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phreakv6
Reviews
The Tree of Life (2011)
2011: a life odyssey
if we ever meet an alien species and have to exchange notes, this is it. there are movies and then there are movies. the tree of life transcends movies and documentaries into the realm of movies that is an ambitious art project that tries to capture what is life within the constraints of its runtime of around 2 hours. i would have been disappointed if it dealt solely around the theme of loss (which movies like rabbit hole and blue valentine did pretty well lately) which it seemed set to be centered on when the movie dawned. there was a 20 minute interlude on evolution like the 20 minute prelude on 2001: a space odyssey. in 2001, it tried as much as possible to avoid the human aspect of life, probably because thats how insignificant kubrick thought it should be in his scheme of things in the movie. kubrick's went tangentially into space and life as we don't know it while mallick goes tangentially into life as we know it. the classical music soundtrack with a flurry of pieces by brahms, mahler and bach and a whole lot of others which i wasn't fit to recognize was a revelation as was the cinematography. it would be travesty if this film doesn't win the cinematography at the Oscars. terrence mallick is a director who doesn't seem to be comfortable with making movies which will be forgotten by the turn of the decade. he has made a film that will make experimental film makers like werner herzog proud. in tree of life, he has found a worthy successor to badlands and days of heaven. i would rate this even higher than those two.
Delhi Belly (2011)
why delhi belly gave me a delhi belly
I have to put this down so I make myself clear on why I found this movie 'ok at best'. The movie was funny in parts, however, it was sprinkled with a whole lot of disgusting potty humor. It made it seem as if, the only way we can have a mature Indian audience is by 'shocking' them by their definition of shocking which involves using a generous sprinkling of expletives, excessive farting, showing stool samples, hairy butt cracks, toilets in close-up etc. I wonder why a close-up of someone scratching his hairy armpit or picking his nose wasn't included. if talking about lesbianism, oral sex, infidelity in casual fashion is supposed to make your movie sound 'hip' or clichés like shoving a lighted dynamite up someone's rearside funny, i beg to differ. movies like snatch and lock, stock from which this borrows a lot like the explosion part, boris the blade xerox Russian, the paper bag used as mask etc. were funny not because they were crass. the themes of spoofing 80s b-movies, stylish (not any more) camera angles on stupid goons have all been overdone for more than a decade now, so last thing we want is another decade of these dated themes replicated.