My Review of Shutter Island

      

    HAUNTING, RIVETING THRILLER

         Oscar winning director Martin Scorsese returns to the big screen after a hiatus with this chilling psychological thriller adapted from the best seller of Mystic River's Dennis Lehane. Any avid movie buff will tell you that Scorsese is a master in giving dark films with an awesome ending, be it The Departed or Cape Fear and many others. This too, is no different but Shutter Island will definitely make you awestruck for a while when you reminiscing about it.

       The main plot is set in Massachusetts in 1954 which has U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) venture into Shutter Island, a place where a mental institution, Ashecliffe Hospital is located. They go on an investigation spree to find out the inexplicable disappearance of a patient named Rachel Solondo. During their investigation, they are frequently obstructed by the hospital warden and their increasingly petulant Dr. Cawley (Sir Ben Kingsley) who boasts of creating a new revolutionary method for treating the criminal insane. As Daniels begins to suspect some internal hand in the disappearance of Rachel, he starts getting haunted by his late wife’s images Dolores (Michelle Williams) and the atrocities witnessed by him as an officer during World War II.

       The investigation gets marred by a  turbulent tropical storm but that does not stop Daniels from searching for Rachel with even more fervor. A series of twists occur in the tale whereby Daniels finds Rachel and his partner Chuck goes missing in the asylum. A search for Chuck by Daniels leads him into an abandoned lighthouse where his confrontation with Dr. Cawley leads into a even bigger and flummoxing twist which is sure to leave the audience baffled and gasping for breath.

      Shutter Island revolves around Leonardo DiCaprio. He seems to be getting better and better with each film he does with Scorsese. Like The Aviator and The Departed, Scorsese creates an impeccable plot and intensifies the pressure and psyches out the audience at the end. The rest of the cast is apt and rock solid. You will definitely become an instant fan of  Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kingsley after watching the movie. The scene where they try to appease DiCaprio in the lighthouse is definitely the highlight of the movie.

      The movie in itself is an awesome riddle. If you can recollect all the scenes and piece them together, you will find that all the riddles fit into the script perfectly. From the opening shot, Scorsese creates a sense of gloominess and murkiness which prevails throughout the film. The art direction is outstanding and the light house and the asylums are picturesque.

      On the whole, Shutter Island is a handsomely well-made psychological thriller which has semblances of Hitchcock’s yesteryear thrillers like Vertigo and North by Northwest. The movie is a definite watch just for the screenplay and some solid acting from the lead cast. 

My Review of Up In The Air

ONE MAN SHOW

Jason Reitman, the man who has already made two critically acclaimed movies (Thank you for Smoking and Juno) plunges into deeper waters to make a movie about corporate lifestyle with human emotions. Adapted from a 2001 novel called Up in the Air written by Walter Kim, Reitman churns out a wonderful script and a riveting screenplay and above all some great performances from the lead actors. Up in the Air is sure to bring fame to the director and will definitely take home several awards.

Up In the Air is all about the life of a person called Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) who has his own peculiar style of living. He is a person who loves travelling, does not have an inclination towards love and marriage, hates relations etc. His sole motive in life is to travel 10 million miles by air. Ryan works for a company who’s sole purpose is to send their employees to various organizations and “fire” people, or in other words downsize a particular company. He does this job with adequate ease and is able to pacify the fired employees with adroitness. Ryan uses this expertise to give motivational speeches. He lives a life which is very uncomplicated. He just keeps doing what he likes best. But after a while, two characters enter his life and things start getting complicated.

Ryan meets a girl called Alex (Vera Farmiga) who is also a very frequent flier and also has a lifestyle which almost matches to that of Ryan. Another one, a 23 year old novice Natalie (Anna Kendrick) who enters into Ryan’s company and plans to make all the terminations of employees online in order to cut costs for the company. This idea is appreciated by the company superiors whereas Ryan does not oblige to this suggestion and this places him in a tight corner whereby he is asked to accomplice Natalie to the companies he travels in order to let her gain field expertise. Meanwhile, Ryan and Alex begin to meet frequently and Ryan starts to develop a liking towards Alex and he takes her to his sister’s marriage where Ryan helps in solving a problem on the eve of her marriage. On the other hand, Natalie after gaining experience and getting approval from her company superiors begins to digitize the termination plans which Ryan accepts rather unhappily. Will Ryan accept this kind of lifestyle and what happens to the love affair between him and Alex forms the rest of this tale.

The movie belongs to only one man, George Clooney. His nomadic lifestyle, body language and charisma makes the viewer stay glued to the movie. I seriously doubt whether any other artiste could have this role with ease and aptness as well as Clooney. The other two main characters, Alex and Natalie also deliver a commendable performance. Vera Farmiga as Alex does not look sexy like many other Hollywood actresses but she sure can act. Her role well etched and well portrayed. Anna Kendrick as Natalie also gives a laudable performance emoting well in the scenes where she has a quarrel with Ryan over his living style. Finally, you cannot but keep appreciating Jason Reitman for scripting a beautiful film about the corporate world. Please make note on how Reitman starts with the way companies justify their immoral attitude towards their employees and then convince them with their alternatives with perfect sync.

Overall, it is a movie with a near flawless script and some equally good performances and it is for people who like good and refreshing cinema.

Taglines of Banks

     Actually, was searching for some taglines of banks and insurance companies for my friend for an exam of her and I wasn't able to locate a proper site or blog which contained a repository of these so-called taglines. So, after collecting, just thought of posting it on my blog so that it could help somebody. Will try to collect more taglines of various companies and products and keep updating this page

· ABN AMRO Bank – Making More Possible

· AIG - We know money

· Aditya Birla group-Taking India to the world

· American Express – Don’t leave home without it

· Andhra Bank – Much more to do, with YOU in focus

· Allianz Group - The Power on your Side

· AXA UK - Be Life Confident

· Bank of America – Higher Standards

· Bank of Baroda – India’s International Bank

· Bank of Rajasthan – Dare to Dream

· Barclays – Fluent in Finance; Its our business to know your business

· Birla Sun Life Insurance - Your dreams, our Committment

· CITIBANK – The Citi Never Sleeps

· Capital One – What’s in your wallet

· Deutsche Bank - A Passion to Perform

· Future Group - Rewriting rules, Retaining Value

· HSBC – The World’s Local Bank

· ICICI Bank – Hum hein na

· Kotak – Think Investments. Think Kotak.

· Lehmann Brothers - Where Vision Gets Built

· MetLife - Have you met life today

· Max New York Life Insurance - Your Partner for life

· Prudential Insurance Company - Growing and Protecting your wealth

· Standard Chartered Bank – Your Right Partner

· Standard Insurance Company Limited. – Positively Different

· SBI Debit Card - Welcome to the Cashless World

· The Financial Express- Read 2 lead 

· UBS – You and Us

· Union Bank of India – Good People to Bank with

· Visa - All it takes

(All googled, nothing from my brains except for a few)

My Review of The Blind Side

     

   HIGH SENTI-EMOTIONAL DRAMA

          First things first. When I finished watching the movie, I just could not digest the basic plot of the movie. But after hearing that the movie was adopted from the book named “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” by Michael Lewis, I found the movie a lot more convincing but still couldn’t fathom how this could happen in real life.

        The Blind Side is all about a person called Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron) who defies odds with the help of Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock) and becomes an all-time football superstar in the NFL. Oher (also known as Big Mike) is a homeless teenager who gets an admit into Wingate Christian School on the recommendation from their school’s coach that he possesses excellent athletic abilities. In school, Oher is very reticent and avoids talking with his classmates as he is being vehemently teased for this physique.

       On an extremely chilly evening, when Leigh Anne Tuohy and her family are travelling they find Oher desolate on a road side and so she takes him home to let him stay in her house for that night. Slowly, Leigh Anne Tuohy begins to like Oher’s character and lets him stay in their house and she buys him new clothes, prepares him a new room etc., During the course of time, Sandra Bullock and her husband become the legal guardians of Michael Oher.

      Oher begins to excel in NFL after a while on the advice on Leigh Anne Tuohy and many NFL teams start vying for Oher seeing his potential. But unfortunately Oher does not possess good academic credentials and so Leigh Anne Tuohy arranges a tutor and with the help of the tutor he gets the required credentials which will allow him to qualify to play in the NFL. But a rift arises between Leigh Anne Tuohy and Michael Oher and what happens after that and what team he decides to play forms the rest of the story told in a heart-melting climax.

     The movie completely belongs only to two persons. Quinton Aaron as Michael Oher and Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy. Aaron as the restrained Oher does an amazing job portraying varied emotions in the beginning and the ending stages of the movie. Personally, I loved the sequence where he saves Bullock’s son from a car accident. Sandra Bullock as the self opined Leigh Anne Tuohy also does a good job in playing her role to aptness. She does not mind speaking her mind and calling a spade a spade. The other characters such as the tutor of Oher, the coach of Oher and the husband and kids of Leigh Anne Tuohy also give a laudable performance.

    Overall, The Blind Side will work for people who like to watch a clean emotional drama. For people who do not like the plot or who find the plot unfathomable, it might not be the same.

My Review of Match Point

LOVE AND LUST REDEFINED

Having watched only one of Woody Allen’s previous movies (Vicky Christina Barcelona), I must admit that I found his portrayal of human relationships to be bewildering at first. But after a couple of days, as I kept thinking about the movie (or Scarlet Johanssen should I say), I started to like his style of film making and the way he depicts his characters in his movie.  Therefore, when I had a chance to watch Match Point, I obviously expected a varied portrayal of human relationships and my expectations were completely satiated. Incidentally, many movie freaks and film critics regard Match Point as his best work after his 1989 comical drama “Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

Match Point stars Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Chris Wilson, a tennis coach at a prominent English club who befriends one of his clients, Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode).  Hewett invites him for a party and very soon Chris captivates the attention of Tom’s mother Eleanor Hewitt (Penelope Wilton), father Alec Hewitt (Brian Cox) and sister Chloe (Emily Mortimer).  Chloe and Chris’s relationship rapidly turns romantic but Chris’s interest quickly turns towards Tom’s aphrodisiac girlfriend Nola Rice (Scarlet Johanssen). Rice tries her best to avoid having a relationship with Wilton knowing that they both would be brother and sister-in-law in future, but Chris who continues his relationship with Chloe eventually sways Rice to sleep with him.

Rice and Tom, over a period of time sever their relationship after which Rice travels out of London but when she meets Chris by chance after a few years the whole vigor is re-ignited. Chris, on the other side is married to Chloe and lives a very satisfied life. Rice becomes pregnant and starts pestering Chris to reveal their relationship to Chloe which he is very reluctant. Eventually, Chris’s decision to choose between a satisfied life and ardent love leads us to a heart wrenching, high-emotion filled climax.

The casting is apt and well-chosen.  Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays the role of a loyal husband and sly lover to perfection. You tend to hate him but as the movie progresses you cannot but admire the prowess with which he delivers his emotions. Scarlet Johanssen too is shrewd at first but towards the latter part of the film, she loses her confidence as Jonathan gains an upper hand. Her acting is very believable and you sympathize with her when she is caught in no man’s land.

Woody Allen’s script is tight with very few loopholes. Dialogues are subtle and witty at some places. The story is meticulously drawn out and builds very slowly, but at the same time keeps the viewer guessing all the time. The movie completely justifies its tagline (Passion Temptation Obsession)!!

My Review Of Aayirathil Oruvan

Director Selvaraghavan is a person who has a reputation of breaking the mundane path of Tamil Cinema. His previous films have all been path breaking and therefore I was very eagerly for Aayirathil Oruvan from the time he announced that he was going to try out something new in Tamil Cinema. "A FANTASY ADVENTURE".

After several obstacles and innumerable delays, the film made it to the silver screen after a painful wait of 3 years. I always try my level best to watch his films on the first day of its release since the film would get trimmed or I should say "the film would get cut"by the theater owners saying that the film was too long and spoil the movie of its originality.

The film begins with the depiction of an invasion in the Cholan dynasty during the 12th century and how a boy is being surreptitiously deported from their land so that their dynasty does not end in the war. The film travels to the present age where an archaeologist (Prathap Pothen)in search of the lost Cholan dynasty disappears mysteriously. The Govt appoints a team consisting of Reema Sen (Head of the Team) and few officers along with the daughter of the lost archaeologist (Andrea) to go in search of the archaeologist along with a group of coolies (headed by Karthi) to help them in the excavation.

After traveling through treacherous paths and facing many hindrances they finally make it to the land which is presumably the place where the Cholas lived. To their astonishment they stumble upon the last off springs of the poverty stricken Cholan dynasty and their imperial king (Parthiban). What happens next is a series of unprecedented events which will leave you shocked at some places and a little puzzled at some places (esp the climax) which u wouldn't have conceived of.

The casting by Selvaraghavan is apt and all of them play their roles to perfection. The humorous one-liners of Karthi in the first half are sure to bring the roof down. Reema Sen gets a meaty role as the pivot of the movie which is a rarity in Tamil Cinema and she has tried her level best to get into the skin of the role though her classical Tamil slang and her Classical dance stuck out like a sore thumb. Andrea as an archaeologist looks cute and is very likable. But the stand out performer for me was Parthiban who looked majestic as the Chola king. Selva extracts a fine performance from the veteran actor who has till date been very under-utilized.

Regarding the technical aspects, music by GV Prakash (music director) is patchy to say the least. The BGM of the second half was completely out of sync with the movie though the songs in the movie were good enough. The song sung by dhanush and pictured on the lead pair is a sure-shot chartbuster. Cinematography is high class (hats of to Ramji) and the visuals are an absolute treat for the viewer. Graphics play an important part in the movie and it has been done with a lot of care. Given that the budget of the movie was around 30-35 crores, the graphics was a really praiseworthy effort.

The main drawback of the movie is the second half of the movie which brings in a lot of classical Tamil narration which will make an ordinary viewer restless and a post war sequence which was very unfathomable. There are also some scenes in the second half which am sure will make any Tamil Cinema viewer stupefied. Overall, the movie is a definite watch for movie buffs who are passionate about Tamil Cinema. Watch it just for the effort put in by the team to make this project come on screen.

KUDOS SELVARAGHAVAN SIR (U are definitely Aayirathil Oruvan :P)