Its been quite a while since I saw a good english movie. Infact, I think I have been complaining about the lack of good movies for the past couple of months. So V for Vendetta was a welcome change. If you haven’t seen it already, watch it today!

V for Vendetta is the story of a masked vigilante, not surprisingly known as V. The movie is set in not so far future, where Britain is under the totalitarian rule of a dictator. V, whose identity remains largely unknown till the end of the movie, wants to change things. But he has a certain way of doing things — he can be stylish at times, and sick at other times. V leaves the audience confused — whether to root for the victimized hero, or to revolt against the crazy, psycopath terrorist.

It was good to see the Wachowski brother’s back in action, and I was actually glad that the movie didn’t overdo the special affects, nor rely on them to push the movie through. Natalie Portman has done a good job with her character. Its a little weird to watch the hero wearing a mask during the entire movie, but by the end you get used to it. And pay attention to what V says — some of the dialogues are pretty amazing. I loved his introductory sequence — a delightful alliteration of V-words.

Highly recommended!

This movie was long overdue — it had been lying around on my laptop for almost a year now. Finally, last friday after dinner we sat down and saw it.

My first reaction was of disappointment — I don’t know if it was something wrong with the print, but the voice-over was noticeably out of sync at several places in the movie, and it looked like a really shoddy job of dubbing. But that was a mostly cosmetic nit-pick.

Beyond that first reaction, the opening music score immediately caught my attention. It was hard to count how many desi songs had been “inspired” by bits and pieces of that one single score.

I guess everyone knows the story by now — it is, afterall, an old and highly popular movie. So I won’t blabber about the plot. The movie is everything that it claims to be — the classic western, fabulous music, amazing screenplay and direction, and beautiful cinematography — and more. I could easily see how scenes from Indian classics such as Sholay could have been inspired by some scenes of GBU.

The movie is full of attitude. Scenes of several minutes without any dialogues. Swaggering walks. Sideways glances. Unconventional camera angles. Good lighting (or lack thereof) — several things that reminded me of another great movie, The Godfather.

Clint Eastwood once and for all immortalizes the stereotype of the cowboy in this movie. But the character that really ads life for the movie is [[http://imdb.com/name/nm0908919/|Eli Wallach]] as the indomitable Tuco. Interestingly, even some of the famous Matrix lines can be traced back to this movie. Tuco in one scene says, “If you want to shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.” — isnt’t that familiar? :-)

A good //masala// movie that also manages to bring in some issues of the civil war in the US. A long movie (almost 3 hrs) that doesn’t bore you. This is //so// the Sholay of Hollywood :-)

If you are a [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094582/|Wonder Years]] fan, you’ll immediately like this movie. The structure, the plot is uncannily similar — a young boy discovering love, and lines in the narrative that will crack you up. Almost every boy will be able to relate to some of the situations in the movie. Definitely worth a watch if you want something cute, clean, funny and nostalgic.