Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is good but very uninviting at times

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is that amazing spy movie which got lost in the shuffle with the other big spy movie that was Mission Impossible 4, it is suitably set in the cold war era when "spy warfare" was at its peak and popular in media as well (James Bond owes it popularity to cold war). The movie revolves around a fictional secret service agency based in Britain called the Circus. The boss of circus is tipped off that one of his most trusted men is a mole for the Russian Secret Service, after a lot of deliberation he narrows down on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy. Its established early on that Spy is not the rat/mole and steps in to find the traitor in the agency after the boss dies untimely. The whole story has a lot of twists and turns where Spy has reasons to believe that all have something to hide and when Spy finally catches the rat, its most satisfying.

That being said the film does suffer from some weaknesses it tries too hard to be a puzzle and not a movie, it deliberately tries to keep viewer in the dark throws in too many characters haphazardly and some scenes instead of adding tension are downright boring and slow. The director seems to have knowingly made a film which just isn't audience friendly. I am an avid fan of suspense genre but even I had to do some research after the film was over to understand the nitty gritties. Anyways folks all I would like to say is that DON'T MISS THIS FILM. Its good to see Gary Oldman playing lead after more than a decade and Colin Firth continues proving why he deserved the Oscar for King's Speech last year. Please watch this in cinema halls as its the final week this film will be in rotation in New Delhi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPKhWXhiMSw

Warrior so underrated.....

Warrior is an underrated small film which is so bloody good I can't believe I and most of the people missed this, making this a huge box office failure in fall of 2011. The story revolves around two estranged brothers and their father thrown in the world of MMA (mixed martial arts for non combat sport enthusiasts). All in all there is this big tournament and the brothers who already have some anger and frustration towards one another find themselves in the finals against each other. The film does a great job of providing ample time to both the brothers forcing the viewer to chose which brother to root for, is it gonna be the family man? so he can use the money to pay off the bank for the sake of his wife and kids or is it gonna be the younger more tortured sibling who has led a hard lonely life and has a noble cause of his own. Academy award nominee, Nick Nolte also shines as the father of the two. Is this film accurate presentation of MMA? NO. Is it gonna be nominated for academy awards? YES but it ain't gonna win, it can't compete with the likes of Tree of Life, Hugo and other heavyweights.

P.S. - The climax was one of the most beautiful, heart wrenching and moving scene I have seen in recent memory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54vrgCP5nlc

After Inception in 2012

"An idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious".

A year and a half later Inception still feels so cutting edge and fresh. Its sad that though 2011 gave us good films, it was the year dominated by big yawnfest franchises - Harry Potter, Fast and Furious, Twilight (!), Mission Impossible, Planet of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes etc. etc.