Hollywood Film Reviews

Get busy living or Get busy dying! - Yep! thats what you will learn immediate on watching one of the FINEST MOVIE of world cinema - The Shawshank Redemption. Next comes the tagline of the movie “Fear can hold you prisoner - Hope can set you free” ! theres no point of questioning am damn sure you will grasp this tags the moment you finishes the film. Its such a wonderful creation & I never ever wonder why its maintaining the #1 or #2 position in all time greatest movies. With a wonderfully woven script & screenplay Frank Darabont (Director & Screenplay of movie) is amazingly successful in infiltrating into the viewers heart with his message “Hope is the ultimate thing that makes you live”. As a lover of genuine movies I would like to say a directorial venture becomes successful when the movie injects some message or a particular emotion into the viewer instead of Hi-Fi shots or action sequences or what ever it is! We need to get a “FEEL” of the movie. If you ask me to comment abt Darabont in this movie I will say “WOW” - the directorial skill he has shown in this movie to deliver emotions,messages,feels etc is mindblowing!

PERFORMANCES

Well! It doesn’t need explanation. The names speaks it all. How can you expect a Morgan Freeman movie to underperform ? Of all its the life time achievement of Tim Robbins, you cant ask an actor to perform finer than this. The Shawshank redemption is the life story of these two people Andy duffense (Tim Robbins) & Red (Freeman) who gets their life spoiled out in The Shawshank (a terrific jail). Bob Gunton who played warden Norton has also made his marks with an outstanding performance. Movie features two extreme emotions, one is the extreme dissapointment of a prisoner while other is the damn happiness of freedom. Tim Robbins has performed both emotions in such a way that you will get a feel beyond the real emotions. It will make you thoughtful! Movie mainly focuses on these people & other performances need not be mentioned except that of Tommy (played by Gil Bellows). As a young energetic active chap with zero brains he gets into the mind of viewers with ease & within no time.

NARRATION

See, I am not in the habit of reviewing movies by writing lengthy stories but I will summarise it. The Shawshank redemption begins with a trial where Andy (Robbins) gets sentenced for two life time imprisonment for a crime he has not commited. Infact hes an innocent but an intelligent (genius suits more) banker who loved his wife more than anything in the world. But she cheated him by sharing bed with a Golf player! Circumstantial evidences throws stones on Andy & he gets locked! Now comes The Shawshank - the terrific jail of 1940’s. Darabont has created wonderful sets that confronts to reality or even more than that which gives the feel of “terror” in just one shot. Red (Freeman) has been the prisoner for about twenty years & hes very famous for “getting things”. Hes the supplier of Cigars,Liquors or anything thats prohibited inside jail. Movie slowly develops through years of life in prison, their routines etc etc. Frank features Andy as a closed man who will not even utter a word initially but he gets socialised slowly… slowy …& slowly he becomes the most adorable one in The Shawshank. As an intelligent banker he works as a financial consultant to jail officials, their childrens educational planner, a dedicated librarian for years…long years!

Hats off to Darabont for the way he conveyed the message ” Hardwork & continous effort will lead to ultimate success” As a librarian Andy plans to renovate library but he gets the info from seniormost prisoner cum librarian Brooks that his effort to do the same over years had ended up in vain. Andy decided to write a letter per week to the officials & he started writing..writing..& writing. He has not given up & has not got demotivated by the extreme ignorances from officials. Atlast when he got 200$ granted theres a superb dialogue from him ” Oh god! It only took six years of writing!”

Movie develops this way with different sorts of situations,feels,emotions & slowly after 20 years of imprisonment of Andy, movie takes the final turn. All that he gained is a set of great freindships & a “beyond explainable” relationship with Red. At the final stages of movie there are scenes of argument with Andy & Red about “HOPE” ! Andy fights for HOPE where Red against! With his proven genius Darabont underlines that “Fear can hold you prisoner - Hope can set you free” & “Hope is the ultimate thing that makes you live”

I believe the shot that has been taken to represent “freedom” which is illustrated in the photos of this post is a master piece!

MY COMMENT

Stop watching movies if you miss this one!

@ A GLANCE!

BEST SCENES FROM MOVIE!

Bookmark to:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the third in the series. Its a very nice movie, and unlike others the story in this movies seems more adventures. There is lot of travel involved. Movie begins with an adventure to recover something. But when the hero is being shown, its a kid (not Harrison Ford). But later we learn that is is young Indiana Jones.

Its the part where a second revealing is done, father of Indiana Jones. As the camera turned i thought they were revealing Harrison Ford, but actually they show his father who is Sean Connery (my personal favorite James Bond). I was so happy to see him in action, since i never ever thought he was in this film. But there was no action from him at the first part.

This movies is basically an adventure for Indiana Jones to recover a special chalice, chalice used by Jesus at his last supper. At the first the story tells its all myth, but as it advances Indi gets proof that this is true. So a long adventure to find the chalice begins.

The bad guys in this movie are Nazis. I think these guys (story writers) has something to do with Nazis. Nazis are the villains in Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Last Crusade and Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. No offense but they clearly make fool of Nazis in this movie.

Somethings i like in the movie are, scene where Sean Connery brings down a warplane just using his umbrella (I wont spoil it, just watch it) and scene where Indi walks on a mirror which first seems like walking on thin air. Also the last puzzle is a good teaser for us. Especially the last question in the puzzle is really good. Try to give a guess when you watch it.

Just before the ending scene there’s a long chase/fight. The effects and stunts used in it are really good…Kudos to Steven Spielberg for that.

Bookmark to:

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the second movie in the Indiana Jones sequel. Well first let me tell, this the one which i would rate the least in the entire sequel. Why ? Although the sets, effects, props are all fine, the story lacks strong punching effect.

The story is taking place in India. This time he has to fight some devil worshipers and regain some shrine which is very important and crucial for a village. Another thing is the starting of the story isn’t good enough. I mean it shows cleche same old dance and stunt.

But unlike other movies the story tries to give some comedies, just to make you laugh. Scenes like Kate Capshaw playing with elephant are funny some times. Also there is a scene where she is being offered weird food in a palace. I mean she is starving after a long adventure, finally when she is seated for a royal banquet, what she gets is steamed snake, monkey brain, eye soup etc…The actions made by her is funny. But since am Indian, i have to say nothing like that shown in the film is eaten here. Its just exaggerations.

As in Raiders of Lost Ark, here too the ending is crappy. All of a sudden Indi turns to be a Shiva (Indian God) believer and some magic happens so that he could over-power the villain. The story writers could have brought something more dramatic.

Villain in the movie is an Indian actor, Amirish Puri. He is a man with exceptional talents. He has made many characters unforgettable in many Hindi movies. He managed to pull the magic in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom too.

I have told enough things which i don’t like, then why should you watch this movie ??? Well first of all its Indi, second those things wont hurt the mood of the movie much and finally there is a roller coaster chase at last which is exceptional. I think this might have inspired many theme parks to start their own rides. Myself have rode a 3D ride where the story is based on this Indi chase.

My verdict ! Watch it

Bookmark to:

Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first one of the sequel of Indiana Jones movies. I have heard a lot about Indi movies. So i decided to give it a shot and started watching the first film. Movie starts with three guys entering some deep jungle to find something, which’s unclear. Since i have seen all Indi movies i can say one thing common with all Indi movies is that, Harrison Ford is always being introduced from behind.

The entire movie is a series of adventure. First a small adventure is shown to introduce to us the skills of Indiana Jones. After that he is given an assignment in college, to find a lost ark. Obviously the bad guys, here the Nazis are also interested in it. So its essentially a race to find the ark.

Well Indi wins the race but he lost the ark and is left to die in a chamber. How he escapes that you have to see, I wont spoil it :D. The big deal with this ark(shown here in the picture) is that, it is supposed to be the most powerful weapon any military force could ever imagine. So now that the ark is with the bad guys they decide to test it. But our Indi intervenes them and spoil their plans.

The technology, props, effects in the ending is beyond words, I didn’t like the ending (story wise). I expected something more dramatic. But it all ended very smoothly and easily.

Except for the ending i would say Raiders of the Lost Ark is a good film and worth watching.

Bookmark to:

As my first review, lets start with the recent Indi movie Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. I saw this movie last week at the halls in my town. First of all am not a fan of Harisson Ford but i like him. Also i saw the last three Indi movies in a row recently. So there was lot of expectations before I went to watch this movie. Well it paid off.

No am not going to tell the entire story, but i will tell parts i like most and i hate most. Well the movie as a full is very good with cool sets, stunts and all. But most of the stunts lacks realism, like when villain shoots with a machine gun, but the bullets gets nowhere near the hero. Thats nothing you can not tolerate when you are watching the legendary Indiana Jones.

The movie begins with a scene at Area-51, Nevada desert. The set there is superb. The scene is bad guys are breaking into Area-51. They kill a couple pf soldiers, but I thought there was an army of soldiers there. But they show only couple of them being killed. It puzzles me :-/ Another thing is, there is a scene where Indi and his friends are falling down on a water fall, big ones. Normally anything that goes down should be pulverized, but not Indi. This one is hard to digest, others can be tolerated

Now lets talk about what i liked. At beginning time there is nuclear bomb explosion. The stunts shown in that sequence is very good. All the sets are good. Even though waterfall scene is un-realistic, the sequence shown has originality. The picture shown right is the beginning of a chase which is a very nice one. Steven Spielberg has managed to show an entire town in the late 1960s age. Towards the last part there are some cool sets and animations (which cunningly seems to be real). And finally there is a flying saucer scene which literally made me gasp. Steven Spielberg did a wonderfull job there.

So let me wrap. If you are Indi fan, you probably might have seen this, otherwise its a must see for the cool special effects in it. If you watch movies which stay close to reality then stay away.

Please leave your valuable comments. I hope you enjoyed my first review

Bookmark to:

Am a person who is used to watch hollywood movies a lot, I mean A LOT…. There were times where I watched movies throughout the day, that is 4 or 5 movies in a single stretch. Sounds like a freak right ? So when wandering in the Internet I was wondering what to do, then the idea of starting a blog to give honest reviews of the films I watch, came.

I will be providing honest reviews of the films that I watch. I will be suggesting whether to watch it or not. Now there are lot of movies out there, so there might be times when you get confused whether to watch a film or not. In that case just come to www.hollywoodfilmreviews.com and check my review.

If you find my review is right, that is if the movie I said is good for you, then you can fix that we are on the same wavelength, so you can trust my future reviews . I wont be giving much details but only reviews. For details you got imdb, but even there I find some of the reviews are not helping. So here I am giving my reviews.

So keep coming and check my reviews before you watch a film. Thank you readers for your time.

Bookmark to: