Archive for Gopal
Kite Liberator (2008) Movie Review
The original “Kite” was a controversial, yet fascinating exercise in style and mood. Thematically similar to Luc Besson’s near-classic “Le Femme Nikita,” which was, at its core, a remake of the classic tale ‘Pygmalion,’ “Kite” explored the dark and seedy subjects of child abuse, emotional deconstruction, sexual perversion and revenge. The ugly thematic [...]
May 5th, 2008 | Gopal | 1 comment | Read MoreIron Man (2008) Movie Review
Hollywood has been mining the comic book shelves for quite some time, but has been hitting it particularly heavily over the last decade. Everything from the classics to the new-age stuff has been tapped at one time or another (several times, even), but they’ve met with mixed results. For every “Batman Begins,” there [...]
May 3rd, 2008 | Gopal | 2 comments | Read MoreDoomsday (2008) Movie Review
The end of the world has been a popular topic in Science Fiction and Fantasy films for as long as we can remember. But while the topic is well worn, the subject has been kept relatively fresh as the causes of our demise have evolved with popular politics – nuclear holocaust, alien invaders/Communists, wayward [...]
March 16th, 2008 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreRambo (2008) Movie Review
Sylvester Stallone’s latest attempt at career resuscitation comes to us in the form of “Rambo,” the fourth installment of the action series. The last time we saw John Rambo, he was busy helping the Taliban overthrow the Soviets. That sure worked out great. This time, Stallone takes us to the less incendiary [...]
January 28th, 2008 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreCloverfield (2008) Movie Review
Shrouded in secrecy and a pervasive viral marketing campaign, prolific television producer J.J. Abrams’ (‘Alias,’ ‘Lost’) latest film, “Cloverfield,” lands in US theaters at a rather curious time. Mid-January is typically when movie studios flush the crap out of their dumpsters and into the cineplexes, so I was surprised that a film with an [...]
January 20th, 2008 | Gopal | 1 comment | Read MoreNo Country for Old Men (2007) Movie Review
They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. In the case of Anton Chigurh, those windows open upon nothingness. In fact, his faded blue eyes seem to suck the very souls from those unfortunate enough to fall under their gaze. He is a psychopathic hit man who kills his [...]
November 18th, 2007 | Gopal | 1 comment | Read MoreElite Squad aka Tropa de Elite (2007) Movie Review
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has long been known as a city precariously balanced on the edge of chaos. A city of vibrant culture and life, it is also one of the most dangerous cities in the world. The majority of its population lives in one of 70 slums, known as favelas, which are [...]
October 29th, 2007 | Gopal | 17 comments | Read MoreKaras: The Revelation (2007) Movie Review
When I previously reviewed “Karas: The Prophecy,” I noted that it was a visually spectacular film that suffered from a criminally underdeveloped plot and slap-dash execution. There were so many good parts to what made up the first film: the brilliant conceptualization of near-future Tokyo, the virtually seamless melding of traditional, hand-drawn cell animation [...]
October 27th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read More30 Days of Night (2007) Movie Review
“30 Days of Night” has been billed as a new take on the Vampire movie. After watching it, the only ‘new’ element I can identify is that the vampires are full-on bad guys this time around. None of that tortured soul, conflicted motivations, touchy-feely nonsense. Just hard core, mean spirited blood sucking [...]
October 21st, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Kingdom (2007) Movie Review
In my review of “Syriana” last year, I noted that many viewers who were apparently befuddled by that film were probably expecting an action movie since there was an explosion in the film’s trailer. “The Kingdom” would have been that film. Not to be confused with Lars von Trier’s hospital horror mini-series of [...]
September 30th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreEastern Promises (2007) Movie Review
Given that “Eastern Promises” is a David Cronenberg film, one shouldn’t be entirely surprised that it opens with a vicious throat slashing and a fourteen year old girl hemorrhaging in a drug store. The girl in question dies soon after while giving birth to a baby girl under the care of midwife Anna (Naomi [...]
September 16th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read More3:10 to Yuma (2007) Movie Review
From the outset, director James Mangold’s (”Walk the Line”) latest film, “3:10 to Yuma,” has two strikes against it: it is a Western, a genre that has been dying a slow death over the past 25 years, and it is a remake. That it succeeds is a testament to the performances of the two [...]
September 16th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreLive Free or Die Hard (2007) Movie Review
The original “Die Hard” was a blast of superheated fresh air when it descended upon unprepared moviegoers in the summer of 1988. That film introduced us to wisecracking, gun-toting southpaw NYPD Detective John McClane, who has become an American institution. It not only established TV heartthrob Bruce Willis as a major action star, but more [...]
July 1st, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreThe Night of the Sunflowers (2006) Movie Review
One of the residents of a declining little village in northern Spain comes across an ancient cave in the nearby hills. Hoping to revitalize the town through the potential touristic possibilities of a prehistoric cave, the locals call upon Speleologist Esteban (Carmello Gomez), who arrives in the region to investigate the cave with his assistant [...]
July 1st, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreGrindhouse (2007) Movie Review
The Grindhouse was a sub-genre of exploitation films that were generally deemed too extreme and cheap for the mainstream, and there wasn’t much genre segregation with regards to what got heaped into this pile. The only qualifications were that it had to be strange, violent and of poor quality. Everything from Herschell Gordon Lewis’ ‘pioneering’ [...]
April 6th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read More300 (2007) Movie Review
In a blurb I wrote in my ‘Best of 2005′ list, I declared “A Bittersweet Life” to be “one of the slickest pieces of stone-cold machismo to slide across the silver screen since ‘Scarface.”‘ Well, I think we have a strong challenger for that title in Zach Snyder’s “300.” The latest film adaptation of a [...]
March 10th, 2007 | Gopal | 3 comments | Read MoreBlack Snake Moan (2006) Movie Review
“God put you in my path, and I aim to cure you of your wickedness.”
There are only a handful of actors who can utter that phrase and make us believe it, and Samuel L. Jackson is on the top of that list. In “Black Snake Moan,” the latest offering from “Hustle and Flow” director Craig [...]
Gopal’s Top 10 Movies of 2006
After several outstanding films rolled out of 2005, 2006 has been a bit of a downer. With a few notable exceptions, I didn’t come across any films that really stood out as exceptional. There were certainly some good and entertaining movies, but even they were of the deeply flawed variety. Still, thinking back through the [...]
January 6th, 2007 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreChildren of Men (2006) Movie Review
“Children Of Men,” the latest film from rising Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron (”Y tu mama tambi’n”), asks a very curious question: What would the world be like if we could no longer have children? Pretty crappy, it seems. The film takes place in London in the year 2027, 18 years after the last child on [...]
December 21st, 2006 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read MoreApocalypto (2006) Movie Review
Over the past couple of years, few people in Hollywood have gotten as much negative press as Mel Gibson. And not just Britney Spears showing her hoo-ha type press, but true vitriol. Granted, Gibson’s drunken Jews and Sugartits rant didn’t do his public image any good, but nevertheless, it has reached a point where the [...]
December 11th, 2006 | Gopal | 0 comments | Read More
fascinating info about the intense lighting.........