Catching up with some movies!

Right I need to catch up with all your blogs and my own ... the pic above, at Goa, is meant to be both an explanation and an excuse for the month-long absence. As for my vacation- summer heat, mangoes, jackfruit and pani puris, need I say more :) The heat did confuse my body into expanding, I'm hoping the brain freeze I endured in freakishly-cold north Minnesota over the weekend, will fool it into contracting to original specs ... soon.

Here's a round-up of movies I caught on the plane. Since, it wasnt the best of viewing conditions some of my perceptions might be colored by the environment, but I'm pretty certain I wont re-watch any of the following to change my mind.

Invictus
A story of how Nelson Mandela united South Africa by means of the Rugby World Cup. With Morgan Freeman in scene-stealing mode as Nelson Mandela and a sincere Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the team captain for SA, this was an enjoyable and uplifting movie.
Rating: 5/ 5





Up in the Air
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is the high-flying executive with a job involving him flying 300 days out of the year since he goes around the country firing people. Bingham loves his life since it enables him to live without baggage, read relationships, and without any responsibility and also give him ample opportunity for his obsession with collecting airline miles. Until a young MBA, Natalie Keener, in his company comes up with the idea of firing people online.

Suddenly grounded, Bingham flounders with the meaning of his life suddenly reconnecting with estranged siblings, educating Keener on the value of building relationships and consequently looking for a stable relationship for himself with Alex Goran (an awesome Vera Farmiga) a feminine version of himself. I have mixed feelings about this movie, I was entertained by a lot of the scenes but it was marketed as a romance which it isn't and the underlying thread of relevancy to the current US economic state didn't work with the rest of the plot. Rating: 3/ 5

The Men Who Stare At Goats
Through school and college, I had a friend who was a born cynic. After moments when everyone was happy/elated/victorious he would ask the question that stumped us each time - 'What is the point?'. I think this movie was meant to be a satirical look at war, but it's no Syriana.

Bob Wilton (Ewan MacGregor) is a small-time journalist. After his wife breaks up with him, an effort at proving himself lands him in war-time Iraq. Here he comes across Lyn Cassady (Clooney), and he remembers an interview with a man whom on first count he had dismissed as a flake, who first mentions a new unit of the army researching parapsychology. As Wilton hitches a ride with Cassady into Iraq and familiarizes himself with the New-Age, free-love thinking of the New Earth Army which believes war can be fought using non-violent methods like psychic and paranormal techniques, staring at goats etc he finds himself slowly undergoing an ideological conversion. If the movie is meant as a metaphor, it was too much for my tired brain to comprehend. Taken at face value ... what was the point ????
Rating: 3/ 5

It's Complicated
Jane (Meryl Streep) suffering from Empty Nest Syndrome and finally at a point in her professional and personal life when she thinks she's settling down, suddenly finds herself playing 'the other woman'. The problem is the man she's having an affair with is her ex-husband Jake. Predictable comedy and much confusion ensues when she also starts dating her recently-divorced, shy, architect, Adam.

So, why do the heroines of romantic comedy have to be so flurried, harried and cute? And didnt Streep play the same role for Mamma Mia. Oh well, it's worth a watch but dont expect too much. Steve Martin sleep-walking through the role and a hammy Alec Baldwin make up the boring love interest and juvenile, selfish ex-husband respectively. Rating: 2.5/ 5

The Proposal
Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is a Canadian immigrant with visa problems who is about to be deported and lose her job, so she forces her harassed assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) to marry her. A weekend of bonding with Paxton and his weird family occurs where the protagonists discover it's actually true love. Unfunny, unromantic, AVOID it. The rating is for the obligatory designer dud sightings (Loboutin, Prada and Hermes) which seem to indicate a successful , powerful professional woman in the movies .... and which I quite shallowly enjoyed.
Rating: 0.5/ 5