The Great Movies | Book Review

The Great Movies - Roger Ebert

I have been reading reviews of Roger Ebert's since a quite time now. I literally read hundreds of his reviews in recent time. When I cant interpret a movie myself I turn to Roger Ebert. He has watched and reviewed more than 25 thousand movies in his career spanning over many decades. So surely we can trust his judgement about movies.

He did not review based only on some dry technical bore, although that is also important, and he did incorporate them as well, but he reviewed movies to understand the purpose of the movie, what really the filmmaker want to convey throught it. He tried to dig the very essence and heart of the movie.

The technicalities and methods used by filmmakers are only mediums to make movies, not their sole purpose. The very purpose of movies is to manifest the complex human psychological experiences through meaningful stories. And thats important. If a movie is able to constructively convey what it wants to, it serves its purpose, the methods therefore become secondary. The methods might enhance how the story is told, how well it is communicated and how it is received by viewers but it isnt the story itself, afterall.

For example, we see that in Tarkovsky's personal and poetic movies, the shear brilliance of director in what he did and what techniques he used, but it was substance of his stories that mattered, and the methods he used, were mediums by which he achieved his goal of making films meditative, heart felt, dreamlike and metaphysical.

Now back to the book. This book is a collection of his reviews of movies he considered great. It contains many famous works as well some unheard ones. All of them special and unique in their presentation and vast in their scope.

Many of them are in my watch list. I have see quite a few of them and hoping to see more.

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Maqbool | Movie Review

Maqbool - 2003 Directed by : Vishal Bhardwaj Maqbool is a clever character study of a man's gradual descent from loyalty to betrayal; from respect to rage; from reason to madness; from life to eventual and tragic death. Vishal Bhardwaj's Maqbool is powerful adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth, which deals with themes of loyalty, betrayal, love, guilt and death. Set in underworld of Mumbai, Maqbool is realistic portrait of world of gangsters' and their psyche. It is oftentimes dark, serious, repressed and at unexpected times wickedly funny. Jahagir Khan aka Abba ji(Pankaj Kapoor with his Brando-esque mannerisms), is an aging don of Mumbai, who runs the crime world, with the help of his loyal lieutenant, Maqbool(Irrfan Khan) and Kaka, his loyal(underrated Piyush Mishra). Purohit and Pundit, are two utterly corrupt cops who help them fight their rivals(played charmingly by Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri respectively). They are film's charm and wit. ...

Locke | Movie Review

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The Magic Of Thinking Big | Book Review

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