Moon

Now this a real gem of a small movie… it’s atmospheric… claustrophobic… haunting and spellbinding… I came across this by accident and I’m glad I did… if one is expecting Star Wars or Aliens kind of action/horror then this is not the movie for them… but if one is willing to be lead slowly down a twisted and bewildering plot than one will find this truly enjoyable remarkable and memorable experience…

And besides that the acting is superb… Sam Rockwell holds the film on his shoulders and he is incomparable… in fact all the Sam Rockwells are excellent and as the plot unravels one is truly taken by surprise as things are most unexpected…

The concept is unique – Sam Bell is an astronaut and the sole employee working on Moon for Lunar Industries. His shift is for three years and he is readying to go back to earth to his wife. But the last few days of these three years and are getting too tough on him as he starts to hallucinate… his only interaction here in the past three years is with Gerty his computer-cum-assistant. But even Gerty is unable to tell him what is happening to him… and things go haywire when he has an accident on the surface of the moon and later wakes up back in the space station in suspicious circumstances… looking for answers about himself he finds the vehicle in which he had the accident earlier and is stunned to find a body there…

And thus begins a series of discoveries that makes Sam suspect everything – the company, his job, his wife, himself, his reality and his sanity… his only objective henceforth is to return to earth in any way he can…

This is truly an intelligent and a rare movie… not many movies like this out there… with no villains, no mutants, no zombies, no aliens, no animals… no big budget special effects… just one man and his battle with his realization… gripping, it truly is an experience like no other… out of this world, I say.

Moon

She's Out of My League

He's a 5, she's a solid 10, so how can the two be together?

Many times in life one must have seen odd couples where one of the partners is really attractive and the other is not. We wonder, how the hell are they together? What did she sees in him? (Or vice versa).

Well this film is about that. The odd couple. The hot chick withe the nerdy guy. From the trailer it seems like a silly comedy without any depth, but it’s a really sweet, even romantic film except for two scenes which are over the top (one watching the film will recognize them instantly, they seem more fitting in a sex comedy rather than in this film’s scheme of things)… 

The two things that make the film better than most others in this league are -

(1) The setting… the hero works in airport security! And it’s here that he comes across the hot girl whom everyone else wants to ‘search’ more thoroughly as she passes through the metal detector… but our hero lets her through without harassing her… and thus begins the strangest of romances between a hot ‘10’ girl and a nerdy ‘5’ guy… the airport setting makes for some interesting scenes set in and around the airport back area and runway… for instance the conveyer belt scene is really good to watch - the 4 friends discuss girls as they take rounds of the conveyor belt meant to transport baggage in the airport… (other films set in airports - Die Hard 2, Terminal, Unaccompanied Minors, Quarantine 2, Terminal)

(2) The odd ball characters… they seem straight out of a Judd Apatow film (also, one has seen such characters in Harold and Kumar, Sex Drive, Superbad, Eurotrip and many of the college films). The characters are frankly nuts, and I mean that in a good way.

The scenes in this flick are funny… most of them… and dialogues are good … but there are negatives too – there is a clearly defined three act structure which makes the film predictable and forces in a few clichés in the script – the jealous ex-boyfriend, the supporting friends, the falling in love, the break-up for no rhyme or reason, the going away to a different city scene, the rush to catch the plane scene, the realization that they are truly in love scene and the rush to proclaim their love to each other scene… they’re all there… 

And the biggest cliché of all is the ending which is once again in an airport! But as the main lead works in an airport this doesn’t come across as too bad a climax… 

Inspite of all the above faults, somehow, the film is still really entertaining because of the quirky writing of each scene… each scene seems to be a small skit in itself with a beginning middle and end and the actors seem very comfortable with what they are doing… their acting seems effortless and they seem to be having a great time. That’s what makes this film stand out of its league of mediocre done-to-death stories…

She's Out of My League

Goon

The protagonist is a bouncer with hard fists and an even harder head. He can beat up people and take a beating like no other. 

But instead of being a hot head or angry or looking for a fight at all times he's a simple minded fellow who fights only when needed (and in the world that he moves, it's needed!). He does not show off his strength over the weak, he's not a bully... he's just a simple goon.

This is a character lead film, meaning once you start liking the character the story takes second place in comparison. The Goon is played by the comic and lovable Sean William Scott, the actor from the American Pie films who for some reason isn't such an A list actor as yet (he was quite silly in the American Pie films and I guess the comic actor image stuck with him, an actor with no depth, but you have to watch this and a few other of his films to know he's quite good in serious roles too).

Goon at it's heart is a sport, romantic, comedy, drama with some violence and ass kicking.    

The plot - the likeable, dim witted but big hearted bouncer and goon gets into a fight during one of the hockey matches with one of the psycho ice hockey players. And one solid punch and the brute of professional player is knocked out cold by the goon! A member of the audience knocking out an ice hockey player? That's got to be a first!

His powerful punch is noticed by the coach of one of the ice hockey teams and the Goon is called in to play ice hockey as a player and an enforcer! And he can't even skate! Let alone play ice hockey. 

But he accepts and joins the ice hockey team and becomes a 'hit' and knocks the opposition players 'out cold' in the ice hockey ring (no puns intended). On the way he meets a girl and falls in love and all too...

It's a simple story of sports and love and friendship and beating each other black and blue. Inspite of the violence and it's a comedy and a sweet, sweet film. 

Another plus point for it is that it's written by the writers of Pineapple Express and Superbad, so it does have quirky humour and characters. 

This goon in my book is a must watch. 

Goon
    

Pressure

This is an unknown film with not such good reviews from audiences and critics alike. But I watched it because I like locked room stories/mysteries, and the fact that it was set hundreds of feet under water, where the pressure is tremendous and oxygen only what you find in your deep sea diving suit and the submarine pod, made it a must watch for me. 

This is a locked room suspense, submarine movie. Unless the characters behave stupidly and start killing each other, I don’t think anything can go wrong with such a story.

And I was right. Right from the get go, this took me with the deep sea divers down under water, and kept me there. 

In a way I was stuck with them, trapped with them, and wanted to see what will happen next.

The basic plot is four deep sea diver are sent in a small pod to fix an oil pipeline on the sea bed. It’s a high risk job as a storm is brewing in the skies. Soon they find themselves trapped underwater and retreat into the small submarine/pod which has only so much oxygen for them. So as the characters are trapped they understand, the lesser the number of characters alive, the more the oxygen for them. 

So if the other trapped character was to die in an accident they would be able to live longer! But what happened next wasn't what I was expecting. It's certainly not about characters killing each other. Instead the second half of the movie is thrilling and emotional as we begin to root for the characters and want them to come out of this dire situation alive!

It may not be a big blockbuster, it may not have A list actors, it may not be factually correct about deep sea diving, but it is certainly a good story, with an edge of the seat climax! Rarely does a film take you away from your comfortable chair, and comfortable life and transport you into a different, dangerous, unknown, unseen world. This is one of them. In spite of the flaws, this is a must watch for the setting, suspense and the story.  

I would like to pressurize you, do watch it if you can.

Pressure

Enter Nowhere

Three strangers arrive one by one at a mysterious cabin in the middle of nowhere. Slowly they realize that they are trapped there and no matter how hard they try to leave they can't because in whichever direction they go, they return to the exact same cabin!

Things become more bizarre when the three begin to talk and are sure the cabin they are stuck in is in different geographical US states. It seems they were hundreds of miles apart from each other and had traveled only for a little time and yet they've reached each other at this cabin! It's geographically impossible. They must be 100s of miles apart. So in which US state is this cabin exactly? How have they reached each other without travelling for days?

Odder still they each believe the year is different. One character says it is 1962, while the other says it's 1985 and for the third it 2011!Frankly, this is an excellent, unknown, bizarre yet entertaining movie!

The story is brand new and not a rehash of old stuff one has seen countless times. 

The starting itself is strong and happenings unpredictable, and the ending is a major twist that one will not see coming from miles away. 
It's emotional, and for the running time I felt like I was trapped in the bizarre situation along with the characters. As a writer I tried to think what was happening and predict the end and yet it left me baffled, bamboozled and bowled over!

It's claustrophobic and tense. A rare 'locked-room' thriller, limited characters, limited locations and limited budgets but not limited in imagination, ideas, and writing. 

Enter Nowhere

Blue Ruin

A man with nothing to lose is a man with nothing to fear - Blue Ruin.

The lead character is this homeless, frail guy. Weak and laughable and irrelevant, just living out his life, growing instead of achieving anything significant in life, when he finds out that the guy he hates the most, his parents’ killer is walking our of prison a free man.

And suddenly he changes. He now has a purpose in life and that is to kill the man who ruined his life.

His target is a big, brutal, powerful criminal whose entire family is pure evil.  

The revenge itself happens quickly and what this one act of vengeance unleashes is what this movie is all about.

The violence is, according to the director - brutal, shocking and disturbing.

The protagonist here is such a normal, clueless guy that the story and hence the movie is as different from any other revenge movie as chalk and cheese. He's not a killer but a bit of a wimp but has balls to go ahead and do crazy stuff even if he is scared shitless.  

You watch it for five minutes and you will not be able to walk away from it. Such is its stickiness. You have to watch what happens to the poor chump who has bitten more than he can chew.  

This is a must watch. An impactful, unforgettable, unpredictable, unique, tense and taut movie. 

Blue Ruin

Eye In The Sky

Would you be willing to kill a little girl if it meant saving the lives of 80 other innocent people? Would you willingly let a little girl die so you could also kill a terrorist in her vicinity who was about to go on a suicide mission?

This is the question that the film tries to deal with, explain, ask us. As an audience we take up the two opposing sides. Kill her and save the other innocent people. Let her live as there is no way can we kill a little girl as that would be a media nightmare and the terrorists would win the propaganda war.

This movie grips you from the very beginning and does not let go. For its running time I forgot that there was a world around me and that this was just a movie.

And in spite of a straightforward plot there were plenty of the twists and turns within the world that was created and brought alive here.

This reminded me of another film called Unthinkable which made the audience and the lead character face a similar dilemma. Both films are remarkable. 

Unthinkable deals with the torture of a terrorist who knows where he has placed a bomb which is going to go off soon killing hundreds. No matter how much you torture the terrorist he isn't willing to tell you the location of the bomb. What would you do? Would you bring his family in front of him and start to torture them instead to make him reveal the bomb's location? Could you torture a child in front of a father, a wife in front of her husband to save hundreds?

Dilemma! What would you do?

Both Unthinkable and Eye In The Sky are thrillers that stay with you a long time after they have ended. They may seem like American propaganda films but they are much, much more as these situations will be faced by security forces the world over. 

Put them on your must watch list. And spend some time thinking, what would you do in that situation?    

Eye In The Sky

Unthinkable

12.01

Based on the short story "12:01 PM" by Richard A. Lupoff, this is a fabulous film.

The protagonist witnesses the murder of a woman he secretly likes. She is killed in front of him and he is unable to do anything to save her. That night he goes to a bar to drown his sorrows and mourn her death. And as he is returning home, there is a storm and he gets an electric shock at exactly 12:01 AM.

The next morning he heads to office and is stunned to see the same girl he had seen murdered last evening. She's alive, and hale and hearty! How?

He now realizes that the day hasn't moved on. It's still the previous day! And that evening he sees her gunned down yet again!

The next morning he wakes up eagerly and sees it's the same day again and the woman is alive and will be killed as expectedly in the evening. And she is gunned down again and again and again, repeatedly, at the same time, again and again. 

So now he has all the time in the world to stop the murder of the love of his life, and it's not as easy as it sounds. In fact, it's going to be hell for him. 

I found this better than Groundhog Day, and I mean it. And better than Edge Of Tomorrow. And I mean that too! 

12.01

The Truth About Harry Quebert Affair

This is an amazing book. It's been translated into English so the language is pretty basic which in turn makes it extremely fast paced. The story is quite different and truly engrossing. It's a long novel, and many things happen, many flashbacks, many characters, and so many twists and turns that the mind truly boggles. Kudos to the writer who could come up with such a complicated, twisted plot. A must read.

The Truth About Harry Quebert Affair

The Angel's Share

This one starts off a bit slow but then picks up and the second half is absolutely fresh and unseen. The moment the protagonist starts to sip and taste wines the movie picks up and ends with a bang (robbing a vineyard? Hilarious). A must watch...

The Angel's Share

The Boy

A good watch and an unexpected twist… the best twist is one where you aren’t expecting a twist. 

This is not a mystery, so no twist was expected, just a plain, simple, emotional creepy story about a dead boy’s soul… 

But then BAM, the twist hit me and knocked me cold. You may not like it but it’s there to hit you when you least expect it… For the different story and the least expected twist ever this is quite good.



The Boy

Disconnect

Make this the next film you watch and you will not regret it. Fast moving, gripping, thrilling, with a fantastic climax, Perfect for today's connected world that has made us all so disconnected.

Disconnect

Old Harry's Game

The funniest radio show ever. Can listen to it right now...

Old Harry's Game

Colonia

Based on a true story, this is an exciting, edge-of-the-seat movie with a unique climax at the airport. A bit frightening too.

Colonia

   

The Way Way Back

Sam Rockwell and Steve Carell in a coming of age movie set in a Water Park! Wow! This made me feel like I was a part of the water park. The characters were so nutty and quirky. And it has a fabulous, creative climax.

The Way Way Back

Rudderless

What a unique, unheard of story! Moved even a guy like me... what happens to those we leave behind... sniff, sniff... and quite often these Hollywood actors are better directors than directors themselves. This one is directed by William H Macy. Sniff.

Rudderless

Me, Earl And The Dying Girl

For a film that is about a dying girl and two loner boys this was quite entertaining... Very quirky, and stylishly shot... A coming of age film with a great moving climax. A rare experience... 

Me, Earl And The Dying Girl