A new actor for Kollywood

Actress Piaa Bajpai is from a family who came from a long line of teachers and with a strong belief in culture. She says you can imagine the difficulties she as to face before coming to the stage where she is now. Piaa plays the leading role in the movie Poi Solla Porom.

"Transsiberian"

One of the year's better thrillers, "Transsiberian" starts out as a very plausible and intelligent slow burn train-set melodrama which later morphs into a less effective but still serviceable snow-bound crime thriller.

It's a testament to the skills of director Brad Anderson that in a genre so familiar and plagued with predictability, this film pulls off several unexpected twists involving both the storyline and the nature of the characters themselves. It effectively uses our preconceived notions of not just people but roles in films like this against us, painting an ultimately murky moral world where no-one is a true saint or sinner.

Early scenes quickly setup our scenario - the seemingly naive American rube Roy (Woody Harrelson) and his notably smarter girlfriend Jessie (Emily Mortimer) head from Beijing to Moscow on the famed week-long Transsiberian train trip across the snowfields of China and Russia. Like a less glamorous version of the James Bond films of old, the film takes proper time to indulge in its setting - from talks with various passengers of differing backgrounds, to beauty shots of the icy wastelands, and dealing with what happens when problems arise in such remote locales.

This first hour is where the film excels as Anderson plays with us, well aware that the audience is thinking ahead and exploiting that to up the tension. A short scene set in Vladivostok at the beginning where Russian police come across a corpse make us realize something is going to happen, but we're not sure what. Our couple may be cute, but there's definite uneasy tension between the two. Fellow passengers drop grim portents about drug dealers being onboard and the fate of tangling with Russian police.

A second couple join our pair - a charming but shady Spaniard Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and hardened American runaway Abby (Kate Mara). While many will quickly jump to preconceived notions about them, Anderson cleverly plays on that as well - in some way they are what we expect, which makes the ways they aren't that much more surprising. A scene thirty minutes in set in an icy train yard very clever shows how well Anderson has us under his control. It's very tense, yet nothing has really happened yet, and all these dark possibilities play out in our heads as things slowly start to unravel.

Mortimer does a solid job as our female lead - a bad girl turned good who's hit with many challenges that threaten to pull her back into her old lifestyle. While she doesn't pull off the shady past routine with true conviction, she's strong in a role that dares the audience to root for a character with some very human but somewhat despicable traits. Harrelson as the American simpleton comes off almost over-the-top, but that seems part of the point and he ultimately grounds his performance in his few out-of-character moments. Mara and Noriega lend solid support and brooding stares.

There's a few points where the characters make admittedly stupid decisions like many of these movie characters do, but for most of the action everyone is treated with attentive realism - even if it's only Jessie who feels fully fleshed out as a character. That gritty and convincing tone makes the big shock near the hour mark hit with full force and steers the film into territory we certainly didn't expect.

After that it sadly becomes a less engaging picture as the slow but intriguing setup gives way to more predictable thrills. Ben Kingsley shows up in a fun dark role as an old school narcotics inspector with practical real-world views on how Russian life and the corruption he deals with has changed since the fall of the Soviet Union. It's interesting work, but feels somewhat blunt and ultimately only serves as a prelude to snow chases, crashing train cars and even an icky torture scene.

A clever end which leaves things deliberately somewhat murky bolsters things up, but that half hour sag preceding it stop this from becoming a great work. Yet it certainly doesn't ruin the taste of an otherwise extremely good potboiler with plenty of rewards for those who like taking their time, and is more concerned with things like atmosphere and genuine suspense over big-scale action and breakneck pacing. This is a slow, deliberate and carefully thought out piece for adults who like to savour rather than devour their thrills.

"Mirror" : A Review

If mirrors reflect the grotesqueries of the soul, then director Alexandre Aja is enduring a dark night indeed. A grisly and blood-soaked horror thriller, "Mirrors" relies on unnecessary gore and visceral repugnance over genuine scares or credible atmosphere.

The horror genre of late has been dominated by two heinous trends - PG-13 remakes of supernatural Asian movies ("The Grudge" series, "One Missed Call") and gory R-rated 'torture porn' which equates bloody make-up and human suffering with fear ("Saw" series, any Rob Zombie movie). Aja, the man behind the commendable but misguided "Haute Tension" and "The Hills Have Eyes" remake, tries to combine them both with the result only making both style's shortcomings even more apparent.Aja's previous works demonstrated notable potential despite parading his vividly unpleasant appetites. Visually striking, the French auteur has more ability than any of the other 'splat pack' members like Eli Roth or Rob Zombie to crossover into stronger and more serious fare. Yet "Mirrors" demonstrates that those morbid undercurrents of his nature remain a dominant force driving his hand, resulting in a production steered with notably less care than his earlier work.

Based on the barely seen South Korean thriller "Into the Mirror", the story follows all the trademark "Grudge"-style elements. There's a haunted building, in this case the rotting hulk of a burned down department store; a needlessly convoluted back story of events decades before that our lead must go about investigating; a stupid last few minutes twist that basically cheats the audience; and of course a body count made up of people that he knows, though none have any connection to the supernatural events - thus their targeting by vengeful spirits strikes more as convenient than logical.Project steers into sanguinary overkill as the corpses pile up.

No albino pharyngeal Asian child contortionists on offer here, instead the ghosts are the supporting cast's own reflections whose personal flagellations are mimicked on their flesh and bone counterparts with voodoo-like efficiency. The results are a bit of self-immolation, at least one jugular evisceration, and the focal set piece in which a naked woman in a bathtub graphically separates her lower jaw from her face with predictable consequences.

Kiefer Sutherland portrays a somewhat less noble and bipolar variation of his "24" character as the former cop and sobered up alcoholic trying to get his life sorted out. Taking on the unenviable job of nightwatchman at this macabre Macys for the not so dearly departed, big portions of the film involve a flashlight-wielding Sutherland unconvincingly reacting to reflections and audible hallucinations before he goes beyond the 'Romania redressed as New York' sound stages and into location filming for some pedestrian legwork.

As the asinine story of a formerly possessed girl unfolds, and everyone predictably thinks our lead is losing his sanity, narrative transfers over to his former wife (Paula Patton) and her 'minimally exceptional' two kids. Patton, like Sutherland and fellow co-stars Amy Smart and Mary Beth Peil, has ably demonstrated much better work which makes her unsupported struggle with the labored dialogue and unconvincing character more of a chore than had it been with a less adept cast.

Production values are notably paltry, Aja's eye-catching tapestry has been thinned by Maxime Alexandre's humdrum camera work and the obviously cobbled together production design. Armed with a larger budget than ever before, Aja's dynamics and ability to exploit even simple environments to suspenseful effect seems unable to mesh with the more stage-bound interactions of his various characters. An ultimately uninteresting work that serves as a potential low point for one of the more promising genre filmmakers in recent times.

Roman Novel 'I, Claudius" to be made as a film

Relativity Media has acquired rights for a film adaptation of Robert Graves' classic Roman Empire-set novel "I, Claudius". Acclaimed filmmaker Jim Sheridan will direct and co-write the script with longtime collaborator Nye Heron.

Graves' 1934 novel recounts the internecine plots and counterplots surrounding Claudius, the fourth emperor of Rome who ruled from 41-54 A.D and is considered one of the best novels of the 20th century.The stuttering and handicapped Claudius, born into a murderous, imperial family, used his cunning mind and rivals' misjudgment of his disability to not only survive but eventually become one of Rome's greatest emperors.

The story runs through Claudius' life and the various emperors who reigned before him including Augustus, Tiberius, and the mad Caligula. It ends with Claudius' death and his succession by Nero. Although previously adapted onto film in 1937, it remains best known via the 1976 BBC ten-episode miniseries adaptation.That project had a stellar cast that included Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, Brian Blessed, Patrick Stewart, Sian Phillips, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill and Kevin McNally. Along with stellar reviews and many awards, it drew controversy for its dark elements such as the scene where Caligula (John Hurt) off-screen cuts out and ingests the fetus of the sister he impregnated.No production date has been set for the new film version.

A Review on the movie "Babylon A.D."

A disheveled and incoherent jumble, "Babylon A.D." sadly loses the few bits of intriguing groundwork it lays amidst a cacophony of mangled editing, lethargic performances, and an utterly unfocused and often contradictory narrative.

One could easily dismiss it for using a dystopian story that's been done many a time before by films slightly worse ("Ultraviolet") and immensely better ("Children of Men"). However, French director Mathieu Kassovitz at least has proven himself an interesting helmer in the past which gives 'Babylon' some strong workman-like visuals. Added to this are moments exploring the issues of overpopulation, the erosion of borders in the former Soviet states, the zealotry of modern religion, and plain old corporate fascism.

Unfortunately these intriguing slivers are probably the only thing from the acclaimed novel "Babylon Babies" that has survived the translation to the big screen with any clarity. The main thrust is anything but straightforward as the story, best described as an Orwellian-take on "The Transporter", mutates into a barely understandable mish-mash of sci-fi shenanigans, inconsolable revelations and repetitive gun battles that make little to no sense.

Characters seemingly die only to come back to life, a revelation about virgin birth comes straight out of nowhere and yields an utterly laughable ending, there's some sidetrips dealing with the idea of clones with artificial intelligence, and some throwaway spiritual nonsense about death and rebirth. Ultimately any message it is trying to say is lost amidst the all too somber, self-serious tones and painful dialogue.

Kassovitz showed great promise with some of his earlier features like "La Haine" and "The Crimson Rivers", he even managed to give schlock Halle Berry horror vehicle "Gothika" a quite interesting edge. Yet this, the most expensive and ambitious production he's mounted yet, is far less cohesive or atmospheric. There's some noble but implausible attempts to give the story a sense of reality, time that should've been spent shoring up the one-note characters.

Vin Diesel is usually a reliable enough action hero even in bad material, but here he doesn't seem particularly enthused or convincing in the role of a monotone reluctant antihero who finds redemption. Melanie Thierry and Michelle Yeoh are stuck with very little to do, the former seemingly trying to recreate Milla Jovovich's more more energetic "Fifth Element" work while the later at least gives one role in the film some conviction. Short work by Lambert Wilson and Gerard Depardieu in useless prosthetics are a wash, though Charlotte Rampling as a corrupt female religious leader has fun with her scant few scenes.

Too many cuts and close-ups make the well-conceived but poorly executed and generally perfunctory action scenes come off a disappointment. Some scenes still work such as a bombing at a train station and some parkour in a Vladivostok nightclub. Similarly effective are two sequences involving scrambling survivors climbing a Russian submarine, and later a snowmobile chase across the frozen Bering Strait.

All are ambitious in their ideals but come off as ultimately useless to a story that is in desperate need of some TLC in other areas.In the week prior to its release, Kassovitz famously came out against his own movie and Fox's treatment of it - cutting 10-15 minutes out for its American release. It's hard to say how much of an impact those cuts have had, they're certainly felt but one gets the distinct impression that even ten minutes of brilliant work can not save this movie. Noble intentions aside, Kassovitz delivers some solid moments that survive both this failed adaptation and Fox's further harsh mutilations. They're just not organised or lucid enough to crawl out from under the wasted excess of dreary cliches that sink this like a stone.

A Review on The Movie "Bangkok Dangerous"

Considering how the once exotic South-East Asian city has been gentrified and militarized in recent years, underage transsexual hookers lifting the wallets from inebriated Western tourists is about as adventurous as it gets in the modern Thai capital.

Of course rent boys with too much mascara who can peel a grapefruit using only their anus is something that is hard to classify as a business expense, thus leave it to Nicolas Cage to disguise his Indo-Chinese sojourn as an unjustified remake that looks good on the books at tax time. Enlisting the help of the respectable Pang brothers to reimagine their own commendable 1999 local effort of the same name, the new 'Dangerous' does what most Hollywood studio remakes of foreign fare do - drains the life, edge and energy out of the original to appeal to both its main star and that multiplex audience out in the suburbs who classify sashwan beef as an exotic good.

Cage plays a burned out assassin, one of those jobs that people are either trying to get out of or break into in these kinds of movies. Armed with his own code for survival, a questionable taste in shirts and a mane of hair only a libidinous howler monkey could love, the contract killer knocks off a duo in Prague before heading to Thailand for one last series of jobs before retirement.

Setup allows for gratuitous location shooting around the titular city throughout with much location filming highlighting its colorful and often wildly incongruous nature. Yet all of the locales, from the urine-soaked back alleys to the high-class waterfront restaurants, seem tourist board-approved. Either the effect of recent urban renewal, or a more cautious approach on the Pangs part to not advertise the darker and less savory aspects of the city, rob the remake of the authenticity that made the original live up to its title. Strolling from one scene to the next, the normally over-reactionary Cage takes the opposite tack here.

The resulting apathy actually suits the character better, but short of sparse voiceover delivering familiar hitman life mantras, we get no real insight as to what lies underneath his hardened shell. This makes the sudden and unjustified disintegration of his emotional fencing in the second half, timed with the action which changes from controlled and mildly suspenseful one-off kills to rampant and over-acrobatic gunplay massacres, feel more contrived and ridiculous than it already is.

Thankfully what little grounding there is here comes from the local actors, most notably Shahkrit Yamnarm who delivers a solid turn as Cage's local lackey Kong. Neither slavishly obedient or obnoxiously dismissive, the actor plays the role of the reluctant at first but understandably swayed helper into a far more sympathetic role than it has every right to be (and oddly enough adds an interesting undercurrent of underlying homosexual tension with Cage).

Hong Kong singer Charlie Young also impresses. Stuck in the thankless role of the young deaf female pharmacist who doesn't speak English, she of course finds the clumsy Westerner's ignorance endearing enough to fall for him - fulfilling that white male sexualization of Oriental women fantasy that remains alive and well. Thankfully, Young radiates a sweet genuine charm to make her cloying schmaltzy scenes with Cage bearable. Also, with its focus on the gun fighting, the Pangs seem to have left the inevitable but somewhat awkward love scene between the hearing-impaired Thai lass and the comb-impaired American thug on the cutting room floor - along with a proper resolution for her character.

There's a few good bits of action, most notably the floating market scene and a political assassination with Thai police in pursuit of our hero. The locations are never dull, even the surprisingly tame nightclubs demonstrate taste by playing cheesy pop melodies rather than the tinnitus-inducing bass throbbing that's made modern Western clubbing a repugnant exercise. Even a few of the action scenes highlight some ambitious camera and lighting work for a film of this smaller scale.

Yet they can't overcome the inherent silliness of the bare bones and mildly offensive characters, the familiarity of the plot, the 180-degree mid-point turnabout that completely derails whatever building suspense and interest we had in the story, and the lack of sheer balls and grit that made the original such strong and edgy fare. Neutered, but pretty, and lacking any real development, this is the cinematic equivalent of a eunuch whose voice unfortunately broke pre-castration.

Hollywood News Update

"Capcom today confirmed that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, the forthcoming feature film adaptation based on its acclaimed fighting series, will see a release in February 2009..."

"Shooting on Alexandre Aja's "Piranha 3-D" has been pushed back from this Fall to March/April of 2009, the reason being the size of the project and the prep work needed to execute Aja's 3-D visuals. It's July 24th release date is now highly unlikely..."

"Kevin Smith has called his new sci-fi project a "space comedy" rather than a "sci-fi superhero movie" as previously reported, and that it is NOT the "Ranger Danger" project he has previously mentioned..."

"Esteemed Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert has been attacked by fellow critic New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick at a screening..."

"Jason Isaacs confirms that despite his character of Lucius Malfoy not appearing in the 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' novel, he was on the film's set for one day of shooting to portray one of the moving paintings..."

"FOX will premiere an extended scene from "The Day The Earth Stood Still" followed by a preview of the two-hour TV movie "24: Redemption" just before the encore screening of the series premiere of "Fringe" this Sunday at 8pm EST."Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas' legendary visual effects shop, is jumping into the feature animation business for the first time with Paramount's "Rango"..."