Category: English

Hollywood movies “Crash” and “Babel” got preachy and heavy handed in dealing with the plot of seemingly unrelated characters who get connected in dramatic and sometimes violent ways. Now comes the brilliant “The Edge of Heaven” by German-Turkish writer-director Fatih Akin, which though similar in style to “Crash” and “Babel”, differs in depth and subtlety.

I saw The Dark Knight and Hellboy II: The Golden Army back to back and a lot of people have asked me which I liked best. I can’t really say, for though they are both based on comic books, and are both superhero movies, its like comparing apples and oranges; where The Dark Knight is brooding and existential and angsty, Hellboy II is gleefully inventive, romantic and most of all, funny. Kudos, too, to the design agency that created the poster campaign. Those posters are awesome.

It’s not that the crime thriller Righteous Kill is spectacularly awful. It’s just thoroughly mediocre—a standard police procedural, a long episode of Law & Order, unremarkable but for the pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.
But really, shouldn’t we expect more from these two, considered among the greatest actors of our time? Well, we might have been justified in having high hopes about 15 years ago, before both stars had morphed into caricatures of themselves.

Most movies based on popular books buckle under the pressure and end up disappointing. But “Journey To The Centre Of the Earth” wears lightly the pressure of being built on the Jules Verne classic and delivers in a very understated way.

On stage, Mamma Mia! was a spectacular success. The silver screen adaptation is way above the original in terms of grandeur but may be a tad less in the success arena.