Watching Instantly

By Vijay Kumar

August 31, 2010

Can you believe Campbell Scott is my son?

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Browsing through NetFlix’s online streaming collection is not unlike those late Friday nights spent browsing through the movie maze in your local video store. The search for that perfect movie is often tricky. Sometimes you have to deal with a fuming partner and/or a melting tub of ice-cream in the car. The pressure is compounded by a listless, unhelpful store clerk in some cases. This column aims to be that clerk for NetFlix Instant Watch – maybe just a little less listless and little more helpful. This is what I waded through recently – at NetFlix.

Went Looking For…



Believe it or not, I sometimes do have a predetermined playlist while browsing for movie titles. Generally, there is a week between my adding them to the playlist and actually watching them. The movies under “Went Looking For…” are typically the movies that I had slotted as “Ended up with…” the previous week.




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The Other Man

Antonio Banderas plays Raphael (pronounced "Rafe’") the titular "‘other man" in this movie that is primarily about infidelity. At the beginning, it looks like Laura Linney is about to confess her affair to her husband, played by Liam Neeson. She doesn’t and it is up to him to piece together her other life. An email is the first clue, leading up to a password protected folder with the lovers’ escapades. He then proceeds to track the other man down. This is perhaps the most interesting portion of the movie – the hunt, the stalking, and the acquaintance. The narration becomes rather dull from this point on. There is a hidden element in the narration – so the viewers don’t get the full picture. Neeson’s character doesn’t know what to do with this discovery of his wife’s affair. He befriends Banderas while still trying to figure that out. Banderas himself has no clue that his new friend is actually his lover’s husband. There is an overdose of unknowns and I might add that the director didn’t know what to do with the plot line, either. With three good actors I was hoping for better chemistry between the leads. The movie is set in Europe with perhaps the hope that this in itself would provide atmosphere and intensity. Good job by the casting director. Not so much by the main director, Richard Eyre, who does not do a good follow up to his previous work in Notes on a Scandal.

Patton

"All my life I wanted to lead a bunch of men in a desperate battle."

A friend of mine spent a weekend looking up World War II trivia after watching Patton. George S. Patton Jr. was a decorated war hero whose personality helped dictate the course of World War II. George C. Scott lives the role, bringing to screen the extravagance of a soldier, a leader who knows little of life outside the battlefield.

"The secret of Patton is the past."


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