127 Hours (2010)

Another great movie by Danny Boyle. Albeit the story is inspired by a true story and you had a ready made story in your lap, Danny Boyle did a great job manifesting the same in his own style.

The movie is about a guy named Aron Ralston (James Franco) who sets out on an adventure in the canyon of Utah. He finds himself in trouble as he gets stuck under a rock which accidentally gets tipped off as he lands on it, on his right hand. He finds himself stuck with the rock and has only a few things left with him to survive. The story is about how he actually survives the peculiar situation he has been put in. It is an adventurous tale of survival of Aron which is impeccably directed by Danny Boyle(who else could have portrayed this story better!).

There are only a few characters in the movie but that was because the script demanded it. James Franco performed really well and surely has landed himself for an Academy nomination on this one. The direction and the screenplay probably took the movie to a great height what otherwise would have been a clichéd story of survival.

The poster and the movie name had a lot to say and at one point I had considered not watching the flick but I was totally surprised when I found the flick totally mind boggling. It is highly recommended to go for this one coz it is actually a real good movie.

Black Swan (2010)

Kudos to Natalie for this one! She was brilliant in this flick and I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets an Academy for Black Swan because there is absolutely no match for her this time. Also, kudos to Darren Aronofsky for his wonderful direction which apparently led the movie to such a big height!

Nina, (Natalie Portman) plays a ballet dancer who is highly obsessed by the play Swan Lake. She is counted perfect for the role of White Swan - Princess Odette in the story however she faces a competition from Lily, (Mila Kunis) another Ballet dancer who is also perfect for the role of Black swan.

Leroy (Vincent Cassel) is the director of the play Swan Lake who chooses Nina for the lead although he’s unconvinced with her Black swan Dance. He sets his eyes on Lily for the same which worries Nina as she was desperate for the lead.

Nina’s mother on the other hand keeps on pestering her and holds a strange control over her every activity. She is smothered at home however she can’t do anything about it. Nina is so desperate for the role that in an attempt to grab the role she starts impersonating her dark side, Black swan and becomes obsessed with the character.

The flick is no doubt an Oscar material and a perfect watch for those who are sane enough to understand the intricacies of a human brain. Natalie no doubt deserves an Academy for this flick!

Lord of War (2005)

Now thats a movie worth watching. I think Nicolas Cage is one of the finest actors alive who is still imparting class to his roles. He adapts himself to the character in such a fine manner that one would consider him "born for the role". Now that is exactly what he did in this one as well.

Nicolas Cage is an arms dealer who has an obsession with selling arms and he is damn good at it. While doing his monkey business he encounters various problems from the interpol as well as from his conscience. The morality keeps on nibbling at his soul, however he never gets exhausted. Things mess up pretty badly for him as he fails to justify his veracity in front of his wife. It costs him a lot eventually.

Ethan Hawke plays the guy from Interpol who is on a hunt to catch him. Andrew Niccol wrote a brilliant story about war and politics. His earlier ventures as a writer The Terminal(a movie you can never forget) and The Truman Show happens to be my all time favourites.

This movie was exceptionally well directed by Andrew Niccol and brilliantly performed by Nicolas Cage(No one could have done it better).

Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)

What a movie....what a movie..... I must say I'm a big fan of Josh Radnor because of his hit series "How I met your mother" and (who isn't?) I think as a writer he is amazing and he has a long way to go. He has mentioned his love for short stories unknowingly in the TV show many times and I must say his endeavour has never gone unnoticed. Josh Radnor has a real potential. He just brought it together and the rest was obvious. The writing was superb(I'm a writer myself so bro Respect!) and not to forget the brilliant direction done by Josh himself.

A wonderful debut, by the way, as a director for him and all the very best wishes to him for his future ventures. Awesome acting and some great performances by the cast that included Malin Akerman (as usual she is brilliant in this flick too), Kate Mara (I'm beginning to like her already)and Zoe Kazan(with her sweet role which she generally plays quite naturally).

The story was wonderful. Gotta watch it to know it. I'd give it a 7 on 10 and I think the flick deserved it. I'd recommend everyone to go and watch this one because it certainly is worth all the accolades.

Master and Commander: The far side of the world (2003)

A great screenplay and direction by Peter Weir, Master and commander: The far side of the world is a depiction of a constant endeavour of a captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) to destroy a French enemy frigate during the time of Napoleonic Wars, thus putting the lives of the entire crew in jeopardy for vengeance as well as for the sake of his country.

During his crazy will to take on the Acheron, the enemy Frigate, Jack is often contradicted by his closest friend, the doctor Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany) and albeit he never gives up the hope of invading the French frigate, he is constantly put in adverse situations wherein he is compelled to feel remorseful for the decisions he made. However he manages to keep the faith of his crew members alive and pursues the Acheron without giving an eye to the doctor’s concern and interests. A series of unfortunate events occur and their ship suffers bad luck every now and then but that doesn’t stop Jack from taking on the Acheron eventually.

Some great acting by Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany makes the whole movie an adventure worth watching. The situations that they were put in certainly demanded pluck and patience which was manifested well by Jack Aubrey.

This flick would make you fathom how things were really dealt with earlier. Back then when the technology wasn’t advanced enough, how sails were used by the crew and how much work was supposed to be done during a shipwreck.

The Experiment (2010)

This was a thought provoking flick. I felt what an animal man is. How easily he forces violence upon himself one way or the other. If you intimidate him, if you instigate him, if you add that fuel to the fire, he’d know no limits and would succumb to violence. The flick is an obvious depiction of the fact. There is hardly anything that can stop him from fighting for long. While the scientists tried to experiment by enticing them with a whole bunch of green and with the tinge of fear of losing it all in a jiffy the moment there were some serious injuries, every man decided to go along with the flow. Although the movie was a remake it was smooth.

Adrien Brody did a great job being the protagonist in the movie and supporting the right throughout the movie while facing some weird consequences in the long run. Forest Whitaker, on the other hand, plays the character which seriously needs a rehab as he starts to take things a lot more seriously right from the start. Prestige, dignity and humiliation were some of the main things all he could think of, the moment he was put in the shoes of a cop. While the downside of the movie was that Adrien Brody had to face piss and shit while he could do nothing but hold a grudge against Whitaker while he had the time of his life. While Whitaker enjoyed his gala-moment throughout the movie with him and with the rest of the prisoners (which weren’t many as the others had no self-respect apparently) getting what his psycho-brain wanted him done without any serious rebel from Adrien, the flick sympathizes with the character of Adrien. Money does that to you? What a dishonour he brought to himself. For Christ’s sake if there was someone else in his place he would’ve kicked Whitaker’s ass there itself.

Well overall the movie was good. There were certain demeaning moments in the movie but that’s okay coz it hardly mattered when there is someone else taking the shit and not you. The movie could’ve been made better although the concept rattled me, a better direction would’ve blown me away.

I would give it a 6.5 on 10 considering the good story it entailed. It is certainly a good one with some great performances by Whitaker and Adrien although I am told the original was better.

The Social Network (2010)

Talk about social networking and one thing that pops up in our head first is none other than the famous site Facebook. Who on earth wouldn't be interested in knowing the story behind the famous social networking websites of all time.

So Mark Zuckerberg is officially awesome. I was glad that the movie was being directed by none other than Fincher. I was excited beyond limit when I discovered that it was a David Fincher project, the guy behind such amazing movies like Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and my all time-favourite The Game. His previous mind-boggling movies surely speaks of his virtue. As a director David Fincher has taken some of the brilliant stories of all times and metamorphosed them into the finest flicks created ever in the history of movies and The Social
network happens to be one of them.

Albeit Mark Zuckerberg in reality wasn't at all approached for the project and wasn't entailed anyhow in the flick, the movie was manifested as a series of events as they occurred altogether with the assistance of Eduardo Saverin(in real life). Each event was put down to the flick with the assistance offered by Eduardo and Boy! the story of facebook is interesting, must I say.

The evolution of how the ideas arose from Facemash to TheFacebook and eventually Facebook is really surprising and wonderful as well. The story began with Mark Zuckerberg's(Jesse Eisenberg's) girlfriend breaking up with him thus causing him to dirty-blog about her to soothe his agonized heart. Taking it too far he compares her face to every girl in the Harvard and thus develops a website named FaceMash which had the feature of comparing 'who's hotter' which eventually brought down Harvard's network. The creation of FaceMash in one night brought him in the eyes of the twin Winklevoss brethren Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (played by Armie Hammer well that barely seemed like a single character) and their business partner Divya Narendra(Max Minghella) who gave Mark an idea about a new project of theirs -
Harvard Connection website asking him to be their programmer.

The main story begins when Zuckerberg gets his head to build a website named theFacebook without caring to look back at the Winklevoss brothers and in the long run dumping his best friend Eduardo Savarin(convincingly played by Andrew Garfield) as well as Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) the co-founder of Napster. The character Eduardo Savarin is well portrayed by Garfield who brings in the real sensitive part of the flick. Justin Timberlake has become more of an actor now and he did his
bit in the flick very convincingly. As Sean Parker he suggests Mark Zuckerberg to drop the 'the' from theFacebook which clearly expounds why the whole world knows the website by the name of Facebook alone.

The plot is very intricate and full of surprises as you would see Zuckerberg playing around with his friends turning them into foes while Eduardo's geniality is well exploited in the flick by Mark. There are instances in the movie that clearly depicts how much dedicated Mark Zuckerberg was to his website with more than 10-14 hours of coding everyday while some showed him making fun of the jury and the
Winklevoss brothers of their ignorance, while one hilarious moment showed him stunning a teacher by his answers in the midst of his departure from the classroom.

The movie is simply awesome. I didn't find anything wrong with the movie and I hope to see David Fincher's next as soon as it gets released. I'd recommend everyone to just go for it.