Movie Junction

The year 2010 presented us with two survival movies dealing with a single character struggling to stay alive: Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” (2010) and Rodrigo Cortés’s “Buried” (2010), both movies showing its main protagonists trapped in life-threatening situations. The survival-horror genre minus the “Saw” series has been revived again with these films by showing the dire circumstances that can befall any ordinary man.   In the recently announced Oscar nominations, James Franco has been nominated in the Best Actor category for his gutsy performance in “127 Hours.” I thought Ryan Reynolds would be nominated for this performance in “Buried,” but then that would mean two actors receiving nominations for similar roles. Nonetheless, critics praised “Buried” for constructing perfect realism along with Ryan Reynolds’s best performance so far. The film was initially released in January, 2010, at the Sundance Film Festival, and it only received a limited theatrical release in the fall of 2010...

“What has become of our nation? The human life is less than the cost of a drink.” -- Sabrina Lall For Delhiites, the Jessica Lall story is well known for its tragedy and injustice, but it is still an uplifting tale that is a beacon of hope for similar cases. It is not because everyone knew who Jessica was, but because of the manner in which she was brutally shot to death in front of 300 people. On 29th April, 1999, Jessica Lall (Myra Karn) was a bartender for a big social gathering. At about 2 a.m. when the bar finally closed, three guys demanded drinks. Lall’s mistake: she refused to serve them the drinks. In a fit of rage, one of the guys (the son of a Member of the Legislative Assembly) went back to his car, got a gun, and at a point blank range shot Lall in the head. The media coverage of the affair and the ensuing court case drew attention from everyone in Delhi and elsewhere. For an open-and-shut case like this, the assailants basically got off scot-free. Not only did the ca...

Produced by Revel Films and marketed by Warner Bros., “Phas Gaye Re Obama” (2010, “We are Trapped Obama” in Hindi) is a satire on the meltdown of the American economy that started in 2008. After seeing “Phas Gaye Re Obama,” the film affirms my belief in the development of parallel cinema in Bollywood. This type of cinema deviates from the conventional Bollywood formula. More so, the filmmakers supporting the parallel cinema are not afraid of employing nontraditional filming choices, even at the cost of alienating themselves from the wider Bollywood audience. While the traditional mainstream Bollywood is a purely escapist form of entertainment, the parallel Bollywood cinema banks on realistic stories of people living in the middle and lower-middle classes. It’s a hybrid cinema that is texturally artistic as well as commercially viable. Films like “Omkara” (2006), “Dev D.” (2009), “Ishqiya” (2010), “Peepli [Live]” (2010), and the upcoming “Dhobhi Ghaat: Mumbai Diaries” (2011) are realis...

Starting her career as a choreographer in Bollywood, Farah Khan has received numerous awards for her work in several films (“Monsoon Wedding,” “Marigold,” “Dil Se”). With the support of her brother, Sajid Khan, and the superstar Shah Rukh Khan, she promoted herself to director’s status. She did not disappoint in her new role and eventually directed two big hits with Shah Rukh Khan: “Main Hoo Naa” (2004, “I am here,” in Hindi) and “Om Shanti Om” (2007). Indeed, she is an experienced campaigner and a celebrated name in the Bollywood industry. So, how does her new movie, “Tees Maar Khan” (2010) measure up? Released under heavy marketing, “Tees Maar Khan” is an abject filmmaking exercise. Akshay Kumar plays the main protagonist, Tabrez Mirza Khan, who pairs up with Katrina Kaif for the sixth time; their previous pair-ups were in the films “Humko Deewana Kar Gaye” (2005,”You Made Me Crazy,” in Hindi ), “Namastey London” (2006), “Welcome” (2007), “Singh Is Kinng” (2008), and “De Dana Dan”...

“If you believe in Jesus Christ, then you have to believe in daemons.” – Reverend Cotton Marcus William Friedkin’s remains an epic, bone-chilling exercise in exorcism. With its serious tone on the century-long religious ritual, “The Exorcist” quickly became a classic in horror filmmaking. Within the horror genre, filmmakers have regularly copied the scare-inducing techniques and gothic set designs of Friedkin’s masterpiece. But no film in my opinion has eclipsed “The Exorcist,” though some films came close in the process. On the subject of exorcism, two recent films, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” (2005) </a> and “The Last Exorcism” (2010), draw their inspiration from “The Exorcist.” Both movies offer a believable and fresh perspective on exorcism, a topic that has been irrefutably exhausted by uninspiring sequels in the “Exorcist” series. Directed by Daniel Stamm and produced on a minuscule budget of $1.8 million, “The Last Exorcism,” through positive word-of-mouth and favora...

Upon its release “High Tension” (2003) stirred up a fair amount of discussion among horror fans for its much-talked-about twisted ending. Whether you agree with the conclusion or not, the film is definitely a polarizing experience that is going to stay with you for a while. Obviously, the writers were inspired by Hollywood movies such as “Psycho” (1960), “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974), “The Usual Suspects” (1995), and “The Sixth Sense” (1999). Nonetheless, “High Tension” in essence works competently as a slasher flick for two-thirds of its running time. “High Tension” executes all the moves brilliantly in the first fifty minutes. It has all the elements of a horror movie: a mysterious stranger, a bloody massacre, a deadly cat-and-mouse game, and, of course, a final act of redemption. The film begins with brutal force with its depiction of violent murders and excessive gore. But is the whole experience greater than the sum of its parts? It depends on how you feel about the end...

Inspired by true events, “Unstoppable” is a thrilling new adventure movie directed by Tony Scott, whose last movie,” The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3,” was also on rails. But instead of developing action elements on a relatively stationary train as he did in “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3,” Scott this time around manages to create an exhilarating ride as the characters battle to stop an unmanned, runaway train. “Unstoppable” might be original in its execution, but I can’t help feel that the movie is an extension of Scott’s last movie. Nonetheless, “Unstoppable” is a ninety-minute adrenaline rush that does not slow down even for a minute, just like its speeding train. Made with a high budget of over $100 million, the movie generated enough revenue to break even at the box office.     Early on, we see Dewey (Ethan Suplee) at a train yard in Fuller, Pennsylvania, trying to taxi an idle train from its current track, so that an incoming excursion train filled with schoolchildren ca...