Review of Foreign Movies by SearchIndia.com

Lovely! Indian Director Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely Lands at Cannes Festival

Apr 242012

Unknown Indian film director Ashim Ahluwalia’s new movie Miss Lovely has won the distinction of being picked to compete in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

Un Certain Regard is a less prestigious part of the Cannes Film Festival and films selected in this category are not included in the main Competition section and therefore ineligible to win the highest Palm d’Or award.

Still, it’s an honor for an Indian filmmaker to be included as part of the official Cannes Festival.

Since most Indian movies are trash, made by philistines and thieves for yahoos and perverts, we almost never see our movies at the Cannes festival.

Au contraire, Japanese, Chinese and even Korean films are now regular fixtures at Cannes.

Miss Lovely

Miss Lovely, Ahluwalia’s second feature film, has been described as a shadowy tale set in the dark underbelly of Bollywood.

Ashim Ahluwalia's movie Miss Lovely

The film focuses on two Bollywood producers of sleazy horror films.

Miss Lovely features Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Niharika Singh and Anil George.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within Review – Fine Brazilian Crime Film, A Must Watch

Foreign Movies No Responses »

Feb 212012

Indian viewers of the superb Brazilian film Elite Squad – The Enemy Within (2010) can take great comfort that there are other countries in the world as screwed up, as corrupt and as rotten as Mera Bharat Mahaan.

Elite Squad – The Enemy Within (Tropa de Elite 2 – O Inimigo Agora é Outro), a Portuguese language film, is a follow-up to The Elite Squad (2007).

But even if you haven’t seen the older film you can still enjoy the sequel without feeling adrift.

The movie, which debuted in late 2010 in Brazil and a year later in the U.S., has been a raging success at the box office.

In Brazil, the box office returns of Elite Squad – The Enemy Within turned it into the country’s highest grossing film ever.

The movie was Brazil’s pick for the upcoming Oscars in the Best Foreign Film category but failed to make the final list.

A Director’s Film

Set in Rio de Janeiro (a sprawling city with a population about that of the South Indian city of Hyderabad), Elite Squad – The Enemy Within is what the wise souls at SI hail as a director’s film.

In other words, the actors recede into the background because of the overall powerful impact of the movie.

A gripping story, fine screenplay, nice photography and good acting are neatly melded together in the capable hands of a talented director.

The director in this instance is José Padilha, who also co-wrote the story and screenplay. Padilha, a maker of feature films and documentaries, also directed Elite Squad (2007). Continue reading »

Streaming? Man, We Never Had it So Good; Netflix, Amazon, Mela, Hulu, RedBox etc

Bollywood, Digital Media, Foreign Movies, Hollywood 1 Response »

Feb 082012

Oh boy, these cheapo desis in Amreeka never had it so good when it comes to streaming movies to their TVs, PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

For a reasonable monthly/annual fee, desis and other Americans now have a cornucopia of movies and TV channels/shows that they can stream with a flick of their remote.

For sure, much of the content is not new, and a lot of it very old, but the availability of tons of eclectic movies and TV shows overrides the freshness shortcoming.

Here’s a brief look at some of the legal streaming options available to Americans, including some targeted exclusively at desis:

* Just this morning Amazon announced a deal with Viacom for TV shows taking the total number of Prime Instant Videos service (both movies and TV shows) to 15,000. The Viacom deal lets Amazon Prime members ($79 a year) stream TV shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT and Logo. Titles include kids’ favorites, stand-up comedy, and reality TV. Amazon intends to offer MTV shows including The Hills, Jersey Shore, The Hard Times of RJ Berger, several seasons of The Real World, and Comedy Central shows such as Chappelle’s Show and The Sarah Silverman Program. For kids, Amazon will bring Nickelodeon episodes of iCarly, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, Yo Gabba Gabba, along with TV Land favorite, Hot in Cleveland.

Amazon Prime Adds Viacom TV Shows

* Three days back, DVD kiosk RedBox and ISP Verizon announced a joint venture that will let customers stream movies for a monthly subscription fee.

Details are sparse on the Redbox-Verizon streaming venture and whether the subscription will include DVDs from the kiosk remains to be seen.

Expect the RedBox-Verizon streaming service to launch in the second half of 2012. But we doubt the upcoming service can match Netflix in depth and breadth of content.

Illegal – Gem of a Belgian Movie

Foreign Movies No Responses »

Feb 072012

Oftentimes in our saner, less-soaked, reflective moments, we wonder why, if all 7 billion of us belong to the same human race, there should be borders separating us.

Truth be said, we long ago divined the simple answer but steadfastly refuse to accept it – Most humans are beasts that want to live in cages with similar beasts.

No surprise here, if you stop to think of it.

After all nations are entities that evolved from tribes whose singular feature was their fierce enmity toward members of other tribes.

Borders – No Deterrent

But try as they may, governments are finding borders to be ineffective deterrents in thwarting determined immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Of course, it’s the illegal immigrants that cause all the hue and cry everywhere.

Both in our current country (USA) and former nation (India), illegal immigration is a major issue that refuses to disappear any time soon.

In India, the Bangladeshis crowding into the big cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata etc are a ready tinder for nefarious elements.

Worse, even Indian migrants from the impoverished states of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh to Delhi and Mumbai are treated with hostility, greeted with violence and considered as, believe-it-or-not, illegal immigrants.

In the U.S., estimates of illegal immigrants vary from 12-million to 20-million.

Most of the illegal immigrants in America are from South America but Indians form the fastest growing group of illegal immigrants.

Although we hear of illegal immigrants pouring into Europe, near as it is to Africa and Asia, accounts of their personal stories rarely make it to America.

Illegal is the personal, deeply moving tale of one illegal immigrant in Belgium.

Illegal – A Brilliant Movie

Beautifully acted by Anne Coesens and deftly directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse, the Belgian-French film is a chilling look at the encounter between a Russian illegal immigrant in Belgium and the government agency that arrests, holds and ultimately deports the illegal immigrants to their homeland.

Tania, a Russian woman in her 30s, lives as an illegal immigrant in Belgium with her 13-year-old son Ivan.

Petrified of being arrested by the immigration agency and deported, we see Tania berating her son to speak in French outside the house.

Tania is so scared of being caught by the immigration agency that one night when her son is asleep she downs a few pegs of Vodka and applies a hot iron to her fingers so that proper fingerprints cannot be taken if she were to be arrested. Continue reading »

Whining Bastard’s Good Night Good Morning is Different but a Boring Movie

Bollywood, Foreign Movies, Hollywood 11 Responses »

Jan 212012

(For Ashwin Kini & Gandhiji)

The first hint of trouble with the whining bastard Sudhish Kamath’s film Good Night Good Morning came when we saw a grateful acknowledgment to Ulaga Madayan Kamal Haasan at the top of the opening credits.

Uh-oh. Not a good omen, we told ourselves.

Ulaga Madayan might be one of the biggest dinosaurs in the Kollywood cesspool but, hey, the fella is a two-bit thief.

Folks, only in Incredible India does a young film-maker start off with something so stupid, so disgusting like acknowledging a shameless thief.

Kinda like an Auschwitz survivor dedicating his book on the dreadful Concentration Camp experience to Der Fuehrer.

Or is Sudhish tacitly acknowledging his inspiration from the song Hello, My Dear Wrong Number from Kamal’s 1976 film Manmadha Leelai.

Who can tell.

Different but Not Good

No matter that we didn’t think much of Good Night Good Morning, we will readily accept it’s different from the run of the mill trash flowing from the Augean stables of Bollywood, Kollywood and Tollywood.

Also in an age when film-makers resort to all kinds of computer generated graphic gimmicks to stir jaded moviegoers, Good Night Good Morning dares to be in black and white.

Except for some flashback bits in color.

Was this black and white move dictated by a modest budget? Perhaps.

Set in and around New York City, the English language movie is about a late night telephone call between a tipsy young guy Turiya (Manu Narayan) traveling in a car with his buddies and a not-so-young lady Moira (Seema Rahmani), alone in a hotel room.

It’s New Year’s eve and both have just left a bar.

Yes, the same bar where their paths crossed.

Both Manu Narayan and Seema Rahmani are decent actors.

And that’s sweet relief considering the Indian film universe is peopled mostly with buffoons like Ajith, Priyanka Chopra, Kareena Kapoor, Abhishek Bachchan etc who know zilch about acting.

But when you make a film in a closed setting like a small room or moving car for instance, the script has to be dazzling to compensate for the absence of visual appeal.

That’s where we found Good Night Good Morning wanting.

The script of Good Night Good Morning was just a notch above mediocre.

One of the remarkable films of the simple, one-set genre that we watched a couple of years back is 12 Angry Men. Remarkable for the insight it provides into the human soul.

Everything about 12 Angry Men, from the beginning to the middle and the denouement was striking.

Not surprisingly, the 1957 film won three Oscar nominations – Best Director, Best Picture and Best Writing of Adapted Screenplay.

Au contraire, there was not much to get excited about with this two set (a moving car and a hotel room) film Good Night Good Morning.

In our not so humble view, Good Night Good Morning falters primarily because the writing doesn’t keep pace with the off-beat theme.

And the rambling conversation theme itself didn’t endear itself to yours truly.

We suspect Sudhish Kamath’s limited budget determined his choice of theme.

So, were the dialogs sparkling or witty?

Alas, only on few occasions.

While the budget may have constrained Sudish Kamath’s choice of theme surely where the writing was concerned he was not so constrained.

So if you’re looking for the culpable persons to vent your spleen on, they are the film’s two writers Sudhish Kamath and Shilpa Rathnam.

Good Night…Avoid

If you have time to waste, you can watch Good Night Good Morning on TV via the Mela Entertainment channel with the Roku box. No, we couldn’t locate it on the iPad.

But your time would be better spent catching something more entertaining this weekend on the Netflix Instant cornucopia.

Our biggest concern now is that when the word spreads on how a no-name fella like Sudish Kamath has put out an English film, it might embolden the buffoons to come out of the woodwork and throw their film-hats in the ring too.

And that would be a tragedy for the nascent indie film movement in India.

Point Blank – Nonstop French Action Film

Foreign Movies 6 Responses »

Jan 192012

We’ve been meaning to see the French action film À Bout Portant (Point Blank) for several months.

In the hurly-burly of our hectic life, we missed the film when it was playing in select theaters in NYC and Philly last year.

So when the movie hit Netflix Instant Play we eagerly grabbed our Roku remote.

Directed by Fred Cavayé, Point Blank features Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin and Elena Anaya.

Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans wrote the screenplay.

Just French It Baby

If you’re the kind that gets off on the nonstop pandemonium of American action movies like the Bourne or Mission Impossible series then you don’t want to miss Point Blank.

Straight up your alley, baby.

Point Blank is high octane stuff, right from the opening scene when you see two guys chasing an injured fella down a semi-dark stairwell.

You instinctively know that none of these people are on the right side of the law.

In a few seconds, Hugo Sartet (Roschdy Zem) the guy being chased is hit by a motorcycle before his pal can whisk him off.

Soon as he lands in the hospital with trauma to the head, efforts are made to rescue Sartet but foiled by an alert nurse’s aide Samuel (Gilles Lellouche).

So in desperation, the bad guys bludgeon Samuel and kidnap his pregnant wife Nadia (the lovely Spanish actress Elena Anaya). All this obviously in an effort to compel Samuel’s assistance in getting Sartet out of the hospital.

Endless Action

From then on until almost the very last frames of the film, it’s an unending, frenetic, high adrenalin rollercoaster of chases on the road, shootings and chases in the subway.

And one big twist.

The nurse’s aide, played very well by Gilles Lellouche, is desperate to save his wife.

The injured man Sartet is cold-bloodedly relentless and goes about shooting anyone in his way or if they fail to give him an answer to his questions.

Did we say that Roschdy Zem is no less impressive.

And the police are all over the place, in more ways than one.

Like most films of this action genre, Point Blank will linger in your mind for long.

It’s nonsense, pure and simple.

Albeit, one that’s well made, well enacted and well written to keep you in thrall.

Action movie buffs will have little to complain about even if some of the scenes like the easy entry into the police station in the second half completely strain credulity.

SearchIndia.com recommends Point Blank for all action film aficionados.

The film is on Instant Play and DVD at Netflix with English subtitles.

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu a Lift of Recien Cazado?

Bollywood, Foreign Movies 6 Responses »

Jan 162012

The other day we watched the Spanish movie Recien Cazado (2009) on Netflix Instant Play.

No, Recien Cazado (Jaime Camil, Gabriela Vergara) is by no stretch of imagination a must-watch film.

It’s one of those movies you watch when you’re too drunk too drive to the Red Box or Blockbuster kiosk and pick up a newer and better film.

The clock showed 10PM and, as usual, we were sloshed on our postprandial Gin-Orange Juice cocktail.

So without further ado we turned on our Roku box, picked the Netflix Instant Play channel, selected Recien Cazado and hit the Play button.

Predictable Romantic Comedy

Set in Mexico, Recien Cazado is a romantic comedy written, directed and produced by Rene Bueno.

Mexican actor Jaime Camil plays the male lead Sebastian and Venezuelan beauty queen Gabriela Vergara is cast opposite him as the wife/researcher.

Our man Sebastian works as an oenologist (specialist in wines) at a vineyard but he’s also a dashing Lothario given to hard partying, drinking and bedding pretty girls, much to the annoyance of his boss and vexation of his dear mother.

Sebastian has a drawer full of girls’ panties that he keeps as souvenirs and as a mnemonic to remember them.

You see, our Casanova can’t remember the names of the girls who’ve ended up on his bed because they’re far too numerous and can recollect them only through their itsy-bitsy panties.

Obviously, Sebastian is not one who thinks kindly of the institution of marriage. And he makes it amply clear to his mother and buddy (played with great elan by Dino Garcia).

Hell Hath No Fury

All hell breaks loose when after a hard night of partying and heavy drinking he wakes up the next morning with a pretty and buxom girl Alexa who claims to be his wife.

Hey, there’s even a marriage certificate on the stand next to Sebastian’s bed. His buddy says he’s got the photos to prove the marriage happened.

Ha ha ha, what’s our dashing, debonair Sebastian to do now? Looks like his goose is cooked, eh.

Of course, he frets and fumes. But the girl is stubborn and insists that he can’t get rid of her easily like the other girls.

Still she offers him a way out – if she does not get pregnant in three weeks, i.e. if she gets her periods she’ll disappear from his life.

The fun starts now with the girl roaming around the house in the skimpiest possible attire and constantly showing off her huge bust and shapely derriere without giving our horny hero access to the hidden pleasures.

Of course, the inevitable happens with this short term marriage and they live happily together ever after.

Jaime Camil is a decent actor and delivers a more than acceptable performance.

But the girl Gabriela Vergara has miles to go in the acting department.

With a bust disproportionately large compared to the other parts of her anatomy, the woman lacked the class and finesse to carry off this role.

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu – A Lift of Recien Cazado?

We’ve seen the trailer of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu and also read the Wiki profile of the film.

From what we can gather, after a night of partying and drinking Rahul Kapoor (Imran Khan) and hair stylist Riana Braganza (Kareena Kapoor) wake up the next morning as husband and wife.

We suspect the Bollywood film also has a happy ending like the Spanish movie.

But what happens in between waking up as husband and wife and the ultimate happy ending remains unclear in the Hindi film because it has yet to hit the screen (debuts on February 10).

It’s possible that the stories of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu and Recien Cazado are similar only at beginning, then veer off in different directions, and converge again at the end.

But given the ceaseless proclivity of our talentless Bollywood bozos to steal and steal unabashedly we won’t be surprised if Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu turns out to be a lift of Recien Cazado.

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu’s producer Karan Johar has denied his film is a rehash of What Happens in Vegas but has been mum on Recien Cazado.

In any case, we don’t have high hopes from Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu because its heroine Kareena Kapoor is a curse on the acting profession, utterly worthless.

Five Nice Foreign Films – Carancho, Så som i himmelen, Anthony Zimmer, Unjust etc

Foreign Movies 13 Responses »

Jan 122012

Thank God for Netflix.

We can have our fill of Korean, Argentine, French and so many other fine films.

Here’s a bunch of decent foreign (non-English) films we watched recently, some on DVD and others via Netflix Instant Play:

* Carancho (Spanish) – A lovely, dark Argentine film that shows a side of humanity few of us ever see or want to see. Argentine superstar Ricardo Darín (remember him from the Oscar winner The Secret in Their Eyes?) plays the lead role of a debarred ambulance chasing lawyer for whom nothing can go right. A look into the underbelly of life is not for faint hearts.

* Så som i himmelen (Swedish) – Better known by its English title As It Is in Heaven, Michael Nyqvist plays a famous conductor who after taking ill settles in a village from his childhood. Soon, our hero becomes cantor for the village choir and his work opens up repressed anger, discord, hatred etc and causing them to rise to the surface in the remote hamlet. The human condition, it seems, is the same be it large cities or small villages. Michael Nyqvist (you may remember him from the Dragon Tattoo films) is superb.

* Anthony Zimmer (French) – A 2005 romantic thriller featuring Sophie Marceau and Yvan Attal that we streamed on to our iPad via Netflix. The French movie has so much more class than the English version, The Tourist (Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie), that came out five years later. By the way, how many romances are thrilling and how many thrillers have you seen that are also romantic? Sophie Marceau is hot! Yes, we saw the twist coming although we’d forgotten about The Tourist. Or maybe it was lodged in our subconscious.

* The Show Must Go On (Korean) – A gangster movie featuring the extraordinary actor Song Kang-ho. Even gangsters have wives and daughters and make sacrifices and care for their families deeply. Han Jae-rim wrote and directed this film. We’ve seen Song Kang-ho in three or four movies so far including The Good, the Bad and the Weird. He’s amazing.

* The Unjust (Korean) – A fast-paced Korean crime filled with violence that shows the police in a poor light, and often no different from the criminals they pursue. Ryu Seung-wan directed the film featuring his brother Ryu Seung-beom as a corrupt, ambitious, hard-driving public prosecutor.

The Stool Pigeon – Decent Crime Thriller

Foreign Movies 3 Responses »

Dec 132011

You are a jailbird.

You decline the police suggestion to become a stool pigeon.

You get out of jail.

You owe $1 million because of your late father’s debts.

You see your sister being pimped out.

You steal a car.

You’re caught in flagrante.

You are screwed, screwed, screwed, royally screwed.

No Choice, Really

Now, what choice do you have other than to succumb to the police inspector’s pressure to become a Stool Pigeon and pass on information about your criminal buddies!

(Image Courtesy - Netflix)

Yes, The Stool Pigeon (2010) is a Hong Kong action film centering around a stool pigeon Ghost (Nicholas Tse) and his police handler Inspector Don Lee (Nick Cheung).

Directed by Dante Lam, the movie debuted in 2010 and met with a fairly positive response.

Deadly Business

Being a stool pigeon is no joke and the movie brings out well the enormous risks involved in being a stool pigeon (informant, in plain English).

The police is never your friend.

And the bad guys are paranoid, forever suspecting your bonafides or worse still, consider you a stool pigeon working to betray them to the police. Continue reading »

Righteous Ties – A Not Bad Korean Film

Foreign Movies 3 Responses »

Dec 082011

We have developed a robust appetite for Korean films and, by God, we’re gorging on them.

The other day, in a first, we watched an entire Korean movie on the iPad, streaming it off Netflix.

Since it was late night, we used our iPhone headset.

The overall picture quality via WiFi streaming was divine on the iPad 2. Not a single hiccup.

For the life of us, we can’t imagine streaming and enjoying a full-length movie on any of the chutiya Android tablets like Kindle Fire or Samsung Galaxy.

The Korean movie we streamed was a gangster film Righteous Ties (2006).

Directed by Jang Jin, the film has Jeong Jae-yeong playing Chi-sung, a mobster’s Right-Hand Man. We suppose, in Hollywood they’d call such people the Capo or capo bastone.

Jeong Jae-yeong is not new to us or the SI blog habitues.

We watched Jeong recently in the 2007 film Going by the Book where he played the straight-arrow cop Jeong Do-man. By the way, Going by the Book is also directed by Jang Jin.

Jung Jun-ho plays Chi-sung’s close friend Joo-joong, also a member of the same mob group.

Korean Movie - Righteous Ties Righteous Ties Theater Poster
(Source: Wiki)

A Revenge Tale

The central theme of Righteous Ties is revenge. Continue reading »

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