Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Thus spake the movie critic

Have you seen The Accidental Husband? Don't. Uma Thurman, Colin Firth, and dead Denny from Grey's, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who's suddenly everywhere)? Despite my intrigue over the A.R Rahman soundtrack and Uma Thurman running to the beat of Rani Mukherjee's wedding music in Saathiya and other scattered Hindi film references, it is not a movie I'd recommend to a friend.

I saw it on TV and felt good about not paying for it. What is the matter with Hollywood?! Even that rubbish Cecelia Ahern book turned into a movie, Letters from a dead husband or whateve.. (sorry, P.S I love you) starring man-woman Hillary Swank and not-dead-enough Jeffery Dean Morgan was better than Uma and Jeff. Don't they have ridiculously well paid people advising them against film pairs that have zero chemistry? Send them to me! I could do that job!

Except today. When I saw somebody did do their job. Like Shahrukh and Kajol of the west -- enunciate this carefully -- Matt Damon and Emily Blunt fit beautifully! Despite the odd premise and odder still end, you have to watch The Adjustment Bureau. It's a sci--fi thriller even but I loved it! I loved how they took themselves so lightly - unlike, say, The Matrix (of boredom).

She's asleep on a bus. He climbs on..., spots her, thrilled but restrained, sits next to her. She wakes up, airily calls him a pervert for staring at what she calls her skirt. He says it's a belt. He spills his coffee -- on her belt. He says he'll pay for the dry cleaning, drop it off and later come pick up her skirt. Smooth, she says. Why don't you let me spill some on you? And on goes the banter. Their laughter, recklessness, impulse, spontaneity, a middle finger to the world and the calf muscles on that Blunt! What's not to wish for.

<3

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thus replies the movie fan critically...

With my highly developed Reading Between The Lines skills, I sense that you're trying to imply that you don't like sci-fi thrillers in general, but you like this one inspite of it being a sci-fi thriller. Ah-ha, except that The Adjustment Bureau isn't a sci-fi thriller; it's a romantic comedy with sci-fi thrillerisms thrown in as garnishing, if that is the cooking reference I'm searching for.

And The Matrix is a disgrace to sci-fi thrillers. If you really want to compare The Adjustment Bureau with a sci-fi thriller, you must do so with Dark City, which has a similar premise and is suitably dark and disturbing.

Nimpipi said...

But you liked it, right?

Now let's take you one by one. The movie is an adaptation of a book by one Philip Tracy, sci fi writer, yes? Sure, it felt much lighter (and so much easier on the scale of comprehension!)than anything written by Asimov and Arthur C Clarke that has, against my wishes, been stuffed down my throat. So your Reading Between The Lines skills, I'd say is in tip top working condition!

I love an intelligent rom com.
However, in your suggestion that I must compare it with Dark Knight -- of which, I have heard good things, by the way -- why?why?! why would I?! I don't want suitably dark and disturbing! I hate suitably dark and disturbing!

It isn't that I'm a flibbertigibbet who can't sit through a serious movie (doing nothing to prove my point: did you see A Serious Man? Oh, so bad, so bleak!). It's just that as far as premises go, I like them suitably light and uplifting. I'm a sucker for feel good factor, bhai. What to do.

And nowhere near how fun I thought T.A.B was, but will you hate me if I say I didn't mind The Time Traveller's Wife, in spite of it's suitably boo hoo-so sad theme? :P

Perakath said...

Hey awesome. I was in two minds about paying to see The Adjustment Bureau. I shall go before the movies change this Friday!

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is his name, is it? That whole Denny story arc really bugged me, and turned me off both him and Katherine Heigl in all their other roles. PS I Love You would have been a really horrible movie even if he weren't in it, though.

I've seen only the first half of The Time Traveller's Wife movie, despite it being cast with two actors I absolutely adore. I loved the book and the sense I got from the half-movie was 'it could have been worse'.

Anonymous said...

I liked it very much... as a romantic comedy.

I didn't mean Dark Knight! I don't like it, either. Weepy, moany tosh, that one. I meant Dark City, a film that also has as its premise a society run by aliens who can "adjust" our thoughts. It, too, has romance (with Jennifer Connelly, no less), but in that movie it is the sci-fi elements that have the driving seat. And it is dark and despairing. So you see, if you watch that movie and you like it, then you can claim that you liked a movie despite its gloomy sci-fi-ness. :p

P.S. - Couldn't watch A Serious Man because I didn't think it released in the halls here. I did watch their True Grit, though, and enjoyed watching The Dude as a one-eyed, foul mouthed, bad-ass from the Old West. Haven't seen TTTW, either - I somehow have a mental block against time travel, much like your aversion to darkness and disturbances. :(

Ellie said...

Well, I know I can trust your opinion: we're on the same page about that dead guy from Grey's (He is everywhere!) and PS I Love You was so unbearable I couldn't be bothered to finish watching it on TV. Will catch Matt and Emily. Thanks for the review. x

Nimpipi said...

Per: Tell me what you think of that Blunt hottie.

This boy once told me I look like Katherine Heigl. Tee hee. Also Katherin Ross (google butch cassidy and the sundance..). Do you realise how lucky you are to know my face?:P heh, sorry. slap me now.

Rohan: Shit, yes, sorry, Dark CITY. I need to not post nonsense! Not after wine that hits the spot and movie names merge. Hic!

P.S: How cool -- you put links in your comment! I'm clapping here! :)

Ellie: Ugh, why do they do this, make handsome men so difficult to be attracted to?! Why why?! Gerard Butler? Tell me you think he's a waste. Such a pity. What a body. Sigh. :)) xx back atcha!

Anonymous said...

We programmers, even if unemployed, never forget our hrefs. Plus, all it takes is the occasional sucker to click on the links, and we've just doubled our readership for the day. :p

Anonymous said...

ya, right.

if a guy starts staring at your clothes and spilling coffee on your skirt in a situation involving public transport, yes, very romantic.

i can totally see how that would work in real life.

Janaki said...

I have happily skipped all the movie mentioned in the post above but feel compelled to point out .. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Gerard Butler being confused methinks.. Gerard is the not quite dead one in the soppy movie about letters...

Nimpipi said...

Ro: The hrefs (/ech-refs/?) - I always have to google the code. So cool that you can just remember them (if that be true). I did click, by the way! I am your doubled readership and you're welcome:P

Anon: Here's the thing about skeptisism: even if the coffee-spilling-public-transport thing WEREN'T a movie, like all movies, not filmed to reflect 'real life', you'd keep all the romance away with just that attitude. Maybe you should read The Secret. It's a book written to get your goat. I guarantee it:)

Jan: Noo, no confusion! Gerard Butler = dead Irish fool in soppy movie of letters fame.

Denny/ J.Dean Morgan = dead beefcake in Grey's + lover of Uma Thurman in The Accidental Husband.

Both have been paired opposite Katherine Heigl. Dead Denny in we know what and beefy Gerard in that other horribly predictable, over the top The Ugly Truth.

But you have to watch The Accidental Husband -- Star movies -- JUST to see the most appropriate use of the first 35 seconds of you know which song in the first half of the movie. (Remember what a big deal it was that Baz sunscreen Luhrman used chamma chamma in Moulin Rouge?).

Ellie said...

Oh my god! Gerard Butler is the same guy as Denny the Dead from Grays! Isn't he? Might as well be! You and I, we can go to the picture shows together! x

Anonymous said...

completely disagree.

it's too easy to do some cheesy scene and claim "oh but this is how romance works" and whats worse is people buying into it

it's much harder to get a truly romantic scene - i'm thinking perhaps the scene in sholay where AB plays mouth organ (ha ha) while the woman in white saree looks on.

maybe what you - i mean a general "you" - consider romantic is so informed by what you see around you that independent choice is virtually assumed out?

what i want to say is this: the scene struck me as very unreal. And I'm not some lonely individual who rejects love at its first sight or anything; I've been with the same girl now for 5 years and running

true romance, I re-iterate, is not something easy to contrive. and the scene felt very contrived. "oh lets put these good looking people in a ha-ha scripted scene".

F* that. Give me band baaja baraat's kissing scene. That's real okay?

plus I'm a piscean. We are supposed to be romantic and tragic and all that.