Srini at the Movies

The Great Gatsby (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 27 May 2013 06:30:00 +0000

Pursuing an illusion can be an obsessive, tiresome and ultimately futile exercise. For someone like Jay Gatsby, this pursuit defined his mores, his actions and his life. ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a film that takes you deep into the purity of Gatsby’s quest, mirroring it with its imperfect methods and its flawed objective.

Nick Carraway is a recovering mental wreck, prone to bouts of anger and alcoholism. In therapy he is encouraged to narrate a defining phase of his life, the time spent in New York’s Long Island as a neighbor to the enigmatic and wealthy Jay Gatsby. Soon Nick discovers that Gatsby is obsessed with rekindling a romance with Nick’s cousin Daisy, that had gone off track because of Gatsby’s need to become 'a somebody' to be worthy of her.

A much married Daisy struggles with her marriage to Nick’s former Yale college-mate Tom who is unfaithful to Daisy. As Gatsby befriends Nick and coaxes him to arrange for a meeting with Daisy, he also allows Nick into the man he truly is, someone different from who he appears to be. As Daisy and Gatsby embark on an affair, the time comes for Gatsby to have Daisy break her marriage with Tom and reunite with him. Whether Gatsby’s mysterious past comes in the way is what the story unravels.

Based on F.Scott Fritzgerald’s seminal novel depicting the American way of life in the Roaring Twenties, Gatsby is viewed through the kaleidoscope of modern movie-making by a large canvas film maker, Baz Luhrmann. While Luhrmann’s predisposition to high pitch drama and music (he is a self-confessed ‘Bollywood’ fan) is recognized, he brings a tragic melancholy to Gatsby’s story that underlines the futile pursuit of something fundamental even when you have everything you can materially buy. Luhrmann is effectively able to create a mood that symbolized ‘Citizen Kane’ – a man who has everything but the one thing that he wants. While Kane's mysterious utterance 'Rosebud' symbolized happiness, Gatsby's preoccupation with the green light that flickered from Daisy's home across the bay symbolized his obsession with her.

Watching the film in 3D, Gatsby almost seems like an action film with quick editing cuts, zooming turbo charged cars, loud music, dance and fireworks that form a glittering spectacle. Credit needs to be given to Luhrmann and long-time writing collaborator Craig Pearce for not losing focus on the human element of the story, that of Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy, Nick’s helplessness from the sidelines, Daisy’s inability to take a decision and Tom’s scheming attempt to save his crumbling marriage. They also bring out the societal divisions and the tensions of the times – poor vs. new money vs. old money and the problems plaguing the USA – bootlegging and smuggling during the times of prohibition, effectively.

Leonardo DiCaprio is the quintessential Hollywood movie star – he has presence, he is handsome, suave with clean cut good looks and an acting arsenal to boot. He brings all that to bear in an effective portrayal of the suffering and heart-broken, yet eternally optimistic Jay Gatsby. If ‘Citizen Kane’ were to be remade, he should be cast as the protagonist. Tobey Maguire is passable as Nick Carraway and manages to perform similarly in all movies irrespective of the character he is playing. Joel Edgerton as Tom delivers a powerful broadside from the supporting cast and should win accolades down the road for the same. Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby’s dubious business partner and ‘fixer’ is given very little screen time to show the immense talent that he has, yet looks convincingly fiendish in a bit role.

‘The Great Gatsby’ stays with you and urges you to reflect on pursuits in life and the emptiness that some of them bring.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 12:39:00 +0000

Quirk is difficult to understand as a viewer and handle as a filmmaker. It is often dismissed as being silly and incoherent, only rarely getting the attention and accolade it deserves. I would credit the likes of Woody Allen and Quentin Tarentino with making quirk cool. In Indian cinema, with its cultural richness to draw from, quirk is a Godsend for we are tired of looking at caricatures who pass off as comedians. ‘Matru Ki Bijli Ka Mandola’ is a brave attempt to look at a serious problem of land grab through a set of quirky characters in a rural setting.

In appreciating quirk, we need to appreciate the imagination of the writer in creating zany characters with zanier habits. Here we have Harry Mandola, a rich alcoholic who, while sober has a dream of getting all farmers of the Mandola village to sell their land to him, so that he can develop malls, factories and the works in partnership with a corrupt local politician Chaudhari Devi who wants her idiot son Badal to marry Harry’s daughter Bijlee to sweeten the deal and seal it. Harry’s man Friday is Hukum Singh Matru, who nurses a soft corner for Bijlee, has a strong loyalty towards the service of the Mandola family and a growing concern for his village’s problems.

While the villagers are wary of Harry and Devi’s fiendish scheme, they are unable to negotiate with them without the help of a vigilante, curiously named Mao who directs them from time to time with messages tied to trees. Harry while drunk is a benevolent man who feels for his villagers. How the village of Mandola survives the land shark attack, how do they use Harry’s split personality to their advantage is what the plot tries to uncover.

Vishal Bhardwaj has carved a niche for himself as a sensitive film maker who writes thought provoking stories which unfold in rustic settings with interesting characters. With ‘Matru.’, Bhardwaj gives himself enough creative freedom to build a truly wild bunch of characters against a very real situation of land grab by the corporate-politico nexus, at the expense of farmers. His contrast of this wild bunch against a real problem is the real usp of the film’s writing and direction.

Where he falls short is in the sub plots – Bijlee’s difficult relationship with her father and her strange acquiescence to marry Badal which Matru refers to as a ‘Meena Kumari complex’, Matru’s conflict of loyalty between his village and his master, Devi’s linking of the Mandola land grab with a runway to a bigger position in Delhi and the obvious question – haven’t farmers made it big around the NCR region by selling land? Is it such a bad thing? Is getting the right price the real issue?

The film belongs to Pankaj Kapur, that fine talented artiste who has been reduced to doing 1 movie every 3 years for want of good scripts. Kapur as the sober shark and the delirious drunk is equally fascinating to watch as he is as a loving father and a chiding yet doting master. Shabana Azmi lends him wonderful support as his partner in crime but is not supported by good material. Anushka Sharma has the rustic sex appeal, but fails to impress as an actor. Imran Khan may have grown a beard but remains a wooden actor. Arya Babbar seems to be stereotyped as the idiot, but at least lives up to expectations.

‘Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola’ is a brave attempt at a difficult sub-genre, and almost makes it work. Worth a watch though.

Skyfall (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:40:00 +0000

With the reboot done, it was time to set the stage for a version upgrade. ‘Skyfall’ marks 50 years of the franchise by paying homage to various symbols that typified the man, only to destroy them to prepare James Bond for the future.

In ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Quantum of Solace’ the story delved deep into an important emotional dimension of Bond. They peeled off his suave exterior to reveal a heart that fiercely loved a woman, a heart that was winning the battle with the mind, something that his training had taught him to prevent. In ‘Skyfall’, it is Bond’s MI6’s and M’s very existence that is questioned as the very nature of international espionage is brought under Parliamentary scrutiny by the British Government after top secret information about MI6’s international operatives is stolen from M’s laptop post which MI6 itself is bombed.

Bond finds his age and his waning powers exposed in the spotlight of youth and the new age of cyber terrorism that works at ‘the press of a button, whilst wearing pajamas’. Bond’s only relevance is when ‘a trigger has to be pulled at times’ and he is given the go-ahead to find the man behind a web of cyber deception that has been woven around MI6. Soon, he discovers that the actual target is M and the trigger is an old wound that relates to her handling of a past situation. As he struggles to tackle the menace of the cyber avenger, Bond goes back to another hitherto unexplored emotional dimension – the death of his parents. It is in dealing with his own relevance and the most painful chapter of his life, that Bond needs to find the wherewithal to protect M and prepare himself for the future.

Acclaimed director Sam Mendes works with a script created by Bond regulars Purvis & Wade and John Logan, the writer of such films as Hugo, Any Given Sunday and Gladiator. Together they create a dramatic canvas far richer than any of the early Bond films, so much so that ‘Skyfall’ could pass off for a drama film. What Bond fans will miss is the stylish detailing of Bond’s gadgetry and of his villain’s elaborate empires. What Bond is handed by a young Q is a gun that fires when it matches his palm print and a radio transmitter. Closer to the end it is shotguns and knives that he gets to use, not exploding pens and submersible cars. The setting is very visibly British with Jaguars and Land Rovers galore and is set in the heart of Bond’s work – England.

Structurally, the story has many loop holes and flaws and misses the slow lure of ‘Casino Royale’ which sucks Bond into a pivotal moment that defines him for the future. The central concept is introduced rather abruptly towards the end when it could have been allowed to sink in slowly. Daniel Craig as James Bond convinces us yet again that he is the Bond for the moment and for the future as news of his new 5-film deal comes in. He shows physical and emotional vulnerability in a fast changing world but is not given enough dramatic license by a weak script. Judi Dench as M gets into the plot once again post ‘The World is not Enough’ and shows her toughness yet again in managing MI6 as well as a tenderness towards her protégé. Javier Bardem is very impressive as Mr. Silva but ends up playing the archetypal villain and is allowed to rise above that only briefly.

‘Skyfall’ is worth watching if you are interested in the future of Bond, just as much as you are in his past.

Cocktail (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 03:13:00 +0000

He is a womanizer who likes peeking up women’s skirts and would sleep with anything feminine that moves. She’s a homely comely and lonely Indian bride looking for her now-English Indian husband in London. Yet another she is a party animal who parties more, works less and chooses a man for dinner each night if he is able to grab her rear properly on the dance floor. As these 3 ‘characters’ gyrate, prostrate and copulate in front of you endlessly, the remnants of your brain that can be peeled off the floor can be the ingredients for a perfect Cock (‘n Bull)Tale.

The story surprisingly is good on paper but is translated in the most abysmal way on screen. As a womanizer and a man-eater move in together in her London apartment, he can’t help get attracted to her best friend, a married woman who is homeless when her husband refuses to accept her after marrying her in India. With the triangle formed by interval, the rest of the movie revolves around blending your brain into milk shake with lewd dialogues (Why don’t you take me to pee. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before), insipid acting and a corny excuse of a screenplay. The cast of ‘characters’ is rounded off by a semi-gay uncle of the womanizer and a menopausal mom. Ask no more.

Homi Adjania has come a long way to the absolute Abyss after a well-received Being Cyrus. One can’t associate the writing work of Imtiaz Ali with such trash on screen. The dialogues are what let the film down the most. They make ‘Golmaal’ and ‘Wanted’ sound like Ben-Hur and Moses. A couple of laughs here, a couple of thoughtful moments there is all that the movie can inspire. Oh yes, you can of course choose to laugh ‘at’ the movie.

Saif Ali Khan is at his absolute worst. His comic timing, intensity and dramatic capabilities are completely absent. He ends up making faces at the camera and showing us his waxed legs and chest instead of spunk. The character is written to inspire disgust and hate no doubt, but it does so not for the right reasons, but because you hate the way it is played. Diana Penty does a good job of playing the weepy Indian bride, but the best performance of the 3 is that of Deepika Padukone, who shows some intensity in playing the party animal with a wounded heart.

Avoid Cocktail like the plague.

Lilies of the Field (1963)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Sat, 19 May 2012 12:18:00 +0000

Movies are a mirror to the latent capability of in all of us. Through the courage of their characters, they inspire people to dream and those with dreams to achieve. 'Lilies of the Field' is a rousing film that warms the heart and shows us that events in one’s life are connected and they occur so as to nudge us in the direction that we are to meant to take.

When a group of broke East German nuns, who migrated to America pray for a Chapel to be built and for God to send them an Angel, they encounter a migrant construction worker Homer Smith who has a passion for building things, who stops by their mission for some radiator water for his car. While he has no intention of staying back, he is taken in by their devotion and by the hardships they encountered in coming all the way to claim a parched piece of land that was willed to them. He puts aside his quest for a job as a foreman and agrees to build the chapel single handedly. The local townspeople admire his commitment and slowly convince him to let them help him. He moves from being a worker to a foreman, managing a decent sized crew. In the meanwhile, he teaches the nuns some English and shows them a fun and melodious way to sing and say Amen. In building the Chapel, he earns his stripes as a foreman.

The movie came out during one of the most racially difficult periods in America. It brings together an African American man and German nuns in a spiritual quest that symbolically eliminates the racial angle completely. Homer Smith and Mother Maria trade ‘Hitler’ barbs at each other every now and then. While the story is simple, it has an endearing quality, an innocent quest of purpose that one finds missing in today's cynical times. The nun's quest to build the chapel so that people of the region could have a place to reflect and pray in is only matched by Homer Smith's quest to move up in life. The story blends in both these objectives into a common one beautifully and that is the usp of the movie.

Director Ralph Nelson could not have chosen a better actor to play Homer Smith than that icon of the African American race - Sidney Poitier. ‘Lilies..’ was a precursor to the movies such as 'In the Heat of the Night' and ‘Guess Who's coming to Dinner'. In ‘Lilies..’, he portrays a man who gives new meaning to his ability, by channeling it into a completely different yet connected direction and lends his powerful personality and acting ability as only he can in an Oscar winning role. He is ably supported by Lilia Skala, who plays Mother Maria, the tough talking but kind hearted and devout Head of the Order.

‘Lilies of the Field’ is a fine example of life's many detours that show us our path.

About Schmidt (2002)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:00 +0000

Alexander Payne’s movies are about subtle shifts that his characters make, not dramatic ones. When a retired Warren Schmidt loses his wife of 42 years, he looks at what is left of his life – a lonely existence and a faraway daughter who is about to marry a ‘nincompoop’ of a man, much against her father’s wishes. ‘About Schmidt’ is a moving film about an older man looking back at his life and wondering what he has achieved and what’s in store.

Warren Schmidt retires from Woodmen of the World Insurance, as a senior actuary and is on the verge of settling down to a retired life with his wife Helen. He and Helen are integral parts of each other’s lives, after four decades of marriage. But, Warren is unable to understand her and doubts that she understands him. One day, she collapses and dies and that leaves Warren with the prospect of having to live life alone in Omaha and having to put up with a weird son-in-law who he thinks is unfit for his daughter. He starts contributing to the upkeep of a poor African child Ndugu and writes letters to him, talking about the state of his mind.

He shares a distant relationship with his daughter and is needed only for his money and not for anything further participation in her life. Desperate to shake himself out of the morass of an unkempt house and an undisciplined life, he heads out on a road trip in his RV and tries to make a connection to his past – the place he was born, the university he went to and finally lands up at his daughter’s and make one final unsuccessful attempt to talk her out of her marriage to Randall. Now he has to reconcile to this and to living a life that is seemingly more and more worthless by the minute. Until, he receives a letter from Ndugu.

Alexander Payne is a fabulous screen writer. In every movie of his, he is able to use the elements of cinematic language to show characters in surroundings that tell us so much about them without the use of dialogue. In Schmidt’s case, the loneliness and worthlessness of being that he feels is brought out against the backdrop of long and winding roads of Nebraska and Colorado and pointless conversations that Schmidt tries to have with tyre store owners or Native Americans who run highway inns, that tell him nothing that is worthwhile. Slowly, he strips away every chance of hope or spark that Schmidt tries for and leaves him utterly naked towards the end. A finely crafted movie from the master.

Jack Nicholson delivers one of the best performances of his career. You often see him playing street-smart or quirky characters who have a zing about them that others don’t. As Schmidt, he plays a nobody, a man who has spent a lifetime working, providing for his family and once gone, will be ‘another brick in the wall’. His performance is a journey into the depths of futility, one that people shudder to undertake at this stage of their life. Kathy Bates as Randall’s mother is charming in a short role as a caring, yet nymphomaniacal mother of Randall.

‘About Schmidt’ is a master class from a master actor and director. Worth watching

Agent Vinod (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:23:00 +0000

While one is tempted to praise Saif Ali Khan on a brave attempt at creating an Indian super spy franchise filled with jazzy locations, beautiful babes, toys, explosive action, witticisms and what not, Agent Vinod ends up living in no man’s land and can neither be counted as a new flavor of super spy nor does it do a good job of copying the ones that have gone before it.

Agent Vinod, never reveals his name. He is shown breaking out of an ISI controlled terror camp in Afghanistan. The agency he works for – RAW, the Indian intelligence wing is alerted of a nuclear bomb that has fallen into the hands of terrorists. The bomb needs an activation device which is embedded in a copy of Omar Khayyam’s collection of poems - Rubaiyat. This is up for auction in Morocco. Vinod needs to follow the device, capture it and return it to RAW, but ends up losing it thanks to some counter intelligence work by Iram, a Pakistani spy. While initially wary of Iram, Vinod grows close to her after he learns of her conscription into spying by the ISI. They now have to make sure that the nuke does not make its way to Delhi and go off.

I wouldn’t fault the basic story. It had all the ingredients of a multi-country end of the world plot, something that super spy movies thrive on. The locations range from Afghanistan to Morocco to Karachi and our very own New Delhi. But, you don’t enjoy movies just because of locations. The logic that a few powerful people are behind some of the terror that is seen in the world is also believable. Where Agent Vinod fails to tickle the senses is in the sordid screenplay, pitiful editing and monotone acting by its protagonist. Pritam's background score and music tracks are forgettable and do nothing to help the visuals.

Agent Vinod makes you notice the Editor. An Editor is like a wicket-keeper in cricket. If he’s had a good day, you don’t notice him. If he is brilliant, you do. If he is woeful, it sticks out like a sore thumb. In this case, the tempo of the film is all messed up, a clear case of poor co-ordination between the Director, Editor and Music Director. It could also be put down to poor screenplay writing. One can easily see the screenplay inspirations – Bond’s brief flirting with Money Penny before entering the boss’ chamber, his introductory scene in Die Another Day, befriending a gay man to further his means from The Day of the Jackal, so on and so forth.

Several moments, where the main character of Vinod needed to stand out with a crisp one-liner or a zoom-in are botched up, as is the climax. Comprehend this - when a breathless person struggling for oxygen gives you a name, do you ask her to spell it? The dialogues are largely cheesy. When Iram is struggling to hold back tears on her return to Karachi, Vinod tells her ‘Sorry to disturb your Yaadon ki Baraat’. The attempted deadpan humor falls flat throughout the movie.

There are some positives though – a pre-climactic sequence, where Vinod and Iram escape from their hotel is shot much like a music video in 1 long shot of 10 minutes and is done very well. This film finally portrays an Indian operation as an intelligent coordinated one with some semblance of technology used to fight crime.

Saif Khan never allows his real-life charisma to feed Vinod. The character appears confused and is a botched up combination of ruthless, sexy, humorous and emotional. Towards the end of the movie, you wonder what this guy was all about. In hindsight, the look he reveals at the end of the film, should have been his look. Kareena Kapoor as Iram does a better job, but is not convincing as the conscripted spy. She does her best to pout her way through and is not helped by poor writing. The support cast is good with a combination of good character actors, who make the film somewhat bearable. But only just.

Agent Vinod is a poor attempt at creating an Indian super spy. Give me Byomkesh Bakshi anyday.

J.Edgar (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 09:39:00 +0000

Biopics are always challenging. As a film maker you have to absorb multiple view points of the character and look to present as much of an objective view as you can. But you are ultimately driven by your own conviction of what the person was or is. J.Edgar is the depiction of a complicated man, who had the drive to create an effective national security organization, the FBI but who, along the way rubbed many people the wrong way with the flexible boundaries that he drew for himself and the freedom he allowed himself in creating his own legend.

The story begins in medias res, with an older Edgar narrating his autobiography to many FBI agents, who are well versed in typing and English. The story of his life is interspersed with events of the present and the narrative moves back and forth like intricately woven fabric. Edgar’s belief that the United States needs a robust forensic methodology leads him to head up a new group, an anti-radical division that starts cataloguing records of citizens and suspected radicals like a library catalog system. The story traces the evolution of the FBI, the setting up of its Crime Lab, the deft handling of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and several campaigns against suspected communists, anarchists and other public enemies of the State.

His professional growth is often marred by brushes with Presidents. His career overlapped with 6 Presidents. He authorized phone taps and audio recordings of affairs of heads of state or their spouses, both hetero and homosexual in nature. He built a positive image of the agent and fed that image to popular culture through comics and movies. He is shown in this movie as a gay man, but a ‘chaste’ one who adores Clyde Tolson, who he makes his deputy in the FBI and spends most of his time with. His relationship with his mother, the dominant influence on his life forms the core of his existence as she guides everything from his eating to dressing to dancing style. He even wears her clothes after she passes on, to feel her presence in his life.

Dustin Lance Black, who wrote ‘Milk’ writes a grim screenplay that projects J.Edgar as a serious man, committed to crime eradication amidst turbulent times. His choice of weaving the past with the present was a gamble. It makes it hard for the viewer to follow the story initially, but Director Clint Eastwood blends in the transition quite well and lets the viewer put 2 and 2 together about the man. The film does well to present a balanced view of J.Edgar and allows him to be judged by Tolson and by the Presidents who were his bosses and also provides for Edgar’s rebuttal to the charges. This allows the viewer to make her own choice. Cinematographer Tom Stern, an Eastwood regular creates a grim and dark mood throughout the film in keeping with J.Edgar’s own mood at most times.

Leonardo DiCaprio does a splendid job of portraying a more rotund man from his youth right through to his death. He shows Edgar’s difficulty in avoiding the attraction to men, while stopping himself from indulging himself very well. His portrayal of Edgar’s studied and practiced manner which helps him overcome his childhood stammer and be seen as a powerful leader is one of his best performances. However his voice modulation could have been better as Edgar sounds the same when old or young. Naomi Watts as Helen Grady, Edgar’s long serving secretary and Arnie Hammer as Clyde Tolson do a splendid support job.

J.Edgar is a good biopic, which lets the viewer make up their own mind

The Descendants (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:16:00 +0000

‘The Descendants’ presents difficult choices to its protagonist Matt King – accepting the impending end of his wife’s life versus hating her for cheating on him, selling thousands of acres of inherited property versus preserving it for the region’s future. In doing so it sends across a subtle, yet profound spiritual question – when nothing is permanent, can you hold onto something forever.

The situation that the writers (author of the original novel, Kaui Hart Hemmings and Alexander Payne, one of the authors of the adapted screenplay) put the protagonist into has to be praised for its complexity. Matt is a lawyer who is the trustee of a family owned land that has to be sold as per the law of perpetuities, which forbids a testator from keeping a property from being distributed perpetually to ‘the descendants’. His wife hurts herself during a boating accident and is comatose and on life support, which must be removed shortly.

Matt is unsure of whether he has to grieve for her impending loss or be angry with her for cheating on him, a fact that he learns of from his teenage daughter. His relationship with his 2 daughters is difficult, with him having been a back-up father. He has to somehow manage the next few days and ease his wife to her death while dealing with his anger, confront her lover, hold his daughters together as they come to terms with their mother’s condition and take a decision on his ancestral property.

In addition to this, he has to deal with his older daughter’s obnoxious boyfriend, his father-in-law who blames him for her accident and his relatives, who are pressing him to sign on the dotted line to sell the property for which he is the signatory. In short, his cup runneth over.

The screenplay has an undertone of the morose, while keeping the surface very close to regular life. The setting of the film in Hawaii underlines the irony, for the stereotypical view of a holiday place is that everyone there is happy and everything is hunky dory with them. The film starts by bashing that very stereotype as Matt reveals to us his situation. I like movies that spend the first 10 minutes with a protagonist narrative that makes it clear to everyone.

The beauty of the film is in the way Payne gets his actors to live out these difficult days on screen with a balancing act so close to life, filled with judgments, biases, complicated relationships and so removed from screen life which is simpler and much more sorted.

George Clooney as Matt King is superbly understated and very convincing as the angry yet mournful husband, tottering father and unsure signatory, who finds in him a greater sense of responsibility than before. Performances by Shailene Woodley as the older daughter Alex and Amara Miller as the younger daughter Scottie and Nick Krause as Alex’s obnoxious boyfriend round up a stellar support cast.

‘The Descendants’ is a good watch for its realism and for the absolute difficulty of this situation.

The Artist (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:31:00 +0000

Sometimes people notice a movie due to its sheer uniqueness. Even then, it need not guarantee its path to acceptance and glory. But, ‘The Artist’ is not just the first silent movie since time immemorial, but is also a simple story told with heartfelt emotion that takes us back to the original definition of cinema – a story told with pictures.

‘The Artist’ is a story of the passage of time, and more precisely of the passing of the flame from the old to the new. When that happens there are people that cross over and those that get left behind. Silent movie star George Valentin does not believe that the talkies are the future, despite his studio telling him so. Before he knows it, the studio directs their finances and projects to the talkies and promotes newcomers including Peppy Miller, a dance extra who he gives a break to.

With his ego not permitting him to accept the change, he drowns his money into making one more silent movie, that flops badly bankrupting him and sealing the fate of his already failing marriage. He is forced to move to humbler quarters and auction his belongings to make ends meet. All along Peppy keeps a tab on him and longs for him despite her own ascendency to stardom. Finally, when George tries to end his life unsuccessfully, she takes him under her care. Would his pride come in the way when he realizes that she was helping him all along, even buying out his furniture through a proxy? That’s what the film tries to show us.

The beauty of making a silent film lies in the simplicity of pictures vs. words. Yes, there are times when you have to show dialogue on a placard for the audience, but that is barely necessary as the screenplay is so symbolic, it is almost allegorical. For instance, when Valentin looks across the empty theater that is screening is last film, the final frame shows the actor sinking into quicksand, symbolic of the end of that era.

Michel Hazanavicius’ screenplay and direction is filled with gems like this that makes it so easy for the viewer to get what the auteur is trying to say. At times it seems like the story is too simple, that the characters are living in a cocoon. But you come to terms with it once you realize the pride that envelops Valentin. It cripples him and removes takes away all his options

Jean Dujardin is brilliant as George Valentin. What a fine and expressive face! He immerses himself into this role and portrays the rise, fall and redemption of the character superbly. A richly deserved Oscar for him. Bernice Bejo as Peppy Miller is an able foil and shows excellent body language in portraying a younger and peppy actress. It is Dujardin’s movie. The dog Jack, played by Uggi the dog serves up many neat tricks and will easily go down as one of the most famous screen animals.

‘The Artist’ takes us back to the basics of cinema and to fundamentals of time and its passage.

Drive (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:17:00 +0000

A series of images is shown to you, each held by the auteur on a string, releasing and pulling back, toying with your interest. Pause and silence are tools that are as old as cinema itself. The silent era makers mastered it and many legendary film makers have used it since. ‘Drive’ transports you to a mythical nether world, where time and space has its own meaning, an artistic take on a visceral subject.

The unnamed Driver in character is a bit like Jason Statham’s in The Transporter. He is only interested in the job, not in the context. But he is quieter and deeper, rarely talks. Driver works at a garage, whose owner tries to get him to be a race car driver, by arranging for finance from a gangster Bernie Rose and his doubting parter, Nino. He befriends his neighbor, a young mother Irene, whom he falls in love with, but withdraws upon learning of her jailbird husband, Standard, who is to be released.

When Standard comes out, he promises to go clean but is forced to do one final job to pay an old debt. Wanting Irene and her son to have a safe life, Driver volunteers to drive the getaway car for Standard. When things go wrong, Driver needs to figure out who is behind it and how to protect Irene.

While the story is fairly plain, the usp of Drive is its outstanding screenplay by Iranian writer Hossein Amini. He succeeds in creating a film about longing, set in this small little world of five to six people. Nicolas Winding Refn, brings Amini’s words to life and plays with pace and silence in creating moments that leave you on the edge, in anticipation. His depiction of the romance between Driver and Irene is more about what is hidden, than what is shown.

Ryan Gosling’s performance is superb. It’s very hard to play a role that requires you to convey more by doing less. His chemistry with the charming Carey Mulligan is excellent. She effectively portrays a sad young woman, holding on to the feeling of love, while being aware of the reality of her life. Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman as the gangster bosses lend good support.

‘Drive’ has depth. A good watch.

Moneyball (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:12:00 +0000

Moneyball explores the classic battle of right and left brains and concludes one thing: you need both. It also shows us how to maximize returns when you have the constraint of investment. But along the way, it shows us the courage of Billy Beane in experimenting with a system of rating players that enabled him to build a baseball team with limited means, that would go on to have the longest winning streak in American League history. And it does so with little fuss.

Billy Beane is the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, a team that is losing key players and unable to afford good new ones. Beane is himself a failed Major League player and divorced parent, who chose to forego a study and play scholarship from Stanford to enter the League. Frustrated with the traditional approach of the team’s scouts, Beane proceeds to negotiate with the Cleveland Indians to exchange some players and stumbles upon Peter Brand, a Yale Economics graduate who works as a researcher for the Cleveland Indians. He is intrigued and impressed by Brands espousal of a sabermetric approach to rating baseball players, that aims to provide an objective view on player performance.

Beane hires Brand and proceeds to fight numerous battles with the team scouts, team owner and the team coach, who do not seem to understand Beane and Brand’s choice of players. The A’s manager, Art Howe does not start any of the players picked by Beane and Brand and is ultimately forced to do as Beane sells players to push Howe into a corner. Beane’s gamble pays off as the A’s enjoy the longest winning streak in history. It gets Beane the biggest General Manager job offer ever from the Boston Red Sox. Will he take it or think about taking one more major decision in life for money or follow his daughter’s advice to ‘enjoy the ride’?

Written by the screenwriting pair of Aaron Sorkin and Steve Zaillian who have individually written films such as A Few Good Men and Schindler’s List to name a few, the film plays down a lot of the drama that is normally associated with sports films and sporting moments. The focus is very much on Billy Beane and his colorless life, his unfulfilled baseball dream and a broken marriage. The A’s progress is seen through Billy’s eyes more than it is on the field. This provides freshness to the treatment of a redemption story, while not going overboard in taking Beane to Deliverance.

Bennett Miller’s direction gives us several special moments in the film. The best one being Beane walking up to Peter Brand’s desktop in the Cleveland Indian’s office and asking him ‘Who are you?’ repeatedly until Brand is stripped of all his defenses and revels his true role. Miller’s filming of Beane’s fear of jinxing the A’s by attending the game and his sensitive relationship with his daughter make the film a lot more emotional than the title would suggest. The interspersing of Beane’s failed past as a player with his experiences as a General Manager has been done well. The conflict between the objective and subjective views of sport has been shown realistically and understandably left unresolved, with a subtle hint towards using both together as the Red Sox intended to.

Brad Pitt serves up another serious acting performance that won him an Academy Award nomination. As Beane, he often as a wry smile on his face as he takes on the A’s set methods with persistence and patience. Jonah Hill as Peter Brand who won a nomination delivers an earnest performance as the talented economist who is unsure of his place in the world until Beane finds him.

Moneyball is a mature sports film.

Agneepath (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:17:00 +0000

From the first frame to the last, Karan Malhotra’s reinterpretation of this classic revenge story takes you on a voyage through the high seas of hatred steered by a single minded pursuit of death. So much so, that once you are done with it, you realize that ‘Agneepath’ circa 2012 occupies its own rightfully earned space as a story dipped in smoldering intensity.

He keeps the basic nature of the plot the same as the original. An avenging son, Vijay Dinanath Chauhan makes it his life mission to end the life of Kancha Cheena, a man who converted his village Mandwa to a drug haven after killing his noble father Master Dinanath Chauhan. A young Vijay runs away with his pregnant mother to Mumbai and befriends a gangster Rauf Lala and wrests control over the drug scene in Mumbai from him and starts negotiating with Kancha, who is keen on plying his wares there. In return for Mumbai, Vijay wants back his beloved Mandwa. Will that be enough to get ready Kancha for a face-off?

In setting the film in the early nineties, Malhotra helps his cause by using a simplistic environment for a story that has a fairly one dimensional structure. No cell phones, no internet. Just good old fashioned fixed line phones and an ear to the ground providing people with information. In such an environment, an island called Mandwa off the coast of Mumbai can be a fortress ruled by Kancha Cheena, and yet be dipped in intrigue without being Googled or Google Earthed or even covered to death by a raucous media.

The usp of this film is the effort spent in characterization and several influences can be seen. Sanjay Dutt as Kancha Cheena is Satanic, dragging people off, after judgment to be hung on a banyan tree at the edge of this island, a ritual inspired by many folk tales we see in Indian and Western literature. His devilish persona is very well etched and is uncompromisingly black. A fantastic performance by Dutt. The music and background score by Ajay-Atul are extremely evocative and compliment the action superbly.

Rishi Kapoor as Rauf Lala, the human and drug trafficker who is used by Vijay to get ahead is calculative and menacing as the head of a mafia family (complete with the stereotypical combination of a loose cannon and a mentally challenged son – Godfather and Angaar). Vijay’s love interest Kaali, played by Priyanka Chopra seems to be the only misfit in this film as she does precious little to move the story or the character forward and is ignorable in the side part, underserving of her top billing. Glimpses of Godfather and Parinda are seen again as the love story turns tragic.

The most difficult part for the makers was re-creating Vijay Dinanath Chauhan. The writer has moved the character far away from the one played by Amitabh Bachchan. The new Vijay is less noticeable in a crowd, quieter and more intense. He is shrewd and will use anyone in order to get closer to the one objective of his life-kill Kancha and avenge his father’s death. Hrithik Roshan plays the most difficult role of his career as recreates the iconic character in a different way, thus making it interesting for the viewer. His brooding intensity in this role and the eruption of his anger show us the progress he has made as an actor over the years.

The flip side of the film lies in the fact that we see Kancha only sparingly. After his gruesome act in the beginning, he is heard of only in references until the second half. Perhaps it was done to create more intrigue about him, but he is missed during his absence and one wonders, how he is plotting things at his end. There are inconsistencies in the look of the young Vijay and the older Vijay. The young Vijay looks darker with brown eyes while the older Vijay is fair with green eyes. Cinematic license should not be taken too far in today’s time of perfection.

Agneepath is a good watch. Even if you are tempted to compare it to the original, you will find that the remake holds its own.

Irma la Douce (1963)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:47:00 +0000

‘Irma the Sweet’ is probably Billy Wilder’s sweetest film. The master of satire paints a beautiful love story against the backdrop of the sleazy red light area of Paris between a prostitute and a simple loving man. He wants to keep her off the street and she wants to stay on to earn enough for both of them. Therin lies the problem.

The story revolves around Irma, a successful prostitute who struggles to remember the faces of the many men that she beds. In trying to bust this prostitution ring, policeman Nestor Patou loses his job because his own Chief is a regular customer at the brothel. Penniless, but with a heart filled with kindness, Patou impresses Irma, so much so that she moves him into her apartment and promises to take care of him by working the streets harder.

Patou wishes to earn to keep Irma off the street, but she doesn’t let him. Along with a bartender across the street, he devises a plan where he disguises himself as Lord X, a wealthy English gentleman who becomes Irma’s regular customer and pays her 500 Francs per meeting, which occurs at a regular frequency. Patou’s challenge is that the 500 Francs comes to him/Lord X from the multifaceted bar tender called Moustache, goes to Irma and comes back to Patou which he gives back to Moustache. The ploy works for a while, until Irma decides to elope with Lord X!

Satire is a very difficult genre to master. At its best, it leaves the viewer somewhere between being aware of the innate sadness in the situation and being happy with the comedy that is built around it. Wilder’s genius comes out in this film as he manages to sidetrack the inherent sadness of Irma having to sell her body for money and Patou’s inability to get her to stop, with some brilliant situational comedy with witty dialogue and quirky characters. Based on Alexandre Breffort’s French play, the story keeps you entertained right through with the delicious exchanges between Patou, Irma and Moustache. The only let down was the climax which seemed watered down, after such a good build up.

Jack Lemmon as Patou/Lord X excels in a fabulous role. He is an expert at portraying suffering characters with an innate goodness in them. As Patou he is his archetypical self, but it is as Lord X that he delivers a master class in using costume and accent to convincingly become a foreign character. Shirley McLaine as Irma is wonderful as the nonchalant mercenary of a prostitute who likes to wear green stockings. Never considered a beauty, she wins you over with a clever mix of charm and wit. The show stealer is Moustache, played by Lou Jacobi as he gloats about his prowess in everything from being a soldier in Dunkirk to a lawyer and a Professor of Economics.

Irma la Douce is a wonderful film that shows us the sweetness of simple emotions that often go missing in a cynical world.

We Are Marshall (2006)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

At first glance ‘We Are Marshall’ comes across as the soppiest sports movie ever. But, on closer examination one can relate to a situation, where turning up on the field is in itself, victory. And for a university that lost its entire football team, coaching and support staff in a tragic plane crash, turning up took a lot of tears to be put aside.

The story begins exactly at the opposite point, at a time when nothing other than victory mattered for the ‘Thundering Herd’. In losing this team the University and the town of Marshall, lost the spark in their lives, a reason to smile and a reason to believe that the athletic program needed to be continued. With the efforts of a few surviving members of the team, who could not be on that ill-fated flight and the persistence of the President, the program is continued with. After many a luckless interview, Jack Lengyel, an odd man who walks in an odd way and says odd things takes up the challenge of building this team from scratch; a challenge that many before him have turned down.

Facing severe talent shortage, owing to competing schools, he gambles with a strategy of building the team with freshmen, something that needs the Dean to get special permission from the NCAA. He picks freshmen from baseball and basketball and builds a team that he calls the ‘Young Thundering Herd’ (a great lesson in positioning). But the road to being a competitive team is filled with emotional pot holes, with the scar of loss still very fresh in the minds of the players.

It takes a while to get used to the mood of this film. Usually sports movies are about redemption and often have a subtext of personal or professional drama underneath, which finds its resolution in a sporting finale. The first half of the film is spent in the sorrow of loss and only in the final quarter of the story, does one see the hope that many a sports film seek to inject into the audience. Many of the exchanges between the principal characters fail to evoke the underlying emotion that they carry and the build-up is tepid.

Having said that, the on-field sequences and the climax is very well choreographed and shot by director McG, of Charlie’s Angels fame. Here he makes a film with more heart and substance and manages a passable version of what could have been a deeper exercise.

Mathew McConaughey as Lengyel does inject some life into the film with a seemingly studied character portrayal of a real person. His efforts are sadly not matched by many of his co-actors, barring David Strathairn as the President and that does not help the cause of the film.

‘We Are Marshall’ is a true story with a lot of steel in it, but the silver screen version has more tears.

Midnight Cowboy (1969)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:30:00 +0000

The dichotomy of the portrayal of innocence is that innocence is accompanied with a belief that the world and its ways are understood. But in reality, the belief ends up becoming a fallacy. ‘Midnight Cowboy’ is an exploration of the innocence of Joe Buck, as he believes in his innate ability to be a hustler, a male gigolo who can make it in the Big Apple. His experiences and his friendship with a street smart cripple, who becomes his pimp, teach him otherwise.

When Joe decides to quit his job as a dish washer in the local drive-in and dons a cowboy outfit, he leaves behind a past that shows an upbringing by his grandmother, a serious relationship that ends in rape and tragedy and a stint in the military that ends with the death of his grandmother. Enamored as a child, by the image of a cowboy, one of his grandmother’s many boyfriends, Joe believes that he is the ‘true stud’ and has the physique to be a hustler and wants to make money off rich women who would pay him for their pleasure.

Joe comes to New York, quickly runs out of money and is cheated by a rich woman, a gay youngster and a Bible thumper. He befriends an ailing cripple, Rizzo who moves Joe into his run-down apartment and as his pimp. Rizzo, the son of a shoe cleaner has only seen a life in the dumps and dreams about going to Miami and living off beautiful women who abound there. Rizzo sets Joe up finally with a woman, who will be Joe’s entry into the business, but falls terribly ill soon after and asks Joe to take him to Miami, as a panacea for both their problems.

The story is really a series of vignettes, or seen differently, a series of mirrors, each either reminding Joe of his past or making him realize the inadequacies of his present. Waldo Salt’s screenplay is a superb psychological exploration of Joe as he goes back and forth, stumbling at each step and learning nothing right up to the end when he realizes the true nature of his heart. Rizzo’s character serves in part as a balance to Joe’s seemingly self-destructive journey and in part as a nudge that makes Joe take the direction he was meant to take.

John Schlesinger, who would later go on to make Marathon Man shows the stark contrast of this simple country boy in a big bad city, who is out to be someone that he cannot. John Barry’s wonderful soundtrack headlined by Nilsson’s ‘Everybody’s Talking’ provides a reflective backdrop to the viewer as he taken through this misfit’s journey.

Jon Voight as Joe Buck plays out his finest role as the lost boy trapped in a cowboy outfit. His character portrayal evokes sympathy for the tragic life of this young man, who seems to be escaping to a far worse future than the past he is trying to leave behind. Dustin Hoffman as Rizzo brings to the table, his own incredible performance as Joe’s conscience and the beacon that leads him out.

‘Midnight Cowboy’ is a very moving film about life’s about-turns.

Don 2: The King is Back (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Don 2 is a pizza made with toppings from James Bond, Mission Impossible, Oceans 11 and even the Dark Knight. The crust is not rich enough and toppings are bland. A disappointing offering from a Director who set the standard for intelligent cinema, made within the commercial framework. As the title suggests, the film is so much a homage to the character that it makes the rest of the cast look weak, a move that costs the film much needed balance and makes Don’s challenges look quite easy.

The story starts with Don giving himself up to Interpol in Malaysia, a strategy employed to get Vardhaan out of jail, so that he could give him the key to a locker that has a tape, that can be used to blackmail Diwan, the VP of a European bank called DZB, that has printing plates for the Euro. That is the entire first half. The second half is dedicated to a heist, where Don and Vardhaan have to break into the high security DZB to get the printing plates. The additional challenge is for Don to escape the Interpol led by old love turned foe, Roma and double crossers that he accumulates as he plans the elaborate theft.

To start with, the story is too one sided. The objective to glorify the intelligence of Don could also have been achieved by improving the capabilities of his adversaries, especially Interpol and also of crooks, who have worked with him before. Instead we are subjected to more than 2 hours of tributes to the legend of the character, while the action leading up to the dialogue just doesn’t match up. The action sequences, such an important part of this genre, all seem lifted from a variety of mainstream Hollywood films and hence lack originality, at least to a discerning viewer who has been exposed.

The characters all seem too stupid or too lame to do anything to stop Don. Vardhaan is constantly bickering and playing catch up: Roma and a guy who wants to be her boyfriend, not to mention the rotund Inspector Malik round up the intelligentsia of Interpol. Farhan Akhtar has revealed that the story came from two fans who came in to his office with the idea. He would have done well to help them polish it for the screen. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music is peppy and does well in the only major song of the movie-Zara Dil Ko Thaam Lo, which is shot well.

Shah Rukh Khan does a great job of portraying the street smart, charming yet menacing character. He lights up the screen with his trademark snarls and chuckles and makes the rest of the characters look pale-too pale. He is sadly let down by the lop sided character balance. Priyanka Chopra as Roma and the talented Boman Irani as Vardhaan are wasted, while Om Puri should take a cue from his equally talented contemporary Naseeruddin Shah on choice of roles and slipping into character.

Don 2 is disappointing. Strictly for fans of Shah Rukh Khan.

Fire in Babylon (2010)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:30:00 +0000

For someone like me, who learnt about the Richards and Lloyds and the famed pace quartet, their size, shape, menace and excellence through first-person tales from my dad, ‘Fire in Babylon’ gave me a glimpse of what was behind arguably the greatest team to have played the game of cricket. The film shows us how they used their talent in the game to create a voice for the racially suppressed, to strike a blow for their people against the assumed superiority of the white colonial masters.

This is a cricket documentary, but the game is just a brush to paint a richer cultural and racial overtone. The narrative starts with the concept of Babylon, a term in the Rastafari religion that is used to describe regimes that have suppressed and racially vilified the black race. West Indian cricketers like Clive Lloyd, Viv Richards, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Dereck Murray, Colin Croft and Joel Garner recount almost in rhythm, the shame that had been inflicted on their race by England and on the cricket field by England and Australia and the pain they shared with their brothers around the world and especially in countries like South Africa, where the aparthied was at its peak.

The ‘Calypso Entertainer’ label was worn very grudgingly by this generation that inherited the title from a previous generation that saw cricketers like Gary Sobers, Wes Hall and Lance Gibbs to name a few, win global acclaim but were never considered world beaters, just good entertainers. The journey begins in Australia in the 75-76 series that sees the Windies lose 1-5.The on-field loss and the on and off field racial sledging hurt their pride, which led Clive Lloyd to say ‘Never Again’.

In 1976, India was the first victim of the Lloyd’s new strategy, of aggressive, dominating cricket albeit played within the rules of the game. I remember Gavaskar writing in his book 'Idol's about wanting not to get killed, a sentiment shared by many of his team mates. The West Indians took this strategy to the English shores, where they were further instigated by South African born Tony Grieg’s racial comment on making them ‘grovel’. After decimating England, the Windies return to Australia, where they display their new brand of cricket and stun the Aussies and every other team in the world right up to 1995.

Stevan Riley’s direction provides a unique mix of perspectives – cricketing and cultural. The cricketing commentary in the film is provided by the cricketers themselves, laced with cultural undertones. The cultural commentary is provided by an array of musicians, authors, researchers across the Carribean ranging from a member of Bob Marley & The Wailers to a groundsman.

With Bob Marley’s famous tunes ranging playing in the background, the footage is an interesting mix of match recordings, advertisements, interviews and still photographs expertly put together to create an environment of chaos, similar to what the opposition faced when they crossed swords with this team. The intensity and passion in the voices and the fire in the eyes of these West Indian cricketers is something that the current team should see and imbibe if they have not done so already. Their association with the pain of slavery, of the historical looting of Africa is obvious in the way they speak about the green, gold and red colors as depicted in the Rastafari symbol.

The documentary is very clear in its focus only on Test cricket, with Tests being the highest form of the game. However, if they had chronicled the West Indians’ One Day International (ODI) record during that period, they would have seen a similar dominance that included 2 World Cups and a 5-0 blackwash of the then newly crowned world champions India and a Win-Loss record of 172 games in 267 played. The omission of the Windies’ rivalry against Pakistan in the 80s and the closely fought series against Australia in the early 90s is conspicuous by its absence.

‘Fire in Babylon’ is a wonderful depiction of the almost mythical stature of a group of men, who made an entire generation of African-origin people across the world, believe in themselves and raise their voice against racial oppression.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:47:00 +0000

Brian De Palma’s Mission Impossible started a series that has not managed to live up to its basic identity of an intelligent espionage thriller. The series stumbled with John Woo’s stylized slowmo romanticism and continued to slide when JJ Abrams’ pushed it further into soppy revenge realm. With Brad Bird, a director known more for his animation work such as The Incredibles and Ratatouille, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol sees a revival of sorts as it goes back to being an espionage thriller, but misses the intelligence of the first and gets stuck in the Russia bashing stereotype of the cold war.

The story revolves around a now single Ethan Hunt, who is out to save the world again. This time, a Kremlin bombing which took place at the same time as that of Hunt’s mission there, sees the IMF being disbanded because of Ghost Protocol, which the President has initiated. Hunt is told that the blame for the US-Russia standoff and the bombing is blamed on him and is offered a helping hand by the IMF secretary when he is handed a mission to stop the perpetrator of the Kremlin bombing, Cobalt from arming and deploying a Russian nuclear missile.

Hunt has the help of a new crew – a vengeful chick, an Englishman and a remorseful ex-agent and a basic set of supplies that he needs to use to chase Cobalt and prevent him from getting all that he needs – launch codes and a Russian satellite to relay the codes to a Russian nuclear capable submarine. How he goes about completing this ‘impossible’ mission is what we get to see.

First up, the thrill is back. The screenplay is racy, the action-inventive and pulsating. Then there are the Burj Khalifa stunts and car chases in a desert storm that are breathtaking. But the writers, Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec have a serious problem with logic and imagination when it comes to the story as they rely on clichés such as rogue Russian satellites and chances of nuclear apocalypse. Bird’s direction misses drama in the subtext which involves Hunt’s team having an ex-agent who was careless enough to cause the death of his wife and the lady-agent becoming an avenging angel for her agent-boyfriend who is killed. Dramatic moments fall flat and the post-climactic mushiness is tremendously irritating.

The characters are bland – the English pencil pusher turned agent, the penitent ex-agent turned chief analyst and the avenging angel just don’t grow on the viewer. They don’t visibly progress much in the course of the story either, a key ingredient of good story telling. Neither does Cobalt, whose views seem to be loosely modeled on Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. He is portrayed as just another trigger happy thug and that takes away the balance of the story.

Tom Cruise is back as the man of action, a departure from some of his dramatic efforts in recent years. He is as convincing as Hunt as he was in the first leg and does a very good job with a character that is thankfully more about the mission than about romancing a gal or protecting a wife. Jeremy Renner’s acting intensity is wasted as he sleep walks in analyst cum agent mode. Simon Pegg as the lovable pansy does not endear himself and neither do his Brit jokes. Paula Patton has a perennial frown on her face which forms her standard response to anything that is thrown at her, including an incredibly wasted Anil Kapoor, as a billionaire playboy who also has access codes to a Russian satellite. Kapoor should have signed on a David Dhawan film and stayed in character than do this.

Watch MI4 for the thrills, but if you want the real deal, go back to the first one.

The Dirty Picture (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:34:00 +0000

‘Water Water everywhere, but not a drop to drink’. ‘The Dirty Picture’ brings out the paradoxical existence of the celebrity, someone whom everyone wants, but no one loves, a springboard for many ventures when on the ascent, but a sinking stone in the depths of anonymity when out of favor. The film is a hard hitting tribute, but is more of a mirror held to the grime behind the celluloid, that is so often applied on those that want to make it big and also fuels the age-old debate about cinema-entertainment or meaning?

The story, told through a narrative by Abraham, a film director who loves to hate vulgarity on screen, begins with a young girl Reshma, with stars in her eye, who runs away from her mother’s protective care to Chennai. Here she tries her luck at becoming an actor and a dancer, but meets with failure time and again. Her hunger due to poverty and lack of work is only matched by her hunger to make it big, no matter what it takes. She finds a niche for herself when she discovers her innate oomph and sex appeal and brandishes it boldly to catch the eye of a producer Selva Ganesh. He names her Silk and casts her opposite an aging yet powerful superstar SuryaKanth, whom she beds to further her career.

As her popularity rises, so does her disillusionment with the way she is perceived, something that her starry eyes never cared for in the beginning. She is always the sidekick and never the bride. The lack of love and acceptance from the men in her life and the insults from an industry that also benefits financially from her sexy avatar, finally begins to tell as she distances herself from her supporters through acts of frustrated brazenness. As her body begins to lose shape and the booze takes over, her attitude plummets as do her film offers. She finds a new soul mate in her worst critic, the meaningful filmmaker, Abraham, who tries to salvage her sinking ship. Is he too late?

The structure of the story is clearly demarcated by the struggle, pinnacle and decline phases on either side of the interval. The screenplay by Rajat Arora is commendable for the energy it possesses, backed by hard hitting dialogue, bold costumes and in-your-face cleavage. The unsung hero of the film is Vishal-Shekar's soundtrack that transports you into the 80s with, hold your breath-Bappi Lahiri and the background score that makes you really feel every moan, grovel and gyration. Kudos for a neutral Hindi accent portrayal of South Indians, an undeservingly lampooned section of the population in Hindi cinema.

Milan Luthria attempts a dream subject for a director as he captures the rise and fall of arguably one of the biggest stars of the 80s, while being careful not to judge her, a very important factor in a biopic. He shows a mirror to the hypocritical view of skin show on screen, and to industry and media for the opportunistic manner in which they treat their golden gooses. However, he leaves the story imbalanced, by not focusing enough on the parallel track to Silk’s story, that of director Abraham’s conversion from a staunch proponent of meaningful cinema to a masala mama.

One loses track of the countless Oscars and Golden Bears won by actors playing troubled, faded, fading and dead stars and celebrities. Vidya Balan stakes her claim to every major acting award in a performance that should set the gold standard for character acting in this generation. Everything about her seems transformed – her physicality, body language, suppleness and attitude. She is Silk and to portray Silk, she needed something that most actors in her generation don’t possess-guts. Naseeruddin Shah as Suryakanth, is superb as a lecherous old man, who believes in his own immortality as a star. Emraan Hashmi and Tusshar Kapoor just about pass muster as Abraham and Ramakanth, Surya's younger brother.

‘The Dirty Picture’ is a superb and hard hitting tribute and tickles some reflection too.

The Odd Couple (1968)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:28:00 +0000

Felix and Oscar united in 1968 to create a comedic combination that propelled Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau to be counted alongside Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, Gene Wilder & Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks & Gene Wilder to name some of the best in the business. Based on a play by Neil Simon, they add pressure cooker intensity to comedy that has you sweating as you laugh.

The story revolves around two single men, one divorced and rich sports writer, Oscar Madison and the other a recently separated devoted family man, Felix Ungar, who come to live under the same roof when Oscar offers to take in Felix into his 7-bedroom apartment, because he has nowhere else to stay. But there is a problem. Felix is obsessively clean and Oscar, compulsively sloppy. Little do they realize that what could have been a guy’s dream bachelor pad turns into a marriage of a different kind.

The film in setting stays close to a play. Most of the action takes place in Oscar’s apartment with very little outdoor footage. The claustrophobia felt by Oscar, brought about by the sultry New York weather and Felix’s obsessive cleaning frenzy is brought out superbly in Neil Simon’s screenplay and filmed with a lot of dexterity by Gene Saks, himself a great stage director. Like in all classic comedies, the laughs only serve to hide something deeper inside. Felix and Oscar are dear friends who are close. They are also lonely men, who look for company in each other, while reflecting on what went wrong in their marriages. While you laugh at their plight, you also feel for their situation.

The dynamic duo are at the peak of their powers. In a tribute to Lemmon at the AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards, Walter Mathau spoke of him as an actor who makes you see pain and suffering through the eyes of someone very close and familiar. Those words are resoundingly true as Felix shows pictures of his children and his ex-wife and breaks down, realizing the enormity of what has hit him. Walter Mathau plays the reactive role, with Lemmon taking charge with his histrionics. He masters the New York accent which pronounces first as ‘foist’ and his trademark deadpan responses and quippy one-liners are a perfect foil for Lemmon’s balderdash.

‘The Odd Couple’ is a landmark in comedy.

Grumpy Old Men (1993)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:58:00 +0000

“Putz, Shmuck, Moron..”, the list of insults exchanged between the love-hate cousins, Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau keeps you in splits as they re-ignite the chemistry that made movies like ‘Odd Couple’ and ‘Fortune Cookie’, classics. ‘Grumpy Old Men’ is one of the last comedy duel films, something of a rarity these days. It tides over the simple plot line to give you charming moments, good laughs and some pulls at the heart strings.

The story revolves around two grumpy neighbors, John Gustafson and Max Goldman, who can’t stand each other. They use insults for pleasantries in a war that started in the 1930s. The bone of contention between the two is a woman, who both wanted, but who chose John. Max felt cheated despite marrying an equally wonderful woman. Both spend their days ice fishing, where John spends time with his 91 year old father and suffers an inferiority complex to Max when it comes to snaring fish. With both men widowers now, and John claiming to not have had sex in 15 years, a beautiful widow enters their lives and moves in across the street. The turf war begins again. Will Max be denied again this time?

Films like ‘Grumpy Old Men’ rely a lot on the cutesy nature of the characters, funny and quirky interactions and witty 1-liners. There are plenty of them peppered right through to the end, making the lack of a solid plot bearable. Donald Petrie’s direction subtly unveils a subtext of loneliness that is shown delicately in the film, albeit with a light touch. At the end of the day, John and Max are lonely old men, who have their TVs for company while eating a ready to eat dinner, who envy friends who die in their sleep as being ‘lucky’. The film also touches upon the last grasp, the yearning for another shot at a relationship, at some thrills and at 70 years, an orgasm. Guess what ‘taking the old one-eye to the optometrist’ means!

The acting honors go to the incredibly funny duo of Lemmon-Mathau, each a great actor in his own right, but with distinct styles. Lemmon is a nervous, edgy actor and Mathau, a slouch sloppy mover with a dead pan expression to kill for. The surprise packet is the 91 year old Burgess Meredith, famous for playing Mickey in the ‘Rocky’ series and Penguin in the ‘Batman’ TV series. His character, John’s father’s obsession with sex is portrayed superbly by Meredith as he implores his son to ‘mount her’ because the first 90 years of his life have passed by in a flash and it might be too late to do it. Ann-Margret as the love interest is dishy enough at her age to attract two over the hill men.

‘Grumpy Old Men’ is good clean laughs.

GoodFellas (1990)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:02:00 +0000

‘GoodFellas’ is very different from the brooding Greek tragedy that was ‘The Godfather’ series and the guttural stylized gangster’s life in ‘Scarface’. It offers a matter of fact look at the lives of gangsters and explains why they do what they do. Scorsese’s triumph is that he opts to look at the world through their eyes rather than look at their lives and the outcome from the outside.

The story revolves around Henry Hill, a young man who starts the film by saying that as far back as he could remember, he wanted to be a gangster. It traces Henry’s fascination with these men, the power they had at their fingertips, the money that they could throw around and the respect they command from the community. He defies the belt-whipping of his father to embrace the world of crime and quickly grows into a bootlegger and counts on Tommy DeVito, Jimmy Conway and Paul Cicero as his closest friends and associates. As the group sees more money, they also see arrogance and a trigger happy attitude that finds them digging a lot of graves for people killed whimsically.

Henry’s life begins to change when he adds on the perks of a gangster’s life, the regular girlfriend who lives near his home, the addiction to drugs, the violent marriage and a constant fear of being caught. As time goes by, he begins his drug business, and is busted. He gets out but with the FBI on his heels, he sees his close associates distancing themselves from him and threatening to kill him. He needs to protect himself and his family and decides to go into the FBI’s witness protection program.

Scorsese’s treatment of this film is like the view of the world through a fishbowl. The narration by Henry Hill right through the film makes it a very reflective and a very explanatory journey for the viewer. Interestingly, the screenplay starts from the middle of the film, goes back to the beginning and then continues to the end. This is very different from the in medias res plot structure, where the end is shown and the story builds up towards the end.

One spectacular one-shot sequence shows Henry taking his girlfriend from the parking lot through to the Copacabana night club shows the viewer the kind of power that a gangster wields. A very innovative screenplay by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi, the author of the book ‘Wiseguys’, on which the film is based. The soundtrack is filled with classic rock numbers by the Rolling Stones and Cream.

The acting honors go to Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta. Pesci plays the hot headed Tony DeVito, a man who has scant respect for human life and just can’t take a joke. DeNiro plays Jimmy Conway and again, the method actor in him shows Conway’s life over a 30 year period. Ray Liotta as Henry Hill shines in the most important role of his career and was unlucky to not have won awards for his performance. He shows Henry’s transition from wide eyed apprentice, to ace gangster and to a disillusioned and troubled snitch superbly.

‘GoodFellas’ is a title dipped in irony but a story steeped in reality.

Ironclad (2011)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:13:00 +0000

‘Ironclad’ is a micro-epic that looks at the siege of Rochester Castle by King John in the 13^th century. It shows the bloody struggle of the upholders of the Magna Carta as they seek to defy John, who decides to rescind after signing the treaty. While not scoring high on the emotional front, the film delivers somewhat on its key promise: action.

The story revolves around the Magna Carta, a document that grants Englishmen equal rights and reduces the overarching powers of the monarchy. Forced to sign it by a group of Barons, King John decides to go back on the agreement and starts a vicious military campaign to destroy the Barons one by one. En route he kills Abbot Marcus, who was being protected by 3 Knights Templar. One of them, Marshall vows to avenge the Abbot’s death and with the help of Baron Albany, puts together a small team of men and proceeds to take control of Rochester Castle, the key to Southern England. King John with his group of Danish mercenaries arrives and the siege begins.

The film is not cerebral at all. The characters are uni-dimensional and the body language and the belligerent manner in which they interact has all the makings of an action film minus the brains. The small group of defenders is a poor imitation of the spaghetti western with characters as diverse as a portly warrior, a nymphomaniac and a carpenter who leaves his 2 children behind (remember Unforgiven?).

However, Jonathan English’s direction can be praised for the rawness with which he has shot the battle sequences. That alone is the usp of the film. Although the scale is small, the sequences showcase the brutality of real action vs. cinematic bells and whistles that are often added. You can see mining techniques being used to demolish the castle, using pig fat as the explosive. His attempt to showcase the love between a reluctant Marshall and the daughter of the protector of Rochester falls flat with both actors unable to ignite the passion. A deeper characterization of John, Marshall and the Barons would have helped add depth to the story.

The acting honors sadly go to no one. The incredibly talented Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of King John, shows him to be depressed, weak and slightly off-center. Although history suggests that John had a complex personality, none of that comes forth in this film. The one scene where he berates Baron Albany on the virtues of the Royal family is the stand out performance in this film. James Purefoy as Marshall, does not pass muster as the brooding Knight.

‘Ironclad’ is a passable film, if you are tired of heavy films and need some mindless action.

Sideways (2004)

noreply@blogger.com (Srinivas B Vijayaraghavan) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:53:00 +0000

‘Sideways’ is a pot-bellied road-trip movie that likes drinking a lot of wine. It is slow, mature, sensitive and sinks into you the way a glass of good wine should. Director Alexander Payne has been an explorer of middle aged dilemmas. In ‘Savages’, he looks at the life of 2 middle-aged siblings who need to care for their aged father. In ‘Sideways’, he traces one week in the life of 2 middle-aged friends, at the end of which, one will get married and other would need to let his broken marriage go.

The story revolves around Miles and Jack, 2 friends who decide to go on a week-long road trip through wine country in California. Jack is a struggling TV actor who is about to marry a rich woman. Miles is a struggling writer, depressed and forlorn owing to a divorce, something that he hasn’t been able to let go of. Jack nurses a fantasy of getting laid on the trip and warns Miles not to get in the way with his sadness and disinterest in the good things of life. Jack befriends 2 girls, one a young hot single mother Stephanie and the other a divorced mature woman Maya and they double date. While Jack cozies up to Stephanie, Maya and Miles start talking. While Miles finds himself getting attracted to Maya, her love for wine and her views of life, he knows that he has to let the past go.

The story is as expected anecdotal, which is typical of this genre. Such films work if the road trip is seen as truly a life changing period in the character’s lives. In some cases, like say ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ or ‘Motorcycle Diaries’ or ‘Easy Rider’, it is more pronounced. In some cases, like ‘Sideways’, it is a subtle shift. Alexander Payne keeps the pace as slow as possible, in order to give the viewer a taste of the characters, the way they would taste wine. When we go through difficulties in life, it is natural for us to identify with the idea of difficulty, than with ease. When Maya asks Miles, why he loves Pinot noir so much, he goes into length to explain, how difficult it is to grow that grape and in doing so reveals a lot about his love for wine and about his inner turmoil. The film won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Paul Giamatti delivers a fabulous performance as the cerebral, suffering Miles. His portrayal of a man, who is struggling to come to terms with the end of a relationship, while spurning efforts to get him out of that state is a superb demonstration of balanced acting. Thomas Haden Church as the more visceral, red blooded man who wants the last grope at being wild before he settles down is the perfect foil for Miles as he tries to shake his friend out of his self-pity escapade and make him see the light. Virginia Madsen, as the angelic Maya who gives Miles just the soothing nudge he needs to move on is effective in a small role that earned her an Oscar nomination.

‘Sideways’ is a grown up film. Great for a Sunday watch.