Movie :: Say Anything (80s)

Hey friends,

Last night I saw a movie Say Anything, which is one the classics from the 80s. I couldn't believe I missed this movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Say Anything is an extremely simple movie with a massive impact. It's about Lloyd Dobler, who is an easy going, laid back high school guy who just graduated. He falls in love with Diane Court, who is a rich, intelligent girl living with her dad, often in her world as she is often alone. Lloyd is surprised, as is everyone around him, when Diane agrees to hang out with him and be his girlfriend. Of course, her father isn't too happy as he sees big dreams for his daughter who has just won the Reed Fellowship in England. How they pursue their relationship overcoming obstacles forms the crux of the movie, with a couple of twist.

The great about this movie is its simplicity. There are only three principal characters, and as simple it is, it's also very complex as the two main leads fall in love for the first time. The best thing in the movie was the song In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel.

Mansur

Movie :: Turistas

Hey guys,

We saw Turistas last week, and for those not in the know, Turistas is the Brazilian word for Tourists. Turistas is a movie best billed as a mixture of Wolf Creek/ The Descent/ Hostel.

A bunch of backpackers riding a bus suddenly find themselves stranded on the roadside as the bus encounters an accident. They soon discover a beach down by the roadside and make their way towards it. Like the scene from the movie The Beach, these backpackers think they have found paradise, and meet up with other foreigners too. They ensue in drinking, partying and dancing all night, with a couple of backpackers getting a little too friendly with the local Brazilian women.

However, the next morning, our backpackers find themselves all alone, with all their belongings, passports, cash, cell phones stolen. They make their way towards the local town, where they some of their stolen items being worn by the kids. A chase ensues when Kiko, a local Brazilian guy tells these backpackers that he will take them to his uncle's house for rest and help.

In the meantime, we get to see the locals get to work, with one doctor telling his comrades that he wants these backpackers alive. We all know the what the doctor wants. Their organs!

While the movie starts off well, building up the tension, it fails to hold any attention from the viewers as the movie descends into a typical Hollywood flick, where the good guys beat out the bad guys and have a happy ending after all! Unlike Hostel, Wolf Creek and The Descent, Turistas plays it safe. I think the other major dissapointment was how the movie's main scene, which is a major shock element, was censored and that totally ruined it for everyone. I wanted to like this movie, because I like such kind of movies, but Turistas failed to cut it for me.

A good build up, good cinematography, especially the underwater caves scene, which was effective enough to make you gasp for air yourself, but let down by a typical ending which fails to leave any impression on the viewers.

Mansur

Movies :: The Prestige, Guru and Salaam-e-Ishq

Some new movies I have seen worth checking out.

The Prestige

With Michael Caine, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, with Scarelett Johansson in a small role, The Prestige is a movie that grips you from the beginning and doesn't let go till its over. The attraction of magicians performing magic, and the delight in knowing how the magic is performed was surely the high point for me in this movie. Bale and Jackman are two friends who start out in life as budding magicians, under the guidance of Caine. A freak accident while performing a magic trick leaves one of our magician's wife to die at the hands of the other magician. Thus, the two magician friends turn rival and try to upstage one another by performing more daring and complex tricks for the audiences, to the point where it soon becomes deadly. Since I love period movies set in London, I absolutely loved the 19th century Victorian London depicted in this movie. The acting is first rate, the sets, costumes all delicious but its the magic tricks that are the real stars of the movie. The twists at the end went one twist too far, but they certainly were twists! 4.5 out of 5.

Guru

Any movie by Mani Ratnam is guaranteed to be a different one (check out Roja, Bombay, Dil Se) and Guru is certainly a very highly enjoyable movie to watch. Guru is supposedly loosely based on an Indian man whose story was literally from rags to riches. Guru played here by Abhishek Bachchan is a young man who sets off to Turkey to make al iving, till he comes to a point in his life where he longs to return home and start a business there. His attitude being: I shouldnt have to work for the white man; I should be self sufficient. So he comes back home, starts up his own clothing manufacturing business, marries and settles in, till the media starts to pull him down on his unprecendented success. How Guru deals with the media, the negative influences on his work and comes out unhurt forms the basis of the rest of movie, with several deeply emotional scenes. It's a delight to watch a movie where it's all about the story and not about the stars. Acting was superb, the songs were amazing, and the story was awesome, straying away from the typical Bollywood movies. 4 out of 5.

Salaam-e-Ishq

Six love stories, all connected with one issue: Love. Although at first this movie may seem like a rehash of Love Actually, the only connection that Salaam-e-Ishq and Love Actually has is the premise of several love stories connecting at one point. All other comparisons should be left aside, because surprisingly Salaam-e-Ishq had great story lines of its own.

Couple 1: A struggling actress flies to Indian bumping into a man she made up to gain press attention
Couple 2: A married man, working in a senior executive position, with two kids and a lifeless marriage being attracted to a younger woman who is a dancer (shades of Shall We Dance? and American Beauty)
Couple 3: A couple in relationship, where the guy is afraid of committing to a marriage, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend
Couple 4: A journalist whose reporter wife is caught in an accident and loses her memory.
Couple 5: An Indian taxi driver who dreams of meeting his white girlfriend coming at the airport.
Couple 6: A Punjabi couple, where the guy is desperate to spend some time with his wife alone, but due to circumstances cannot.

The last couple are not connected, but the other five couple all interact with one another at one time or other in the movie. Different couples, different situations, different dilemmas and problems, and different outcomes. I loved two songs from this movie, the title song and the sad one. It's a long movie, about 3hours 40mins, but once it was over, it felt like such a short movie because it was highly enjoyable and watchable. 4 out 5.

Mansur