(Recommended by SI blog reader Jyoti Ramakrishnan)
We are some 20 odd minutes into A History of Violence.
The only reason we’re watching this 2005 movie is because of Viggo Mortensen.
A top-notch actor, Viggo is most likely unfamiliar to Indian audiences for whom the apogee of acting is Aamir Khan in that junk 3 Idiots, Amitabh Bachchan in Paa or Ajith in the trashy Billa. 🙁
We’ve seen Viggo’s Eastern Promises, Appaloosa and recently The Road. Enjoyed all of them.
We’ll update this post after we finish watching A History of Violence.
By the way, if you are curious to know more about A History of Violence you can read the Wiki profile of the movie.
Update:
A History of Violence is a decent movie. No question about it.
Viggo Mortensen, who plays the character of the diner owner Tom Stall whose family life comes under strain as his past returns to haunt him, is delightful as ever.
We also enjoyed William Hurt (who plays Richie Cusak) and Maria Bello (she plays Tom’s wife Edie Stall). Both are talented actors.
William Hurt was very impressive in the short 10-minute role and richly deserved the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work in this film.
The confrontation between the brothers Richie and Joey is one of the high points of the film.
Who can forget the sneering Richie as he confronts Joey:
Hey, when you dream are you still Joey?
You can read more about William Hurt in this Wiki profile.
But the story overall left us more than a bit disappointed. Nothing remarkable about it.
Plus there were too many holes in the story.
In this Internet age, how difficult can it be for the cops to find out the truth about Joey Stall. Also what happens to the bodies of Carl Fogarty and the other thugs.
The sex scenes, particularly the one on the stairs, was completely gratuitous. What was the purpose?
All that said, we enjoyed A History of Violence and would definitely consider buying the DVD.
If you live in the U.S., you can rent A History of Violence from Netflix.
A History of Violence – Decent but Not Great added by SearchIndia.com on
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Isn’t it just another violent movie, with gangsters. didn’t find anything outstanding when it was released. Its easy to guess the way the story will go.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We liked Viggo (no surprise) but the movie itself we wouldn’t put in the extraordinary category.
Decent, maybe.
We’ll update the post later.
You gonna watch Aayirathil Oruvan and review for us?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Parkalam, Saar (we’ll see).
You see, the Bollywood film Chance Pe Dance (Shahid Kapoor/Genelia) is also releasing the same day.
eastern promises was better…
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Yeah…had a better story.
We’ll update this post positively today.
Happy Pongal to you!.
Pity you haven’t chewed Sugarcane in decades. Here we get the fresh Indian purplish black ones in full length as well as cut into one to two feet lengths. Also, in supermarkets, we get in small packets (the tough outer skin pealed) and cut to one inch pieces, in a ready to chew condition.
Hey! Your new ‘tabulicious’ look is quite refreshing!. Thanks to Kreacher I must add. Noticed the credit given at the bottom. ( to avoid a similar situation of Chetan Bhagat Vs 3 idiots team ‽ )
The new Red color scheme, denoting – danger, anger, hatred, pain, aggression, energy, passion, fire, lust & love are true to your posts and very much apparent in your various posts on Bollywood, Kollywood, Hollywood & Incredible India. Sorry, I couldn’t add “Pee” in the above adjectives, for obvious reasons 🙂
While the grey background, denotes the various shades of grey exhibited by the readers.
May I suggest a cosmetic change?
The font colours in the site’s name at the top left Corner can be changed as:
“Search” in Saffron, “India” in White, “.” (dot) in Blue (Ashoka Charkra Colour) and “Com” in green, taking a cue from the Indian Tri-colour (Mera Bharat Mahan).
It would add intrinsic value to your site and look aesthetically better than the present Maroon, Black & Orange colours.
(Note :Some references in the older posts displays an . now, in front of the name – dont know what / why)
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Happy Pongal/Sankranti to You too.
2. You write: Some references in the older posts displays an . now, in front of the name – dont know what / why)
Unfortunately, this weird  character is all over the place. We’re fixing it manually wherever we see it.
The problem started after we upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and moved to the new theme. We do not think it has anything to do Kreacher’s theme…more like a bug in the WordPress software.
We’ll implement the suggestions in http://www.northforkmedia.com/blogger/2008/09/strange-characters-and-in-wordpress.html
3. You write: May I suggest a cosmetic change? The font colours in the site’s name at the top left Corner can be changed as ….
We’ll try the logo color you suggested shortly…let’s see how it looks. White India against white background may not go well. We’ll try it in a few minutes (it’s 8:15AM EST now).
now it would be nice if your post showed the “last editted” timestamp too..
You say.. The sex scenes, particularly the one on the stairs, was completely gratuitous
Many of us will disagree..
“There’s no such thing as gratuitous nudity in movies.” said one wise member of your team.. don’t you agree with him/her?
If you think that was gratuitous, try the same director’s
http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Crash/404309?strackid=31a40f972102d1fd_1_srl&strkid=1668113261_1_0&trkid=438381
(I am posting the netflix link, because it can be easily confused with the award winning Crash).. dirty old Ebert liked it.. and RT rating of 65% is pretty decent.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Timestamp for last edited – WP doesn’t have that. Maybe, there’s a plugin. We’ll have to look around. There are countless plugins for WP.
2. You write above: “There’s no such thing as gratuitous nudity in movies.” said one wise member of your team.. don’t you agree with him/her?
That was the night-shift Coolie. 😉
Seriously, in this instance it didn’t fit into the context. And more importantly there was no nudity in the staircase sex-scene. Maybe, that was our real complaint.
But in another scene, we see Maria Bello as God intended her to be
sceneseen from the front. Full frontal nudity. And before that, we have a scene where Viggo goes down on her.All in all, paisa vasool. 😉
3. You write: If you think that was gratuitous, try the same director’s ….
We’ve heard of sexual violence and we’ve heard of violent sex (the two are different) but ‘sexual violence of accidents’ is a new thing, even for experimentalist, Bohemian souls like us.
This one (Crash) we haven’t seen. The only other David Cronenberg film we’ve seen (i.e. besides A History of Violence) is Eastern Promises last year in the theatre
I should have said “Oscar winning Crash” instead of “award winning Crash”.. because Cronenberg’s Crash also got some awards..
The film was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival. In the end it won the Special Jury Prize.[1]
In 1996, the film won the Genie Award from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television in six categories including awards for Cronenberg as director and screenwriter. The film was also nominated for two further categories, among them for Cronenberg as producer. Crash was nominated in 1998 for the USA Motion Picture Sound Editors Award.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Cronenberg’s films seem to do well on the awards circuit. Lots of nominations and plenty of awards.
A History of Violence got two Oscar nominations besides several other awards.