The Golden Compass

This movie is directed by Chris Weitz and lead actors are Nicole Kidman, Dakota Blue Richards, and Daniel Craig. The film never allows any characters to develop and moves like a train to the finish leaving the audience to boredom. It starts of well but then starts feeding the audiences with some stupid prophecies and some really funny terms like dust and all. The funniest scene is the one where the bear gets his armor within seconds after the girl lets him know where it was kept.

All in all, a bore movie with brilliant special effects and good performance from Nicole Kidman.

My rating is 5.9/10

Into The Wild

Sean Penn with his poetic narrative and characters so wildly expressive in their thoughts and mannerism gives us a painful journey about a guy's rebellious attitude due to his parent's constant fights. The film belongs to two people one is Sean Penn (deserved the best director nomination) whose direction is a breath of fresh air even though it gets to self indulgent in bringing out the characters but at the same time never letting the audience lose grip of him and Emile Hirsch who according to me deserved an Oscar nomination ahead of George Clooney and Johnny Depp for his outstanding portrayal and no doubt Emile Hirsch's character is shown as a guy who goes through a lot during his younger days but what he does latter induces so much pain to his parents leads to you either supporting him throughout his quest to reach Alaska or may lead you start hating him hence there is a probability that many may not actually support the character but as I said Sean Penn makes sure that the story stays as truthful as possible and he never lets the parents or the central lead in a bad light and gives equal substance for the audience decide what path they would have chosen . Anyways, I loved the film as it is highly philosophical and has a new take towards life .A must watch. According to me, this is the most underrated film of this year without doubt and deserves much more.

My rating is 9.6/10 for this movie.

There Will Be Blood

Power-packed performance from an actor (Daniel Day Lewis) who simply manages to catch hold of your breath each time he appears on screen .If Daniel had lost this years best actor Oscar, I would have never watched Oscars again because this one is right up there with the best. Even though everyone feels that the acting was good but not the film then I am sorry to say that according to me, you must have lost it. This is without doubt my favorite film for the year 2007 and deserved an Oscar for its outstanding screenplay even though it gets a bit boring with some of it subplots not actually moving the story forward (the one where a guy comes from nowhere and claims to be Daniels step-brother) and making a mess of the brilliant start and an outstanding end. Other than that, this is just perfect. There are many scenes which you will remember after the film gets over, especially the one where Daniel is made to say that he is a sinner and the one where Daniel makes Paul admit that he is a false prophet and God is superstition. Also, I would like to add that Paul Dano is brilliant and the film just goes to the next level when Paul and Daniel are on screen (I wish they had more screen time together). All in all, one of the best films of 2007. A MUST WATCH.

My rating is 9/10 for this movie.

Lars And The Real Girl

Ryan Gosling brings life into Bianca. I know she is just a doll but throughout the film, Ryan makes you feel she is not and there is where half the job is done, but I must say if you find Ryan dating this doll awkward to hear then you might also feel the same while watching the film for a while .The problem was that no doubt it has a perfect premise where the audience do feel sad for Ryan, but I felt more sympathy for the people around him who brought Bianca to life just to communicate with this guy which I feel was not meant to happen. Not a must watch but has good performances from the cast.

My rating is 6/10 for this movie.

Leben der Anderen, Das (The Lives Of Others)

I have been extremely fortunate to watch two brilliant films, i.e., There Will Be Blood and The Lives Of Others this week and I must say I found both simply outstanding. The Lives Of Others is so brilliantly acted and written that you just cannot move your eyes for a single moment from the screen. It deserved last 2007 Oscar ahead of Pans Labryinth for best foreign language movie not because of its political undertones (which the Oscars always prefers) but for its simple storytelling. This movie is a must must watch and please do not miss this masterpiece as it is a complete eye opener. The best German movie I have seen after Der Untergang of 2004.

My rating is 9/10 for this movie.

Rambo 4 (2008)

For Rambo to work, you first of all need a good setting (jungle would be an ideal place for Rambo to hunt down people ) ,then you need Mr. Sylvester Stallone to star in it and then the most important thing of all, you need 300 to 400 hundred people who look like soldiers half the size of Rambo killing people in jungles. Now this movie has all of that still it fails miserably. The reason being there is no original story here. Whatever you see is something you have seen in all Rambo movies. It starts like all Rambo movies does, (John working somewhere and people coming to him for help). Also there are no action sequences in this one, the only way John kills his enemy is by shooting at them, that is not what we expect from a Rambo movie, hence for me, this was clearly a disappointing film. Not recommended to watch.

My rating is 7/10 for this movie.