Evil Dead 2 by Sam Raimi

Category: English

I didn't like this movie at all first, considering the amount of scare quotient the previous one had. But this one is much more funny.

Bruce Campbell pretty much makes this role his and while this time he suffers a lot in comparison to the previous one. He also finally is pushed over the edge to do what's needed to survive. The movie has Bruce Campbell striving for his sanity till he comes across four individuals who don't understand what the Evil Dead is all about and thus starts the cabin horror story with some elements borrowed from the prequel.

Have a look at this if you enjoy horror movies and of course crazy faced people!

Recommendation level: 2.5/5 - I liked this, in some aspects it's better than the original and worse in some other ways. Got this from a friend.

Fight Club by David Fincher

Category: English

The movie that pretty much inspires most alternative music loving youngsters to brag to their pop music loving friends. Ladies & Gentlemen welcome to Fight Club.

At the heart of Fight Club is a protagonist who much like millions of others like himself is punished with the never ending desire of more. This more is represented by several consumerism and the restlessness we have in us as human beings. Eventually there is a conflict which arises and he solves that conflict by creating an alter ego. The alter ego creates an underground organisation that believes every desire we have can be made lighter, our burden made lesser if we are to engage in physical activities that include mayhem and violence. Pretty much the rawest form of Anarchism you can find there, despite the words used sounding very similar to Nihilism, the means are pure Anarchy.

The ends to nihilism were a reset of morals and values to understand nihilism in the first place, Anarchism is far from that.

A lot of people thought they understood Nihilism after this and that's pure bull shit.

The movie has some very good points to be made about consumerism and everything else I just mentioned, but it does lack a really good execution, there's a lot of repetition to enforce certain things and that's something which isn't required and which is why it's a bit drawn out at 2 hours and 19 minutes.

Feel free to have a look at the movie though, if you're 16 and above this movie will change your life if you're above 21 you should be able to pick some good points from it. The acting is as good as the dialogues so that should be able to sum up what Brad Pitt & Edward Norton are doing here.

Recommendation level: 3/5. It's based on a novel, and the novel is more complete than this in the formal sense, still this movie has a funky feel to it.

Bande à part by Jean-Luc Godard

Category: Non-English

Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part hits out at the right notes and at the right places, quickly uncovering the plot of the movie in the first 10 minutes and then recapping it for you in the first 10 minutes itself is proof enough that he's one of the greatest directors or auteurs that ever existed.

Bande à part follows the lives of 3 restless youngsters who have the access to robbing a lot of money and eventually wanting to get away with it. Do they? That's the question you should be asking yourself right now, but that's not the point of this movie. Godard quickly pays tribute to all his influences & influences of those days - be it the Westerns, the gangster genre or the kind of cars his protagonists want to drive.

The film is fast paced at 97 mins and never lets up. The historical context is obviously shortly after DuGaulle decided to enter into Africa and take on the fight there.

A few things to watch out for:

- a minute of silence sequence

- the dance sequence

- A scene from a Truffaut film being spoken out (I think)

- Anna Karina's talking to the camera

- Franz' character

- Background score

-Godard's thoughts on the Louvre & museums in general, watch his protagonist run through the Louvre!

- Godard's control of the medium (cuts, deconstruction of Paris, genre of music, characters, pop culture digs, guns)

Recommendation level: 5/5. This is Godard at his finest, stand in awe at this masterpiece.

Evil Dead by Sam Raimi

Category: English

After Night and Fog I watch Evil Dead.

Straight to the premise, Evil Dead features 5 youngsters who go holidaying at a very far off cabin in the woods. They eventually discover a book that brings evil spirits which in turn posses people for the good humour in it. Eventually Bruce Campbell finds himself having to take on all his friends in Exorcist form.

This film spawned a ton of movies which use the same "teenagers going to a cabin for vacation and end up finding more than what they bargained for" premise. Very original in its form and concept, full marks to Raimi for it.

Worth a watch if you're a horror film fan, but then again if you are a horror film fan you might have already seen this movie. Don't watch it otherwise, it might give you nightmares. You have to wait for parts 2 and 3 for Bruce Campbell's character to become bad ass.

Recommendation level: 2.5/5. Got it from a friend.

Night and Fog by Alain Resnais

Category: Non-English

I've been told a lot about this film by people around me and until I actually got around to watching it and...

Well obviously tons of quick thoughts on this film, Resnais uses a daunting score, a strong narrative and a narrator who is as cold as the harsh realities of the concentration camps set up during the second world war. He juxtaposes present day footage with that of the old archival footage he managed to lay his hands on. The result is an interesting blend of reality, documentation and of course cinema. The 31 minute documentary as it's pegged in some places is very far from a documentary since most French New Wave directors found calling a movie a "documentary" to be problematic. Who is doing the documentation?

Obviously the "in your face images" are very hard to take in and even though it's not as atrocious as the stuff they show in cinema today it's one of the hardest films I have had to sit through. Mostly because all of this stems from events based in our world. This movie brings to mind the Roberto Benigini film, Life is Beautiful. A movie in which the concentration camps are shown to be a little boys fantasy game played with his father, to think that anyone would want to downplay the relentless and brutal treatment meted out to the inmates of such a place is atrocious.

Back to the movie, it's obviously worth watching, but what Resnais does with reality and this film is remarkable, he doesn't make any bones that this is far from what reality actually was but how does one actually capture what happened then? There are some questions which even the normal fellow watching this will get, such as a "Who is responsible for this". Try moving past that. Creation of the sound track is also important as that forms a major arch of the film itself, do some research before actually watching this, it shall be rewarding.

Note: This was made about 10 years after the liberation of the concentration camps.

Recommendation level: 5/5.

Diary of the Dead by George A. Romero

Category: English

After the Land of the Dead dud that was made by George A. Romero, the documentary style Diary of the Dead manages to pretty much kick life into the ...Dead series. The film follows a group of film school students who eventually end up recording all the events of the Zombie Apocalypse in which everyone turns into a Zombie (whether bitten or if they died of natural causes)

The only big change is that there's not much gore and violence that's a signature move of Romero, even still the chilling suspense and impending doom on all the people in this film grips you like the cold hand of a Zombie on your shoulder.

The characters aren't that standout barring a few (like the professor) and while the social commentary follows as usual there's also the important question raised in a Zombie fall out (Do we really want to survive in a world like this?) and of course the basic humanity of humans and if they should actually be survivors.

Eventually the movie takes a turn for the worst and fans of happy endings might not really like this ending! But whatever it's worth a watch. Obviously everyone is waiting for Survival of the Dead, the 6th part of the "official Dead series"

Recommendation level: 3.5/5 I had watched it a while back but managed to snare a copy again from a friend. If you like Zombie movies this is a 5/5 though!

Equilibrium by Kurt Wimmer

Category: English

A future in which emotions are removed and the people are ruled by a greedy all controlling entity, in all of this our hero Christian Bale's character falls from grace as a top ranking enforcer known as a Grammaton Cleric to join the resistance and bash the baddies!

The fight sequences are pretty well choreographed and while the director is pretty bad at completely controlling things he does make this movie a decent watch thanks to a well backed cast which at times is wasted (Emily Watson, Sean Bean).

The movie definitely has some amount of philosophy in it which is sadly all popular culture based and fans of a dystopian future with an all controling big Brother (Father in this movie) might find this a little flaccid.

Recommendation level: 2/5 - If you're a Bale fan this ranks pretty high so I'd say it's a 4/5. Watch it when you have nothing to do and need to kill time at the end of the week. Got this from my earlier collection. Oh by the way Kurt Wimmer also directed the turkey known as Ultraviolet.