Angels & Demons

Akiva Goldman is the Oscar-winning screenwriter for the film "A beautiful mind". His other screen credits include boxing drama "Cinderella Man" and unsuccessful "Batman & Robin", "I, Robot" or "Lost in Space" etc .. .. And Oh yes! ... A recent blockbuster -- "The Da Vinci Code"!

Buoyed by the box-office success of "The Da Vinci Code," Columbia Pictures has signed Akiva Goldman again to create a script for a sequel by turning author Dan Brown's first best-selling religious thriller, "Angels & Demons," into a movie. Columbia acquired feature rights to "Angels & Demons" and all future novels involving the Langdon character, as part of its 2003 acquisition of film rights to Brown's "Da Vinci Code."

"Angels & Demons", a bestseller published in 2000, was Brown's first novel to introduce the character of Robert Langdon, the crime-solving Harvard professor of iconography and religious art played by actor Tom Hanks in the "The Da Vinci Code." However, no deals have yet been reached for Tom Hanks or director Ron Howard to return for this sequel project.

Ron Howard Reverses Luck!

Despite strong criticism from christians worldwide and mainly negative reviews from movie-critics at its world premiere at the Cannes film festival and also immediately after its release, "Da Vinci" went on to score the second-biggest opening tally of all time at the global box office, raking in nearly $238 million worldwide in its opening weekend. This record would place the movie behind only Star Wars III -The Revenge of the Sith which made 253 million dollars in its first days.

2006 would thus remain to be a great year in Director Ron Howard's memory. The year 2005 was not so kind to him. We love Ron Howard mainly because he offered us that wonderful film called "A Beautiful mind" and we still feel sorry for the failure of his last year's directorial excellence -- Cinderella Man, a movie which had all element to be a hit but could not go anywhere because of, we think, a poor choice of its release date in between Star Wars III and the War of the World .

It was such a setback for the movie and some movie-lovers that, in a rare marketing ploy, the No. 2 U.S. movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment offered a money-back guarantee for seeing "Cinderella Man," hoping to boost interest in the struggling film amid a record box-office slump. Advertisements offering on-the-spot refunds to AMC patrons unhappy with the film began running June 24 in newspapers but even then it couldn't attract crowd. The ads, welcomed by the film's distributor, Universal Pictures, said in part: "AMC believes Cinderella Man is one of the finest motion pictures of the year!" Many, who later watched the film in DVD, admitted that it was a wonderful film which they somehow missed.

This time, however, Ron's choice was great. "The Da Vinci Code" was already a popular novel and a controversial one too. Many movie-critics (including 2movie) didn't like the film mainly because it closely followed the storyline, which made it boring.

But it was already in the agenda of people and they lined up in theaters and started trickling in money to the box office to make it a huge success and finally reversed the fortune of Ron Howard. Congratulations, Ron!

The Da Vinci Code

Last few months saw lot of hype and controversy worldwide around the movie version of 'The Da Vinci Code' but finally it turned out to be an anti-climax from a movie-goer's point of view.

A risk with a movie on a popular thriller (yes, it's just that. Let us treat this as a work of fiction and do not get too serious about the story-line) is that the end is well-known to majority of audience and so despite another laudable effort from Ron Howard (We still feel sorry for the failure of his last year's directorial excellence -- Cinderella Man, a movie which had all element to be a hit but could not go anywhere because of, we think, a poor choice of its release date in between Star Wars III and the War of the World ) and very good efforts from all actors, the Da Vinci experience was not that exciting. The script just did not allow the actors to come out of their one-dimensional and sometimes very boring existence. The movie is too slavishly faithful to the book, making it poorly paced and only occasionally thrilling experience. Ron Howard did an excellent job of recreating Dan Brown's way of telling the story and, with all respect to Ron, that's what seemed to be the main drawback of this otherwise beautiful cinematic creation.

The choice of locations was awesome. If nothing else, you can treat this as a cheap ticket to tour around some exotic or exquisite locations in Paris, London and Scotland.

In case you do not know, the story-line involves a thrilling murder investigation that unearths the biggest cover-up in human history. Famed symbologist Professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is called to the Louvre museum one night where a curator has been murdered, leaving behind a mysterious trail of symbols and clues. With his own survival at stake, Langdon, aided by the police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), unveils a series of stunning secrets hidden in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, all leading to a covert society dedicated to guarding an ancient secret that has remained hidden for 2000 years. The pair set off on a thrilling quest through Paris, London and Scotland, collecting clues as they desperately attempt to crack the code and reveal secrets that will shake the very foundations of mankind.

The film is rated PG-13. Here's the official site: SoDarkTheConOfMan.com

United 93

We all had to wake up in the morning of September 11, 2001 and discover a world that greeted us with so much of nightmare. After four and half years, when the memory of the day had already taken a back seat in my daily affairs, I somehow managed to find time to sneak in a theater to see the movie: United 93.

Initially I took a seat at the back but after a few minutes I went forward to take a front seat just to forget myself and get more absorbed into the movie like I used to be when I was too young.

Friends, it's worth watching. It's not a so called classic but transcends into timelessness with its 'almost documentary but not' story-style that tells us just what happened on that day inside and outside that flight ...and it's worthwhile for all of us to confront that experience at least once in the safe and comfortable world of a cinema house.

Don't watch it in DVD when it'll be out... Don't watch it when there's a possibilty that someone might call you ... Don't watch it if you are hungry or thirsty and you may feel like stopping the movie to have a trip to your kitchen ... Don't watch it if you can't wait for 110 minutes before your next trip to restroom .... Don't watch it in DVD and come back to me to say that it was not that good a movie.

Just go to the theatre.. and get lost ... At the end of it all... you may thank God that you have ground under your feet and most probably at this point of time no one is praying to his/her God [First scene] for your death without even knowing you .....

It's not a classic but it's one which made a determined choice without preaching anything. United 93 flew off to history and came back to ground with all its glory. The movie will haunt you and make you think and feel hard about the time and space of the universe that we are chosen to breathe in and you may choose not to breathe in and out to avoid disturbing the silence that prevails over the black screen in front of you at the end of it all.