Homeland

The art of creating a thriller. Homeland is one of the best series I have seen. The casting, direction, screenplay, music, story - all spot on! Nothing to complain about except the pace - which eventually suits the twists that the viewer is subjected to.

Claire Danes (Carrie) has done a stupendous job - beyond stupendous. Damien Lewis (Nick Brody) has done a good job. My favourite character though is Saul Berenson played by Mandy Patinkin. He is a caring, decisive, brutal, soft spoken gentleman and ruffian all rolled into one. His equation with Mira is the stuff of great emotional content. In the last episode of the 2nd season, when Mira tells Saul that she is coming to the US, Saul says 'Yes'. No triumph, no happiness, just plain relief.

Homeland touches the viewer at so many different levels and makes the viewer question each possibility. A true masterpiece. But as it goes with so many shows, the odds are that they fk things up in the next few seasons...

Argo

A thriller after a long long time. Who knew that Ben Affleck could actually make a career in Hollywood!? I woke up today craving a movie, so I booked one ticket for Argo and didn't know what the movie was about, except for the fact that it had received quite a few praises. So it starts off and they say its based on a true story - OK.
The story is simple - 1979, Iranians storm the US embassy in Tehran. 6 Americans take refuge somewhere; the CIA has to get them out. But there's something that gnaws at you when faced with the prospect of having your freedom taken away - and that is what got me quite hooked. Were the Americans right in giving refuge to their stooge - the Shah? Were the Iranians right in having held innocent Americans hostage? I guess that the Iranian anger was justified...
And then I thought of the madding crowd - if a bunch of people do it, it is justified. It's like the broken window syndrome and it is quite an influence in my field of work. An American tried to reason with the crowd; of course, he was tied down and used to gather more hostages...

I enjoyed the slight comical element of Argo fuck yourself. A movie production unit that goes to Iran, from Canada. The screenplay and the writing was excellent. Here too, I found it funny how certain crass jokes got the audience in an uproar and certain subtler jibes had only a few of us laughing and thinking.

A must watch. Brilliant movie.

And if you think that you have the end figured out... may be you do, but the movie doesn't allow you to believe your forecasting abilities.

The Resident Evil series

Fantastic! You see... there's something awesome about the combination of zombies (the living dead), hotties, guns and killing, stupidity and the sincerity that goes with the stupidity. I love the franchise and I am referring to the English movies.

The first one has been aired so often that it sets the stage for getting attracted to the series. The second was poor but it had Sienna Guillory (drool). The third one was cool - imagine, zombie crows! loving it :) and it had Ali Larter (the best hottie so far).
I saw the fourth one yesterday - Resident Evil Afterlife. Super cool :) It was made in 3d, but luckily I saw it at home in normal 2D.
Ali Larter again :) plus there is some confusion about what's happening with the Umbrella Corporation and there is a weird mutant type head honcho. Milla crash lands on the terrace of a building surrounded by zombies. Combine this with excellent shots and a 12 foot menace wielding a human sized axe. OMG. Brilliant stuff.

Cape Fear

Revenge is what makes us human, may be. Directed by Martin Scorsese and even though I believe that it would have been more refined had it been created today, he did an excellent job of giving Robert De Niro his identity - fantastic acting; Martin played with gore and nudged at us with hints of brutality. The movie definitely lives up to its name.

When we watch older movies (this one was released in 1991 - and was in fact a remake of a movie by the same name from 1962) we notice how difficult it would have been for a creator to paint his/ her movie, and therefore we notice the flaws.

The end of the movie was very well chalked out (although it was poorly pictured, relative to current standards) and that is when Max Cady (De Niro) surprises the audience, with his brutality, grit and sheer insanity; when he turns back to talk to the camera as an attorney talking to a judge, how he is able to weather physical pain and when he sinks down to the river bed while uttering incoherent 'sounds?'