swatkat

The Sister dragged me to watch Alice in Wonderland, and I'm very glad she did. We didn't watch it in 3D, but it was quite wonderful anyway, with fantastic cinematography and some very good performances by Mia Wasikowska and Helena Bonham Carter. It has been very heavily marketed here as a Johnny Depp film, but I didn't think there was much to be said for his performance: his accent was horrendous, he made many wonderful faces and did the crazy eyes... I think he can do roles like this in his sleep now, so.

( spoilers )

That said, I hope it makes a lot of money so that Disney realises that yes, people *are* interested in watching films that have girls in them, even young boys, no really.

PS: Pity the Orientalist by deepad.

In a bid to get my Terminator canon straight, I decided to watch T1 and T2 (this will also have the added benefit of stopping zorana84 from making fun of me). ( come with me if you want to live! )

LOOK AT ALL THE FEMSLASHY GOODNESS! I had been hoping to get something in for July 19th as well, but all I did in the past week was watch a zillion movies in the big film festival thing that was happening in town and my head, it spins!

See, I'm not what you would call a movie buff. I love vulgar, popular cinema and stay away (mostly) from incomprehensible art-y stuff ("Watch it for the cinematography!" "Uh, but what about the story?"). I don't care about film festivals. I do, however, have friends who are the very opposite - who care and who want me to want to care, which is why I ended up there in the first place ("How can we possibly go without you?" "This is blackmail!"), and I... am actually glad that I went.

Of the ones that we saw, my *favourite* has to be The Band's Visit (from Israel). I don't think I have words to express how much I loved this movie. It was smart, funny and bittersweet, and it talked about politics and people and dialogue, without actually saying them out loud, and that made it all the more poignant (and just plain awesome). Also, it was beautifully shot and the lead actress was incredibly hot.

( proof, because i am shallow )

After this one, we decided to catch all the other films from Israel as well, and so we saw Disengagement (excellent after the first thirty minutes, which were slightly confusing), Lemon Tree (awesome) and Yana's Friends (socute). I'm bummed that we missed Beaufort, because I remember roga mentioning it, but we are planning to get hold of it sometime soon.

Of the Indian movies we watched, my favourite has to be the yet-unrealeased Gulabi Talkies (in Kannada), which again left me speechless by the simplicity with which it handled something so *grim*. The protagonist's character simply bowled me away by her charm and her courage and the way she *smiled* through the entire thing and seriously, if you have access to Indian cinema (that is not Bollywood) and want to watch something brilliant, watch this. I cannot recommend it enough. I also enjoyed Kabootar, which will be out in September and is fairly mainstream, and if you enjoy angry young boys and raw energy and violence and tragedy, then this should be your thing.

A special mention goes to Whatever Lola Wants (from Morocco, but in English and featuring an American actress in the lead), because of the way it sails through the Bedchel test and the awesome slashiness between the lead and the gorgeous Lebanese actress playing Ismahan (I was *totally* slashing them in my head) and Hell's Ground (from Pakistan). We don't get to watch Pakistani cinema very often, so there's always a great deal of interest when Pakistani films hit the festival circuits. Since we had missed every other Pakistani film aired in the festival, we decided that we *had* to watch this, even though I'm not a fan of horror. And then there were MUTANT FLESH-EATING ZOMBIES and a TRANSSEXUAL BURQA-MAN WITH A BLOOD FETISH. *FLAILS* (For a more coherent review, read this; I disagree with the reviewer, however, that it 'tries' to be a spoof - the director only said that *afterwards* because there was so much laughter, in the initial talk he was all about the horror.)