Our reviewers select and review the best independent and foreign films on amazon.com, cd universe, and netflix

Drive (USA 2011 100 min. dir: Nicolas Winding Refn, cast: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman).

Albert Brooks was born Albert Einstein. He decided it wasn’t a good name for a comedian. Watching him through Real Life, Defending Your Life, and The Muse he might have stayed with the Einstein name. He’s that good. Each film is a slightly flawed gem that still manages to offer pointed satire on American life while shamelessly focusing on its spotlight-hogging star.

The genius he brings to Bernie Rose, the character he plays in Drive, is the embodies the characters he plays in all his earlier films but with a world-weariness that has turned him lethal. There’s the same “wouldn’t you know it” sigh and resignation but now the disappointment is not losing all his money in Las Vegas and ending up a school crossing guard; but seeing his gang fuck up the big one and sadly setting it right by killing everybody.

His scene with Shannon (Byran Cranston) is one of the coldest murders ever on screen. Bernie slashes the artery in his arm and says sympathetically, “that’s it, no pain,” as if he was Shannon’s nice guy father come to administer a little spanking to a child who knows he has it coming.

Brooks is not the star of Drive. That honor belongs to Ryan Gosling, who drives the movie extremely well. And the cool-y observed existential LA of nights and freeways is the amazing creation of Nicolas Winding Refn, the director. Every generation creates their LA existential movie. Refn: a Dane from New York and Copenhagen has defined it for the now we live in.

But the movie belongs to Albert Brooks as much as another movie with a great heavy many years ago belonged to another comedian. That film was about a pool shark at the end of his days much like Drive features a petty mobster at the end of his days. Brooks looks at the racer up on a grease rack and says his name could have been on the side. Jack Gleason looked at a pool cue in The Hustler and thought he could come back for one more win. Both movies show us what happens when laugher turns to anger and younger men snatch the dreams. See them both.

Title : Dastak
Year : 1970
Directed by Rajinder Singh Bedi
Starring : Sanjeev Kumar, Rehana Sultan, Manmohan Krishan, Anwar Hussain and more
Music : Madan Mohan, Lyrics : Majrooh Sultanpuri

There was a time when Film-making in Bollywood, used to be solely dependent upon “The Writing” and its story content. An interesting plot depicting the social surroundings of the people was the first requisite of starting a project in those days. And that was the reason why we had so many famous writers from the world of literature working for films as the contributors of its story, dialogues, script and lyrics. Such was the depth in the basic idea behind all those movies that they still are studied as a benchmark in the history of Hindi Cinema after so many decades.

DASTAK (Knock) is one of those rare & bold movies made on an off-beat subject which surprisingly still remains relevant even today after so much development experienced all over by the society and its people. Revealing its outstanding thought provoking plot, just imagine the trauma faced by a newly-wed couple (shifted to their new house), after they are told that the house was earlier owned by a prostitute who was pretty famous in the locality and used to run her business right from there. Taking the viewer into the couple’s extremely tense and uncomfortable days in that house, the movie is a kind of philosophical journey digging into the various kinds of double standard personalities living around us in a society. Besides, it also re-defines the power of Tolerance possessed by a human which empowers him to surpass any unexpected tough condition in life with his precious patience.

Coming to the cream of talented people associated with the film, it is written, produced and directed by Rajinder Singh Bedi, one of the 20th century’s greatest progressive writers of URDU fiction. The name needs no introduction to the readers who are well familiar with Urdu Literature and its prominent writers. But the best thing is that here the original writer has himself directed the film in such a manner that it makes a very similar kind of impact as felt after reading the story in its published form. And that is not an easy task to achieve since there are very few movies which have been equally transformed into an enlightening visual experience taking it all from a book.

Featuring the one & only Sanjeev Kumar along with Rehana Sultana as the innocent couple, DASTAK is also known for its outstanding soul stirring musical score by the unmatchable Madan Mohan including the songs sung by the Queen of Musical Notes,Lata Mangeshkar. In fact the tracks are universally included in the list of The Finest Ever from this famous talented duo and can be found in the Top 10 List of both the magicians, compiled by any music critic or fan living anywhere around the globe.

More on bobbytalkscinema.com

This film available on Amazon.com,http://www.amazon.com/DASTAK-Sanjeev-Kumar/dp/B000I0RVTA/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1332081816&sr=1-1

The Secret in Their Eyes (Argentina 2009, 129 min. dir: Juan Jose Campanella, cast: Ricardo Darin, Soledad Villamil).

If Ricardo Darin were an American actor, he’d be getting all those Liam Neeson roles. Obsessive, frantic, single minded but never quite getting the girl. His films on Movie With Me include Son of the Bride and Nine Queens. The Secret in Their Eyes is another amazing addition to the list. (Both Son of the Bride and The Secret in Their Eyes were directed by Juan Jose Campanella; a master who is always emotionally on target)

Here Darin is a retired justice department investigator writing a book on an old case that went cold. A woman was brutally raped and murdered when he was a young agent working under department head Irene Menendez-Hastings (Soledad Villamil). She was the upper class lovely who got her superior position after returning from her Ivy League education in the US. The last thing she wanted to do at the time was jeapordize her career because of suspicions about this one case. Especially because she was atracted to Benjamin (Ricardo Darin) and he to her. Both resisted their feelings because of the difference in their ages and the class barrier between them.

But now it is many years later. She’d risen to the top of the justice department, and he is grey-haired and ready for his pension. What could have been between them was never was. But the old never-solved case still links them together. And that is enough to light the flame between them once again and bring them to admit two things: they love each other and always did; their passion for justice has never slackened.

Together they open up the can of worms that is Argentina’s answer to the Holocaust: the years when the military junta ruled the country (called The Dirty War), and “disappeared” tens of thousands of people to unmarked graves. It was a ten year reign of terror from which the country, or at least the country’s filmmakers, have yet to recover. Like the Germans, everyone knew and didn’t know. Everyone wanted to save themselves even if it meant turning their back onon friends.

The Secret in Their Eyes opens an old wound and new passion. That it what it makes it such an interesting mix of emotions between Darin and Villamil (she’s in Life Accroding to Muriel, also on Movie With Me). Some fires never die, some embers burn forever – is the old saying. An intricate story and a fine range of emotions give heart to an old love made new again in this very excellent movie.