Avatar ( 2009 film )

James Cameron is one of my favorite director. I watched all most of his movies starting from Alien 2. And his master piece T2 ( Though people say Titanic is his the best, but I won't agree with that ), I watched T2 movie n number of times. Even now after these many years if you see that movie, you will be amazed by the CG work and stunts. James Cameron has a style as he always keeps multiple climaxes in his movies. Usually in all other Hollywood films, once the mega fight ends then you can conclude that movie is over. But in Cameron movies, that is not the case, he won't satisfy simply with one climax, he keeps putting it until you say, enough my stomach is full. The best example is the climax in True - Lies and Alien 2. You watch those movies and observe the climax(s), you understand what I'm saying.

So, such a great director was making a movie after 7 years and that too after of his biggest hit Titanic, and he took around 4 years to make the movie, which is Avatar. Considering all those things I had  huge exceptions on Avatar.  I watched this movie in 3D. Though the movie is visual wonder, when compare to his previous movies, I didn't feel as it is Cameron's best work. I felt something is missing. The way I felt  when I first watched Terminator 2 ( like MAN WHAT A MOVIE HE MADE), not felt alike when I watched avatar, It doesn't mean that movie is bad or something. After wining that many Oscars, it is sure that it has so much stuff. Perhaps, I expected so much action and thrill, as like in T2 and True / Lies. Though there are actions scenes, but those are not enough for me :)

I think after Titanic, Cameron has changed so much. He is trying to put humanity and some kind of message in his movies, that's what reflected in Avatar. Where as his other movies T2 and Alien 2 are fully commercial type so he had put a lot of action and thrilling scenes.

Anyway, I more I watch the more I liked this movie. The CG work is really mind blowing and it has reached its peak and I doubt there would be any better graphics in movies in next 10 years time.

I watched some of the deleted scenes in Blu-ray and those are not very long scenes. However, it was a pleasure to watch them,

The lead actors acting done by the actors Sam Worthington and Zoe is good. I think Sam Worthington was unknown guy before this film. May be he acted in few films but not that popular actor. I wonder that year was his lucky year as he acted in several Hollywood high budgeted films like Terminator salvation and Avatar. I heard he was auctioned for James bond role, but lost to Daniel.

If you ask me story of the film, it is something like this,  "Hero goes to "Navi" people as as a diplomat to know their secrets as humans needs their land for business, eventually he fells in love with a Navi's girl and rebel with the humans to protect their land". The basic plot of the story is not unique or new, however, the premises are different.

Finally I would say this is another best ( not THE best)  work done by James Cameron.

Knowing

Though I watched this movie before on my laptop. I decided to watch it again on my HDTV with Bluray. The main reason to watch it again is for the flight crash scene. That scene is a highlight in this movie. I also liked the basic concept of this movie, a time capsule. It is buried 50 years back, and it has revelations about the future. The leading actor Nicolage cage who played as a MIT professor gave his 100% best.

It starts up very well and goes on with gripping scenes. However I felt the climax could be done differently as Nicolage could not save the earth from dooms day. And of course logically that should end like that as no one can do anything if nature comes against us.

The never-seen-before scenes are flight crash scene and subway scene. I watched the behind the scenes how they shot the flight scene. As I thought that was not completely CG shot.,  It was a mix of live action plus CG work. It was amazing to see how they take care of filming every single shot in movie. As I saw mack-up artists spent hours of time to make up people like crashed passengers burning in flames, though those people appear very far away in the scene.  The whole shot where Nicolage explores the crash place and tries to rescue some of the passengers was done in a single take.

Another excellent scene is train crash in subway. They didn't put behind the scenes of this shot in blu-ray disc, so I don't know how they shot it. But I was thrilled by that scene. As it looks so real and makes the impact. It was grueling to watch the train crushes the people on the platform. I really appreciate the makers for this scene as well.

Apart from Nicolage cage the child actors are acted nicely. Especially the girl who played the key role at the beginning of the movie is very professional.  In one scene where she found scratching the door in school,  her acting was terrifying. Later she also played as a modern kid and one moment I didn't realize that she is the same girl.

The other kid, Nicolage's son, he is very cute and tried his best. All other actors including Rose Byrne are performed well.

It seems the director Alex Proyas did a lot of background for this film. He included mythology references and also used scientific references. He is an Australian director so for most of the scenes he chosen places in Australia. That is good for Australia as that shows his patriotism :) I haven't seen his next project after this film, which is surprising.

The climax scene where the whole world burns in flames due to solar flares was also done excellent. In Overall,  it is very decent movie in disaster category.

I'm giving 8 out of 10.

Sarkar ( Hindi )

I liked most of the RGV's movies due to his unique taking style, and realistic feel. His movies make you feel as if you are watching things that happen around you. The stories  and genres that he selects also interests me so much, especially thrillers and horrors movies. Those are my favorite genres. I was in school when his debut film shiva got released, so I didn't realize why many college students were madly watching that movie. I still recall, people were standing before the tv show-rooms to watch this movie when it did telecast in local cable. I wish I would be in some college when it released so I would have enjoyed the mania along with many other students.

Anyway, from to shiva to his latest movie, his basic movie making style is not changed. Now  days, many changes happened in the way films made. One major problem in RGV' films is they are very slow in narration. Ironically, in the begging days, his movies are brand names for fast action and screen play but not any more.

Most of his movies in Bollywood got dubbed in Telugu, which is my native language, so I watched all of them. But as for as I know Sarkar is not released in Telugu, so I didn't watch this movie. Recently I got a chance to watch it through Netflix.

After watching the whole movie, first thing that I felt, do they want 2 hours to make this movie that to without any songs. If the same movie could be made with any of the present generation directors, then this could be made in 1 hour or less than that.

The movie is good (not extra ordinary). However, the story is simple, and each shot is made with fewer dialogues and more expressions. Some times I feel, common Amitabh ji, say something don't look at him like that.

Amitabh action is top notch. Other actors also did a good job. One good thing about RGV is, being a Telugu guy, he had introduced many Telugu actors in Bollywood.   The funny thing is, though Kota is from Telugu, he has been portrayed as Tamil tambi in this movie. That shows that south means for Bollywood is only Tamilnadu and Madaras.

Even though, the movie is very serious in nature, RGV could have added 1 or 2 songs. Lack of songs is good for few movies, but not for this movie. Back ground music is nice.

There are few interesting conflicts in the movie, which I feel are the main reasons to make this film watchable. The twist in the climax is good; otherwise the whole film feels dry.

Overall movie is decent to watch, but it could be really good if those dragging scenes are made it quicker. Otherwise most of the times it feels slow and dragged.

My rating for this movie is 7 out of 10.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

This is one of THE best movies that I have watched recently. I'm glad that I watched this movie in a blu-ray format as I was able to listen director commentary. That helped me to understand some of the scenes better, and why they had shot in that way.  As a matter fact, this is the first time, I listened the director commentary for any movie. This movie is based on a famous book in Swedish with the same name. People say that the book is intuitive and thrilling. I like to watch three hours movie than reading 300 pages novel. One of the Things that I don't like in Novels is, "adjectives" or scene describing words. Authors have to use lots of words to describe the scenes, but whereas in the movie, that problem is not there. May be that's why many say "A picture is worth a 1000 words". Anyway when it comes to movie, it is dark, thrilling, suspense and mind bending. In most of the murder mystery movies, you rarely see other aspects of the protagonist character like his other life, relations and problems.In this movie, first 20 to 30 minutes, they used to establish all main characters not just murder victim, and even rest of the movie, characters development keeps happening in parallel with the suspense and investigation.

In terms of acting, the character Lisbeth done by Rooney is extra ordinary. After watching the movie, I searched in the internet to see how she looks really. And I wondered that she actually having a pink long hair, which is got short and made total black in this movie. I bet you can't recognize her in real picture. It takes some time to realize she is the girl who played the character in that movie. She lived in her character, and I really thought she would be awarded Oscar for her acting. However, she was nominated but didn't win.

Even Daniel Craig also acted so naturally. When Daniel acted in his first James Bond movie, I didn't like him, because of his aged look and just average height. But later on he developed so much, and attracted with his unique acting stills. He became one of my favorite Hollywood actor after watching this movie.

I don't feel any scenes in this movie are done with out purpose. All scenes are important and move movie forward.

When this movie first released, I didn't thought of watching it because of the Rooney getup on movie posters. Her getup is really disturbing and feels as the movie is on drug addicts or something. Later on when I heard this is actually murder mystery story then I thought of watching it. I'm still struggling to understand the American accent fully though I would have watched hundreds of Hollywood movies, and I don't really like to miss even a dialog while watching the movie, so I watch movies with always subtitles on so that I don't miss any dialogue. I glad even this movie watched on  blu-ray player with subtitles on.

One of the best part in this movie is, after one scene you feel like the movie is ended, when actually there is still 10 or 15 minutes movie is left, and suspense is not revealed yet.

This movie won the Oscar award in Editing, and you really see that, the brilliance of editing and worth giving award.

I give 9 out of 10 for this movie.