Transformers is an action/thriller film directed by Michael Bay. The film was a box office success and received mixed reviews from the critics. Transformers is one of the most successful films of the year grossing $709 million worldwide. The film was nominated for many awards and even won many of them.

The story flows easily and is supported by some superb acting. The use of special effects is also very intelligent and the seamlessness of live action has been taken to another level altogether. The movie not only met the expectations of the viewers but exceeded them too. Transformers successfully translates the world of animation and toys to the big screen.

The film quenches the hunger of robot action crazy genre. The film has all the robot action and destruction and robot war but maintains the simple story of a boy and his car. There are special sentiments attached with the first automobile and that has been depicted well in the film.

The film runs slightly long and cuts between stories. The film is a blockbuster and will be liked by the kids to a great extent.

Hulk (also known as The Hulk) is a superhero action film directed by Ang Lee which is based on the fictional marvel comic’s character by the same name. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office distress. The film is about the experiments of Dr. Bruce Banner on himself and on his son.

The plot revolves around Bruce who figures out that David Banner is his real father after the failure of one of his experiments and is angered. He gets transformed into the beastly state of Hulk, where nobody can control his anger except Betty. She approaches the father to find solutions to help Hulk, unaware of the fact that he has sent villain dogs to kill her. Hulk is the only one who can combat the mutant dogs and his father and it is up to him to save the world and Betty.

The opening sequence of the film is interesting but deteriorates there after. The story picks up interest only after the arrival of Hulk. The action sequences are fantastic and the special effects equally praise worthy. Apart from these, the final interaction between Bana and Nolte is brilliant. The tragedy depicted in it is one of the catching factors of the film that appeals to the audiences.

Overall, the important factor about the film is its individuality and uniqueness. The split scenes and freeze frames used are brilliant.

The third installment of the Indiana Jones franchise is perhaps the most self conscious and hence the best of the series. The film remains faithful to the spirit and iconography of the two previous outings though the adventure only becomes bigger, grander and funnier in every sense.

The very first sequence introduces a teenage Indiana on a trip where he stumbles upon a gang of grave robbers. The unfolding of the whole world of adventure, treasure hunt and grand landscapes is thus made possible through the eyes of a boy and it is precisely at this moment that the film succeeds in finding its root in the comic strip imaginations and the world of such 13 year olds. The rest of the plot deals with the Indiana’s quest for Holy Grail across a Nazi occupied Europe accompanied by his Grail crazy Historian father, Prof. Henry Jones.

One of the key items in the film is certainly the father son relationship delightfully manifested on screen by the unmatched chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The effort to put the now familiar characters into a perspective by filling in about their pasts is another toast for the lovers of the series. Finally, the film is all about FUN. Spielberg decides to have some by things like the Hitler sequence, Venice catacombs, the actors especially Connery seems to have the time of his life and the audience seems to lap up the chaos that explodes on the screen.

John Huston’s 1948 drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a classic in its own right. With a script fuelled with intense drama, electrifying performances delivered by the cast and the overall atmosphere of moral ambiguity make the film a timeless favorite for fans and critics alike.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is about three gold prospectors played by Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and Walter Huston on a venture in the Sierras, the later being an old timer. As their mission gets closer to a success, elements of greed, mistrust and paranoia sets in, arranging for a doomed finale for the soldiers of fortune. The film in its plot as well as treatment derives a lot from the Biblical tale of the thieves and the “Pardoner’s tale” while the dusty ambience of Mexico provides the ideal vista for a catholic imagination.

The film is a deep insight into the erosive consequence that wealth can bring about on imperfect characters which further justifies the location shooting in Mexico. In fact, there are few instances when the setting becomes as important as a character or even more than that in a film. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre turns out to be a profound critique of the notion of the essential crisis of despair and despondency of the covetous human beings. The film successfully draws a subtle parallel between the gold prospectors in the film and the idea of acquiring materialist wealth in a consumerist society.

Every once in a while, there comes a film which ends up becoming a landmark for the medium and a yardstick on which other films are going to be rated against. They become a cultural symptom and ensure that the very approach of films is not going to be the same henceforth.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now does exactly the same especially for the classical notion of Hollywood war movies. Based of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and following a narrative about Captain Benjamin L. Willard’s (Martin Sheen) journey into remote areas within Cambodian forests to exterminate an insane and rogue officer of the US Army named Colonel Walter Kurtz played by Marlon Brando. From here on the film starts ascending new heights steadily brushing aside the usual war movie elements and ends up as an opera of anguish unfolding itself in hell.

While the three hour long run time was often criticized for making the film a slow march through the expected horrors of war, this comparatively slow pace of the film allows the audience to take a deeper look into a space, the most significant site of political comment of our times, to realize the seeds of terror sown in there. Horrors, which get manifested through scenes like American choppers bombarding villages with Wagner’s music playing or the sudden demolition of a little fishing boat by the Navy patrol vessel or the final sequence of sheer violence accompanied by Brando’s ominous monologue.