Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent & Christoph Waltz
Director: Quntin Tarantino
Genre: War
Runtime: 153 min
MPAA rating: Rated R for strong graphic violence, language and brief sexuality.
Synopsis:
Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) escapes from it when Germans slaughter her Jewish family in Nazi occupied France. Later she changes her identity and becomes the owner of a cinema hall. A war hero of Germany falls in love with her and he insists that a movie made on his life story should be premiered in her cinema hall. There is a group of guerrilla soldiers of American-Jewish background called 'Inglorious Basterds' who take up the mission of assassinating all top brass Nazi leaders. The high profile premiere that is being attended by big leaders of Nazi attracts their attantion. The rest of the story is all about if they could successfully blow up the theater or not.
What I liked in the film?
The screenplay and the direction is fabulous. The movie starts like a typical spaghetti western (The beginning chapter is shown as Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied France). Then the inglorious basterds and their modus-operandi is introduced. Then there is a one-sided love story between German war hero and Jewish cinema hall owner (who in turn is in love with her black colleague). The last 45 minutes of the movie takes place in the cinema hall with two parties trying to blow it up.
The director entertains us with his black humor. The climax is the clincher. Christopher Waltz is the best among the actors in this movie. He mixes odd humor with uncanny intelligence while portraying his character. Brad Pitt is at his best and his character has a bit of similarities to the one he played in 'Snatch'.
The signature of Quentin Tarantino
The signature of Quenti Tarantino is written all over the movie. The format is also akin -
1. Chapter-based narration (like Kill Bill)
2. Nicknames for all the characters (most of the characters in his movies refer other characters with nicknames)
3. Cool conversations followed by grotesque unexpected twists.
4. Excessive voilence (banging the head with a baseball bat and poking finger into a bullet wound).
5. Retro music (QT has the habit of remixing retro music as background score to key scenes in his movies (Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill)
6. Leaving somebody alive so that he would go to boss and tell what happened (like he did in the ending of Kill Bill I)
Tailpiece: If you like QT movies, you will end up immensely liking this film as well. On a whole, Inglorious Basters is an entertaining tale of kick-assing of Nazis.
Inglorious Basterds 2009 hollywood movie
Inglorious Basterds 2009
hollywood movie superb Inglorious Basterds 2009
Ajay (Sivaji) hails from a poor farmer’s family. He is a student who studies in an engineering college in Vizag. He falls in love with a rich fellow student called Shruti (Shruti). Shruti is a practical girl, but falls in love with a person she never met. She rejects Ajay’s proposal. She starts hating him. The rest of the story is all about how Ajay realises that parents love is more precious than love of a college mate.
Sivaji comes up with his career’s finest performance in this movie. He does extremely well in emotional scenes. First time actress Shruti is competent. Her body language and expressions are natural. Kota comes up with another fine performance. Raghubabu is extremely good in emotional scenes. Brahmanandam entertains in a couple of scenes. LB Sreeram gives his philosophical touch towards the climax with his cameo. Arti Agarwal did a special appearance as college professor Maisamma.
screenplay - direction: This movie is remade from a Kannada blockbuster Taj Mahal. Story of the movie is good with a heart touching content towards the end. The movie shows the importance of parents who shower unconditional love and discourages the love shown by youngsters towards girls who may not reciprocate. Debutant director Arun Singaraju is good at emotional scenes, but should concentrate more on getting it right in casual and entertainment-oriented scenes. For a first timer, he comes up with a decent work. Screenplay of the movie is good in the second half.
Analysis: First half of the movie is mediocre. Second half is better and climax is heart-touching. Plus points of the movie are story, lead pair (Sivaji & Shruti) and the climax. On the flip side, the first half should have been better and all-round entertainment missing. Sivaji should be proud to produce such a story-oriented movies his first venture. On a whole, Taj Mahal is a decent movie with a message supporting parents. If the common moviegoer laps up the climax, this movie has all chances to become a success.
Karthik (Naga Chaitanya) is an engineering graduate who wants to pursue his career as a film director. Samantha is his neighbour and he falls in love with her at the very first sight. But there are two catches. One is that she is elder to him and the bigger hitch is that she is a Malayali Christian. He proposes to her and she slowly falls for his guts and his perseverance. Her strict father comes to know about it and settles her marriage. She loves him, but can’t hurt her entire family by marrying him. The rest of the story is all about how Karthik achieves his passion to become a film director and tastes success at the personal front.
Naga Chaitanya: Naga Chaitanya is extremely natural in the role of Karthik. It is basically a conversational film with too many tight close-ups. It takes real confidence and acting prowess to do such scenes in an authoritative manner. Naga Chaitanya proves that he is a brilliant actor with his performance in this movie. His dialogue delivery and body language is highly authentic. You are not going to believe that this is his second film after watching his performance. It’s a top notch effort from him and he will do wonders in the future.
Others: Krishnudu is very good as hero’s friend. Sanjay Swaroop (producer and husband of Manjula) did the role of hero’s father and he suited it well. Puri Jagan played as himself for a few scenes. Trisha and Simbhu (who acted in the Tamil version of the same) did a cameo. All other actors are cast appropriately. Surekha Vani is very good.
Story: Men are simple and women are complex. When it comes to love, man proposes to a woman with plain heart and with no complications. Women, on the other hand make simple things complicated with their complex behaviour. Gowtam Menon has beautifully explored that point and penned a wonderful story of a simple guy who would do anything for love and a complex girl who keeps vacillating about taking decisions.
screenplay - direction: Screenplay of the movie is very good. The movie could end at any point after interval. It needs tremendous narrative skills and screenplay to make people get interested in the second half because the movie can end at the moment hero/heroine converge upon on marriage. I loved the love episodes between Surya and Sameera Reddy (train scene) in Surya s/o of Krishnan and wondered when he is going to make such a story into a full-leangth feature film and Gowtam Menon answered my wish with his next movie by filling it full of magical moments and sweet nothings. It’s a astonishing work by Gowtam Menon. You can’t separate a moment from the movie to be the best. This movie is like a seamless flow of visual poetry
Analysis: I had never seen such a wonderful
Balu (Varun Sandesh) is born and brought up in USA. Swapna (Anita) moves to USA because her father’s research on Telugu folk song is being encouraged by a university in USA. Balu and Anita are neighbours. Balu’s father (Pratap Pothan) is highly sophisticated and is extremely strict in nature. Anita’s mother (Urvashi) is highly rustic (Srikakulam accent) and narrow-minded. Balu and Anita fall in love, but parents oppose. Parents put a restriction that if these two lovers don’t meet/communicate for a year, then they can get married. Balu joins a job. His boss (Shraddha Das) is a tender woman who is coming out of depression due to a personal loss. Anita’s brother-in-law (Adarsh Bala Krishna) tries to create rift between Balu and Anita. Rest of the film is about how love prevails and lovers overcome all the obstacles.
Story - screenplay - direction: This is the remake of yesteryear’s classic Maro Charitra. Hence story and screenplay is borrowed from the old movie. Though Maro Charitra is a great film, it holds no relevance and freshness in the contemporary scenario. Old movie banks on the cultural differences between a couple (Tamil boy and Telugu girl). The director has modified it to a rustic girl and uber-cool boy. If Vizag beach was the backdrop of old film, Niagara Falls is the backdrop for the new movie director Ravi Yadav fails to recreate the magic of old classic. He doesn’t have grip of narration. It is a love story and establishing romance between the lead pair should be impact making. But the director couldn’t get it right in the movie. The movie also shows director’s lack of understanding of Telugu language and local sensibilities. Since the 
Other departments:musci Mickey J Meyer is excellent. It is a big challenge to score fresh music for old lyrics and Mickey came up with fabulous job. Background score by Thaman is also good. Cinematography by Ravi Yadav is a huge asset to the movie. His top class cinematography is a treat to eyes. The locations chosen are excellent. All the songs are shot in exquisite locales. Probably no other telugu mve the past was shot in USA so beautifully. The Niagara falls, Las Vegas (we don’t care song), Times Square and Salt landscapes in Utah (Bhale Magadivoy song) are superbly mounted. Editing is ok. Dialogues by Anuradha have depth in them, but they appear verbose on the screen as the scenes are not conceived in an interesting manner. Matinee Entertainments and Dil Raju have spent a lot of money on quality of the movie and it shows on the screen. 
Analysis: A film like old classic Maro Charitra becomes totally irrelevant in the presence scenario. We had seen many similar films with similar backdrops released after Maro Charitra. The conflict point and fun element in this movie has become clichéd by now. Hence, it poses a great challenge to the filmmakers to come up with an adaptation/remake. Director Ravi Yadav doesn’t do justice to the movie and the latest version lacks soul. Though the movie is technically brilliant (music, cinematography and production values), the wrong casting and unattractive narration lets the movie down. On a whole, Maro Charitra disappoints even if 
Sandeep (Allu Arjun) is a youngster with modern qualities and a broad outlook. He is extremely suave in his looks, but strongly traditional and moralistic at heart. He asks his parents to search a bride for him. Sandeep believes in the choice of his parents and he tells them that he would see his bride only at the time of muhurat (time of jeelakarra bellam ritual according to Telugu weddings). He also wants to have a traditional 5-day wedding which was followed by Telugu people a century ago. He falls in love with the bride Deepti (Bhanusri Mehra) at the first sight, but she gets kidnapped by Diwakar (Arya) just before tying the knot. The rest of the story is about the reason behind the kidnap and how Sandeep got his love back.
Story - screenplay - direction: The concept of 5-day wedding is fascinating. However, Guna Sekhar couldn’t capitalize on it as he preferred the same old Ramayana treatment to his story by concentrating more on the duel between the hero and villain in the entire second half. Guna Sekhar did well in the first half, but faltered in the second half. The screenplay of the movie is commercially viable till the scene in the second half where Karuna start telling the flashback of the villain. Then onwards, the screenplay of the movie has gone haywire and it got audiences disorientated from the proceedings. The song featuring 5-days marriage is wonderfully shot. But excessive orientation towards graphics and unwanted action sequences didn’t go well with the main theme of the movie. Some of the scenes like hero carrying heroine on his shoulders with saline bottle look highly unconvincing. The interval block should have been given when villain says ‘marchipo’ to hero for the first time. There is something seriously wrong with the characterization of the villain. It is ok to show villain as a psychopath, but the director designed it such a way as if the villain has some super-natural powers (just like Pasupathi character in Arundhati movie). The climax of the movie is an example of such inconsistent characterization. The hero-villain fight on towers in climax is inspired by ‘X Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)’ the Hollywood flick, the characters posses supernatural abilities. By keeping that fight in this movie’s climax, the director created negative impact.
Other departments: Mani Sharma is adequate. The placement of the songs is inconsistent. Two songs are placed together in first half and there is a huge gap between two songs in the second half. Cinematography by RD Raja Sekhar is excellent. Dialogues are not up to the mark. Graphics are worth-mentioning. However, the color/tint chosen wedding during wee-morning hours look artificial. Lot of effort has done into graphics, but the desired result is missing. Art direction by Ashok is good. I liked the set of tree and waterfall in second half better because it appears highly natural. Producer Danayya has spent enormous amount of money on this film and it shows.
Analysis: First half of the movie is decent. Second half runs out of steam in the midway. The movie becomes uninteresting from the moment the flashback of villain is opened in the second half. Plus points of the movie are 5-day marriage concept and casting. On the flip side, the screenplay in the second half and hero/villain thread play spoilsport in the movie. The hallmark of any great director can be gauged from the way he/she sticks to the basics (without overlooking the emotional content) while making big-budgeted extravaganzas (ex: James Cameron for Avatar/Titanic). Guna Sekhar seems to have concentrated more on graphics, action episodes and sets in than sticking to the basics. All his hard work and effort is put in the wrong direction for this movie. Let’s hope that he will bounce back with strong content (like Okkadu) for his next movie. We have to wait and see if the summer advantage will bailout Varuru or not.
Loknath (Sai Kumar) takes over the reins of power from a dying man (Balayya). His step son is Mitra (Sharwanand) and own son is Chinna (Sudeep Kishan). Loknath wants to see Mitra as his heir because Mitra is a thinking man where as Chinna is hot-blooded guy with bad habits. The rest of the story is all about what happens when Chinna rebels uncontrollably. 
This movie is about characters and each and every small character makes an impact. This movie belongs to 
Story - screenplay - direction: Deva Katta is a serious filmmaker and Prasthanam is probably his kind of movie. There are quite a few good moments in this film which showcases his intensity in filmmaking Direction of the movie is good. Screenplay should have been better. The narration of the movie is not smooth (little jerky). His writing is strong and some of the scenes are of top class. However, the pace of the film is too slow and it affects more adversely because it is a serious 
Other departments: Cinematography by Shamdat is excellent. Background by Mahesh Shankar is good. But I observed that there are no highs/lows in the background music (probably theatre sound system fault). are like speed-breakers to the story. Full credit should go to the dialogue writer Deva Katta. He has written some fine serious dialogues and a few hilarious dialogues too (alpanandamtho naaluka paresukoku, chepputho kottinaa chintamane dikku..., antha black.. aayana rangu chooste ardham kavadam leda, papisti sareeranni kanna gaani paapanni kanaledu etc). Editing should have been better. 
Analysis: Prasthanam is a political thriller about complex human relations between three main characters (Sai Kumar, Sharwanand and Sundeep Kishan). It also shows that there are no good men or bad men. It is all about war between good and bad within our mind. The plus points of this movie are strong writing and powerful performances. The negative points are not-so-gripping screenplay, slow narration and serious nature of the movie. This film is sure to win handful of awards. The commercial success of the movie will depend on how common movie lover embraces this serious and focussed political drama.
Srimannarayana (Bala Krishna) is a professor at a college. He is a hot-blooded guy and cannot any kind of injustice in the society. He often takes law into his hands and punishes the wrong-doers. Janaki (Sneha Ullal) is a student in the college and she has a mysterious past. A group of goons keeps chasing her and her flashback unfolds one day after Srimannarayana confronts them. The rest of the story is all about another character Simha and how Simha is related to Srimannarayana.
Bala Krishna: Bala Krishna is terrific as Simha in the flashback episode. His dialogue delivery is controlled and is extremely effective. His get-up as Simha is highly respectable and dignified. After a long gap, Bala Krishna fans are going to cherish the looks and performance of Bala Krishna as he plays it to the galleries. His other character of Srimannarayana is also good. 
Others: Nayana Tara is very good in the flashback episode with jewellery and traditional wear belonging to lineage of kings. The voice given by Sunitha helps in some key episodes of the movie. Sneha Ullal is improving from film to film and she is good too. Namitha should watch her weight. Kota comes up with another fine performance. There are four other villains. Among the comedians, Krishna Bhagawan's role is entertaining. Venu Madhav and Brahmanandam are clichéd. Jhansi did well with Seekakulam dialect. KR Vijaya did a lengthy role and she is adequate
Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the movi not new, but follows a time-tested formula. Boyapati Seenu who mastered mass treatment to his movies like Bhadra and Tulasi made sure that there are ample commercial elements that satisfy the thrust of masses and fans. He projected Bala Krishna in the right way and extracted powerful mass performance. Screenplay of the movie is predictable. Direction is good in parts. Though masses might like it, the violence in the movie is very excessive. He should have softened blood-shed and tamed the commercial elements to make this movie a universally appealing one.
Other departments: Music by Chakri is okay. Bangaru Konda is my personal favourite and it is picturized well. Cinematography is nice. Dialogues by Boyapati Seenu deserve a special mention. He wrote powerful dialogues to Bala Krishna and made sure that Bala Krishna delivers them to the maximum effect. Editing is alright. Producer has spent a lot of money on the movie and it is shown on screen.