The Movie Recommendation Thread

Akula

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In the trailer of Mangalyaan they mentioned Gslv mk3 getting blown up in the air. Akshay Kumar said 'Fatboy'.
 

A chauhan

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Who here has watched the following ( take it as a recommendation if you want( most are war/military or sci-fi)):
  1. Annihilation
  2. Edge of tomorrow
  3. Kubo and the two strings
  4. 12 strong
  5. The void
  6. Rememory
  7. Arrival
  8. Inferno
  9. The 5th wave
  10. The dark tower
Watched first two, liked 2nd one.
 

ashdoc

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The bonfire of the vanities ( 1990 )



This film was adapted from Tom Wolfe's novel of the same name , but unlike the novel it was a box office flop and was panned by the critics . Reason---the film showed Tom Hanks' character in a different mold from the novel . The novel showed him to be a mean guy according to those who read it ( I haven't read it ) , but the movie tried to build up sympathy for the character in the audiences' mind . Also the movie was probably panned as it was incorrigibly politically incorrect . Black characters were shown either as toughies or cynically raising the race card for their own benefit .

Tom Hanks plays Sherman McCoy , who is a Wall street bond trader who is rich and lives the american dream . Even better actually . For along with living in a plush apartment with his wife and daughter and travelling in luxurious cars , he also has a sexy mistress played by Melanie Griffith . His wife knows about this and throws jealous taunts at him even when visiting his parents . But Sherman doesn't care . He considers himself as a 'master of the universe' , a term coined by Tom Wolfe .

But one day while driving along with his mistress he takes a wrong turn and lands up in the black dominated area of Bronx . The area is full of fire and violence almost like a war zone and mistress openly asks as to ''where are the white people ?'' . Their way is blocked by a car wheel lying on the road and as Sherman climbs down the car to remove it , he is confronted by two threatening black young men . Mistress takes the wheel and Sherman quickly jumps in , but as she reverses she knocks one black boy down . The couple escape but Sherman wants to go to the police . But mistress refuses fearing expose of their affair for she too is married to a rich old man . To make her refusal sweet she just removes her clothes and shows her luscious bikini body and entices Sherman into bed , something that she does twice in the film with aplomb and you watch mesmerized as Tom Hanks fondles Melanie Griffith's delicious breasts .

But an alcoholic journalist played with comic timing by Bruce Willis comes upon this hit and run case and takes this to the jewish district attorney who is facing flak for too many arrests of blacks for crime , and they decide that the white driver of the car has to be arrested to change the district attorney's image . They are joined by a black demagogic religious leader who organizes crowds demanding justice for the injured black teen who eventually dies . As the car's ownership is traced to Sherman , the case has become a political football and Sherman is sent straight to jail . Huge threatening crowds follow him everywhere after he gets bail and he is asked to vacate his own house due to the fear his neighbours feel due to the crowds surrounding their building . His mistress predictably refuses to acknowledge her responsibility for the hit and run case and his wife leaves him . A white man who considered himself to be Master of his universe has been brought down from his high horse by the teeming non whites whose increasing population he had treated with disdain . It is the bonfire of his vanities....

It is left to the remorse of the journalist played by Bruce Willis to deliver proof of the truth to Sherman in the form of a tape where the mistress has been recorded to admit that it she who was actually driving the car when the hit and run happened . And it is left to an honest black judge played by Morgan Freeman to deliver justice by admitting the tape as evidence in court . And also the judge silences the crowd in the court angry over the judgement by delivering a speech asking not to raise the ethnic card but instead be decent people .

The climax differs from the novel by not showing Sherman ruined by the case . It does not show him punished for his arrogance , for his cheating on his wife , for his meanness as shown in the novel . And the critics have never for given the film for that . Nor did the audiences at that time . But nearly thirty years later , we who have not read the novel can surely be forgiven for not comparing the film to the novel and liking the film . For it has some dialogues delivered with knacky humour and some really complicated situations .

Acting is good by everyone and colours and background music are decent too . So is photography . Era is of the eighties , so no mobile phones are there and computers are only in offices . Life was simple then.... All the criticism the film received had a rebound effect on me as it was better than that and I liked the film more than I should have .

Verdict---Good .

Four stars out of five .
 

ashdoc

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Haqeeqat ( 1964 )




Directed by Chetan Anand who was the doyen of war movies in Bollywood , this black and white movie is set in the himalayan region of Ladakh during the Indo-Chinese war of 1962 . For a war movie made at a time when soldiers were exclusively men , the movie focuses inordinately on women . For the thoughts of the soldiers guarding the inhospitable wastes of the Himalayas invariably turned towards their women in these remote regions where there was nothing else to occupy the mind .

So one soldier is waiting for a letter from the woman whom he was to marry , but who rejected him when she realised that he would be off on duty for a long time after marriage with no chance to remain with her . Another soldier dreams of his wife in her bridal dress . Another is unmarried but remembers his sisters in law , who are waiting for their husbands who are also in the army . Another waits for gifts from his wife and gets a gift of soil from her to plant flowers in the region where no blade of grass grows---the description of the region they are guarding in PM Nehru's words .

But the hero of the film Captain Bahadur Singh ( Dharmendra ) has found love in Ladakh itself ; he is in a relationship with a ladakhi girl named Angmo ( Priya Rajvansh ) and gets permission from his mother to marry her . He is son of the commanding officer of the soldiers stationed there . His immediate superior Major Ranjit Singh is played by Balraj Sahni . Director Chetan Anand's brother Vijay Anand plays Major Pratap Singh .

But war clouds are on the horizon as chinese soldiers daily berate them from their side by loudspeakers that the territory they are standing on is chinese territory and since Indians and chinese are brothers , the Indians should vacate it !! The commanding Indian major has to convince his own soldiers that it is their own land that they are protecting . That because India has no tradition of invading other country's lands , it would scarcely guard a land where not a blade of grass grows if it was not it's own . Ladakhi civilians including Angmo however are co operative and willingly take training in firing rifles from Indian soldiers to protect their region from the chinese . Angmo's small brother dreams of joining the army when he grows up and Bahadur personally gives him training , using the opportunity to meet Angmo .

One day real war begins as chinese troops begin bombarding Indian positions . Intelligence is that the chinese vastly outnumber the Indians and the commanding brigadier ( Bahadur's father ) orders a retreat . But the soldiers flatly refuse . Retreat would be loss of honour for them and they would not be able to show their faces to the very women they dream of when they return home . So they stay put in their positions and fight .

Soon the chinese attack using human wave tactics , but the Indian soldiers vow to kill 20 for each Indian killed . They pour machine gun fire onto the onrushing chinese and make good their vow . However they run out of bullets and the chinese are endless . So they are forced to retreat . Major Ranjit Singh then hatches a plan . They vacate the post behind them also and allow the chinese to come to take it too . But what the chinese do not know is that the post is surrounded by Indians at vantage points and that they are walking in a trap . They are mown down .

Ranjit plans to now take back the lost Indian position but brigadier warns him on radio that intelligence reports say that a vast chinese force is now coming to take revenge . Orders a retreat . This even though it would mean abandoning his son Bahadur who is at another nearby post and cannot be contacted . So reluctantly Ranjit and his soldiers start to come back but in the himalayas distances are vast . The soldiers almost get lost in the icy wastes and only Ranjit's determination brings them to another army camp . Here he meets Angmo , and believing her lover Bahadur to be dead Ranjit asks to marry her . She refuses as she loves only one man---Bahadur.

Meanwhile the Brigadier contacts Ranjit with both good and bad news . Bahadur is alive at his post with only one soldier with him , and he is the only hope of trying to stop a huge chinese force coming to invade the camp where Ranjit and his soldiers are lying in half wounded condition . Angmo and her brother decide to go to fight alongside Bahadur but Angmo gets caught by chinese soldiers on the way . Her brother reaches Bahadur with the orders to fight the oncoming chinese . Bahadur and his aide get ready with their light machine guns to fight one last battle .

However Angmo who has been captured by the chinese is tortured and violated by them as she refuses to spy for them . She is then abandoned by them as they prepare to attack Bahadur's position . She treks upto that position and takes the gun of Bahadur's comrade who has been killed in the fighting to help Bahadur fight his final battle . They both die fighting but their gallant rearguard action has delayed the chinese sufficiently so that the Indian soldiers can be evacuated from their camp to safety .

The final scene and the song after it 'now the nation is in your ( soldiers' ) hands' brought me to tears and is certainly the high point of the film . Reportedly PM Nehru cried too when the song's singer Lata Mangeshkar sang it live in front of him . But there are other good scenes in the film like the Major saying to his soldiers who are lost in the snowy himalayas during their retreat and given up for dead by their superiors , that retreating alive after all their bullets are finished is not loss of honour but rather signals a will to live to fight the enemy another day .

Music is a strong point of the film and even better are dialogues which are full of the rationale for bravery and patriotism . Acting is good too , and some scenes are full of pathos like soldiers dying remembering their women and their widowed women collecting their now useless jewellery ( traditional hindu widows do not wear gold or jewels ) to donate for the war effort . However a scene of a soldier's skin coming out with his socks on removing them after days of continuous marching makes for some unseemingly if realistic viewing . Ladakh looks bleak in black and white and even bleaker with the bodies of dead Indian soldiers . The film is a brutal reminder that arms are the mainstay of peace and if a nation fails to plan for it's defense then it is planning to fail in protecting itself .

Verdict---Good .

Four stars out of five .
 

here2where

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Eeda (malayalam) lays bare the bloodshed happening in Kannur, Kerala between BJP and CPM.
Oh yes there is an obligatory looovu story too, but what shakes your teeth and bones is the sheer violence and hatred show on screen.

Highly recommended watch for those who want to get an idea of what the commie thugs are upto in KL.
 

ezsasa

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Watched Bard of Blood on Netflix, found it better than The Family man.

There was no gyaan baazi as such compared to family man. Screenplay was good.

If only Emraan Hashmi has trained in martial arts, he would have looked more legit. His height and physique was a disadvantage..
 

ezsasa

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Watched Bard of Blood on Netflix, found it better than The Family man.

There was no gyaan baazi as such compared to family man. Screenplay was good.

If only Emraan Hashmi has trained in martial arts, he would have looked more legit. His height and physique was a disadvantage..
Oh and shells don’t eject from either pistols or AK in the entire series, only muzzle flash..
 

aditya10r

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Lights out ,autopsy of Jane doe , the babadook, hereditary, the witch(2015),
Deliver us from evil ,sinister etc etc
These are the ones I can recall with a quick search ,
I watch all the horror movies Alone at Night to have the best experience ,
So ,I liked quite a lot and I have watched a ton of horror movies .
Watched em all.

________________________________________
 

aditya10r

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The last exorcism (2010),
Ouija: origin of evil 2016,
Mama(2013)
Veronica 2017(Spanish), watch with subtitles,

Satan's slave ,this one I have not watched,
This is an Indonesian film ,
I will watch it later ,if you do watch tell me how it is.
Have watched em too

Satan's slave is one scary movie
It's dark gritty and depressing at times and whenever there is a moment of happiness of enjoyment,it doesn't lasts long.

__________________________________________
 

ashdoc

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Kaun kitne paani mein



I was attracted to this film due to the presence of the seductive Radhika Apte , who was in the flower of her youth when this film was being made . Also I was intrigued by the film's setting---Odisha , a state I have once visited years ago but which rarely makes it's appearance in hindi films . The rustic setting of the film attracted me too . After all , it is the real India that I was seeing .

The only fear was the film going down the familiar path of vilifying my religion in the name of political correctness , and taking an increasingly dark tone as it approaches it's topic . Fortunately that was not the case . The film does show caste differences , but it tries to showcase the whole thing in a light hearted manner that partly succeeds in reducing the tension in some situations .

The film begins with the king of a former kingdom in Odisha still lording over the lower castes even after the loss of his power . Lower caste people have to bend their back for him to climb on their bodies in order to seat in his vehicle . But his daughter does the grave perfidy of falling in love with a lower caste man and the king kills them both , also banishing the lower castes to a village at a lower level in altitude .

Decades pass and the king is gone and his son is now king ( Saurabh Shukla ) . All his former grandeur is gone and he even has to put on false mustaches to show false bravado . Reason---due to climate change his village has no water and is parched . In frustration he tries to sell it but there are no takers for a parched village . And the tables are turned and the lower castes have plenty of water in their village due to far sighted building of a lake where water collects easily due to lower altitude of the village . The leader of the village is Kharu pehelwan ( Gulshan Grover ) who royally hates the king but has an enticing daughter---Paro ( Radhika Apte ) , the reason I was watching the film .

And I was waiting for Paro to fall in love with the king's son ; he had to have one to get the story moving….And the prince duly makes his appearance being played by Kunal Kapoor . His father encourages the romance to get water pipeline from the lower village , but tells his son to fool Paro and dump her after getting the pipeline with promises of marriage .

But best laid plans do go awry don't they....especially in films where the passion called romance exists . The prince really falls in love with the character of Paro played by Radhika Apte , invoking jealousy within my heart for I wanted to possess myself of her in vain . And all hell breaks loose with both castes once more on the warpath .

So is it 'Qayamat se Qayamat tak' redux ? Watch the movie for the answer . There are some other funny characters in the film , like the prostitute who takes her fees in bags of water ( such is scarcity of water ) and the priest who grows marijuana in his backyard and the weaver who is secretly building his own tunnel to bring much need water and the village goddess whose temple becomes the centre of attention in the climax .

Amidst all this , what gave me enormous satisfaction was the fact that the lower castes never gave up on their religion even in moments of humiliation ; that they continued to follow hindu traditions to the fullest . Colours photography acting background music and songs are all okay . Also okay is the film , taking on an art topic in a light hearted manner .

Verdict---Okay .

Two and a half stars out of five .
 

ashdoc

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Train to Pakistan---



Based on Khushwant Singh's acclaimed novel , the movie is set in Indian Punjab during times of partition . The film's setting is a joint sikh muslim village near the border of newly created Pakistan . The Sikhs are landlords and muslims are labourers , but they live in communal harmony . But trouble breaks out as trains full of murdered Sikhs and hindus arrive from Pakistan . Some sikh dacoits plan to take advantage of the rising anger among the village's Sikhs to kill muslims .

The rival of the dacoits is another sikh dacoit played by Nirmal Pandey . He is in love with a muslim girl from the village played by Smriti Mishra . She is pregnant with his child , but she and other muslims are ordered to take the train to Pakistan because it is unsafe to live in India .

Lording over the village is the magistrate played by Mohan Agashe . He is into philandering with courtesans and one day is introduced to a new muslim courtesan played by Divya Dutta . She is only 17 and reminds him of his dead daughter . She being a muslim is hoping that the magistrate will save her family from rioters but he increasingly finds himself helpless to stop the rentless tide towards violence .

As the sikh rioters and dacoits plan to destroy the train taking the refugees from the village to Pakistan , the magistrate plays his final card . He releases the dacoit under his custody knowing that he is lover of the muslim girl travelling in the train to Pakistan and will try to save the train in order to save her and the child she is carrying . He manages to save the train at the cost of his own life and it goes safely to Pakistan .

Acting is realistic by Nirmal Pandey who speaks rustic Punjabi well and is also decent by Mohan Agashe who is high class and speaks only English . It is an adults movie with swear words and amorous scenes of kissing . Found it to be a decent watch .
 

Deathstar

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Train to Pakistan---



Based on Khushwant Singh's acclaimed novel , the movie is set in Indian Punjab during times of partition . The film's setting is a joint sikh muslim village near the border of newly created Pakistan . The Sikhs are landlords and muslims are labourers , but they live in communal harmony . But trouble breaks out as trains full of murdered Sikhs and hindus arrive from Pakistan . Some sikh dacoits plan to take advantage of the rising anger among the village's Sikhs to kill muslims .

The rival of the dacoits is another sikh dacoit played by Nirmal Pandey . He is in love with a muslim girl from the village played by Smriti Mishra . She is pregnant with his child , but she and other muslims are ordered to take the train to Pakistan because it is unsafe to live in India .

Lording over the village is the magistrate played by Mohan Agashe . He is into philandering with courtesans and one day is introduced to a new muslim courtesan played by Divya Dutta . She is only 17 and reminds him of his dead daughter . She being a muslim is hoping that the magistrate will save her family from rioters but he increasingly finds himself helpless to stop the rentless tide towards violence .

As the sikh rioters and dacoits plan to destroy the train taking the refugees from the village to Pakistan , the magistrate plays his final card . He releases the dacoit under his custody knowing that he is lover of the muslim girl travelling in the train to Pakistan and will try to save the train in order to save her and the child she is carrying . He manages to save the train at the cost of his own life and it goes safely to Pakistan .

Acting is realistic by Nirmal Pandey who speaks rustic Punjabi well and is also decent by Mohan Agashe who is high class and speaks only English . It is an adults movie with swear words and amorous scenes of kissing . Found it to be a decent watch .
Di u have the link?...................
 

ashdoc

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I went to see this English movie for the dazzling beauty of Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai and was richly rewarded . And beauty lies in simplicity . Rather than wearing western clothes , Aishwarya wears unembroidered sarees and looks divine . The lightness of her eyes melts in the lightness of her hair and the fairness of her skin and I was mesmerized .

Ash ( that's what I call her when I meet her in my dreams in private ) plays Tilo , who is born in Kerala in India which is the heartland of India's spices . She has the ability to foresee things that are going to happen , and for this some bandits try to kidnap her after killing her parents . But she escapes and is washed off the shore of a spice plantation ruled by the first mother ( Zohra Sehgal ) . The first mother directs Tilo's unique abilities of foreseeing the future to use spices to help people gain their desires and ward off evil . Tilo becomes a 'mistress of spices' along with other such mistresses on the plantation .

After she turns into an adult , Tilo is sent to San Francisco bay area to run a store selling spices . She sells spices to people who come to get what they want through getting the right spices from her . But life for a mistress of spices is tough . The first mother has laid several rules for the mistresses . Tilo must not go out of the store , she must not touch her customers , and she must not use the power of the spices for gaining her personal ends . If she does this the spices will disobey her .

Tilo has got several loyal customers who come to her repeatedly to buy spices for their purposes , and solving their personal problems gives her enormous satisfaction as she can see through her special abilites as to what will happen to them when the spices are given to them . But what about her own personal life ? One day an American guy named Doug ( Dylan Mcdermott ) has a minor accident in front of her shop and she bandages his wound using her spices as medicine inside the bandage . As she does so , she feels an instant attraction for him .

Doug begins to come to the spice shop again and again and Tilo begins to lose control over herself as she feels drawn to him . She allows him to touch her , thus breaking the rule of the first mother . She loses her power over her spices and the spices she gives to her loyal customers have the opposite effect of bringing more trouble for them . But one day Doug's girlfriend vists the spice shop for improving her relationship with her boyfriend . Inspite of the jealousy she feels for the girlfriend , Tilo decides to give the right spice for improving the relationship thus indicating that she is giving up on Doug .

But Doug has grown attached to Tilo and he visits her again and confesses his deepest secret about the death of his native american mother to her , thus arousing her sympathy and love . And his girlfriend visits again , saying that Doug probably loves someone else anyway ( without knowing that it is Tilo herself ) and that she is breaking off with Doug . The way is cleared for Tilo to be with Doug , except for the big fact that she will have to lose all power over her beloved spices for breaking the rule of the first mother disallowing touch with customers . For Tilo wants to make deep passionate love with Doug .

Torn between her love for Doug and her responsibility as mistress of spices , Tilo decides to spend one night soaked in passion with Doug and then burn herself to death by setting her spices on fire . However her willingness for sacrifice changes the rules and the first mother comes to her in a vision allowing her power to continue over the spices . But only after Tilo has really tried to burn herself to death along with her spices.

Before this comes the scene of Tilo preparing to entice Doug for making love , and this is the only time in the movie Ash has tried to look attractive . Red saree with smooth open back and red lipstick with her hair opened in all their glory make Ash look simply mouthwatering . And then she opens her saree as Doug starts to kiss her and her bare navel with belly chain give you the hots .

The movie evokes the magic of the mystical orient ; the spices and the woman who can help people by giving them mixtures of spices to ingest as she has the power to look into the future---all this is pure fantasy involving the exotic image of my land India . And it works upto a certain extent . The movie got bad reviews by western press as they could not understand the Indian obsession with spices but Indians did like the film . My movie watching experience was heightened by the presence of the stunning Aishwarya Rai .

Colours wise the movie scores as the spices come in a variety of colours . Photography is good too , and acting is decent by all . Background music and songs are okay .

Verdict---Decent .

Three stars out of five .
 

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