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Archive for June, 2007

Hills have eyes 2- “Has a ‘gory’ quality”

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The younger brother of the movie Hills have eyes{2006} makes a good attempt to be like his sibling, but falls back shorter than his brother. The blood related masterminds behind this movie ie Wes Craven & Jonathan Craven succeed in nitro boosting our adrenaline, but they have missed out their concentration on the storyline. Well, the director,Martin Weisz has proved his mastery in keeping the red pearled story string uncut, but everything seems to be in a hurry. The company Fox Atomic has spent its savings well and exclusively over special effects and “grand make ups”. When we compare this beast to its elder one the latter was well tamed and had a sharp tooth, while the former was left out untamed but beautiful.This boy is worth a watch but lacks skills.

The story is applied around the same old New Mexico desert hills In Las Cruces NM. A group of scientists work at Yuma Flats, New Mexico performing electronic monitoring of the area, sector 16. As usual the living souls turn bodies. When a group of national guard trainees who are on their last day of training stop at the yuma flats, they find the whole place deserted and deadly. As per the command of their Sergeant.Jeffrey “Sarge” Millstone {Flex Alexander} among the eight trainees six climb the hill which has bloody eyes. Things get deeply cut and start bleeding when the trainees David ‘Napoleon'{Michael McMillian} and Amber Johnson{Jessica Stroup} see a man coming out of the piss pot of a toilet. So they too climb the hills which hold their death warrant. One by one the team loses it’s members,beginning with their sergeant. As per a dying man’s statement we get to know that there’s a family of mutants who hunt the men for food and women for breed. After a lot of agony the story dies when only 3 of the trainees live, two eyes watching them.

This movie has given its actors scope for action but not shape for characters. Only a few actors including the mutant clan actors have shown their talents but not without technology. Like the first one here also we find one of the mutants helping the muggles. Considering the scenes the title scene , the handcutting scene and the human restaurant scenes are highly gruesome and gives this movie a “gory” quality. But looking it from the technical side they’re cool! then taking the technicians into account, a lot of people need to be cheered because their team has cut this body to perfection. Starting with the Art director Alistair Kay , the Special effects technicians Mark Nanstone, Lucian Iordache, Glenn Marsh, Sound designer Jonathan Miller and the Special makeup effects company, EFX group, Inc are the real heroes of the movie. Though these guys are behind the screen, their talents shine through the screen

At the end end of the day, if we take a much broader Helicopter view, we realise that we humans are almost similar to those beasts. We eat,we drink, we Sleep, we reproduce, we grimace, but blame civilization. The basic idea of the director was to portray the fear and agony of the victims, and the credit goes to Hitchcock. But his arrow loses its velocity before it reaches the target. So this movie represents, or I think it represents our own animalness.So Hills have eyes 2 says,” People who act smarter get slaughtered if they are not faster”

-Spontic

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Sivaji-Movie Review

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Sivaji-Tasty Rajni wine in shankhar bottle

Finally the judgement day has come. The Titanic ship Sivaji has started its sail from today. Among its creators Rajni shines on screen. So one could easily say that this is a normal Shankhar balloon like gentleman or Anniyan,but its Rajni who blows this balloon into a Titan. AVM’s generosity provides a great treat to the audience. This movie is led by leading people, so once again they have proved that their artmenship is mind blowing. As usual Rajni swallows the character as well as director into him and spits out a Rajni movie,appealing to the masses. But other than his same old formula, Shankar rocks. People always wanted to see Rajni in the driver’s seat of Shankar’s car and thats what this movie is. But here its the super driver who dominates than the owner of the car.

The plot is from the same old locker which has its password as S-H-A-N-K-A-R. But this time its on a different platform. Sivaji{Rajnikanth} a software professional comes back from America with a lot of hard earned cash{exactly its 10 dollars less than 250 crores!} And he wants to start charity institutions like colleges and hospitals and serve the needy. Meanwhile he searches for a Tamil cultured bride for him and discovers Tamilchelvi{Shreya} in a Temple while birdwatching with Arivu{Vivek}, his mother’s brother.Following this he devises plans to move closely with Tamilchelvi’s family which culminates in their betrothal.When Sivaji unrolls the ideas which were in his mind, he gets away from the good books of Adhi Seshan{Suman} who is the king maker as well as head of similar institutions.Sivaji ignores his creeps and proceeds ahead,but only to meet the corrupted money hungry officials asking him to bribe them to work in his favour. Reluctantly he feeds the money hungry dogs, when Adhi Seshan crawls in once again and reverses the political situation{You too Shankar!}. His next step makes Sivaji a pauper though he tries to sail out of the situation in a life boat named law. Now Sivaji becomes a Sivaji’s debutant character in Parasakthi left with only a rupee. Then Sivaji decides to take up the lion’s path at the interval. One could easily investigate the rest of the story. The first half has nothing but the Vivek’s agmark comedy , Shreya’s romance and her skin show in the songs ending in a venomous act of Adhi Seshan. In the second half Sivaji uses some funny methods{!} to extract money from the black money ores and uses it for his institutional work. Inbetween he gets married to Shreya. After this the story makes a few swings and ends when Sivaji turns into MGR!. “This is only the trailer, you’ve got to see the full picture”

Shankar’s same old formula ie , common people , corrupted white collars and a mediatory hero is repeated once again in this movie{repeattu!}. This may be appealing to common people since it has a tinge of pathos it. But in the long run, today there are a lot of directors who could do the same thing, so we expect something fresh from Shankar. Shreya gets in and gets out of the stage like a sexy doll and makes a glamorous skin show. Rajni says that he loves Shreya because of her Tamil culture, but she is TamilChelvi only in the story, but in the songs she is “Bikini Selvi”. Actually glamour had been stuffed in where there its not required, this becomes too superficial. Also the villains are treated as mere fools and brainless idiots as in a nasty commercial movie.Though this is a superstar’s action filled candy,the taste of violence is too much. But since we see Rajni fighting, it’s cool!.Definitely Rajni roars in this movie but as an aged lion

Rajni’s style , fancy actions and punch dialogues rocket this movie up. Especially “the cool” dialogue is really hot! Rajni’s makeup and extra fittings are above the mark and they reminds us {g}olden movies of Rajni. Coming to the punches, “Kanna,Pannithan kumbala varum , Singam singlathan varum” {Hogs come in herds and lion comes alone}is extraordinary. Technically speaking, Rajeevan,Anthony and K.V.Anand have done their work extremely well. Especially Anand’s camera is even better than hollywod cams. So atleast in the technical regard we stand above the western cinema.Going further the sets for the songs reminds us T.R’s song sequences though the money spent hits our eyes. The climax fight is well done and receives hails. Apart from Rajni Vivek Suman and Shreya Manivannan,Vadivukkarasi,Raja,Uma and Solomon Pappaiya are cool! Raguvaran does a “guest-like role” to perfection. So totally Sivaji is worth the hype. If you are a Rajni fan you’ll love this movie 90%. If you are a Shankar fan you will love this movie 40%. But if you are a techy you will love this movie 100%. So Sivaji proves, style+technology———–>Stechyle + box office. Idhu epdi irukku?

-Spontic

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At World’s end-Jack Sparrow Bombinates while Bloom blooms!

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Before setting sail, This movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s end gets rid of the curse which says “sequel movies suck”. So we’ll be doomed if we fail to felicitate the captain of this master pirate ship,Gore Verbinski.This vessel has enabled him to sail beyond the horizon. Also the producer,Jerry Bruckheimer receives hails for being generous with his treasure chest. Walt Disney once again distributes its supremacy in the land of monsters and Deities.

The process of understanding this laborious plot is as difficult as crossing seven seas.The plot unrolls when Captain Barbossa{Geoffrey Rush} leads the Black Pearl crew , Will Turner{Orlando Bloom} , Elizabeth Schwann{Keira Knightley} and Tia Dalma{Naomie Harris} to the World’s end to rescue Captain Jack sparrow{Johny Depp} from Davy Jones’s locker. To sail to the World’s end they are desperately in need of a navigational chart which is now the pet of Sao Feng, pirate lord of Singapore{Chow Yun-Fat}. After a hurly-burly the crew once again continue their journey. But at a particular point of time Jack Sparrow sniffs in and ironically saves the crew which came to save him.After this the story takes a few U turns and an upside down which result in the war between the Pirates and the combined army of East India company and Davy Jones{Bill Nighy}. East India company is lead by Lord Cutler Beckett {Tom Hollander} who possesses the heart of Davy Jones. And after this the 9 pirate lords conduct their pandemonium in the shipwreck cove to bring together the 9 brethren chords to unleash Calypso a sea goddess to help them in their rebellion.The rest of the movie is left for you to watch.As Gore Verbinski admits “The first film was a movie, and then Jack was put into it almost. He doesn’t have the obligations of the plot in the same ways that the other characters have. He meanders his way through and he kind of affects everybody else”,Once again Captain Jack Sparrow proves that he is Captain Jack Sparrow.

The Characterisation cannons the audience at once like “a  blistering barnacle”Every character does it’s job neat and clean. Apart from the major characters James Norrington{Jack Davenport} ,Bootstrap Bill Turner{Stellan Skarsgård},Joshamee Gibbs{Kevin McNally},Pintel{Lee Arenberg} and Ragetti{Mackenzie Crook} have done their work well. The pleasentest part of the characterisation is when we realise that every character has its own intention for sailing to save Jack Sparrow. For instance Will Turner sails to get hold of Black Pearl inorder to release his father from Flying Dutchman. And the innovative idea of creating the 9 different pirate lords from different places is also worth a pat. Above all the introduction of Captain Teague{Keith Richards} who is the father of Jack who holds the shrunken head of his wife is full of surprise. This is the first time we see Will Turner being brought to the lime light and gets promoted to the captain’s seat.

This ship skids when it comes to the point of confusing plot structure and a few foolish decisions made by the characters. For a very ordinary viewer differentiating between the different ships is a difficult task. But if you are a pirate fan then these things not at all matter, savvy! {Thousands of thundering typhoons!}
Technically this ship is well built, Hans Zimmer’s 9 tunes are apt and they grow naturally out of the situation. The editors Stephen E. Rivkin & Craig Wood have done the work well but sometimes we draw our swords against them. The Cinematographer{Dariusz Wolski} makes us happy. At the end of the day, “Sons, this is Pirates of the caribbean, We always bombinate, Savvy!” says this movie

– Spontic

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