Srini at the Movies

Greyhound - learning decision making with data and judgment

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 13:22:00 +0000

Hi there

In the latest episode of “Filmy Manager”, we look at how Commander Krause leads his naval destroyer “Greyhound” to shepherd hundreds of merchant vessels across the Atlantic Ocean teeming with U-boats and how he uses data, his men’s opinions and his own judgment in taking calls that would save thousands of lives

https://anchor.fm/filmy-manager/episodes/Greyhound---balancing-between-data-and-common-sense-eign16

Happy Listening

Sincerely

Srini

The Founder - Filmy Manager Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 06:47:00 +0000

Hi there

In the latest episode of “Filmy Manager”, we look at how copycats find more success than originals by looking at the story of Ray Kroc, the legendary founder of McDonald’s

https://anchor.fm/filmy-manager/episodes/The-Founder---why-copycats-find-more-success-than-originals-eien50

Happy Listening

Sincerely

Srini

Launching the "Filmy Manager" podcast

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 12:48:00 +0000

Hey There,

Four years after the launch of my book "Filmy Manager" by Hachette, I have launched the Filmy Manager Podcast

There are stories to tell, from my experiences of watching and learning from movies, there is a thrill in revisiting your favourite characters and stories on screen to understand them and learn from them, apart from getting entertained by them.

Join me on this journey

Warm Regards

Srini

Sanju (2018) Film Review

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 14:19:00 +0000

“Bad choices make great stories”. The movie starts with this maxim but instead of giving us a vivisection of a complicated man, it presents us with a fawning interpretation of a classic sex, drugs, guns and rock ’n roll lifestyle and reserves its sharpest criticisms for anyone other than the man himself.

The film begins in medias res with Sanjay Dutt about to re-enter jail to serve the jail term that he’s been sentenced with. He is desperate to have his story written by Winnie (not the Pooh) a world renowned biographer. Why? Because no one wants to write the biography of “a terrorist”, the moniker that has hung on his neck ever since he was apprehended in the aftermath of the 1993 Mumbai blasts, for possessing an AK-56 rifle. While Winnie has the same reservations as other writers, she is offered tidbits of life story by Sanjay so that she sees his side of things rather than be informed by what she reads in the newspapers. The wafer-thin logic on which Dutt places his argument is “journalists don’t know me, don’t live with me, how would they know if I am a terrorist or not?”. Anyway Winnie bites and what ensues is a highly sanitised and selected rendering of the life of one of the most polarising personalities of the Hindi film industry.

The story starts with him working on his debut film, dealing with his mother’s illness and her death, fumbling through an early relationship (no mention of Richa Sharma, Rhea Pillai, la Dixit) and takes a sharp turn towards his days in rehab, finding a true best friend Kamli and finally making his mark in and as Munnabhai (no mention of Naam, Saajan, Sadak and other iconic performances). The most endearing part of the story which serves as its spine is his relationship with his father, Sunil Dutt, a towering personality who became the bulwark of his troubled son’s life. The father-son dynamic is expertly handled in the story and provides the movie’s most heart-warming moments. Perhaps the most striking criticism of Dutt is from his best friend Kamli who advises Dutt senior that his son is just an ordinary man, not an extraordinary one like his father. But such moments are few and far between.

Biopics are often riled for what they leave out and the reverence with which they treat their subjects. In this case, even what is retained is lathered with Hirani honey to the extent that Sanju left to himself can do no wrong but every wrong of his either has an instigator or a logical reason (he took drugs because his friend tricked him into it, he kept in touch with the mafia because he was scared and wanted to be friendly with everyone, slept with Kamli’s girlfriend because he wanted to check if she would be faithful to him and finally he kept a gun because he was scared that his house would face a mob attack and he receives the gun from Abu Salem no less). Even when a visibly drugged Dutt places a toilet seat around the neck of a girl he dumped at the altar, all she musters to Kamli is "don't tell him any of this when he gets sober. He won't be able to take it". This is the film’s biggest failing and is reminiscent of hagiographies like “Guru” that didn’t dare project their subjects in any other light but white.

They say an actor can never rise above the narrative. Ranbir Kapoor’s portrayal of Sanjay Dutt will always be jaundiced by the inadequacy of the film in presenting to the viewer the thought process behind every bad choice that the character says he has made in his life. Having said that, he delivers a nuanced and heart-rending performance that deserved a more gritty and meaningful platform. His brilliance is matched by Paresh Rawal as Sunil Dutt who embodies the kindness of the man and projects the strength of personality that won him respect in all walks of life. Vicky Kaushal as Kamli, Dutt’s best friend is outstanding and so far his choices as a young actor mirror those of Ranbir in his first few films. The rest of the cast including the likes of Manisha Koirala, Anushka Sharma, Diya Mirza and Sonam Kapoor are largely side shows to this trio.

Raju Hirani is a master storyteller. But all story tellers have a responsibility to their audiences. You cannot hoodwink people and say that the sources from where they got their information are all false. It is true that the media today has never been more compromised. The findings of the Cobra Post sting have exposed it further. His scathing attack on the media and his questioning of the veracity of anything we read in the papers today reeks of his own artistic freedom being compromised. The dreaded "?" that he highlights as a key hook in any conjectural article can very well be placed at the end of his own film's title. Whither the man who has provided cheerful yet incisive takes on society, religion and education. He can’t make a bad movie but he would do well not to venture into biopic waters again.

The irony is that “Sanju” is an entertaining film as long as you forget that it is a biopic of Sanjay Dutt.

Ki & Ka Review - High on Novelty, Low on Content

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 07:14:00 +0000

Ki & Ka offers a satirical examination of the long-held perceptions of the roles in an Indian marriage. But in doing so, the film sacrifices character-building and good story-telling at the altar of novelty. It’s like a visiting a click-bait site – tempting inducements get you to click on a link, but gauzy content leaves you disappointed.

The film casts an unusual Bollywood pair – a senior actress who is riding into the sunset after a decade at the top and a young Turk hungry to make his mark. They are a few years apart in age both in life and on screen and are well cast for their roles. While Kabir is the son of a rich real estate mogul who wants to be a home maker like his late mother, Kia is a marketing executive and a climber who has dreams of being a CEO. His need to be a home maker fits like a glove into her need for a marriage without a man being envious of her ambition.

Balki takes time to set the story up ostensibly to explain Kabir’s view of the world – why he wants to be a home maker and Kia’s take on a woman’s role in a marriage. It’s like a freshman course one has to take before starting the real one and it robs the film of much needed momentum right at the start. Having done that, he moves them from having met and dated to getting married in double quick time leaving the viewer exasperated. Only when he starts exploring the day to day issues that married couples face, with the roles reversed, does the film pick up pace and interest. Long time Balki collaborator, Ilayaraja's usual synth-pop music score makes an ineffectual appearance every now and then.

The most impressive bits of the film are when the two characters begin to doubt their respective approach to the relationship. Kabir begins to realize that Kia’s ambition is something he is growing tired of and Kia suspects that Kabir’s comely attitude towards her ambition could be a tactic to build a brand for himself as a unique home maker. But he falters again as he builds up to a denouement that’s as vapid an experience for the viewer, as watching paint dry. As a director, Balki’s scene construction and his camera movements leave one flummoxed. Maybe it is an ad film maker’s curse, but the quivery and quaky handling of the camera becomes distracting as the story moves on. It’s one of those rare one or two-set movies where most of the action takes place in an office or an apartment and he creates a nice little world for these characters to inhabit.

Both actors Arjun Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor-Khan do a sincere job in an undercooked plot that doesn’t serve their acting abilities well. Kareena as Kia has the more complex role than Arjun’s and she shows glimpses of the kind of actress she can be if she gets a good director and part. The refreshing presence of Swaroop Sampath is wasted in a poorly constructed mother character that is only too happy to let things change in her house without even a murmur of protest. The immensely talented Rajit Kapoor is wasted in a one-dimensional role as Kabir’s disapproving father.

Balki has set a high standard for himself on making good films that are unusual. He delivers only on the latter here.

Filmy Manager - Business Insights from Bollywood Films

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 05:29:00 +0000

I've been writing movie reviews since 2004 on this site. It's been a while since I wrote one, so here goes. I've released a new book 'Filmy Manager' with the aim to provide business insights from Bollywood movies and have profiled 18 movies and mapped them to Leadership, Strategy, Organizational Behaviour, Entrepreneurship and Storytelling - 5 essential skills I believe every manager should have.

I've always watched movies more deeply than others. I get very reflective while watching movies and would often liken situations on screen with my own personal or professional life. I would always look for what a movie could teach me, apart from entertaining me. So movies became my library and my window to the world and they continue to be.

As I progressed in my career, I had the opportunity to get a first-hand experience in various aspects of running a business and learnt by closely watching industry leaders who I have worked with personally. I figured that the basic qualities that all good managers require are –the ability to lead, the ability to strategize, to manage people and organizations, to take risks and innovate and to communicate.

During my MBA I realized that a lot of the management literature and teaching followed the case method. While this is a globally accepted practice, it is also an impersonal way of learning a concept – you can’t always relate to that exact situation a company found itself in thirty years ago. And in reality management decisions are always taken with imperfect information – you rely on what you can find and let your experience and instincts kick in.

On the other hand, we always relate to movies in a personal way and at the core of every movie story is conflict borne out of imperfection. And then it struck me – why not combine the insights that I have gained by watching movies and map them to these five qualities that good management must have. That’s how ‘Filmy Manager’ was born.

Uniqueness

My vision for this book is that, readers will start looking for more in movies than just entertainment and that movies will become reference libraries for our professional and personal lives. Writing Filmy Manager was like conducting a Film Appreciation class and an MBA class at the same time!

The 18 movies were stripped down scene by scene and analysed to pick out nuances. Apart from my own experience, I have consulted published management research in journals as well as practical management opinion across books, articles and speeches. As the research is done from a movie and management point of view, the writing needed to be done in such a way that a person who has seen a movie featured in the book sees it in a new light and a person who has not seen a movie will understand what the movie is about without having to watch it. ‘Business lessons from Bollywood movies’ is an interesting cocktail and it has been the most rewarding experience developing and writing this book.

'Filmy Manager' is available in paperback (http://amzn.to/1pa31Pp) and kindle http://amzn.to/1TTfpjx versions around the world. It is available in all leading bookstores across India

I hope you enjoy reading it.

The Great Bollywood Tamasha

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 14:01:00 +0000

The Great Bollywood Tamasha

The Business of Bollywood has changed rapidly in the post-liberalization era of mass consumerism. Gone are the days when Jubilee Kumars, Kapoors, Khannas and Bachchans would celebrate Silver Jubilee (25 week run) or Golden Jubilee (50 week run) Hits. Today’s Bollywood celebrates weekend hits. Yes, all that a movie needs, in order to recover its budget is to run for any length between 1 weekend and 1 week. If a movie runs for a 2^nd week successfully, it crosses the new Holy Grail of the turnstiles – ‘Rs. 100 crore nett.’. For an industry that has for long been criticized for lacking originality and for brazenly ‘lifting’ or ‘being inspired by’ or legally ‘remaking’ films from the ‘South’, this new trend should have engendered a new breed of cinema. But unfortunately this has given them license to churn out more trash than substance.

Bollywood has long suffered the image smear that financers with dubious reputations bring with them. With the studio system in Bollywood having collapsed, only a few established movie production houses remained - Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Rajshri, to name a few. The title of producer would hang loosely on anyone ranging from businessmen to front-men of Dons, operating either from Mumbai or from overseas. Films were a good way to make quick returns or in the worst case, to get rid of excess cash and to schmooze with beauty. But that was still pre-liberalization, license-Raj India, where everything was centrally controlled and among other things, channels of entertainment were in short supply. It was either the ‘good old’ Govt. run DD or a local live act or the comfort of the local single-screen cinema. The Indian was starved for entertainment content.

The economics of Bollywood movie making changed in the 90s due to two parallel forces – Ram Gopal Varma in urban India and Mithun Chakraborty in semi-urban and rural India.

Ram Gopal Varma, a maverick director from the ‘South’ shot to prominence with his seminal ‘Shiva’, a powerful story of a young man who stands up to the local crime syndicate in his college and city. Upon his successful cross-over to Bollywood from Telugu-wood, with ‘Rangeela’, Varma started what was called ‘the factory’. The factory was a group of young directors backed by a producer, who would make movies at a quick pace. Some were made by the boss himself with larger budgets and canvas, while many were made by the newbies who were keen on filming hitherto unexplored subjects. Varma was the producer and gave freedom to his young charges to make movies such as ‘Shool’, a movie that explored the difficulty of being honest in the Bihari heartland. Good actors who were not yet celebrities like Manoj Bajpai or fading actresses like Urmila Matondkar and Raveena Tandon were chosen to work on these movies that were shot in a short span of time, at low budgets and released in quick succession. The costs were spread and the profits accrued to the factory.

Mithun Chakraborty, a 3-time National Award winning actor and a success of the disco-inspired Bollywood era of the 80s had retired to the hills to focus on his Monarch Hotel. In the 90s, Mithun’s Dream Factory produced a slew of movies that were shot in Ooty and nearby locations. The targets were semi-urban and rural centers that would not figure in the distribution radar of big films. Mithun released a staggering 30 films in 1998 and 1999 combined, at a rate of 1 film every 3 weeks. Needless to say, his model worked even though some of his movie titles like ‘Cheetah’, ‘Jallad’ and ‘Ravan Raaj’ made you squirm.

While this happened at the production end of things, another development was afoot on the demand side – cable television. With licenses given to cable operators to offer a multitude of TV channels to the hungry Indian, both domestic as well as international groups like Zee, Star network and Sony entered Bollywood’s scared space. Now you could enjoy tens of channels, some of which played new and old Hindi movies and also Hindi soaps that were elongated and exacerbated versions of Bollywood family dramas. In the language of the economist, Bollywood had to compete with substitute products. One noticeable trend in the 90s was the number of parties that were thrown to celebrate milestones that were passé to the previous generation. A silver jubilee now became 25 days instead of weeks.

The model of the mavericks had to become mainstream now for profitability to be achieved. A variety of Bollywood players embraced the factory model. The corporatization of Bollywood was something Amitabh Bachchan tried his hand at doing with his ABCL in the mid-90s, but he failed to execute profitably and had to file for his company’s bankruptcy. But there are others that have had much success with this.

Production Houses and Distributors started evolving into entertainment business companies that made films, distributed them and also licensed content to cable television and a variety of digital properties on the internet. Production houses such as Yash Raj and Mukta Arts that would hitherto focus on big films made by their owner-directors like Yash Chopra, or Subhash Ghai respectively, now started producing smaller budget films and also embraced distribution of other’s films and of their own. Yash Chopra’s son Aditya has directed only 2 movies in a near-20 year career since 1994’s ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge’ but has produced over 30 since. Subhash Ghai, a prolific film maker in the 80s and 90s has produced 24 movies since the year 2000 but has directed only 2 of them.

Entities like Tips that started out distributing LPs and cassettes entered film production. Companies like Eros that were pure-play distribution companies, have also entered film production, as have corporate players like Anil Ambani whose Reliance Pictures is a key distributor and producer. Star-kids like Karan Johar have revived their father’s production house Dharma Productions, using this model and Ekta Kapoor has successfully entered the fray through the side door of television with her Balaji Telefilms, which is today a listed company. Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani (Excel Entertainment), Aamir Khan (Aamir Khan Productions), Anil Kapoor (Anil Kapoor Productions), Akshay Kumar (Hari Om Productions) and hold your breath – John Abraham (John Abraham productions that made Vicky Donor as its first film) have all jumped the bandwagon.

Along with this transition, the economics of movie making also changed. By selling music rights to a music distribution company, satellite rights to a TV channel and domestic and overseas distribution rights to a distribution company, a producer can recover anywhere between 100 to 50% of the cost of production of his film and even be in profit before the Friday of the release. Now, all that is needed to recover the left over portion is for the film to run for 1 weekend or 1 week. If a producer with deep pockets, who is also a distributor, can afford it, he can distribute thousands of prints and recover the amount with even 50-60% occupancy over a single weekend. Shah Rukh Khan’s Ra.One released with over 2000 prints worldwide across all languages. His 170-crore magnum opus broke even.

The magic of this statistic has also been influenced by the rise of multiplexes and multi-brand retail in India. The multiplex arrived in the new millennium as a collection of smaller theatres that could screen 10 different movies at a time, 5 shows a day. The customer experience had food and beverage to go with comfortable seating, clean and neat movie halls with sound proof walls and Dolby Digital blaring out everything with excellent clarity. The upwardly mobile Indian middle class embraced it. With multi-brand retail, arrived the shopping mall. In every nook and corner of urban and tier-2 India, malls abound, almost always with a multiplex embedded within. Now, the mall becomes not just a shopping center, but a hangout place for the young ‘uns, a family outing spot or just a time pass spot for anyone who has time to kill. The substitute for Bollywood had moved from cable television to other forms of time-pass entertainment.

Now Bollywood films are just one of the options to the 21^st century Indian who can choose from TV, IPL, Malls, Video-Game parlors, Go-Karting zones, pubs, restaurants and a slew of other entertainment options. In order to look for that 1 weekend of magic, Bollywood turned to marketing – or more specifically film promotion.

Film promotion is the set of activities that are intended to inform and influence an audience to go and watch the movie. In the earlier generation of Bollywood, films were marketed with hand painted bill boards and posters that were placed at strategic places. Newspapers would carry information about upcoming releases as would theatres. Film Magazines like Filmfare and Star Dust would feature the top stars and also carry tid bits of information on new film releases and would be used as PR channels by movie makers. Today, with the flood of information on the internet and on the street, it is hard for a film to jostle for space in a consumer’s mind. Film promotion as a discipline in itself has evolved enormously over the last 2 decades or so.

Earlier, actors and models occupied separate spaces. Rarely would a Vinod Khanna cross over and do a Cinthol ad or a Sri Devi a Lux ad. In the 90s, Shah Rukh Khan was the first person to break this glass wall between the 2 roles of actor and model, when he started endorsing Hyundai and became the brand ambassador for the first company to challenge Maruti’s monopoly of the Indian 4-wheeler market. Some criticized him, many admired him, but what he did made people realize that the actor is also a brand that can live in a consumer’s mind not just through his film, but through the product he endorses. Advertising centered on the film’s lead actor became an effective channel for film promotion.

Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand had taken a delegation from Bollywood to the USSR with great success in the 50s. Since then Amitabh Bachchan has gone on a few world tours and filled up eminent stadia like Wembley. In the 90s and early 2000s, a new trend of organized world tours started emerging with groups of stars and starlets being taken on these stage performance tours to a single country like the USA or to multiple countries where the Indian diaspora abounded. The idea of going on a promotional tour for a film emerged from these tours.

Now a set of film stars and the director would go from city to city and spend a few hours interacting with the audience telling them about their new film. Aamir Khan, an innovator in film promotion started this trend with ‘Lagaan’. He not only played ‘Lagaan’- inspired cricket matches at cricket stadia around the country but continued to do so even after the film was released. The seeds were sown for theme-based promotions, inspired by the theme of the film. Now promotional tours and association with events relevant to theme of the film became the norm. The trend of using traditional forms of film promotions like interviews or cover shoots of the hero-heroine continued as well.

With ‘Lagaan’, the seeds were also sown for the master to showcase his latent talent at film promotion. It is not a co-incidence that his films always have innovative and trend-setting promotions that others merely follow. In the 2000s, film promotion became more multi-dimensional than before with the addition of the ‘brand-partner’, a company that would synergistically align with the theme of the film to help its brand and that of the film. This was limited not only to traditional brands like food, drink and clothing, but also digital brands like MSN, Yahoo and others.

The turn of the century also fostered the internet revolution. Bollywood borrowed the micro-site concept that Hollywood uses effectively. Now every movie had a micro-site where fans could go and watch behind the scene pics, movie promotional pics, audio and video content and also interact with the actors. Aamir Khan, his latent promotional talents stirred with ‘Lagaan’ used MSN for ‘Mangal Pandey’, his next film. A look-alike contest was launched with MSN where people could use Mangal Pandey digital props like the long hair and handle bar moustache, superimpose it on their pictures and send it back to be judged. The winner was promised a flight to Mumbai, a meeting with Khan and other goodies.

For ‘Rang De Basanti’, Khan visited college campuses to bring out the youth-oriented theme of the film. He plays a hanger-on who doesn’t know what to do with himself, in the film. Coca-Cola tied up with the producers to introduce a ‘Piyo Sar Uthake’ to induce pride in the customer. Provogue brought out a clothing line, in keeping with the mood and message of the film. Airtel’s ‘Express Yourself’ was a tagline that aligned with the film and the actors visited a Delhi Campus to promote this very message. Out of the 25 crore production budget of this film, UTV spend a whooping 10 crore on its promotion – a 40% share as compared to the usual 5% typically employed. The film grossed nearly 100 crore worldwide.

The brand association bandwagon saw innovative strategies by other films such as ‘Bunty aur Babli’ which had the protagonists Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee read prime time news on NDTV in order to promote their film.

With ‘Ghajini’, promotional took off on another plane, as Ghajini-inspired haircuts were given by Aamir Khan to fans around the country. Radio Mirchi invited calls from people who wanted to line up for the cut. Mannequins replicating his sculpted look were placed in multiplexes all around the country. Using viral marketing, the film’s microsite started a ‘Find Ghajini’ campaign which would challenge the visitor to play the role of Aamir and to find Ghajini using a set of clues. Samsung, a brand that Khan endorses launched a range of Ghajini edition phones. The film turned out to be a box office smash and grossed 190 crore worldwide.

Even for a small budget film like ‘Delhi Belly’, a film which faced a lot of criticism before its release due to its abusive language, Khan brought out a series of ‘inverse marketing’ television ads with the protagonists of the film actually asking the audience not to see the film because it had words like bleep and words like bleep and other words like bleep. His wife Kiran Rao shot a set of music videos for the songs of the film which were licensed to MTV and other music channels to play out. A small budget film, ‘Delhi Belly’ went on to gross nearly 100 crore worldwide. He did the same with ‘Dhobi Ghat’ where he told people not to throng the theatres to watch him, because he wanted them to go based on the perceived merit of the film, not his own. Made on a budget of 10 crore, the movie went on to make 14 crore, a good performance for an artsy movie.

In keeping with the satirical theme of ‘Peepli Live’, Khan introduced a TV promo which poked fun at him. A reporter was broadcasting from a fictional village of Peepli from a shop which had biscuit and wafer packets with Aamir Khan’s imagery on them. She says that Aamir Khan will end up selling biscuits and wafers with his name if this film doesn’t do well. Once she goes off air, she is shown telling the shop keeper that Aamir Khan must be mad to make a film like this. The film grossed 3 times its budget.

With innovations such as these, that have spawned a countless remakes, film promotion today is a well-oiled and multi-player ecosystem with companies across retail, automotive, publishing, internet, broadcast, print and social media working together to promote a film.

Of the 1255 films released in 2011, 206 were Bollywood films. Taran Adarsh, the Bollywood trade analyst regularly brings out his ‘Diwali to Diwali’ report. He states that, from Diwali 2010 to Diwali 2011, 206 Bollywood movies released, but only 5 were big hits and 5 were good successes. This is less than 1% of the total number of releases. Clearly, while the business of Bollywood has evolved to make sure that no one loses money, it has not translated into improving the quality of cinema that one expects from the nation’s highest movie producing industry. It is also the 100^th year since Raja Harishchandra.

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 06:15:00 +0000

When was the last time you saw a theater full of people cheering an athlete on screen like they would in a stadium? Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s homage to India’s foremost track and field champion is an evocative triumph that successfully portrays the essence of Milkha Singh – his scars from the Partition, his poverty, his life of crime, his loving but broken heart and his outstanding athletic ability on the field.

The film begins in medias res, with the ill-fated Rome Olympic 400m final, in which Milkha Singh finishes 4^th, a result that is attributed in the film to a recurring reminiscence of his past. In the aftermath of that race, Milkha is reluctant to travel to Pakistan for a friendship series due to the scars he bears from the time of the Partition. As a group of people travel to Chandigarh from Delhi to try and convince him, his entire story emerges in a non-linear fashion. What follows is a masterful peeling of Milkha Singh’s persona, layer after layer until his wounded core is left exposed. Whether he is able to treat that wound and exorcise those ghosts is what the film tries to explore.

‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ combines the best qualities of the biopic and sports genres. Great biopics are about capturing the essence of the person and great sports films are about showing the growth of the athlete despite the odds until their biggest challenge faces them. Prasoon Joshi’s wonderful script portrays the flawed character of Milkha and is careful not to blindly deify him. The non-linear nature of the story allows a viewer to understand the context behind his decisions and his personality – a penchant for running since childhood, a life of crime taken up to overcome poverty in the refugee camps of Delhi, a life of crime given up to become worthy of a girl he loved, a burning passion to succeed on the field driven by an urge to run away from his past, to earn respect, to be the best he can be.

Omprakash Mehra’s direction leaves you spellbound from the start. His filming of the running sequences is realistic and captivating as is his intelligent use of graphic novel-inspired sequences to showcase Milkha’s ghosts. He maintains a sense of balance and avoids any temptation to over-dramatize any sequence. His showcasing of Milkha’s Partition experience is a master class. Binod Pradhan’s cinematography intersperses current with the past superbly and gives you a distinct view of different phases in Milkha’s life. Where the movie suffers is in the pre-climax where Mehra seems to lose a bit of steam – the train journey from Delhi to Chandigarh seems unending at times. The music of the film is energetic with the wonderful guitar riff on ‘Zinda’ setting the tone for some hard-core passion and athleticism.

Farhan Akhtar can easily be called the Warren Beatty of Hindi cinema. He has excelled in all aspects of film-making and in this film stakes claim to be called a first rate actor. In a genre of mainstream cinema where larger than life actors try to portray everything from college kids to nuclear scientists while changing nothing about themselves, Akhtar has worked tremendously hard to portray both the emotional and physical dimensions of Milkha and the results show. He looks every inch a sprinter and shows excellent running technique. He is ably supported by Mehra regulars like Nukkad’s Pawan Malhotra and Divya Dutta with inspired cameos by Prakash Raj, Yograj Singh and, hold your breath – Art Malik, the big-eyed villain in ‘True Lies’ as Milkha’s father.

‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ is one of the best biopics you will see. Don’t miss it.

The Great Gatsby (2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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 (Srini) — 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.