Hollywood

  • The thing that stands out for me in all of Kill Bill is the dialogue. Not the spectacular geysers of blood in the first volume, or even the brilliant segment with Pei Mei in the second. Which is why I found it immensely satisfying when the final confrontation with Bill was mostly just the two

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  • Thank you for smoking

    It looks like a penchant for humor runs in the family. Jason, son of Ivan Ghostbusters Reitman, makes his feature debut with Thank you for smoking, a satire aimed at lobbyists in general and tobacco lobbyists in particular. I haven’t chuckled this often during a movie in a while. What’s interesting is how he trusts

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  • When you think about it, the tango scene in Scent of a Woman isn’t really essential. You have a blind colonel and a young student having dinner at a posh restaurant. They come across a beautiful young woman who is waiting for her fiancé. And while they wait, the old colonel dances the tango with

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  • The Third Man is arguably one of the best British films ever made. Shot on location in the bombed out streets of Vienna, the movie evokes an atmosphere of dread, intrigue and post-war depression like very few movies have managed to do. From a visual standpoint, the movie ranks among the very best. No special

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  • Several months ago, during one of our crazy lunch discussions, one of my colleagues came up with the following line: “The Godfather is a sigma field, machaan.” Now, most people would be bewildered by this statement. However, the geeks that we all were at that table, it struck us as a brilliant analogy and has

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  • Okay, I know this is essentially a B-movie with lots of things going bang. However, it was an immensely entertaining one, with every single member of the cast cheerfully throwing themselves into the absurd scenarios the movie offered. For Will Smith, this was a star-making role – it showcased every bit of his charm and

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  • Does he plan it all out, or just make it up as he goes along? So wonders an admiring British officer after yet another of those insane Jack Sparrow escapades that leave him, improbably, out of harm’s way (for the moment) and at an advantage over his rivals. With Sparrow, one really couldn’t be sure.

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  • Ocean’s Thirteen

    I think the first thing that strikes you when you see this movie is the level of emotion on display. The earlier movies had a certain cool reserve that masked whatever emotion the main characters were feeling. This one dared to be sentimental. Not that I think this is a bad thing, mind you. However,

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  • I remember being absolutely blown away by Halle Berry’s performance in Monster’s Ball. And her victory at the Oscars, while expected, was also a sweet moment because it was part of a trifecta for African American actors – Denzel Washington won Best Actor for an amazing performance in Training Day, and Sidney Poitier won a

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  • And the winner is…

    This is my I-told-you-so post, the one where I get to gloat about how accurate my predictions were. I’m discussing the filmfare awards, about which I had made my predictions at the end of last year. Permit me this moment of self-congratulation: rarely have I been this accurate. Here’s how I fared: Best Picture My

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