the darkness, a brutal black and white killer with brightly colored shoes.

The film is black and white, the actors are real, everything else is not. Color splashes onto the screen at all the right moments. When Josh Hartnett talks about the beauty of a woman’s eyes, they flare green with color. When he talks about the calm storm inside her, the shadows around her face stir ever so slightly with the colors of an impending storm. When Nancy dances, she lights up with flushed hues, sparkling with light as the men of Sin City ogle her. The result is marvelous, a perfect use of special effects to bring balls to the wall acting and atmosphere together in a dark, multi-layered narrative. It’s as if through technology real film noir has been resurrected, with a disturbed, hyper-violent twist.

I know I keep mentioning it, but people need to be clear on this before going in: Violence is what Sin City is. Because it is so stylized and mostly in black and white the violence isn’t necessarily gruesome, but it is prolific. Every shot of the film is filled with killing, and hatred, and death. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not gratuitous. The violence is essential, but omnipresent. Some people won’t be able to take it.

if you can take what’s being thrown at you, Sin City is an incendiary movie experience. You’ve never seen anything like it. This is easily Rodriguez best movie, and it bears comparison to Tarantino’s (who guest directed a Sin City scene) Kill Bill masterpiece. Both are deeply personal tales of ultra-violence that blast so much originality on screen it’s almost impossible to take. It’s a perfect use of a so far wasted technology, a perfect adaptation of a visceral source material into a movie that succeeds beyond expectation. The cast is utterly amazing, and I’ve only touched on a few of the main characters here, but every big name brings something incredibly special to their role. Elijah Wood is flat out freaky as a quiet little psycho with glasses, Nick Stahl is disturbed as a yellow skinned killer, Rosario Dawson works the hell out of her mohawk, and if you sniff her I bet Jaime King actually does smell like angels. Sin City is fierce and unafraid, an assault on your senses and a dark, harsh tale in which characters struggle to do what’s right by doing wrong. It’s not bright or cheery and there are no happy endings, but what‘s here is shockingly beautiful.

A life within a life

forrest_gump — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:26:00 GMT

big fish

Director Tim Burton is one of those directors with a unique style, which makes
each film instantly recognisable as his. The story should be odd, the
cinematography and design at least partly dark in a Gothic sort of way, and the
acting should be eccentric, if not over the top. ‘Big Fish’ is Burton’s latest film,
and a typical Burton at that. Steven Spielberg was supposed to make this film
before Burton came aboard, but once you have seen the film, you will realise
this was either Burton’s or no-one’s project.

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) is an old man, now bed-ridden and dying, and
his son Will (Billy Crudup) has returned to see him, perhaps for one last time.
They never got along very well, because Edward was a teller of tall-tales, all of
which might have been intriguing, but very unlikely true. Will has the impression
Edward never really gave him a chance to get to know his father for whom he
really was, and now it seems almost too late. His mother (Jessica Lange) is not
really helpful in this respect, she only occasionally seems to hint at things in his
stories that might be true, such as the fact that Edward bought a town in his
youth, to save it from destruction.

Will, with the act of sale the in his hands, decides to go and visit the town, and
perhaps discover more about who his father really was. The people that tell him
about his father include lovely old lady Jenny (Helena Bonham-Carter, Burton’s
wife), who seems to have had an affair with his father, or so she would like to
think.

The film shows Edward’s exploits of youth in flashbacks, with Ewan McGregor
as the younger Edward, and Alison Lohman as his girlfriend (later his wife). His
fishy tales are really quite incredible with an assorted range of eccentric
characters, bizarre locations and even stranger happenings. Will Will be able to
find out who his father really was, or does that even matter? Perhaps Edward’s
stories reveal more about whom he aspired to be, and is this the more
important thing in the end.

Burton, as one could expect, handles everything properly and never loses the
overall narrative out of sight, though it must be noted that because the story is
made up of many weird but delightful little tales, the cohesive force of the
overall narrative is less strong, though there is really no other way in which this
particular story could have been told. If one is open to a structure that is more
open and meandering than most, ‘Big Fish’ is a compelling story of stories.

Albert Finney shows us how the big actors act: he is completely convincing as
the older Edward, with a tiny movement of an eyebrow he conveys his
particular fondness of a story he has told but perhaps never lived, though
there is really no big difference to him. Telling the stories was his life. Ewan
McGregor, as the younger version is also apt, with a fairy-tale like air he hops
from one absurdity to the next as if it were the most normal thing on earth.

‘Big Fish’ is a motion-picture about stories and words, but they are very well
illustrated in a typical Burtonesque style: with a view slightly askew of this world,
but a lot more entertaining. ‘Big Fish’ is an enjoyable piece of storytelling,
which, as every good story does, could only improve with repetition.

is it tough to go through the clouds when you love?

forrest_gump — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:19:00 GMT

a walk in the clouds

its tough to go through the clouds when you love..its tough to fight them..face them..but at the end when it results into seeing the peeping sun...everything seems so natural and obvious..a walk in the clouds is a excellent love story where the protogonist experienced the clouds of love

The film begins as Paul returns home from World War II to find that he has nothing in common with his young cutie-pie wife Betty (Debra Messing), whom he impulsively married before shipping overseas. Haunted by wartime nightmares laced with personal angst, Paul just wants to pursue the American dream — home and hearth, children and a dog, etc.

When he hits the road to find himself he instead finds Victoria Aragon (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), a college student on her way home to "The Clouds," a nickname for the family winery. She looks forward to seeing her supportive mother and grandparents, but is worried about facing her bombastic, intolerant father (Giancarlo Giannini), as she is pregnant and unmarried.

So, Paul offers to be her husband for a day or two, a ploy that is, of course, doomed to failure. And there's no doubt from their first meeting that Paul and Victoria will gradually fall in love.

Arau fills the screen with vivid colors and heavenly images, using the harvesting of grapes as a metaphor. (A grape-stomping sequence is particularly sensuous.) And there are a number of individual moments that are quite entrancing (enhanced by Maurice Jarre's lush music), despite the feeling that it's all a bit empty.

In the family scenes, it is Anthony Quinn as the grandfather who steals the show with a hilarious and touching performance as the sage old voice of dubious wisdom.As Don Pedro Aragon, he is full of the kind of good advice that urges the enjoyment of sexual favors and large amounts of strong alcohol. When Don Pedro gets Paul drunk, you can see Quinn pushing Reeves to loosen up, which Reeves actually starts to do. From this scene one can detect signs of acting potential beneath Reeves' usual mono-emotionality. Everyone else in the cast is equally lively, however, with Sanchez-Gijon managing to combine an unlikely sense of both innocence and sensuousness, while Giannini is charmingly hammy.

Reeves is a little too quiet and polite as an actor to give much of a sense of the struggle between his growing passion and the chivalry that will not allow him to act on it.

Arau tries to mix good old American practicality (this is his first English language movie) and the magical realism that tempered a tendency toward gravity in "Like Water for Chocolate." In an otherwise American movie, the magic seems awfully hokey.

at the end its a wonderful film...for lovers and for people who loves their family..

No barriers to love

forrest_gump — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:23:00 GMT

city of angels

Loosely based on Wim Winders' enchanting tale Wings of Desire, Brad Silberling's City of Angels is a superlatively crafted romantic drama that solidly stands on its own merits. Like the German film, new pic offers a haunting yet lyrical meditation on such universal issues as spirit versus matter, human courage, and the true meaning of love and desire. The endlessly resourceful Nicolas Cage, as a celestial angel, and a terrifically engaging Meg Ryan, as a pragmatic, surgeon enjoy such a blissful chemistry that they elevate the drama to a poetic level seldom reached in a mainstream movie. Major stars--and an exceedingly handsome production--should help position the film as a major spring release, but Warners still faces a challenge in marketing a stylish movie with undeniable philosophical overtones that deviates substantially from Hollywood's more conventional romantic fare.

A rarity, City of Angels is a big-budget, star-studded studio movie that approximates European art films not only in its thematic concerns but also in tone, style and design.

Seth the angel (Nicholas Cage) and Maggie the surgeon (Meg Ryan) are discussing tears. Seth, who has never cried or wiped away a tear, wants to know why people cry. Maggie tries to explain it in medical terms: the tear ducts overact for some reason, nobody knows why. Seth knows the real reason and says so — there’s too much emotion, and the body just can’t handle it and weeps.

In a Hollywood that celebrates action and explosion and glamor, this is a movie that’s not afraid to embrace the important issues of love, faith, loss and devotion that we face everyday. It is, superficially, about the romance between the angel and the surgeon, but it reaches out past the barriers of the love story to awaken the hearts and spirits of the audience.

But ultimately, what gives the movie its special grace is the exquisite, nuanced acting of Cage, as the rebel, Pinnochio-like angel who wants to be a real boy. Drawing on expressive movements and slightly stylized gestures, he gives one of his most low-key and lyrical performances. Casting aside her customary "cute" look, Ryan also excels as a down-to-earth surgeon, whose entire set of beliefs is shaken by her encounter with Seth. Impressive supporting work also comes from TV's two tough cops, Messinger (NYPD Blues), as a free spirit who fully embraces life's pleasures, and Braugher (Homicide), as the more serenely content angel.

And if Cage is wonderful, Cage and Ryan together are electric. Their early scenes are almost heartstopping — actually heartstopping at first, as their eyes meet over an operating room table after a heart surgery gone awry. The scenes where Seth is invisibly comforting Maggie are silently eloquent, and when they finally talk, Cage speaks with such understated passion and sincerity

Whether intended or not, City of Angels plays like a valentine to L.A., romanticizing the city in a manner not seen since Steve Martin's 1991 starrer, L.A. Story.

for true lovers its a must see one!!

love does defeats time...

forrest_gump — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:00:00 GMT

how much can love do? can it defeat time?can it bring back your dearest one? the lake house depicts this fact..it is first a love story than a science fiction(lol)

When Chicago doctor Kate Forster (Bullock) vacates the spectacular lake house she's been renting for a few months, she leaves the next tenant a welcome note. When architect Alex Wyler (Reeves) arrives at the lake house, he finds the note left by Kate. The odd thing, however, is the date on the letter: it's 2006. For Alex, 2004 has just begun and the house has been abandoned for years. He thinks it's a practical joke, and he leaves the "trespasser" a note. When Kate, needing a brief break from the stress in Chicago, returns to the lake house, she finds the note, and she writes back.

Soon, they realize that they exist in two different times, exactly two years apart. Their only connection with each other is the magical mailbox and the letters they leave for each other. Through their letters, they start to get to know each other. Curious, Alex crosses path with Kate in 2004, who obviously doesn't know him and is living with her boyfriend Morgan (Dylan Walsh). The love between Alex in 2004 and Kate in 2006 grows as they continue to confide in each other. Soon, Kate decides that she must meet Alex in 2006 and settle this once and for all.

Speed made Bullock (Crash) a star and Reeves (Constantine) a bona fide action hero. It's interesting to see them get together again in a romance-fantasy. Bullock still does her lonely, girl-next-door part justice. She's radiant, lovely(seems bit aged!!), yet vulnerable and guarded. Reeves is, as usual, cool and dashing, yet surprisingly expressive in some key scenes. Twelve years later, Bullock and Reeves still share tremendous chemistry with each other, and that's quite phenomenal when you consider they only have two scenes together. In a romance, chemistry counts for everything.

The script by David Auburn (Proof) is based on the Korean film Siworae (2000) written by Eun-Jeong Kim. The story makes an interesting decision to not explain the magic of the mailbox and how the time rip comes to be. The audience must simply accept the premise; thus, the movie sets up an expectation: Alex asks Kate, "Is this really happening?" and Kate answers, "Why not?" Likewise, we must also believe in the magic of love, that anything could happen. The timeline is a little confusing and we must pay attention or else we would get lost. As with any stories dealing with time-space continuum, there is a number of inconsistencies, logical flaws and plot holes. For example, the bits about the tree and the book are too sentimental and silly, they defy logic. And we must ask, have they ever heard of e-mail and Google? However, none of these flaws are fatal, and it doesn't really affect our enjoyment of the story in any negative way.

While the plot is somewhat predictable, it doesn't feel cliched or overtly sentimental and sweet, which is a bonus, considering how many romance stories fail because of that. The incident near the beginning is an obvious foreshadow, but it sets up the rest of the film nicely, making us want to find out how the story unfolds and concludes. The ending also makes perfect sense to me, and I must say it's one of the best time-defying love stories I have seen, and I'm not easily impressed by love stories. For the hopeless romantics, The Lake House is fine and satisfying.