Tuesday, August 01, 2006

"You could ruin that poor girl's life by letting her marry someone like you."

Chicken Tikka Masala
Chris Bisson, Saeed Jaffrey, Sally Bankes, Peter Ash (2005)
90 minutes
Not rated

When Jimi (Bisson), a gay med student, comes home for a visit, he finds that his parents have arranged for him to marry the daughter of their old friends from India, within the next five days. Understandably, Jimi's boyfriend Jack (Ash) is upset by this. This movie is confusing at first but becomes a lot clearer as the movie progresses. Jimi can be a rather irritating character because he could clear up every misunderstanding by actually talking to people, but I still found myself hoping that everything would resolve itself favorably. Jimi's grandmother (Zohra Sehgal) is entertaining, Jimi's "daughter" Heather (Katy Clayton) is adorable, Jimi's father (Jaffrey) is charming and Jack is just plain sweet. I liked the movie, especially the character of Jack.

"This is a world for humanity."

Underworld: Evolution
Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Tony Curran (2006)
106 minutes
Rated R (violence, sex and language)

This film starts with a flashback to 1206 AD and fills in a little bit more of the backstory of the Corvinus family. When it comes back to the present day, it follows Selene (Beckinsale) and Michael Corvin (Speedman) as they run, fearing retribution for their actions in the first movie. I thought the plot was interesting, overall I enjoyed the movie. I objected to the necessity of Speedman losing his shirt every thirty seconds; there might have been ten minutes all together in the movie in which he was fully clothed.

"There's no retirement home for assassins is there?"

The Matador
Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis (2005)
97 minutes
Rated R (violence, sex and language)

Everywhere I looked I seemed to find positive reviews of this film. Because of that I went in to my viewing of it with high expectations and was very disappointed. I found Julian Noble (Brosnan) irritating. Danny Wright (Kinnear) was charming, but I had trouble believing anything that happened in the movie. I didn't feel any real connection to any of the characters until the last ten minutes of the film, when I finally felt like I was getting more background on the characters.