Sunday, November 03, 2002

Modestly priced satisfying lunch buffet at Annapurna, on Indian Trail Road. The place was in day four under a new management, which explained the empty dining hall, but don't let that prevent you from sampling their collection of Gujarati and Bengali dishes.

Out of Sight. Atlanta-born Steven Soderbergh and his able cast (including, I must say, Ms. Lopez) does wonders with Elmore Leonard's novel. This helps to compensate for the unforgiveable damage he wrought with fellow-Georgian Julia Roberts in the Oscar suck-fest called Erin Brockovich.

Saturday, November 02, 2002

South Indian Cafe: Wonderfully-priced Special Lunch Buffet topped with welcome homely coffee (as opposed to the blend-laden world of conventional bitter/strong/assembly-line coffee).

Autofocus: Much ado about something. Paul Schrader uses the tragic story of Bob "Hogan's Heroes" Crane to exorcise his personal demons and revisit his favourite themes. Great performances by Kinnear and Dafoe (who will again, I fear, miss an Oscar nod). The opening titles are a welcome relief from the mundane. Electronic mood composer Angelo Badalamenti has precious little space to make his presence felt. The Sunset Boulevard-ish device of having a dead man provide the narrative fits the title aptly. The closing moments of the film destroy any good that may have come out of this enterprise by clearly pointing to John Carpenter as Crane's killer (the case remains unsolved). While he is completely justified in focussing on the "special" relationship between Crane and Carpenter, Paul Schrader lost the benefits of ambiguity by cheaply incriminating Carpenter (Oliver Stone did a better job with providing us with a choice of culprits in JFK).

Friday, November 01, 2002

Run Lola Run: Great movie. Cool soundtrack. And it's fun to catch the tiny differences across the different timescapes.