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.

Comments

Locke | Movie Review

Locke - 2013 Directed By : Steven Knight I like to think that Locke is perhaps about stoicism. Its a lesson about stoicism. Perhaps about how to handle situations which are out of control. And in the end stoicism prevails. Perhaps its not hardcore or perfect form of stoicism which is described in the books. Ivan Locke has his faults. He shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. It isn't his dead father's fault that he has impregnated a women who is not his wife. Or he should have been more sensitive to the woman who carries his child. He is sensible man though, his soul is being tortured, his mind is not at rest and his whole world is falling apart in front of him. Yet he bears it all. He is determined to his thing, right thing. And probably thats the basic idea of stoicism, isn't it? Sometimes it is confusing to define stoicism. It has its shades, its variants. Ivan Locke has his variants. He has a deep urge to save the ruins of his already d...

The Magic Of Thinking Big | Book Review

After certain level these kind of books dont help at all. Although I have to agree with whatever the author has to say but it doesnt make a huge impact on me in the long term. I even forgot that I had read it a few months ago. This is not about this book in general but all others in the self-help genre. It might make difference to the people who actually act after reading such stuff, and who have certain degree of control on their impulses and actions. This review seems to be more about my reading priority than the work of the author. The author have of course fair ideas about how you can make change and be productive and successful and the best and the most important and........ But at the end it depends on the reader himself to how extent he is ready to act and change himself accordingly. There are huge number of books being published in these genre everyday. All of them presenting same ideas but putting dif...

The White Tiger | Movie Review

The White Tiger - 2021 Directed By : Ramin Bahrani The White Tiger have many kind of problems, but they are not very stark. They are not significant, but still quite obstruct this film to be a lot better than what it is. This is awkward, lukewarm and confusing film throughout, but enjoying nonetheless. As an adaptation of Arvind Adiga's Booker Prize winning book, this film is somewhat accurate and faithful to its source material. The book was also quite lukewarm and confusing. And if I am allowed to be little more critical, it was gimmicky. And the film somewhat makes that gimmick much more obvious and visible here. There are instances where you have to join the universal opinion and question your own judgment because of it. When you read a book or watch a film, people are so crazed about that piece of work, but you don't see the greatness of the work which the people around you are referring to. And more often than not, you question your own judgement in that case ...

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