In these cold winter days, we’ve more time than we know what to do with.
So we do what we know best – watch movies or read books.
These are some of the movies we’ve watched recently:
* Au Revoir, les enfants (French) – A charming movie we watched last night on Netflix Instant Play.
Based on a real life incident in the early 1940s (the Nazi era for all ye schmucks), the French movie is a well-crafted story of life at a Catholic boarding school in occupied France and of budding friendship between two young boys – a Christian and a Jew, who’s in hiding.
The two young boys Gaspard Manesse and Raphael Fejto who play Julien Quentin and Jean Bonnet respectively play their parts very well and are a delight to watch. Way better than your Bollywood Amitabh Bachchans and Akshay Kumars. You have a foreboding the movie won’t end well for the boys and sadly, it doesn’t.
* For a Few Dollars More – We’ll do a full review of this Clint Eastwood spaghetti western later. All we’d like to say here is that this second film in the Dollar trilogy is a beautiful film with solid performances by both Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef.
Ennio Morricone’s score for the movie is for the ages (a mere 99-cents on iTunes).
* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: This one we picked up from the RedBox kiosk. A charmer of a movie with solid performances by all involved, Benjamin Button is the story of a baby born with a rare disorder – reverse aging. The baby is born with the hideous, ugly features of a shrivelled old man that makes the father recoil in horror and abandon him. It’s not Brad Pitt but the extraordinary story that’s the hero of this lovely film.
* Chellata: After seeing the Kannada blockbuster hit Mungaru Male, we found the movie’s lead star Ganesh to be a decent actor with potential. So we picked up Chellata, an older movie of Ganesh and the young lad’s first movie in which he featured as the hero. Alas, this one turned out to be a monstrosity.
Movies We’ve Watched Recently – Au Revoir les enfants, Chellata, Benjamin Button added by SearchIndia.com on
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http://www.idlebrain.com/research/ramblings/ramblings-avatar.html
good article.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Yes, decent piece.
Watch 12 angry men. You will love it.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Watched 12 Angry Men about eight months back.
You watched Chellata?!!..You’re taking too many risks in your life!!
watched Clint Eastwood’s ‘Escape from Alcatraz’ last week. Is there any other actor who is more stylish than Eastwood?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write: You watched Chellata?!!..
Yes, ella namma hudugata (all our mischief).
2. You write: Is there any other actor who is more stylish than Eastwood?
No, No. No, No.
No, wait….there is Narasimha Raju.
In karnataka, a guy with bunny tooth is referred as ‘Narsimha raju’ 🙂
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Really? We didn’t know that.
Apparently, Narasimha Raju was a fine comedian in his time (i.e. some 30 -40 years back).
Did you watch “Talented Mr. Ripley”? I liked the movie and acting and plot twists were super
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Watched it on DVD a few months back. Nice one.
@ Satya / SI – Eastwood is very stylish and he can carry any film through his charm – be it an ordinary one like “Play Mistry for me” or “Grand Torino” – he is a legend and I believe Rajni used to try (TRY!!!) his style in earlier movies
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The best that Rajini can aspire to is C*nt Westwood. 😉
BTW, it’s Gran Torino not Grand.
Sorry for typo on Gran (Neither I own one nor I have Eastwood next door).
Rajni may aspire for C*nt Westwood – but he is eventually a paisa vassol and don’t you think you and me will gatecrash for Endhiran premiere???
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Rajni may aspire for C*nt Westwood – but he is eventually a paisa vassol
Not Paisa Vasool always…Kuselan, Baba et al were not good and hardly set the box office afire.
He is the only good comedian Kannada Film Industry has seen. He is fondly remembered as ‘Narsim anna’.
Unfortunately he suffered a lot in his last days.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. We may have seen one or two of Narasimha Raju’s movies in the distant past.
2. You write: Unfortunately he suffered a lot in his last days.
Well, that’s the fate of much of humanity.
Narasimha Raju indeed was a fine comedian in Kannada movies of the old.
He could be subtle and also over the top, but people swear by his comic talents. The RajKumar-NarasimhaRaju combination was a hit pair those days.
Part of the reason is that good lines were written, keeping N.Raju in mind.
And lets not bring down Rajni by comparing him with Eastwood. Rajni did what he had to and met with success.
I was surprised that my north Indian and Bengali friends in college (very reasonable folks indeed) used to find Rajni hugely charismatic.
BTW, Dada Moni (Ashok Kumar) was known to copy some mannerisms of Humpery Bogart, while Dev Anand modelled himself, to an extent, on Gregory Peck.
@Satya: Escape from Alcatraz is an understated classic.
SI, cast aside everything else and enjoy this jailbreak movie.
In this genre, I also liked Papillon and Shawshank Redemption. Both are fine movies, and give a good account of life in jails.
The Rock is partly filmed in Alcatraz but an enjoyable action movie nevertheless (Sean Connery and Nicholos Cage).
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. We may have watched Escape from Alcatraz…can’t say for sure until we watch a few minutes. But likely not.
Will watch for sure.
The Rock (remember how Sean Connery gets ‘evaporated’ at the end?), we’ve seen more than once. It’s forever playing on the USA channel here. Shawshank Redemption is good too.
2. You write: And lets not bring down Rajni by comparing him with Eastwood.
To speak of Rajinikanth and Clint Eastwood in the same sentence is blasphemy, akin to saying Biligiri-Ranganatha (God) and Basmasura (Demon) in the same sentence.
Ditto with Dada-Moni and Bogie.
Below is one of the comments for the article at link about avatar, here [first comment above]
“I consider South Indian Directors are more capable of bringing emotions more than any bollywood or hollywood directors, considering the budge of arundhati 25 cr and Magadheera 40 cr and the time frames they were made, am sure that provided the same budget of avatar our directors could make a better film but these stories might not be accepted by our audiences with the Indian heroes”
😀 😀 😀 😀
People consider Arundhati and Magadheera – as benchmarks to speak about Avatar !!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Just read the comment. Ha ha ha.
Madhu (the commenter) must have consumed too much madhoo pani (liquor). 😉
S.V. Rangarao was a very good & stylich actor with a great performance.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We haven’t seen any movies featuring this stylich (sic) actor.
Watch bhaktha prahlada, if you can. A very good movie with excellant performance by S.V. Rangarao
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Will be hard to get it in U.S.
BTW, we’ve seen Maya Bazaar in Tamil. Most likely that one too featured S.V.Ranga Rao
@SearchIndia:”BTW, we’ve seen Maya Bazaar in Tamil. Most likely that one too featured S.V.Ranga Rao”
— Yes, that’s correct. Ghatotkacha is S.V.Ranga Rao. People were so lucky in those days to have S.V.Ranga Rao and a fantastic actress called Savitri. Is it just me or everybody who thinks that earlier actors were more talented than the present crop?
Nostalgia is not the reason for me of course.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. We remember the song Kalyana samayal sadam kayakarigal pramadam….couldn’t find the Tamil version on YouTube. 🙁
2. You write: Is it just me or everybody who thinks that earlier actors were more talented than the present crop? Nostalgia is not the reason for me of course.
Most Indian stars from the younger generation (including the likes of Aamir Khan) are mediocre at best, frequently resorting to gimmicks to stay in the public eye.
Since Indians (both in India and the diaspora) have little exposure to the real thing they think soda is champagne! 🙁
These buffoons would be laughed off the stage any place but India (and in theatres screening Indian films here).
see ganesh’s another movie gaalipata ,directed by same director yograj bhat of mungaru male and also see some vishnuvardhan movie
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We tried but couldn’t get hold of Gaalipata here.
Waiting for your complete review of For A Few Dollars More.
And I hope you’ll also review The Outlaw Josey Wales and Unforgiven,along with the unforgettable The Good The Bad and The Ugly!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Will do.
Currently busy reading Hindoo Holiday by J.R.Ackerley.
Set in the late 1920s, the book is an interesting take on life in the principality of Chhatarpur and its Maharaja from an Englishman’s perspective.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF2gKrRD6qA
Do you find any influence of Few Dollars More’s theme in the above song? :O
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. What a crude piece of shit (the video).
Ugly as hell. Monkeys, both.
You post one more sick video like that and you’ll be terminated with extreme prejudice. 🙁
2. Didn’t see any impact of Morricone on the above song. Maybe, they tried and this is what they ended up with. 😉
We consider the theme of For a Few Dollars More infinitely superior.
Rahman is the
poor man’stribals’ or barbarians’ Morricone.Before the tribals move up to Morricone, Rahman can serve as an introduction to this thingey called music.
Think of Rahman as a midwife exposing the barbarians to the light that is Morricone.
Listening to Morricone’s Man with the Harmonica in the background (from the movie Once Upon a Time in the West) from our iTunes collection.
Sorry,actually when I came across a couple of R.D.Burman tunes(Like Sapna Mera from Khel Khel Mein) sounding similar to Ennio’s compositions;I wanted to explore more to know how many Indian music directors copied from Ennio Morricone(Well,the Good,Bad and Ugly theme music has been copied umpteen number of times in movies,ads etc.) and then I found a link to this video in a Movie forum and immediately posted the Youtube link here.
I didn’t listen nor watched the video then,as I was tired and just switched off the PC after posting the comment.
Sad to know that the video has tortured your senses! 🙁
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The video is oh, so, hideous.
Completely graceless. 🙁
//You post one more sick video like that and you’ll be terminated with extreme prejudice. //
From next time,I’ll not post any video link here without testing it myself.
Please,be a bit kind to your blog’s regular visitors. 😉 😛 I certainly mean no harm to you.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Hey, that was said in jest because the video was so ugly. 😉