tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26494137235518252902024-03-19T21:08:16.878-07:00Deconstructing CinemaMovie Reviews across the globe...Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-70034333483431802772013-07-17T09:39:00.000-07:002013-07-17T11:54:58.594-07:00Lootera - The Many Moods of Love<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vikramaditya Motwane, the
creator of that flawless gem ‘Udaan’ is back again with his adaptation of
O.Henry’s short story ‘The Last Leaf’. Taking the premise and weaving a saga of
love, longing, betrayal and redemption around it, his ‘Lootera’ is a modern day
masterpiece, doing perfect justice to a timeless classic much in the same way
as Rituparno Ghosh did with his interpretation of O.Henry’s ‘Gift of the Magi’
in ‘Raincoat’. ‘Lootera’ brings alive an era long buried in the sands of time.
The year is 1953. The zamindari system is taking its last breaths before the
government wrests their lands away. In Manikpur, <st1:place w:st="on">West
Bengal</st1:place>, one such zamindar (veteran Bengali actor Barun Chanda)
dotes on his ailing daughter Pakhi (a brilliantly nuanced Sonakshi Sinha). At
the onset he tells her of that classic tale of the king whose life was
imprisoned in a parrot. Pakhi is his parrot. How that tales ties up beautifully
to the conclusion and the journey Pakhi’s heart takes across the mountains of
rousing love, heightened passions to plunge into the dark caves of loss and
betrayal before finding stable land in hope and renewed trust forms this
painting on celluloid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Into Pakhi’s privileged,
sheltered world walks in Varun (a wonderfully restrained Ranveer Singh) and
brings that first flush of romance and longing into her restless heart. It is
as if she were waiting to fall in love. She does, with covert glances and
unmistakably playful hints. Varun introduces himself as an archeologist in
search of a lost civilization around the zamindar’s land and gains the
zamindar’s confidence to be allowed to stay with his friend in the man’s own
house. The initial hour of the movie is a lesson in depicting romance on
celluloid. The painting lessons that Pakhi initiates to gain proximity to
Varun, his desire to be able to paint a masterpiece, the languid days under the
sun of picnics and stolen glances are a throwback to old world romance. Pakhi’s
confession of her heart’s secret, the surprising rebuff and her utter shock and
inability to handle the pain of rejection are so heartfelt and real that it
forms an immediate connect with the audience. Varun’s subsequent yielding and
their lovemaking has to be the most beautifully portrayed scene of love I have
witnessed in recent times.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The movie takes a turn for the
dark in the later hour and is set in the winter snowed in landscape of
Dalhousie. The contrast between the sunny days of innocence and the later
coldness of betrayal, grief and angst is stark and poetic. The beauty lies in
that, within the tragedy the tale completes a circle to light up the eyes of
its protagonist with hope and faith once more. Love stories are dime a dozen in
the Hindi film industry. There is a lot of song and dancing, obstacles galore,
and the inevitable happy (sometimes tragic) end we witness time and again. But
to witness cinema so sublime, with emotions so raw and palpable, love so
relatable, is rare and in that rarity lies the utter beauty of Lootera. Towards
the climax is a scene where Pakhi asks Varun if he had ever really loved her.
Her need to know that answer even after her life has irrevocably been changed,
and his response filled with an honesty and desperate anguish is a moment of
great art. It is altogether heart wrenching in its reality. Anybody who has ever
desperately loved and lost can relate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The movie is embellished with
great performances. Every character is a job well done from the zamindar, to
the friend and Varun’s partner in crime (Vikrant Massey), the zealous inspector
interestingly named K.N.Singh (a nod to that great villain of yore) played by
the wonderful Adil Hussain. But the soul of the love story is Pakhi and Varun,
Sonakshi Sinha and Ranveer Singh. Sonakshi is an actress I owe an apology to. I
have till now loathed her, a mere showpiece in mind numbing bollywood trash in
her short career so far. I was highly doubtful of her being cast in a
Vikramaditya Motwane movie because though I had no doubts of the director
excelling in his new venture, I had zero hope about the actress. For that I apologize.
Sonakshi gives a luminous performance in every frame, breathing life and fire
into the varying shades of her Pakhi’s journey. Her eyes twinkle and blaze at
correct intervals. Her self loathing at being betrayed by her own heart is
fierce. This is a performance to be forever proud of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The previously gregarious
Ranveer Singh reins in his exuberance, to find a performance of restrain and
expresses with his eyes. That silent tear rolling down his cheek caught in the
mirror before his betrayal, shows us how far the actor has traveled with this
role. In Motwane’s capable hands both Ranveer and Sonakshi and by extension the
audience has discovered hidden actors in the two upcoming stars. Motwane had
previously made that beautiful coming of age tale, the story of a boy spreading
his wings out of the autocratic atmosphere at home in ‘Udaan’. He makes a
wonderful departure with this old world love story. His touch is evident in
every frame, his sensibilities and aesthetics making for a movie where the
atmosphere is soaked into the tale, there is none of the flashiness of period
cinema that we observe in other Indian movies set in lost times. But in the
sequences, the gestures, the dialogues we find an era long gone, a world that
was not so caught up in pace, where people lingered over conversations, over
emotions. That elusive old world charm is at play here in every masterful
frame. But most importantly it is the raw emotion of that beast called love and
subsequent heartbreak that is so effectively displayed, so hauntingly real in
its tone. The cinematography by Mahendra Shetty is beautifully mellow and
shifting with the moods. The music by Amit Trivedi harks of the golden days of
movie melody. The songs are seamlessly integrated into the narrative.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Movies like ‘Lootera’
reinforces that all is not lost in the Hindi film industry. Where only
formulaic cinema seem to thrive, once in a while, like the first drizzle of
rain on parched earth comes along cinema that can only be described as glorious
visual poetry, a wondrous painting with strokes of the various moods of love
deftly portrayed on the celluloidal canvas. This is the best movie to have come
out of the Hindi film industry this year and it will be a hard one to beat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Released in 2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In Hindi <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My rating: 4.5/5</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-36531952057078221682013-06-06T17:45:00.002-07:002013-06-06T17:45:54.737-07:00Yeh Jawaani Hai Diwaani - Shallow lesson on Life and LoveAyan Mukerji showed tremendous promise in his maiden venture 'Wake Up Sid'. The heartwarming tale about a youth growing up and discovering his place in the world, struck hardly a false note. Hence the expectations from his second outing were tremendous. Again joining hands with that maverick actor, Ranbir Kapoor and adding to the cast with some other raising talents and a beautiful leading lady, an intermittently good time is definitely had at the movies if one is looking for some entertainment to accompany their popcorns and soda. But carrying those expectations that I did, I saw a huge opportunity missed and yet another talented director bowing down to commerce.<br />
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Three best friends go on a trekking trip to Manali in their youth, when life has no rules and is one big adventure. Aditi (a charming Kalki Koechlin), Avi (Aditya Roy Kapur) and Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor) form the wild trio. Thrown into the mix is their unlikely bookish, bespectacled classmate Naina (Deepika Padukone) who joins them on an impulse. In typical Hindi movie style, Bunny gives life lessons to Naina showing her that her serious ways are so not cool, but she holds a lot of promise if only she would let her hair down. So, ofcourse in the midst of some newfound bravado, Naina loses her spectacles and with it her heart to Bunny, a guy who cannot be chained by love or marriage. He seeks only thrill from life. In the initial hour we are subjected to the foursome doing mindless stuff in the name of camaraderie which do not ring true. Aditi's madcap antics bring a zing to the proceedings and if anything, I was more eager to see the development of her character and her obvious heartbreak over a one sided love for her buddy Avi, who is blissfully oblivious to the hidden affection behind all those caring gestures that she showers on him. But because of the nature of commerce in cinema, the friends are only the sidekick supports in providing means to get the central characters to their destinations.<br />
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So, Naina's love remains unreciprocated as Bunny literally goes seeking new pastures around the world. And eight years pass when Aditi gets everyone together once more, under one palace for her destination wedding. And voila, this round Bunny falls for Naina and suddenly domesticity seems a suitable companion with Naina in his arms. An extremely childish story and screenplay is what mars this movie from the get go. There is not a bone of originality with the theme and situations are lifted straight off the bollywood blockbusters that we have been subjected to over the years. The desire to live life on the edge, the transformation of the serious girl into a glamorous diva at the hands of the wild boy and the subsequent taming of the wild boy by the girl's steadfast love is no pathbreaking material. And add to that, the backdrop of an adrenaline rushing adventure and then a big fat Indian destination wedding.<br />
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Though Ayan Mujerji breaks no new grounds with the material, the screenplay also reeks mostly of done to death situations with the dialogues between the lead pair particularly stilted and quite manipulative. It was the characters of Aditi and Avi which fascinated me more and I wish there was the scope for these more nuanced people to find a bigger space in the screenplay. Aditi is played to perfection by the tremendously gifted Kalki, who has mastered the art of playing a variety of characters with equal ease. The rumbustious girl ready to take on any and everybody, hides the pain of unrequited love in those marvelously expressive eyes and her growth into a sensible bride who finally gives happiness a chance, is a role Kalki shines in. Avi, with his gambling and drinking streak, was enacted well though this character could have benefited from better development.<br />
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Naina and Bunny were played competently by Deepika and Ranbir. After having seen some memorable characters brought to life by Ranbir, this is a character he can sleep walk through and not hit a single false note. Deepika, unfortunately, though a fine looking actress with a body to kill that is shown off to the hilt, is not really a performer. And to be fair, except for a couple of the final scenes, where she does successfully show the pain of a love whose future she cannot foresee, her character seems contrived and done to death. I have to mention the two heart rendering scenes between Farooque Sheikh and Ranbir which crackle and show what tremendous potential this movie had. Even that fabulous Dolly Ahluwalia of 'Vicky Donor' fame is as vivacious as ever in her bit role. A true delight, she needed more scenes! And a word for our dancing goddess Madhuri Dixit, who appears in a song and shows that she has lost none of her charm or her glorious moves. These are a couple of things the movie gets right. The song and dance routines are a pleasure to the eye and quite catchy.<br />
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'Yeh Jawaani hai Diwaani' doesnt work for me precisely why 'Wake Up Sid' did work so effectively. At its heart Mukerji wanted to bring forth another tale of a youth's journey into manhood and finding love. Add to it friendship and his relationship with his father. But barring a couple of scenes which show sensitivity towards the later part of the movie, this one bows down to the dictates of the box office one too many times. The sparks were there in certain scenes of friendship between Avi and Bunny, Aditi's reason for marriage to Kunaal Roy Kapur's character (delightfully played) and Bunny's realization of the loss of his father. But a couple of scenes make not a movie.<br />
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This could be the quintessential fluff people are looking for to escape a hot day into the theaters with, but all I could think of was the colossal loss of an opportunity by Ayan Mukerji, whose first movie I can revisit time and again. The business of filmmaking has too often killed its art and 'Yeh Jawaani hai Diwaani' and Mukerji are sure victims.<br />
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Originally released in 2013<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
My rating: 2.5/5<br />
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<br />Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-61862910116775116532013-02-28T14:24:00.000-08:002013-02-28T15:01:56.440-08:00Kai Po Che - Brotherhood TestedAbhishek Kapoor's 'Kai Po Che' literally is a victory call made during the Gujarat kite flying festival when one has cut the string of an opponent's kite. Its about coming out trumps at the end. But the route to it can be arduous, the victory laced with tears and regrets. In essence this is a movie about friendship, the kind that grows together, becomes inseparable and face the hurdles life shoots out. It is the dawn of the 21st century. Ishaan (Sushant Singh Rajput), Omi (Amit Sadh) and Govind (Raj Kumar Yadav), 'brothers for life' as the movie's tag line claims, inhabit each others space with cohesion. They have been aimless for too long. Now its time to get down to business. Setting up a sports equipment store, financed by Omi's right wing politician uncle (Manav Kaul), they also will double it as a cricket academy to harbor fresh talent off the streets . The cricketer among the friends is Ishaan who lives and breathes the game, owning the title of being the best cricketer in their district. He somehow got lost in the bylanes of this highly competitive and political game. In training Ali (Digvijay Deshmukh), a scrawny little kid who can bat a sixer at will, he reignites that light which gives him a sense of purpose in life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_QNXmtQYGj4inYme4EM3-urZHvYD_8T00bnTvTyMnp8IHu0ysG0Kot_4Oafo-wFV-zvYvurb2YL0hdSAOjCD3z_XiLENrHxAGlsr7KzFyt8SCIgQzVtfSvbttpbK0ogw7WRcvKRJe8OA/s1600/kai-po-che2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja_QNXmtQYGj4inYme4EM3-urZHvYD_8T00bnTvTyMnp8IHu0ysG0Kot_4Oafo-wFV-zvYvurb2YL0hdSAOjCD3z_XiLENrHxAGlsr7KzFyt8SCIgQzVtfSvbttpbK0ogw7WRcvKRJe8OA/s400/kai-po-che2.jpg" width="400" /></a>Govind, the money wise accountant friend keeping a tight rein on the purse strings of the business, sees an opportunity to set shop in an upcoming mall. Rightly judging malls to be the future of Indian economy, he is eager they claim a piece of it. Here again Omi's uncle sponsors the huge deposit and in return Omi feels a pressure to join his uncle's political journey. Celebrating their first earnings, the friends enjoy a quick getaway, make merry, booze, even jumping shirtless into the sea in a fit of joie de vivre. But then dreams get foiled with the shaking of the earth. The quake causes destruction to the mall and the builder disappears with their money. It raises faultlines in the friends equations and cracks look to occur. The earthquake is only a prelude to the man made massacre on the Sabarmati Express train at Godhra, which results in senseless religious rioting claiming hundreds of life. The friends journey through these dire times as their dreams, hope and humanity crash and burn.<br />
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'Kai Po Che' keeps the proceedings real and understated. We witness life in a middle class neighborhood of Ahmedabad as it really could be, the characters and surroundings have that lived in feel to them. This is no mega budget Bollywood production where the sets look artificial and their inhabitants caricatures. We sense the easy camaraderie of the friends from the onset and understand that they have probably known and loved each other all their lives. No over the top moments are needed here to establish that bond. We meet them and they casually carry us about in their business of life. The sad history of Gujarat in the early 2000s converge with their lives, for if one is living in a time in history at the place of its occurrence, to not be affected by it to some degree is implausible There is also that little neighborhood romance brewing between Govind and Ishaan's sister Vidya (an impish Amrita Puri), the girl seducing her shy, reticent math tutor that feels all too familiar.<br />
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Abhishek Kapoor, who earlier directed 'Rock On', a compromised take on friendship that never quite hit off in my view, gets it pitch perfect this time. He wisely chose new comers to the big screen in his actors, who breath fire into their characters. Amit Sadh and Sushant Singh were both former TV actors while Raj Kumar Yadav has played small but important characters in earlier films, his last being the police inspector aiding Aamir Khan's character in Talaash. Where we have previously seen sparks in him, here he gets the means to bring something remarkably endearing to his Govind, the boy next door, geeky with a head for numbers but somewhat socially awkward. Amit Sadh's Omi has a challenged character graph as he shifts from being the hang on to Ishaan's every word, to becoming a political figure at odds with his best friend, on opposite sides of the communal divide that threaten everything at stake. Sushant Singh Rajput is a star in the making with his endearing screen presence and that he has acting chops to match is a blessing. His Ishaan lights up the screen with his antics, his impulsive nature and his golden heart shining bright. Together these actors have created magic and aided by a strong directorial hand, a good script adapted from the Chetan Bhagat book 'The three mistakes of my life', music by a talented Amit Trivedi that sets the mood for the events unfolding, this movie has everything going strongly for it.<br />
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The only place where a little change would have helped is in giving the movie an extra couple of minutes to detail the aftereffects of the earthquake and its toll on their friendship and business. These episodes feel a little hurried and probably suffered from overzealous editing. That apart, this is a Bollywood bromance which stays grounded and is at the same time sublimely poetic. A truly good movie to come out of the Hindi film industry, traveling into the heartland of India and delivering a triumphant tale of friendship, loss and redemption.<br />
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Released in 2013<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
My Rating: 4/5<br />
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<br />Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-48824280069827674872013-02-21T15:47:00.001-08:002013-02-21T15:49:17.969-08:00Tokyo Story - The quiet Passage of Life'Tokyo Story' is one of the simplest works of cinema I have witnessed and it is also one of the most profound. In its structure and narrative, this 1953 classic made by Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu, is simple and dignified like its main characters, but underneath that veneer lies a thought provoking story about the circle of life and its many vagaries. An elderly couple, Shukichi and Tomi, travel far from their small village to visit their children in Tokyo. Their son, Koichi, who is a neighborhood doctor with a wife and two children, is suitably happy to have them. However, a busy life leaves him no time to be spent with them. When they move to their daughter Shige's house, who runs a hair salon from home, a similar story greets them. They also have a daughter in law, Noriko (the beautifully serene Setsuko Hara), with a husband who went missing since war, in the city who despite her work is the only one willing to take time out to show them the sights of Tokyo.<br />
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The children pool in money to send the parents to Atami Hot springs, a spa, probably to absolve themselves of having to look after them. The vibrance and late night parties of that place is not for the elderly and it is effectively conveyed in a beautiful single shot of their slippers lying side by side outside their hotel room, whilst the rest of the occupants party to music and mahjong. Sleepless and weary, they leave the spa before their time, leading to inconvenience for the offsprings and the parents quietly understand not to burden them even for a night and ponder on whose doors to knock for sleep time. They separate with the mother choosing Noriko's small but welcoming place, leading to a soulful conversation between a mother and daughter in law where behind the everlasting smiles, tears threaten to spill off the two women . The father meets his old friends from the village leading to an all night of sake, where cautious reserves see the wind and the disappointing truths of old age and parenthood find way to their lips. The parents now know it is time for them to go back, some dreams may be broken, few hopes are possibly lost to the sad cycle of life. Children grow up, move away to build their own lives and families. It is an inevitable cycle from which none is spared. The children we build our lives around develop wings and fly out at a stage when the roles start getting reversed and we might be needing them. The bustle of life gives way to the echo of silence.</div>
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Ozu, whose works I have not had the fortune of being familiar with till now, calmly makes his audience a fly on the wall to his tale, his camera mostly placed stationary at the eye level of people hunching on tatami mats . There is no drama whatsoever. Little is said, so much doesnt need words to be understood. We observe how lives are lived, what families become. The parents realize the shift in attitude that the busy lives of their children have brought. They still have each other, the only companions. We see how important that companionship is in that last wait in life. And once one is taken away, loneliness and possible regrets assume companionship for the other. Ozu shows this quietly with the death of the mother at the end and the father left alone sitting on his tatami mat fanning himself, waiting.<br />
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Ozu was one of Japans most influential directors, who I learn made a career of contemplative tales of ordinary familial bonds. 'Tokyo Story' which features in every list of all time great cinema of the world, with very good reason, is a lesson on life devoid of any melodrama. The characters are ordinary, their circumstances ordinary and in that they impart an extraordinary lesson about life. Note the scene in which a grandmother quietly watches her grandson play and reflects if he shall take after his father's profession of a doctor and whether she would live to see it, all the more profound in her melancholy look and the fact that we witness what she knows, that she wont. The instance when two parents sit side by side on tatami mats and acknowledge with reluctance that their children were probably disappointments but at least they have it better than most. And at the end of it all, are moments depicted with extreme grace and wisdom, that have the power to rock our core. Two sisters in law understanding that life can be disappointing, a father in law giving his wife's precious keepsake to the one not related by blood, a widow acknowledging her loneliness in watching life pass her by and then that final heartbreaking moment of an old man sitting alone, his solitude palpable in weary eyes accepting the law of life.<br />
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There have been movies about families, the inevitable disappointments in their dynamics. They lead to moments of heightened drama and while all good, none could match in my book, what Yasujiro Ozu mastered with his austere narration about the paradoxical nature of life and the unit a man sets out to make for himself, create a family and then be left on his own again. Can anyone really escape that?<br />
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Originally Released in 1953<br />
In Japanese with English Subtitles<br />
My Rating: 5/5</div>
Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-23404620830600827622013-02-06T14:06:00.000-08:002013-02-06T14:12:11.777-08:00Flight - TouchdownFlight, a marvelous character study of a man coming to terms with addiction, soars from the very first frame and keeps its grip tight on the audience never once taking a false turn and lands safely to its ultimately satisfying destination of a powerful and necessary acknowledgement. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who is back to making a movie entirely revolving around its central character after a long time, 'Flight' tells the story of an alcoholic who refuses to acknowledge that truth. As with any addict, to understand the existence of a problem is the necessary first step to finding its solution. Whip Whitaker (an amazingly nuanced Denzel Washington), a much experienced commercial airline pilot has had a wild night of drinking with his flight attendant colleague (Nadine Velazquez). He has a flight out to Atlanta in the morning, is obviously drunk but its nothing that a couple of lines of cocaine wouldn't take care of.<br />
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What follows this action packed initial half hour, defines the movie with its real purpose. Of course we are expecting an investigation, we know that Whitaker though a hero, can technically be in real trouble because of the alcohol and drugs levels which will surely be found in his blood samples. We expect the thrills and the enticing drama that the course of this flight will take. What we are treated to however is unusual and real and makes this movie stand very apart from so many of its genre. Denzel Washington is the face we follow through the entire 140 such minutes of this movie and never do we feel that we have lost this man. As Whitaker, Washington brings a strange pathos into his defiant, worn out alcoholic who refuses to acknowledge this all important fact. He is a heavy drinker, but he is okay. Faced with the possibility of a future in prison, he stubbornly emphasizes on the truth that under the circumstances nobody could have landed that plane the way he did and correctly so. The simulated recreation of that incident tested with multitude of pilots, have resulted in a crash every time. His efficient lawyer Hugh (the ever dependable Don Cheadle) and his old flying partner now union representative Charlie (Bruce Greenwood), do not doubt his heroism but are wary of his defiance to play by the book at a time when the world's focus is on him with a magnifying glass.<br />
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Robert Zemeckis, one of the leading names of special effect movies, indeed his last few have been more effects and less soul, does a turn around after quite a while and delves into a riveting character study of a man drowning in his seldom sober world where he is unable to grasp the negatives of the vice that he clings to for support, alienating his now ex wife and teenage son who never knows the man his father is. He finds a mate in the recovering heroin addict Nicole (an effective Kelly Reilly), whose savior he initially acts as but later there is the danger of dragging her back to the very addiction she seeks escape from. Zemeckis is in fine form directing an extremely gifted natural actor. Washington is one of the leading men that has always done Hollywood proud. And when given a chance to spread his wings, he soars. The drunk fallen hero can hardly be called a sympathetic character and there is the easy risk of dramatics here, but Washington smartly side steps the traps and digs within to act primarily with his eyes evoking a nod from his audience . They speak of his battles and when he finally acknowledges his fall, his eyes and the slight shift of facial expression speak more eloquently than any word possibly can.<br />
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Flight is a glorious work of introspective filmmaking. There might be many who may expect a lot of action, courtroom drama and the works. There are many of those movies out there. Watch this instead for a work of art which steers away from the obvious and in the process finds itself touching high ground.<br />
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Originally Released in 2012<br />
Available on Blu Ray and DVD<br />
Oscar Nominated in the categories of Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and<br />
Original Screenplay (John Gatins) - 2013<br />
My Rating: 4/5<br />
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Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-23149438651200341762012-12-02T17:09:00.000-08:002012-12-02T17:09:54.814-08:00Talaash - That Elusive ClosureThe world is full of tortured souls. There is always the search for that elusive happiness, of liberty from the wretchedness of one's misery. Under the guise of a police investigation, Reema Kagti's Talaash plays out the interconnecting stories of some such lives. The movie opens to montages of the underbelly of Mumbai coming to life in the shadows of the dark. An air of apprehension grips the pavement dwellers seconds before a car impossibly careens off the road through a promenade and dives headlong into the sea. Thus begins a police investigation which takes the audience into the seedy by lanes where flesh is traded and dreams are lost. The part that society has forsaken.<br />
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Inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (that ever dependable actor/star Aamir Khan) is in charge of this now high profile case as a superstar Armaan Kapoor was driving the car resulting in his drowning. A bevy of questions arise. Why was he alone in the car when he always had a driver and man Friday in tow? Why did he ask for a huge sum of money from his accountant on the day of the accident and where did the money disappear after it was last seen in the car? These questions lead Shekhawat to the nearby red light district where sad lives looking for a means of escape are thrown at us. We encounter a pimp Shashi, who has employed blackmail as his way to means and flight. We see his girlfriend, a former prostitute. We feel for Shashi's lame sidekick Tehmur(a nod perhaps to history's Turk ruler Timur the Lame?), played by the chameleon of an actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui. He stumbles upon a seeming web of deceit, murder and blackmail and sees an escape from his hell. And then we meet the enigmatic Rosie(Kareena Kapoor), a streetwalker helping inspector Shekhawat with pieces to the puzzle, but hiding an agenda of her own.<br />
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Interlaced with this mystery is the inspector's private hell where the recent loss of their only son Karan in a boating accident has driven a wedge between him and his wife Roshni (Rani Mukherjee in superb form). Roshni finds solace in certain seance sessions with her curious neighbor (Shernaz Patel) seeking communication with her son, while Shekhawat wanders around the city at night, sleepless, looking for answers both for the case and for the battle with his own demons. These are all tormented people, living out the tragedies that fate has cruelly dealt on them and this is exactly what makes Talaash such a compelling watch for me. There is reality in their palpable sorrows. When Rosie talks of the miserable fate of her community to Shekhawat, there is a glint of her tragedy and that of her likes.<br />
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Talaash to me works in equal measures as a fascinating police investigation, noir mood themed cinema with a little of the otherworld and a story of loss and the process of healing it requires. Director Reema Kagti can take a bow. Walking a fine line, she shows strong hold on a tricky subject lending it with immense grace and maturity. There are no caricatures here, just individuals whose stories need telling. She keeps the movie as real as a subject like this can call for. Aiding her are her tremendous crew of cinematographer Mohanan under whose watchful camera the nocturnal underbelly of Bombay comes alive in its garish colors and seedy streets, Ram Sampath gives music that slinks into the proceedings skillfully giving the film a haunting, almost eerie quality. The soundtrack, in my opinion, is one of the best and most varied Hindi movie tracks in a while. And then there are the words, be it Javed Akhtar's deeply melancholic lyrics or the dialogues by Farhan Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap, everything adds tremendous layers to the tale, underlining nuances and hidden depth.<br />
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But the star here is the story by Kagti herself and Zoya Akhtar. The director and her entire team remains true to the tale at hand. Very rarely in recent Indian cinema have I seen so many layers seamlessly integrated together, effortlessly connecting, so many genres brought together rendered with dignity and sensitivity. And now a word for the all important cog in the wheel....the actors. Each performance is authentic. We forget the big stars and what remains are just the characters which are so justifiably performed. Rani Mukherjee, stripped of make up and mannerisms, portrays her grief through those achingly sad eyes. Kareena Kapoor brings a playfulness mixed with haunting sadness to her Rosy, when those merry eyes betray a hint of doom. When she soothes Shekhawat's tired soul with her touch putting him to long robbed sleep, in one of the movies highlight sequences, those eyes and expressions contain so much depth. And now to the knockout performance that Nawazuddin gives with his Tehmur. My ravings will not do it justice. In the role of the luckless lame son of a prostitute doing odd jobs for the pimp who grabs that one chance destiny dangles and gets swept into a quagmire of his own making, there is not a single misstep. He also owns the single thrilling chase sequence towards the climax which is a treat to witness.<br />
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Reining all the performances together with his central to the plot character of Shekhawat, Aamir Khan is superlative. His pain and angst is all internalised, the stoic, stern and dutiful cop/husband is at the forefront. The nights that he is awake, replaying the happenings leading to his son's demise, playing out all the different 'what if' scenarios that could have prevented the tragedy is palpable and rings true. His catharsis at the end when he finally gives in to that pent up grief is a relief to the audience. Each of the characters big or small, are so real that we care for them, invest in them. A special mention to Shekhawat's subordinate Devrath played by Raj kumar Yadav. He is effortless, watch his background reactions in the one big confrontation between Shekhawat and his wife Roshni.<br />
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And while I have so many thoughts I still feel the need to share of this multilayered mystery/drama, the fact is many of its audience looking for a conventional thriller might come away disappointed. Kagti lays out the cards honestly and doesnt throw any red herrings at us, giving us an equal chance to guess the mystery. The real beauty of this movie is not in playing the guessing game, but to sit back and realize how skillfully Kagti has brought the plot together and tied it up, leaving no loose ends. And while one would remember some so called Hollywood lifts thematically for the mystery, that concept has existed from eons in different forms and not just in the West. Our heritage is rich with such myths and lores as well. To weave such a humane drama around it, is what we can safely salute the movie makers for. It is easily one of my favorite movies of the year. I went in expecting a mystery and I came out with so much more.<br />
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Release in 2012<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
My Rating: 4.5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-8970982269915218072012-11-25T20:02:00.003-08:002012-11-25T20:02:57.457-08:00Life Of Pi - Of God, Nature and LifeThe premise of 'Life Of Pi' involves a 17 year old boy stuck on a lifeboat with a Royal Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific ocean for 227 days. The followers of the much loved 2002 Booker prize winner by Yann Martel have known it and now under filmmaker Ang Lee's masterful direction the entire world is treated to a magical parable of God's existence in every aspect of life. The movie starts with stunning 3D visuals of animals in a zoo. The stage is set for an experience of visual delight, the likes of which I have yet to see. Piscine(Pi) Patel is a young resident of Pondicherry whose family comprising of his parents and elder brother, own a zoo constructed in the botanical gardens there. Living amidst animals, an understanding and respect of the varied species develop in Pi. In a dramatic sequence with a tiger named Richard Parker, owing to a clerical error, and a goat, Pi's father (Adil Hussain) explains that animals are not ones friends, they are far removed from us, the compassion we mistakenly see in their eyes is but a mere reflection of our faces. This is a lesson which saves Pi later.<br />
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Developing an understanding and love for God in all forms worshipped early in life, Pi embraces Hinduism (the religion he was born to), Christianity and Islam with equal measures of faith and reason. When his family decides to immigrate to Canada due to political unrest in India, they board a Japanese cargo ship carrying a number of their animals to sell off in North America. In the middle of the Pacific ocean a storm, never more majestically filmed as it is here in 3D, sweeps Pi's entire world away from him. Stranded in a lifeboat he faces an escaped zebra, orangoutang and hyena. And then as though God was not done with him, that Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker, makes his dramatic entry into the scene. Thus begins a tale of survival and coexistence, of wavering faith and the ultimate surrender to that supreme power.<br />
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The tale is told by an adult Pi (Irrfan Khan) to a writer (Rafe Spall) who has come to him with a lead on a story 'which would make him believe in God'. By the end of the tale, the reality is so astounding and indeed miraculous, that Pi's survival is clearly God's hand at play. The movie is a feast for the eyes, 3D which has so far been effective only in films like 'Avatar' and 'Hugo', comes full bloom here. The ocean, boat and sky merge together in incredulous visuals. It almost makes the world we inhabit dreary by comparison. There is a brilliant sequence of an island lush with greens, fresh water lakes and swarming meerkats. The island is significant in more ways than one, without giving anything away, I talk of its visual beauty. In the hands of a lesser director, 'Life of Pi' might have withered. But Lee shows a hold of his subject. This is more a spiritual journey than it is an adventure story. Lee curbs the use of too many thrills generally associated with 3D and CGI. There is an even pacing to this tale which is much needed to bring in the elements of spiritualism. The tiger which is mostly CGI is magnificent.<br />
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The actors are all aptly cast and even though it is essentially a story of Pi(Suraj Sharma) and the CGI tiger, everyone makes a mark no matter the screen time alloted. Adil Hussain and Tabu are well cast as Pi's father and mother. The narrator of the story is Irrfan Khan as the elder Pi and he conveys the journey well. Especially the scene where he is unable to comprehend the unceremonious parting with Richard Parker gives layers of interpretation to the story. However, the star is undoubtedly Suraj Sharma who embodies Pi's journey bravely from the naive boy to the survivor and resourceful, wise young man.<br />
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I have now picked up and immersed myself in Yann Martel's journey of the book. The movie has left me with questions I hope to understand through the source material. Where the movie is a visual journey of hope, survival and God, the book may reveal many layers that no image even ones as stunning as these can reproduce. As a standalone, the movie soars. However to truly understand the journey, the reading of the tale looks imperative. The testing of faith and the deliverance, the coincidence of Pi having survived 227 (22/7=Pi) days in the ocean, the significance of the name Piscine renames himself with and ultimately Richard Parker's role is open to audience interpretation and makes one truly think. How many movies can claim to do that nowadays?<br />
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Released in 2012<br />
Running in Theaters<br />
My Rating: 4/5<br />
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<br />Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-36296664689671759032012-09-19T16:46:00.000-07:002012-09-19T16:52:19.076-07:00Barfi! - Love needs no wordsThere is something to be said about the evolving art of filmmaking. The language of simple, heartfelt charm has somehow lost its way to style and technique. The hued world of characters and their ordinariness has somehow being lost to computer graphics and awe inspiring visual effects. I did not realise how much I missed that simplicity and innocence till I stumbled upon the fabled world of Anurag Basu's Barfi! Named after the famed baby of the Murphy radios which adorned every household as an entertainment source in a simpler long lost era, this deaf-mute mischievous charmer whose lips garbles out his identity as 'Barfi'(Ranbir Kapoor), lives life prince sized, disabilities be damned. The idyllic, dew covered misty hills of Darjeeling in the 1970's form the backdrop to the story of a boy who lived, laughed and loved, no holds barred. Into his world sweeps a princess, Shruti (Ileana D'cruz), who already wears the engagement ring of another.<br />
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Love should know no language but that of the heart. Shruti gives in to the charming serenades of barfi and finds herself falling in love. The shades of innocent first love, that magical kiss they exchange all unfortunately lead to that dreaded conversation with the head and logic at decision time. So just like her mother (an effective Rupa Ganguly), Shruti leaves love behind for security and comfort. Only she exchanges love for a lifetime of regret. For Barfi, broken hearted and a little more savvy of his limitations, physical and otherwise, through several twists and turns finds himself responsible for the autistic daughter of the richest family in Darjeeling, Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra). And love strikes twice and this time forever.<br />
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As a story, where barfi scores and so many others fail, is its simple rendition of genuine emotions. There is no obvious manipulating the audience here, the director's sleight of hand, if at all, is masterful.<br />
Anurag Basu, in his personal life, has dealt with near death in the form of cancer. The beauty of a life well lived and its true intricacies must not be lost on him. Barfi embodies that spirit of celebrating life, no matter the circumstance. His previous outings 'Gangster' and 'Life in a Metro', both quality cinema, showed the dark side of human nature and life. Here Barfi celebrates life and teaches us to laugh at it. With laughter, troubles can melt like lemon drops.<br />
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A movie of this calibre needs able support in every department. The performances are superlative. Ranbir Kapoor, that rare combination of charisma and talent, disappears into Barfi's soul. What follows is the most delightful performance I have seen all year. A true performer needs no words and Ranbir Kapoor proves this with a bravura act which takes the best of Charlie Chaplin and Raj Kapoor and creates his own unique character. There is goodness shining on his face, a smile inspite of the odds, and yet there a little hint of sadness peeking out of knowing life's harsh truths. A standout scene is Barfi's piteous outburst upon realizing Shruti has picked another man over him. The apology and smile that follow are even more heartbreaking in their honesty. Priyanka Chopra's Jhilmil is a fitting partner with a studied performance in autism. The mannerisms are correct, the technicalities down pat with Priyanka giving the character strokes of its own. Needless to say she stands tall in an industry which has made mockery of this disability with stretched out, false, theatrical performances. I do not need to take names here. When love shines upon this child woman, she stands in front of her man, creating boundaries, marking him as her own. Heartwarming!<br />
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Ileana D'Cruz, in her debut Bollywood role, as the chronicler of the events in Barfi's life, is beautiful and poised with a heartfelt performance. Her realization of a love lost forever, is tremendously poignant. The supporting cast is apt with a special mention to Saurabh Shukla, playing the police officer forever on trail of that mischief monger Barfi. Ravi Varman's cinematography is magical, in total sync with the tale at hand. Darjeeling is mystical, the paddy fields of nearby villages lush and Calcutta of the 70s where Barfi and Jhilmil find home and love, is vibrant with the majestic Howrah Bridge towering in the background. It would be blasphemous to not mention music director Pritam's tremendous contribution. For a movie of very little words, the background score and songs provide lifelines in evoking a myriad of emotions, capturing every mood exquisitely. There is that perfect old world charm to the tunes.<br />
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To watch this movie, one needs to leave cynicism at the door. This is a pure fable, told from the heart to be heard by the heart. The clinching scene for me was when Barfi, who is in the habit of putting his loved ones through a test to gauge their loyalty and faith, puts Jhilmil through that grind after running into a now married Shruti. His heart is confused and he needs answers. Handicap, physical or mental, never acts as a sympathy seeker here. If anything, it tells how truly complete these so called incomplete people of society can be.<br />
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It is not to say that the movie does not come without faults. An unnecessary mystery, presumed death does dilute the magic to an extent. But if I really had to point fingers, it would be to the tremendously cliched ending. The last five minutes lets this movie down. It is as though Anurag Basu did not know when to draw the curtains. But all is forgiven as the credits roll at the end and the beautiful song 'Aashiyan' is reprised amidst montages of Barfi and Jhilmils' love filled lives, I am smiling all the way back home and smiling even now as I pen my love for this lyrical ode to love and life.<br />
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Released in 2012<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
My rating: 4.5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-56441809879286729362012-03-30T13:14:00.000-07:002012-03-30T13:43:04.620-07:00Sideways - Of Men and their WineI have seen Sideways before, more than once. The movie has, like aging wine, opened itself for new meaning and interpretation with each viewing. It has remained one of my personal favorite films depicting the quirkiness of human nature, the sadness and longings of the human heart and the celebration of life even in its failure. Truly a slice of life in itself. Directed by one of America's most consistent filmmakers, Alexander Payne, Sideways takes a road trip in Southern California's wine country and makes the life of wine an allegory to aging and discovering oneself on life's long and often twisted road. Unlike wine which only grows richer with age, life hands out a lot of wild cards.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7jso8lIRoZCon4nh5fuVoYcilyk6tU1HiSHmcs2AebRUXitUO-DiNynB9G3nhNtlKcdEzul0WLJ5nAWnQvsSz3gzZHJi-OxZCyZYysiKOknU5zVcJJo-TCz4d_w0SGEVatBZL-TA9pEW/s1600/sideways-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB7jso8lIRoZCon4nh5fuVoYcilyk6tU1HiSHmcs2AebRUXitUO-DiNynB9G3nhNtlKcdEzul0WLJ5nAWnQvsSz3gzZHJi-OxZCyZYysiKOknU5zVcJJo-TCz4d_w0SGEVatBZL-TA9pEW/s400/sideways-4.jpg" width="400" /></a>Miles (Paul Giamatti in the role of a lifetime), a middle school English teacher and writer waiting to be published, picks up his best friend since college, Jack (Thomas Haden Church) for a week in wine country. Jack gets married the following week and this is their last getaway. Lots of wine and golf is on the menu but Jack is looking for a detour in one last fling before the shackles of matrimony bind him. He hits it soon enough with a pourer in a wine tasting room, Stephanie (Sandra Oh). To arrange a double date, they find Stephanie's friend Maya (Virginia Madsen), a waitress at a restaurant that Miles frequents. He has liked her from afar, her knowledge and passion of wine finds a kinship with him. While Jack gets going with Stephanie weaving lies of love and relationship in the process and playing daddy to her little child, Miles is hesitant, shy and unable to bridge the distance with a wise, openly warm and lovely Maya. Except for their shared love and knowledge of wine.<br />
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There is a scene in Sideways which I have carried with me through the years and even on my recent viewing realized that its charm has not diminished in any measure. On a double date while Jack and Stephanie indulge in the pleasures of the flesh in Stephanie's trailer home, Maya and Miles open a bottle of wine and talk. They talk of Mile's love for Pinot. He starts to describe Pinot and after a while he is talking about himself and the understanding is so lovingly reflected in Maya's eyes. The growth, complexity and maturity of wine has a lot to do with life. 'A bottle of wine opened today will taste different than it will taste on any other day'. Kind of like life itself.<br />
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Sideways is about middle aged people for whom life is passing by too quickly. You either grab every moment you can seize to live before its all up, like Jack does. Its interesting to see a man so easily cheat on the girl he is to marry in less than a week, weave a fantasy life with a pourer from Buelton, with whom he may share nothing in common and be absolutely guilt free. And yet he is not unlikeable. Selfish yes, but I somehow understood him. And then there is Miles, our center of the movie, disillusioned, cynical, battling depression and divorce, downing alchohol and zanax, edging towards steady decline. 'I am so insignificant, I cant even kill myself', he says. The man with the resigned, world weary eyes. He finds a surprising steady hand in Maya, of the kind, understanding eyes. These are flesh and blood people, not just characters populating the screen. That is so rare. The performances are tremendous and real, all across the board. It was in fact, a criminal act leaving Paul Giamatti out of the Oscar race for this one.<br />
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Alexander Payne, who had made 'Election' and 'About Schmidt' before and 'The Descendants' since, is arguably the best maker of character studies of these American men who have seen better days and lost that zing for living. His characters are seldom successful, happy and have it all figured out. He has an affinity and understanding for the average middle aged American male and humanizes them in these lovable human comedies he creates. They are funny and yet sad and so lifelike. A filmmaker with the rare ability to pause and truly take in human nature. A word, if you are watching 'Sideways', look deeply for the pauses and reflections of the characters, study the silences and see how true they ring.<br />
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Originally released in 2004<br />
Available on DVD<br />
Academy Award winner for Best Adapted Screenplay<br />
My Rating: 5/5<br />
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<br />Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-12482732057890335072012-03-11T18:35:00.000-07:002012-03-23T14:00:51.703-07:00Kahaani - What a Story!Hindi films in the past have not been known for its mysteries. Blatantly making half baked copies from Hollywood cinema or sometimes looking to East Asian countries for inspiration, original plots have not been explored for decades in this terrain till a movie like 'Kahaani' arrives to change all that and how. Sujoy Ghosh, who debuted with the thoroughly enjoyable 'Jhankaar Beats' before meandering to commercially viable fluff, has regained his soul to craft a gripping story of a heavily pregnant woman landing in the city of Joy, Kolkata, in search of her missing husband. And in that lies a tale.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEbce-0GMPGPnRsKA6cyBahH5dJ7osjV7FxISdTO3zJIWuFRwNae9uKzCPT_YdoIJEHiZ8lHg4h7Ej1u5Gaqka6euS_ubhie0YNmNv55ARSqlZIbCnQwuAoEqkuqcxEo0-bvoMQwVvVsC/s1600/kahaani-poster1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEbce-0GMPGPnRsKA6cyBahH5dJ7osjV7FxISdTO3zJIWuFRwNae9uKzCPT_YdoIJEHiZ8lHg4h7Ej1u5Gaqka6euS_ubhie0YNmNv55ARSqlZIbCnQwuAoEqkuqcxEo0-bvoMQwVvVsC/s400/kahaani-poster1.jpg" width="250" /></a>A chillingly crafted sequence of a biochemical gas attack in the busy Kolkata Metro sets off a chain of events when 2 years later Vidya Vekatesan Bagchi (Vidya Balan in her usual fine form) emerges from the Kolkata airport, to hail a cab to the police station and file a missing person report of her husband, Arnab Bagchi. Having come on an assignment for the National Data Centre(NDC) from their London home, he has disappeared into thin air such that the rundown guest house he stayed in has no evidence of his stay and neither does NDC own up to any employee of that name. However, the lone photograph of Arnab's that Vidya carries, points to a strong resemblance with a former NDC employee, Milan Dhamji. The case starts getting murky when the HR lady at NDC who points to the resemblance, is bumped off and the Intelligence Bureau get involved. From here, its a joyride of twists and turns with moles in government agencies, contract killings, dual identities, suspect motives. Nothing is as it seems as we race with Vidya on her dangerous mission.<br />
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Amidst the chills the plot keeps throwing at us, what stands out are the performances of an extremely competent cast, for most of whom Hindi movies is virgin territory. Predominantly Bengali actors rule as they get the nuances of their characters pat with the language, the expressions, the mannerisms. Parambrata Chattopadhyay's Rana as the mild mannered, infatuated rookie sub inspector is the perfect foil to Vidya's fearless, headstrong woman on a quest act. Together they ignite the search with equal amounts of urgency and sweet relief. Nawazuddin Siddiqui's short tempered, foul mouthed bureau officer Khan who regards a couple of human lives lost as collateral damage in the the larger scheme, is pitch perfect. Especially worthy of mention is the seemingly bumbling, mild insurance agent Bob Biswas (Saswata Chatterjee) who greets with a smile and moonlights as a contract killer. Positively chilling! Apart from these supporting acts, the police officer at the local station who says 'in Kolkata Vidya, Bidya all is same' loving pointing the inability of bengalis to pronounce the alphabet V, the zero star hotel owner, the little boy who runs with hot water at the beck of the hotel guests are all memorable.<br />
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But carrying the movie on her very pregnant gait, is Vidya Balan, a consistently fine performer who improves with each role. The recent National award winner, the last legitimate film awards in India, brings to her character a mix of dogged determination, vulnerability, strength and motherhood all culminating to a fascinating climax where the layers are peeled and Durga (the Hindu Bengali mother Goddess) is revealed. Take a bow, Vidya. She safely joins the annals of fine female performers like Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Tabu and their likes. The other hero of the movie has to be Kolkata, the city that is captured in all its hues. The goodness of the locals to the spine chilling of the bylanes and dilapidating buildings, the lit Howrah bridge, kumartuli idol makers and the joyous burst of the celebration of Durga Puja all come alive under the extremely able cinematography of Setu. Sharp editing by Namarata Rao keeps the movie running at nail biting pace.<br />
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And 'the mother of stories' indeed has a fine tale to tell. Scripted meticulously by Advaita Kala and Sujoy Ghosh, the movie is akin to reading a layered mystery where the audience is always running to catch up to the author's game and when the explosive climax occurs, the steps are traced back and we are all too happy to have been outsmarted. 'Kahaani' is the finest original thriller/mystery to have come out of the Hindi film industry since the black and white/ early color era of chills that Hindi cinema had mastered with 'Woh Kaun Thi', 'Teesri Manzil', 'Bees Saal Baad' and 'Mera Saaya' to name a few. After decades we are back in business with Kahaani. This atmospheric mystery indeed stands tall in the tale it renders. <br />
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Originally Released in 2012<br />
Running in theatres<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
My rating:4.5/5<br />
<br />Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-71807461707076197502012-02-28T17:03:00.000-08:002012-02-28T17:03:42.170-08:00Beautiful Boy - The Process of grief and questionsWhat could possibly be worse than the death of a child? Maybe the fact that the child killed a roomful of innocent people before taking his own life. That is the premise of Shawn Ku's 'Beautiful Boy', an earnest yet visceral look at parents left reeling under the weight of unimaginable tragedy, trying to make sense of it. In the suburbs of LA, resides the family of Bill (Michael Sheen) and Kate (Maria Bello), empty nesters whose only son Sammy (Kyle Gallner) is a freshman at a university. The couple lead separate lives, never sharing meals, sleeping in separate bedrooms, almost at the verge of divorce. Kate wants a try at a happy family by planning a vacation for them, a feeling not too enthusiastically shared by her husband, who scouts apartment listings in private.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXqsoX6JC7wchhFJi1UPmG8Ag4vb9-Ym2m5wJf_nwXG0qe-BIngAGG6WMeL2fXrn7SvLrcj-QqZrtY73Q26vbUjSvbCE9n-CuInO9MflhbaiReU9JaK0GdjHDqimFqQmMG_YPANXtfMtWr/s1600/beautiful-boy-movie-poster-550x814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXqsoX6JC7wchhFJi1UPmG8Ag4vb9-Ym2m5wJf_nwXG0qe-BIngAGG6WMeL2fXrn7SvLrcj-QqZrtY73Q26vbUjSvbCE9n-CuInO9MflhbaiReU9JaK0GdjHDqimFqQmMG_YPANXtfMtWr/s400/beautiful-boy-movie-poster-550x814.jpg" width="270" /></a>Their son Sammy, only shown momentarily, makes a phone call to them. It is obvious he is troubled and possibly feeling alienated at school. Kate picks up something to be amiss in Sammy's tone, but as parents usually get too absorbed in their own lives, she lets it drop. The next morning as they watch panic stricken on TV about a deadly shooting in their son's university, police officers arrive at their door to inform not only of their son's death but of the reality that it was he who had opened fire that killed seventeen people before turning the gun on himself. From hereon, begins a journey of no return for parents who must live with not just the weight of this entire tragedy, but the question of having gone wrong in their parenting.<br />
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Grieving a dead child is terrible in itself without the burden of guilt and the outrage of the public, it's many questions. The looks of people who wonder how terrible as parents could they have been to have nurtured a monster. It is an extremely hard subject to pull off. It hits home especially in the aftermath of the many campus massacres in recent times. This is entirely from the parents perspective. Escaping from the media onslaught, they take refuge with Kate's brother (Alan Tudyk) and his family. While Kate tries to escape the questions her mind surely forms, Bill faces them headlong. In the film's crucial scene, they have escaped society for a little while hiding in a motel, trying to forget momentarily a pain that will inevitably be carried around a lifetime. They get drunk, make love and find a long lost connection, only to have reality shatter it. Accusations are hurled, on parenting, its absence, a failed marriage.<br />
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'Beautiful Boy' worked for me on so many levels. It takes an almost forbidden topic and treats it with utmost sensitivity, yet does not shirk the questions. The realistic screenplay and the director's brave vision is aided by the pitch perfect acts of Michael sheen and Maria Bello. Sheen, as the father wondering too late, understanding the unforgivable nature of his son's crime and noticing painfully how the world is suddenly turning hostile, is brilliant in a largely internalized performance. Maria Bello is equally so as the disciplinarian mother who meant well, tried to push her shy, withdrawn kid out of his shell and now grappling with thoughts of whether she shouldn't have. In this duel between a mother defensive of her parenting and dead child and a father who questions, fireworks occur. And yet they are the only two people who can understand each other and be supportive in a world sure to go hostile.<br />
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Shawn Ku, for whom this was the first directorial feature, happens to have taken both from the Virginia Tech massacre and a friend's death leaving behind grieving parents, to come out with a tale palpable in its grief and doubts. The beauty is that he resists the temptation to focus on the event itself and it's ensuing drama and instead taps into the lifetime of pain that the parents now face.<br />
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Originally Released in 2010<br />
Available on DVD<br />
My Rating: 4/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-70143164057033127842012-02-02T18:28:00.000-08:002012-02-02T18:28:05.329-08:00The Iron Lady - A Shorthand portrayal of a political giantPolitics never has and never will be my strong point. I acknowledge this at the very onset of this review since the focus here will be a formidable and controversial leader in British politics. My interest lies solely in the ability of the motion picture to effectively paint a portrayal of the iron lady aka Margaret Thatcher, to understand her, witness her rise in the corridors of politics, study her eleven years of reign and then the fall. And I have to admit, the biopic barely delivers in this category. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, 'The Iron Lady' however gets one major detail correct in its casting of the incredibly talented Meryl Streep. And in that lies its deliverance.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1NUxC9ZO19iuWETPINp4IXEfihyphenhyphenhWV9ZqYWD2L3ws7pWCeusFi-g7baxkmHfBUg4i31Kd3U5FaavhxBqOGIw9AYdTQLsPA-c_Bh6FqwQrtNaTv-xB_JWn5cVy3-BPjMXi_qMaS9Kwf8V/s1600/2011_the_iron_lady_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB1NUxC9ZO19iuWETPINp4IXEfihyphenhyphenhWV9ZqYWD2L3ws7pWCeusFi-g7baxkmHfBUg4i31Kd3U5FaavhxBqOGIw9AYdTQLsPA-c_Bh6FqwQrtNaTv-xB_JWn5cVy3-BPjMXi_qMaS9Kwf8V/s400/2011_the_iron_lady_002.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>Starting with Thatcher as an octogenarian(Streep in heavy prosthetics), we witness a woman in the throes of dementia, carrying on a conversation about the price of milk with her deceased husband Denis (Jim Broadbent). She hallucinates him and maybe only the disposal of his items still kept around the house, will pull him out the recesses of her mind. As the present slips between reality and the imaginary, Thatcher's mind takes her into the past chapters of an important life. The humble beginnings of a grocer's daughter in Grantham shows a girl with steely ambition when she is the only pair of heels in a roomful of men's shoes at her father's town meetings. That indeed forms her surroundings through her career, the lone pair of heels in rooms full of men's shoes.<br />
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Her entry to Oxford and then the times of her emerging voice in politics are glossed over. An elderly lady of unsound mind peers unsurely into her past, skimming over her entry to 10 Downing street in 1979 and the important events that framed her 11 years of prime ministership. Her imagination of her deceased husband seems clearer to her than those years of power and battle. Unfortunately, such seems the case for the audience as well. Instead of a woman sticking to her convictions in the face of severe opposition, turning the economy of a flailing country, bringing about the privatization of various sectors, winning back the Falkland Islands from Argentina's invasion, Lloyd seems more content to portray an old ill woman wondering through the rooms of her house trying to chase away the illusion of her dead husband. Matters of consequence are skimmed over and it is almost as if her dementia takes center stage.<br />
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Lloyd's saving grace is the inimitable actor that is Meryl Streep who can, in face of little argument, be called the greatest living actor of our times. We are aware of her chameleon like quality to disappear into any character, real or fictional and adapt to any physicality and voice modulation. Every one of those skills are honed to perfection for us to witness here. Margaret Thatcher was one of the premier public personalities of the not too distant eighties and she was splashed all over the television and radio.To effectively impersonate her would have been a herculean task for anyone but Streep. The sadness is when that great a performance is not matched by the content. A nod to the ever dependable Jim Broadbent in his wonderfully reliable portrayal of Denis.<br />
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Phyllida Lloyd whose previous outing as screen director was the subpar money spinner 'Mamma Mia', had claimed in an interview that this movie was not so much about a leader, as it was of somebody once important who had since faded into oblivion. The tragedy of old age was what she had intended to capture. A good thought that and a wonderful concept if that was the story we had come to witness. When you show us a life as important as Margaret Thatcher, you owe it to the world to portray the strength. Hate her some did, love her some did. But even divided in feelings, her life had mattered and a lot of what we saw of her life on that screen did not.<br />
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Surely for a woman who was labelled 'The Iron Lady' and in her times 'the most important person of Europe', it is not the tragic reality of old age that would do justice but the memory of a woman who thought ahead and put those thoughts into fearless action. At the end, I couldnt dismiss the movie for the central performance is too important to shrug off. It is the route the movie takes which finally fails.<br />
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Released in 2012<br />
Running in Theatres<br />
My Rating: 3/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-14275532102767917962011-09-27T16:24:00.000-07:002011-09-27T16:24:50.478-07:00La Vie en Rose - Little Sparrow of FranceEdith Piaf has been the beautiful voice of France through the last century and her magic continues to enthrall the world long since her demise in 1963. 'La Vie en Rose' titled after her famous love ballad, which till this day is synonymous with the romance of Paris, is a biopic based on the personal, often tragic life of this great songstress. Directed and co-written by Olivier Dahan and portrayed with tremendous gusto and heart by Marion Cotillard (winner of the AcademyAward for Best actress), this movie flits its way through the corridors of time, moving back and forth through Edith's tumultuous life.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOh0LfXMd6x2C6N4TAAgCbYhVo7kStdKPGhIM7_lL6L11ASRGGlcr3SnlLC5N4hJvbpyslq0cpxM6pe32FaGngQRX7mqxyFLD-uykgviR9xoxQmvJNSiSqqoKyo5V6ChR8Fi3t3I6UJAn/s1600/images-1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDOh0LfXMd6x2C6N4TAAgCbYhVo7kStdKPGhIM7_lL6L11ASRGGlcr3SnlLC5N4hJvbpyslq0cpxM6pe32FaGngQRX7mqxyFLD-uykgviR9xoxQmvJNSiSqqoKyo5V6ChR8Fi3t3I6UJAn/s400/images-1.jpeg" width="269" /></a></div>Born into poverty, abandoned by her mother, a street singer and her father, a circus performer, her formative years were spent in her grandmother's brothel. One of the prostitutes Titine (Emmanuelle Seigner) adopts her and nurses Edith through blindness due to Keratitis. Miraculously cured by a visit to St. Therese's shrine, Edith is then snatched away from Titine and goes to live with her father. The beauty in her voice becomes apparent when she is asked to perform an act with her father on the streets. Years later, she is discovered singing on the streets by a nightclub owner Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu) who gives her the name of Piaf, the little sparrow. At 4ft 8inches, the name became her frame.<br />
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We see the rise of that amazingly clear full throated voice, her training of the finer nuances of singing and becoming a national treasure even as her personal life is marred by the tragic loss of her one true love, middleweight boxing champion Marcel Cerdan (Jean Pierre Martins), followed by an accident which renders her with arthritic pains, leading to morphine addiction. Even as her body fails and ages prematurely, the voice remains intact leading her to fame in America. Olivier Dahan wisely doesn't stick to a chronological rendition but flirts with events in no particular order. Piaf's rise, the tragic loss of her love, the addiction and its consequences, to her eventual demise and her final performance, at Paris's Olympia, of the great 'Non je ne regrette rien' are woven skillfully into the tapestry of a turbulent life led. The film embodies the chaos in her life by wildly flitting through these chapters.<br />
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What words do I have for Marion Cotillard's performance that have not been said before? She disappears so effectively into Edith Piaf's skin that I could trace no sign of Cotillard herself in the movie. Her resemblance to the singer is uncanny and one can imagine the rumbustious nature of Piaf from Cotillard's take on her. The Oscar was the jewel in her performance's crown. The playback was Piaf's own voice (though some of the earlier numbers were performed by other singers), which the actress effortlessly lip syncs to. Some great names, familiar to a larger audience outside France, playing supporting roles are the very talented Gerard Depardieu (Les Miserables, Green card) and the beautiful, enigmatic Emmanuelle Seigner, who has been the great filmmaker Roman Polanski's wife and muse (Frantic, Bitter Moon).<br />
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Dahan skillfully handles the screenplay and Cotillard's performance. Especially effective are the handling of sequences such as the news of Marcel's death, the latter portions of Piaf's life and on her death bed when she has strong recollections of a buried past before the fame. When she sits as a prematurely old woman, knitting a sweater on a wonderful sunny day, on a beach giving an interview, her answer to the advice she would give to a woman, a girl, a child is 'love'. That might be the key scene of the movie as it carries the essence of a life forever in the quest of love.<br />
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Biopics have been done to death. The story mostly is the same. Overcoming of odds to become a star and then the downfall and maybe a final comeback, that is the thread common to most movies under this category. I avoid biopics for this very reason. But, Edith Piaf's voice is too great an attraction for me not to want to understand her story. The force of Marion Cotillard's rendition of Piaf combined with an exciting, at times even confusing screenplay, successfully takes us into the heart of a little woman with one of the strongest, purest voices and provides a glimpse of the love and sorrow that she so mesmerizingly poured out into making the songs that she did. I still have the melody of 'La Vie en Rose' on a constant hum in my head and my heart.<br />
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Originally released in 2007<br />
Available on DVD<br />
In French with English subtitles<br />
Academy Award winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role<br />
My Rating: 4/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-68799427165232163182011-09-25T13:38:00.000-07:002011-09-25T13:40:24.752-07:00Taxi Driver - Study of AlienationMartin Scorsese has been around a long time giving us some unforgettable movies through the decades. Being a huge admirer of his work, this last decade has seemed to me to be his weakest link. The past month, on revisiting some of his path breaking earlier works, I was yet again mesmerized by his keen observation of the human psyche and how the troubled and often violent characters populating his stories were astutely depicted with no glorification to their circumstances. They came 'as is' and entering their heads was Scorsese's greatest strength.<br />
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Collaborating with Paul Schrader and Robert DeNiro, he achieved his milestones in two movies, 'Taxi Driver' and 'Raging Bull'. They both decorate the annals of cinematic achievements. Revisiting them, I debated arduously on which to review. 'Taxi Driver' won for the reason that it was unlike anything I had witnessed before, this chilling character study of a man crippled by his loneliness and social ineptness descending into madness, his delusions leading to a horrifying bloodbath. Travis Bickle (DeNiro) is an ex-Vietnam Marine taken to driving a taxicab entire nights on the streets of New York, to escape his insomnia. He sees the filth on the streets, the overflowing garbage, the pimps, prostitutes and such creatures of the night all around. The cab's backseat is the scene to many a rendezvous for sex and worse. He hopes that one day a "real rain would come and wash the scum off the streets". An ominous thought!<br />
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A constant monologue carries on in Travis's head and we are privy to it. We see him as the desperately lonely man, alienated by a society he is unable to form a connect with. The few people shown to have a conversation with him are put on their guards, knowing something is just not right. Scorsese, intriguingly never bothers us with his history, the past that he comes from. In an angelic looking political campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shephard), he sees a purity that, to his eye, is untouched by the filth of the city. Managing to hook a date with her, he takes her to watch a pornographic movie in the seedy parts of the city he is acquainted with. He doesn't know any better. Obviously, she walks out on him. His anger irrationally gets targeted at Palantine (Leonard Harris), the politician Betsy campaigns for and sees as the savior.<br />
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He also encounters a 12 year old child prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster) who, he assumes in his warped senses, needs rescuing from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). It all ends in a spine chilling climax open to much debate. Travis has delusions of being God's lone man on a mission to cleanse the streets filled with scum, of being that biblical rain washing it all away.<br />
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The 70s was for America, turbulent times in modern history with the Vietnam war, the changing climate in politics and the sexual revolution gathering force. Cinema mirrored these themes and the cynicism of the times reflected in many a directors work. Martin Scorsese became a name to reckon with in this era, first with 'Mean Streets' and more significantly with 'Taxi Driver', which was one of the pioneers in the changing landscape of cinema. A lot of Scorsese's works dealt with the outsiders in American society often arrested in its underbelly. Another underlying similarity in his characters is the Freudian Madonna/ whore complex they portray in their treatment of women. Scorsese went on to make greats like 'Raging Bull', 'Goodfellas' (another favorite), 'Casino' among others.<br />
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The script by Schrader is deeply moody, an internal scouting of the psyche of violence even as the viewers take an unsettling ride through the dimly lit, haze filled streets of New York and see through Travis Bickle's eyes, the grim filthiness of the lanes he carries his fares through, his complete social isolation and then his journey into being the vigilante, the cleaner of the degenerate streets. The entire movie is from Travis's point of view and we somewhat understand, if not empathize with this lonely man. Bernard Herrmann's melancholy yet ominous music, his last masterpiece (he died soon after the completion of the film's soundtrack), has the smooth jazz of saxophone at the onset giving way to the trumpet blaring over drum beats, as Travis descends into psychosis.<br />
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With all the brilliance of the material, the thread holding it together is DeNiro's tour de force. Barring Raging Bull, this is possibly his finest work. He walks a fine line in not completely alienating the audience, given the unlikeable nature of the character. Watch him practicing with his guns in front of the mirror, mouthing the famous 'You talkin' to me.....well, I'm the only one here' monologue and the hallmark of a great actor is established. Jodie Foster is memorable as the child prostitute as is Cybill Shephard. Watch for the two bit characters played by Martin Scorsese himself.<br />
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The degeneration of modern urban society seen through the eyes of one of its alienated inmates remains relevant over three decades into its release. Descending into Travis Bickle's warped world, hearing the thoughts he pens into his diary, his desperation for social acceptance and the confession to his absolute loneliness, it is hard not to understand to some degree what can push a man over. We needn't sympathize with Travis, but we all understand loneliness and have kept it's company at some point. Its the constant companionship of it that could eventually turn horrific.<br />
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Originally released in 1976<br />
Available on DVD<br />
My Rating: 4.5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-22560670271310069182011-09-19T17:24:00.000-07:002011-09-19T17:24:17.176-07:00The Lion King (In 3D) - The King Roars AgainAs the screen lit up to the magical glow of the rising sun and the display of the wonderful animal forms over the vast African savannah responding to the majestic beauty of Elton John's unforgettable 'The circle of Life', my heart felt overwhelmed at being able to catch the classic 1994 Disney original 'The Lion King' in theatres 17 years later. When I heard that Disney was planning on milking its biggest cash cow one more time in 3D, all I could feel was the sheer joy of introducing my daughter to the magical tale of Simba on the big screen. Though 3D is a definite gimmick in earning some extra money with little effort, the tale itself is so rich and powerfully filled with life lessons, that every generation deserves a fresh viewing.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfLXCPCoH40soEfzgP7z4BSdv5D5H5qpq-NlvneyAFIV3Y9ihl7QmJGtF_isizo7lQTTbW1TnXHyjwRGK6UR_cUeHtMknfqVzSeT0r1t51AXGlej-TL5rivcJIuGbG6THXEmLchHwSGy-v/s1600/the-lion-king-3d-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfLXCPCoH40soEfzgP7z4BSdv5D5H5qpq-NlvneyAFIV3Y9ihl7QmJGtF_isizo7lQTTbW1TnXHyjwRGK6UR_cUeHtMknfqVzSeT0r1t51AXGlej-TL5rivcJIuGbG6THXEmLchHwSGy-v/s400/the-lion-king-3d-poster.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>At its original release, it was hailed a landmark film that allowed Disney to turn a corner from animating beloved fairy tales of yore to come up with an original story that had all the essential morals of valor, determination, responsibility and did not shirk from the darker subjects of death, evil, guilt. Added to it a dose of essential humor, the voices of memorable characters helmed by Hollywood heavyweights sprinkling that extra zing, Sir Elton John and Tim Rice's award winning lifting soundtrack(Hakuna Matata, Can you feel the love, The circle of life) that never ages and a formula for the future of animation movies was successfully laid out, that carries to this day. Agreed that the times of hand drawn animation seen here have since made way to CGI, but 'The Lion King' was the new dawn of family entertainment spawning a succession of wonderful animated tales of which, in my opinion, it still remains king.<br />
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Indeed, the tale of loss of innocence in the face of guilt and wickedness, and the eventual finding of courage and responsibility to step up and take charge is a great teacher of character building that parents will want to imbibe in their little ones. Playful and trusting Simba, voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a cub and Matthew Broderick later, loses his father and guide King Mufasa (royal voiced James Earl Jones) in a cunning setup by his devious Uncle Scar (unforgettable Jeremy Irons), who has his eye on the throne of Pride Lands. Blaming him for the accident, Scar induces shame and guilt in the cub, making him leave his land forever.<br />
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Befriended by the delightful duo of warthog Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella) and Meerkat Timon (Nathan Lane), Simba whiles away his years with the now famous 'Hakuna Matata' philosophy, even as his kingdom is in shambles under the torturous rule of Scar aided by a pack of hyenas (a devilishly funny Whoopi Goldberg among others). Finally, destiny beckons Simba to his rightful place in the Circle of Life. Loosely adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet with deep biblical undertones, this is a powerfully relevant tale through the ages. On board the film was a total of 29 writers penning this classic. A special nod to the inspiring musical score by Hans Zimmer, which adds to the entire experience because lets face it, what would a motion picture be without music to enhance our senses.<br />
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Watching it in 3D did not add novelty to the experience. As I had mentioned, the 3D is a gimmick to sell tickets to a generation fed on it. It works perfectly well in 2D even though for a movie with hand drawn animation, the 3D conversion does not distract from the viewing experience and indeed adds to some of the wide angle shots. As the 2D version is running simultaneously, the audience can take its pick. To be able to experience 'The Lion King' in the theatres, 3D or not, is the real treat here and one that shouldn't be missed.<br />
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As we came out of the screening, my five year old had all the right questions and it has been a pleasure to explain to her virtues and character traits we all want instilled in our beloved futures. For this reason, it has resonated with millions and will continue to do so. The king roars on the big screen for just two weeks and I happily paid my obeisance.<br />
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Originally released in 1994<br />
Playing in Theatres in 3D for a limited time<br />
My Rating: 4.5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-73922543891894236972011-09-16T16:20:00.000-07:002011-09-16T16:20:14.000-07:00Contagion - Terror in a HandshakeTwo falls ago, our population fell pray to the H1N1 virus. We are testament to how that pandemic played out. Now Steven Soderbergh's 'Contagion' brings out the ghastly possibility of a far more deadly mutating virus unleashing into today's global village. One claiming millions of lives even as the officials and doctors clamor to find a vaccine. It all starts with a cough. Beth EmHoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) on her way back home to Minneapolis from a business trip in Hong Kong makes a layover at Chicago. Looking visibly unwell, she makes inevitable physical contact at the airport. The germs are spreading. Back home, in the throes of sudden seizure she dies and her son soon follows. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon), surprisingly immune, is stunned by the devastating turn of events and terrified that his teenage daughter will be affected.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2oRcIHHZ9HEIYH4VfBrnU2LGomScnCgBrtpT5coa9HnT0Tu1JHS-BL05piCg7KUpmjZpRYd73vXTsFN0qZU4U7A6krP3pBta082KIi_TG5FLcTzZpOpf6whnXWU2eNfbwPSGY6zWbvln/s1600/71d3d_movie_contagion-new-poster_450x666.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu2oRcIHHZ9HEIYH4VfBrnU2LGomScnCgBrtpT5coa9HnT0Tu1JHS-BL05piCg7KUpmjZpRYd73vXTsFN0qZU4U7A6krP3pBta082KIi_TG5FLcTzZpOpf6whnXWU2eNfbwPSGY6zWbvln/s400/71d3d_movie_contagion-new-poster_450x666.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>From this personal tragedy we are swiftly transported to China, England, Chicago where similar cases are registered. The Centre of Disease control in Atlanta gear into action with Dr. Cheevar (Laurence Fishburne) sending Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis to track down the spread of the virus. A WHO official Dr. Orantes (Marion Cotillard) makes a trip to China to locate it's origin, recreating patient zero Beth's movements there. As the bodies pile up, search for a vaccine is on in epidemiologist Dr. Ally Hextall's (Jennifer Ehle) lab. Even as the key players are introduced, the science of the disease and the ramifications of daily motions such as handshaking, touching our faces, making contact with fellow humans bear down on our by now hypochondriac selves.<br />
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Scott Burn's screenplay wisely keeps sensationalism out of the happenings. Soderbergh's film works as a procedural where enough thrills and chills generate from the realistic unfolding of events. Scary is the possibility of how real this catastrophe could be and that is what draws us in on the horror. It takes the exact opposite route of an earlier pandemic movie 'Outbreak' with Dustin Hoffman which had Hollywood blockbuster with superhero scientists writ all over. The players here, despite being Hollywood A-listers, approach their unglamorous roles with a sense of urgency bring reality into their characters. Especially effective is Jennifer Ehle in her struggle to jump hoops to get the vaccines tested and brought to the public.<br />
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There are no sob inducing personal tragedies, largely seen in disaster movies, here. Tragedy strikes through this movie some million times over, but the only human face put to it is Mitch. The virus is the central character here and holds all attention moving from its outbreak to an available cure. In that journey we encounter pharmaceutical companies standing to make a profit, bureaucratic red tapes, a doctor's desperation to test her vaccine on humans, a possible scapegoat in the CDC. The politics of the disease is as frightening as its science. A kidnap in the middle of the movie is a reminder that even with a vaccine available, just how hard it could be for the ordinary person in an obscure corner of the world to lay hands on it. Where the disease can spread, the cure might not.<br />
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Also terror inducing is the internet media's role. Embodied by a journalist blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude law), with his own agenda to push a homeopathic drug, his blogs on conspiracy theories within the government and Big Pharma lead to panic and lawlessness among a population of 12 million following him. Always goes to say, it is the panic that has more casualties than the disease itself. Stores are vandalised, pharmacies ransacked, homes robbed as food becomes scarce and FEMA struggles with supplies. Bodies are refused burial and instead pile up in makeshift graves. Cities are quarantined.<br />
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Soderbergh uses similar skills that he applied for his award winning 2000 movie 'Traffic'. The massive scale of the story is seamlessly tied together. It is a beautifully shot movie in all its bleakness and the soundtrack by Cliff Martinez, a Soderbergh regular, is perfect in creating a sense of panic in us. Technically and performance wise, it is hard to fault the film. It packs in quite a punch in its 106 minutes runtime. The ending is especially chilling, where in a couple of montages, the innocent origin of the bio-threat is revealed.<br />
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Even as people, hoping for a blockbuster fight with the virus, might be dissappointed. This is no Hollywood fight with aliens, machines, zombies. We have seen plenty of those come with alarming regularity. Finally a disaster movie that could be, is now in the theaters. And if it be, what could actually happen to the world at its mercy. Purell, anyone?<br />
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Released in 2011<br />
Running in Theatres<br />
My Rating: 4/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-92076919970476540862011-09-12T16:58:00.000-07:002011-09-27T16:51:13.042-07:00Days of Heaven - Poetry in MotionTerrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven' has to be one of the most beautiful films to have graced the world of cinema. A collage of luminous shots of twilight hues and vast prairies. A story of love, jealousy and loss seamlessly merged with the breathtaking beauty of nature, the soundtrack indelibly flooding our senses with the emotions unfolding in visuals. Where a perfect marriage of cinematography, storytelling and soundtrack creates magic. Widely hailed as a landmark film of the '70s, conventional storytelling takes a backseat here to visual symbolism and in muted biblical tones, human tragedy morphs with the perish of nature.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lcBVjSmjHsseTyMBLYPNhRw1UblfYa5P_YJ0Wn4Kzc96nCOHpNibTkVjTsE5idlJcjXYbqC1tqNuNwsIqQQXZX0iS9ZW_ZLjbtXdEMArHij0dxKINcYiXrwCs6K3BDr9FzDyz2QcDA1R/s1600/409_box_348x490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8lcBVjSmjHsseTyMBLYPNhRw1UblfYa5P_YJ0Wn4Kzc96nCOHpNibTkVjTsE5idlJcjXYbqC1tqNuNwsIqQQXZX0iS9ZW_ZLjbtXdEMArHij0dxKINcYiXrwCs6K3BDr9FzDyz2QcDA1R/s400/409_box_348x490.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>In 1916's America, Chicago steel mill worker Bill (a devastatingly handsome Richard Gere) accidentally kills a foreman and escapes with his young sister Linda (Linda Manz) and lover Abby (Brooke Adams) to the Texas panhandle looking for work. Bill passes Abby as his sister to control wagging tongues. Harvest is in progress and they get work as farm hands in the wheat fields of a wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard in his debut). Amidst acres of farmland, stands the farmer's majestic house, alone in the face of nature, telling of its inhabitant's isolation. The farmer (we never know his name) is mesmerized by Abby. Bill, having overheard that the farmer is unwell with only a year to live, pushes Abby into marriage with him. His reason, live this farce for a year and we will finally be done with poverty. However, marriage seems to agree with the farmer and death does not knock on his door. On the contrary the painfully shy farmer blooms in the companionship of his charming wife.<br />
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The plan goes awry and Abby, slowly falling in love with the farmer, is caught in a web of deceit, jealousy and ultimately tragedy. Nature bears testament to the end of harmony and happiness when the land is plagued with swarms of locusts and fire even as human emotions reach its destructive peak. The saga is observed and narrated almost impersonally, in one of the most amazingly rendered voiceovers in cinema, by the little sister Linda. She narrates colloquially with her filtered understanding of complex emotions. The tale draws from many sources including biblical as well as Henry James's 'The Wings of the Dove'. It is singled out for the sheer beauty achieved in its visual narration mingled with overpowering emotions evoked by the brilliant score of Ennio Morricone. The visual masterpiece, created by cinematographers Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler, was shot mostly in natural light during the 'magical hour'....the small glorious window between sunset and night when the sky is bathed in a soft orange-yellow glow. It went on to win an Oscar in that category.<br />
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The performances are perfect. A lot is implied in very little. The dialogues are sparse and drowns in the sounds of nature and machines so that we are left holding half sentences. Linda's quietly detached, world weary voice over guides us through. The emotions run deep beneath the facade of a calm almost impersonal exterior. Terrence Malick is a visionary auteur with a strongly philosophical voice, pitting human against nature's grandiose, thus putting man's self involvement into place in the grand scheme of things. He has made five films in a career spanning four decades. This movie was his second, coming after his debut masterpiece 'Badlands' with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. I highly recommend that as well. Malick spent two years in the editing room piecing 'Days of Heaven' into an awe inspiring visual feast. Reams of dialogues were cut here in favor of his vision. Nature and its biblical scope has played an important character in every Malick film be it 'Badlands','The Thin Red Line', 'A new World'. In the sweeping shots of the quacking of ducks, bisons grazing, horses roaming the expanse of land lies a symbol of co-existance among all nature's creations.<br />
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Between the flawed beauty of the characters of Bill, Abby and the farmer and the melancholy of a child who knows that the days of heaven are numbered, the interplay of nature's violence with man, an idyllic world's abortion, comes alive a masterpiece that deserves multiple viewings just to savor the perfection that cinema can achieve.<br />
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Originally released in 1978<br />
Available on DVD from the Criterion Collection<br />
My Rating: 5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-74701595437530990962011-08-29T17:32:00.000-07:002011-08-29T17:32:07.461-07:00The Help - Winds of ChangeSet in a time when the civil rights movement had gathered momentum in America, 'The Help' is a tale of how life was in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s. A time when every white household employed the services of the black help. When white kids were raised by the help, when the food in every white household was put on the table by the help, when the help who raised a white family was forbidden to use the same bathroom as them, when there was a separate entrance at the grocers for them, when they were known to carry diseases just by virtue of their skin color. A time we can all look back in shame with. Based on Kathryn Stockett's best selling novel and adapted for the screen and directed by Tate Taylor, 'The Help' is a picture of the harsh realities of the African American domestic service seen though rose hued glasses. Reality treated with a little Hollywood gloss.<br />
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Aibileen (Viola Davis) has helped raise 17 white kids. Her mother was a maid and her grandmother was a house slave. Her latest is the little girl of Elizabeth (Ahna O'Reilly). She tells that the child is smart, kind and important to soothe the little ones tears. It is almost as if she is reminding herself. Aibileen is part of an army of African American women who wake up each morning, to don their uniforms and leave their own homes and children behind to look after the homes and children of their white employers. Aibileen's weary eyes have tales to tell. The newly returned white college graduate and wannabe writer Skeetar Phelan (Emma Stone) wants to write the stories of Aibileen and other such women. In a changing world, she sees through the atrocities of her friends stuck with old prejudices.<br />
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There is also the sassy, smart mouthed Minny (Octavia Spencer) who works for the evil society bigot Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her mother, played with tremendous spunk by Sissy Spacek. Things go wrong over the use of the in house bathroom and Minny finds herself without a job. She extracts her revenge in one of the funniest sequences of the movie and then goes to work for the town's outcast Celia (Jessica Chastain) and an amazing bond forms between the two amidst some humorous sequences and then some heartwarming ones. Minny and Aibileen become the voices of Skeeter's book and circumstances induce a dozen other women to come open with their stories. Of their times and travails as the help.<br />
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Of course we are as aware as them that when the book comes out, though anonymous, there shall be consequences. But they will find their voice in a world where they are not accustomed to being heard. Kathryn Stockett's book, though highly engrossing, did somewhat gloss over the severe nature of life in Mississippi then, being a tad simplistic. The movie which is a wonderful adaptation, something I cannot say for most big screen adaptation of books, suffers from lack of focus of the big picture as well. But as a story about the prejudiced society ladies, their black help and the one white young woman who embodies the change needed, it is a triumph. Very few books have been well adapted to the screen, so full marks to Tate Taylor on a job well done. He brings his own vision to the movie yet keeps the author's words alive. But what truly brightens the skyline of 'The Help' is its wonderful ensemble of actors.<br />
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Spearheading the cast and the one who truly steals the show is Viola Davis. In her Aibileen, we see a face that carries a myriad of emotions, the pain of her life, the loss of her son and yet the hope to be the change much needed in a society caught up in a racial time warp. She is so real and effective in her portrayal, it is easy to dismiss her act owing to lack of any theatrics. The great Meryl Streep, her costar in the wonderful 'Doubt', had once pointed out of the gigantically gifted Davis at an award show 'My god, somebody give her a movie'. This act reinforces the talent. Acting as a superb foil is the more gallery friendly turn of Octavia Spencer's Minnie. Every member of the cast is effective. A special mention must be made of Sissy Spacek who is delightful in the limited screen time she inhabits. Equally deserving of praise is Bryce Dallas Howard who takes Hilly's mean girl bigot act to its zenith. As the main antagonist, she is fantastic. Emma Stone is good as the story's moral epicenter.<br />
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'The Help' is a high production glossy Hollywood take on a matter that is very serious and has affected generations, the rumblings of which can still be heard. In Skeetar's own story of the disappearance of her maid and often surrogate mother, Constantine (Cicely Tyson), we see a glimpse of the way it might have been even for nice, ordinary white women living in a society and time set in the comfortable old ways of the South. It did not just have to be a maniacal racist like Hilly, most well meaning people stroked its fire quietly. It was a way of life back then. Both the movie and its source material are good, but a slight discontentment stems from the fact that the tale skims the surface when it had the capability of going a lot under.<br />
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Released in 2011<br />
Playing in Theatres<br />
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Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-34332352169983169322011-08-25T16:40:00.000-07:002011-08-25T16:48:43.580-07:00Shaitan - The Devil WithinThe youth of today's India is trapped in a web of new age modernism. There's money aplenty, too much free time, a trend where the fast life of boozing, drugging is considered cool and to top it all, morals are passe. The lines between right and wrong blur and a total disregard for life and values set in. In such a land-mine waiting to explode, circumstances can easily trigger the devil inside. Produced by Anurag Kashyap (widely regarded as the most daring film maker at this time in Indian cinema) and helmed by first time director Bejoy Nambiar, 'Shaitan' is a reflection of todays urban young India. It is edgy, shocking and at the end makes you think hard of where the new generation might be headed.<br />
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</div>The tale begins with the new transport from Los Angeles to Mumbai, in her words while her dad still regards it as Bombay, Amy (Kalki Koechlin). A disturbed young girl, she has visions of her mother's mental illness and consequent death. Adjusting to life in the big city with a rich but self involved father (Rajit kapoor) and a new well meaning stepmother, she is quickly befriended by a group of laid back, pleasure loving youngsters. There's the rich guy whiling away life spending dad's money KC (Gulshan Devaiya), the bulimic model Tanya (Kirti Kulhari), the Parsi geek Zubin (Neil Bhoopalam) and the mysterious cocaine supplier Dash (Shiv Pandit). Life is an endless ride of partying, drinking, doing drugs till one night speeding in their Hummer they end up killing two people on a scooter. Since their conscience never really come to play, to get away they agree to come up with a huge sum of money to shut the mouth of the police officer who is wise to this incident. The problem is, how to lay hands on such a large sum.<br />
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As if killing and covering their tracks was not enough, they decide to fake kidnap Amy, secure in the knowledge that her rich dad would pay up. The dad calls the cops instead. The commissioner (Pawan Malhotra), making some wise observations on the reality of the police system calls on suspended cop with his own personal problems, Arvind Mathur (Rajeev Khandelwal) to solve the case. The case gathers a media circus and all hell breaks loose. The friends are tested and the devil in them rears its ugly head.<br />
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This is a movie which is an achievement in the technical department. The sound, cinematography, shot taking, editing all join hands to create an edgy, mad frenzy on screen. Some scenes stand out especially the shootout and chase sequence to the backdrop of a well remixed classic 'Khoya Khoya chand'. The accident itself is extremely well shot. The introduction to all the characters is superbly handled. The screenplay successfully captivates for at least half the movie. However, my grouse is that it does loose steam towards the end and the climax seems hurried and too tame for the impact, the beginning had prepared us for.<br />
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There is also the problem of connecting with these youngsters. Even though it would be hard to connect with such morally bereft characters, there is never much understanding to their worlds and the inner demons that cause them to be their selves. As such, it is hard to feel sympathy for any of them. Or was that intentional? Does one really need a reason to turn out a certain way? Scary thought that, and if society adds to it, the fibre of values and humanity might just tear away to reveal monsters. The director should be lauded for slapping the youth of today with his debut feature. To think, he could not find any producer backing him for the longest time till he hit pay dirt with the maverick director/producer, Anurag Kashyap. Kashyap has fought long and hard with an industry stuck to conventions and unwilling to take risks, emerging as a name to reckon with in a cinematic climate which is finally welcoming change and the daring, edgy cinema reflecting the new face of urban India.<br />
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The performances are top notch. The name that stands out is Rajeev Khandelwal. As a hugely popular television soap actor, he transcended successfully to become a well regarded and dependable performer with his very first movie outing 'Aamir'. In this second venture, as the tough cop, he is brilliant. Successfully carrying the weathered look of a person whose marriage is in shambles, career is in disarray yet rigidly holding on to his beliefs, he is completely believable as the cop who is stirred to action despite his own mess. He adds to even the smallest of moments, like when he kicks the errant rickshaw driver to action. The youngsters led by Kalki are all superb as well and hold their roles, never giving away the fact that for most, it is their first attempt at cinema.<br />
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Shaitan literally translates to devil. It is the horror of the deeds of these youngsters and what they are capable of that defines the movie. There is a lot derived from the real world. How often do we open the morning papers to read headlines about hit and runs by drunk rich kids, kidnappings, crimes of passion. There is food for thought here and even though it is not a perfect movie, it is a great start by Bejoy Nambiar. We look forward to more such hard hitting works from this definitive voice.<br />
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Released in 2011<br />
In Hindi with English subtitles<br />
Available on DVD<br />
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Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-78647787597386489752011-08-22T16:40:00.000-07:002011-09-27T16:53:22.006-07:00'The Bicycle Thief'/'Bicycle Thieves' - Reality of a crippled societyVittorio DeSica was one of the pioneers of neorealist cinema in a post war ridden Italy. At a time when the country was crippled by the devastation of war, a crumbling economy, lack of jobs, an impoverished society, DeSica held out a mirror to the troubles of the common man. 'The Bicycle Thief' was a masterpiece from its very conceptualization. A movie that went on to win an honorary Oscar at a time when the foreign film category did not exist and was hailed by critics as the greatest film ever made at the time, this work of art needs no introduction to world cinema buffs. The tale of a father and son in search of a stolen bicycle which is essential to the livelihood of their family takes the most simple, direct approach to filmmaking, leaving the strongest impact at its closure.<br />
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Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) is a man like many in search of a job in post war Rome. He bags one as a poster hanger, the only requirement being that he has a bicycle. In fact he does not, as he has pawned his to provide food at his family table. But a No means loss of a livelihood and waiting for another job may take a year. There are crowds of people willing to take his position. His wife Maria, played spiritedly by Lianella Carell, pawns her dowry bed sheets to reclaim their bicycle. Their hopes rekindled, a poor but loving family smile at the prospect of good times. In the morning Ricci heads out with his young son Bruno ( Enzo Staiola in a laudable performance), whom he drops off at his workplace in a gas station and then starts with his new job. Alas, on this very first day, in front of his hapless eyes, his cycle gets stolen, the thief vanishing into the crowd. What follows is Ricci's desperate attempt to find that stolen bicycle over the course of an entire day with Bruno in tow. Realization slowly hits him that he may never recover that bicycle and fall back into the vicious cycle of poverty once more.<br />
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Simple and direct in its story and treatment, 'The Bicycle Thief' is one of the most powerful takes on the degeneration of moral values in the face of sheer desperation to survive. At one point during their futile search, Ricci almost gives up, telling Bruno that they might as well eat and forget about their state. In a restaurant scene, one of the many poignant in the movie, a father filled with false bravado makes merry with his son, forgetting for a few moments the reality of their situation, only to have his son eyeing the rich children eating plates full of spaghetti. Realization reinstates the importance of that stolen cycle in their lives. 'If we had that cycle, we could eat', he words to his son. Later, he does find and confront the thief in an electrifying sequence where a crowd gathers, defending the thief and cornering Ricci. Even after getting the police, Ricci is unable to retrieve the cycle from him. <br />
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Desperation finally cuts through Ricci who rides the cycle of morality to grab what does not belong to him. In doing so, his action becomes the image of a society driven to desperate measures in order to survive. It's a vicious cycle and if circumstances don't change, the cycle won't break. 'The Bicycle Thief' employs non actors in the major roles. A truthfulness to the trying times the characters endure shine through these common people portraying roles not much different from their natural circumstances. In Ricci, we have the desperate man trying to provide for his family and be the father his son can look up to. Bruno is the face of innocence waking up to the harsh reality of life. When the father crumples of shame and despair, it is the son who holds Ricci's hands in an ironic role reversal.<br />
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DeSica who turned to neorealist cinema with 'The children are watching us' and later won the world over with 'Shoeshine' (also a recipient of an honorary Oscar), made this masterpiece, of a book by Luigi Bartolini which he reworked with his writer/collaborator Cesare Zavattini, who had originally brought the book to him. The effectiveness of the tale lies in it being devoid of sentimentality. It narrates a sad tale of working class Italy and keeps it to the point and in consequence highly effective. A highlight of the movie is its music. The melancholic strain that follows the father-son duo's travails is the emotional string that makes the proceedings heartbreaking.<br />
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The title of the movie has been a subject of controversy. Literally translated, it is 'Bicycle Thieves' which puts the film's tale into perspective. The deterioration of the moral fabric of a society in its desperate pursuit of survival, is captured impeccably in its title. However, released in the United States, it became the more simplistic 'The Bicycle Thief', telling of a stolen cycle and the efforts for its retrieval. The Criterion collection, thankfully, released the DVD with the literal title reinstated.<br />
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Shot in Rome, I could not help compare the city with the images captured in a Hollywood movie of those times, 'Roman Holiday'. We see not a shot of the tourist attractions and the picture perfect locations here. This is the reality of the heart of a city driven to desperate measures for survival. Men walking with the weight of the world on them. And from that sea emerges one man, with his tale, only to be swallowed once more by the sea of weary faces at the end. On watching this movie, it is said Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray found his calling for making neorealist cinema, employing non actors in real world tales of the common man. Indeed, Iranian cinema and many others to this day create great cinema out of realism. Truth, after all, does resonate. As does the enduring power of a movie made over half a century ago.<br />
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Originally released in 1948<br />
In Italian with English Subtitles<br />
Available on DVD<br />
My Rating: 5/5Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-15234713729260837772011-08-17T20:44:00.000-07:002011-08-17T21:10:14.301-07:00Roman Holiday - A Royal AdventureThere is something to be said about a romantic comedy that endures. William Wyler's 'Roman Holiday' is that rare movie that in its lightheartedness and fun sweeps us into an experience truly unforgettable and at the end, quietly melancholy. Launching the big screen career of Hollywood's sweetheart Audrey Hepburn, this movie gave us romance at its most endearing, comedy at its most hilarious and finally a waif like girl who would burn up the entire screen each time she twinkled into the camera.<br />
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</div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPm6edeXNhDKvwGUwftS-hD5-43gM4j9MQXpexKqsa80rY6q91lLrfYIFolbic5GW1P_vkjGxN6lv6cyhmhKSncjyC1N5bIoAac6ThbpdxjGOZyfAIk9aBkLYCTKudMaRkl8ezWhyphenhyphenVMC6S/s1600/Roman-Holiday-Stills-roman-holiday-12036493-1684-2100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPm6edeXNhDKvwGUwftS-hD5-43gM4j9MQXpexKqsa80rY6q91lLrfYIFolbic5GW1P_vkjGxN6lv6cyhmhKSncjyC1N5bIoAac6ThbpdxjGOZyfAIk9aBkLYCTKudMaRkl8ezWhyphenhyphenVMC6S/s400/Roman-Holiday-Stills-roman-holiday-12036493-1684-2100.jpg" width="320" /></a>The story is old as the hills. In a case of cinderella reversed, we have Princess Ann from an unnamed country, on a goodwill tour across the European states. Her last stop is Rome and we sense a discontentment even as she meets with dignitaries and addresses them with regality and charm. A desire to escape the daily routine takes over her sedated self at night, after a bout of hysterics and she tumbles into the streets of Rome. An encounter with a charming gentleman Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) leads to him taking her to his shoebox size apartment, unable to leave her on the streets in her drug induced state.<br />
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Turns out that Mr. Bradley is a reporter who now has a scoop on his hands. On discovering that the troublesome, seemingly inebriated girl is the princess, who is stated to have been indisposed of a sudden illness to hide her disappearance from the palace, he along with his partner in crime, photographer Irving (Eddie Albert), seize the moment to keep the runaway princess around them long enough to build a story around her adventures in Rome. And so we have Ann posing as Anya Smith getting a haircut where her locks are sheared into Hepburn's now signature pixie cut, riding a motorcycle to hilarious consequences, gorging on a gelato at the heart of Rome and creating some marvelous moments of fun with the two opportunists in tow. And then the day comes to an end with the princess finding love.<br />
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This is a movie with some great moments of physical comedy that have been emulated through the decades in cinema across the globe. The fun between Joe and Irving over revealing the identity of the princess is a highpoint as is the sequence at a dance where a sidesplitting furor occurs culminating in the memorable snapshot of Anya bringing down a guitar over a man's head. But no sequence of the fun on this holiday is probably as famous, indeed imitated over the years, as the 'mouth of truth' sequence where if one is telling an untruth with their hand in the mouth of a stone image, it gets bitten off. Amidst all the fun, the tender romance that develops between the lead is aired with sadness. After all, can the princess ever fall in love and live happily ever after with the commoner?<br />
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Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn have crackling chemistry. Gregory Peck was a star at the time. But for Audrey Hepburn, this movie, though not her debut, was her first starring role. To hold her own against a seasoned performer and actually at times be more effective, was no small achievement. That she took home the Oscar that year isn't surprising. Watch her slight smile with that teardrop hanging like a pearl from her eye in her final sequence. Amazing! Gregory Peck, that handsome gentleman, was extremely at ease in his first comic outing. To give him fine company was the third corner of this fun trio, Eddie Albert. His physical comedy with Peck had perfect timing. The performance of all the actors stand out, especially in the final sequence. The director takes his time with the scene, lingering over the expressions, each nuance is highlighted and the actors deliver to the moment.<br />
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The movie was shot wholly on location, thereby giving it that authentic air, studio shot movies can never quite duplicate. At its inception, the project was to star Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor and be directed by Frank Capra. However, since the story was by Dalton Trumbo, at the time blacklisted for his political activities, Capra had reservations going ahead with the project and William Wyler was brought into the picture. At his insistence, the movie was shot in Italy and to keep the budget in check, made in black and white. Dalton Trumbo was not credited for his work in the movie and Ian McLellan Hunter, who had helped on the screenplay, got the credit for which he won the Oscar as well. However, Trumbo did receive a posthumous Oscar for his work and his name has now been restored on the credits in the DVD of the film. With Wyler's inclusion came the bright young actress Audrey Hepburn, who had screen tested for him. Cary Grant had reservations about working with an actress as young as Hepburn and in stepped Gregory Peck who was by the time, ready to do a romantic comedy having worked only in serious roles before.<br />
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Roman Holiday finds its bearing in being a tale told lightly of unconsummated love. Some of the greatest love stories are of a love which do not find a happy ending. The ones that leave us wistful for what might have been. In Princess Ann's tears shining through her smile and Joe Bradley's teary eyed melancholy look, we sigh for a love that this and a life that won't allow them to be together. But out of this love, they find honor. The honor to do what is right, to fulfill their duties. To become better human beings. Love often does do that to people.<br />
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Originally released in 1953<br />
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</div>Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-36948327863702730152011-08-09T18:57:00.000-07:002011-08-09T18:57:54.761-07:00Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - You only Live onceTen years ago Hindi cinema came alive with a film on friendship, its delicate yet enduring bond and growing in life and love. The movie spoke to the youth, gathered a cult following and is now enshrined in the gallery of trendsetting movies from India. That movie was 'Dil Chahta Hai'. Its director a young debutant Farhan Akhtar. Fast forward to the present day and we have another young filmmaker Zoya Akhtar who presents to us 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara'. A film I can call a worthy successor to 'Dil Chahta Hai'. She happens to be the former mentioned filmmaker's sister. It all runs in the family.<br />
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We have a tale of male bonding where one friend is engaged and decides to arrange a road trip through Spain with his two best childhood buddies as an extended bachelor party. Kabir (Abhay Deol) wants to get his friends Imran (Frahan Akhtar) and Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) to give in to their adventurous sides and partake of sports which will test their fears and therefore set them free. So, we have three friends in picturesque Spain giving in to their wild side, playing pranks on random people, reminiscing about their college days and slowly letting us into their inner worlds. We witness the tension between Imran and Arjun and understand the reason for it, we see Arjun's love for money and understand the motivation behind it, we are privy to Imran's world where under the front of being the prankster of the group he is hiding secrets and fighting demons and finally we see the truth behind a facade Kabir has put on.<br />
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Deep sea diving, Sky diving and a run with the bulls are the activities of choice and with each, the characters are liberated of their fears, their turmoils and the philosophy of 'learning to live each moment like your last' stands tall. This is our time to live and what good is it if we spend it inside a box. Laila, Katrina Kaif in one of her more natural roles, is the voice of this philosophy. A deep sea diver, she sets Arjun free of his bondage and brings love into his life. The scene where she seizes the moment to let him know of her feelings, stands out for its sheer genuinity. In the middle of their adventures with life, Kabir's fiance Natasha (Kalki Koechlin) lands up to keep an eye on her husband to be, in case things heat up on this extended road trip.<br />
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Certain sequences leave an impact but none more so than the sequence between Imran and his father. In its subtlety, this scene lends credibility to the lessons the movie sets out to impart. Pain is essential to living life fully. With each experience we open ourselves to it. And it is both the teacher as well as the healer. The sky diving sequence is a metaphor for the need to let go, to truly feel life. It is beautifully shot and stands out in capturing the essence of friendship so uniquely.<br />
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The actors all rise to the occasion and deliver. There are no false notes here. The characters are easily relatable. Hrithik Roshan, a star in India, shows the sensitivity to handle the growth of his character graph. Abhay Deol as always, is dependable as is Kalki in her slightly neurotic, shrewish character. The revelation is Farhan Akhtar. Even in his tomfoolery we sense a sadness, a weight in his laughter. The sequence where he confronts his father and the tears that rise is applause worthy. Naseerudin Shah in his lone sequence stands out. A worthy note to the poetry penned by Javed Akhtar that takes the journey forward.<br />
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Though it takes the movie a while to rise to the occasion, with an initial half hour or so where the tomfoolery might just start to get on nerves, when it gets its groove, it sweeps us along with it. There are sequences celebrating friendship and fun which overstay their welcome, an example being the tomatina festival in Bunol as also the childish pranks of scaring people. But in its depiction of each adventure sport and the life lessons associated as well as the growth in the character graphs of its leads, this movie gets it right. Zoya Akhtar shows tremendous talent in understanding the finer nuances of telling a story. There is a lot implied here, drums are not beaten. Thankfully, unlike a lot of makers of commercial Indian cinema, she does not dumb down her audience. A special mention to how she ends the movie. Most movies get that moment wrong. She nails the final sequence, draws the curtains at the accurate instant.<br />
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We usually live by the book. It is the norm and before we know, the rules have bent us and our lives have flashed by. We do not get the opportunity to turn back time, to set our lives free and soar. In that case, it makes sense to truly feel each day, each moment and breathe in life and the richness it has to offer. Few find courage to flow against the tide, but that is the only way to freedom. When you are running from the bulls, you feel death in every pore and in the face of that final eventuality, you may truly be free to dream, to feel, to live.<br />
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Released in 2011<br />
In HindiSudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-64219567631885992522011-07-19T19:00:00.000-07:002011-07-19T19:00:43.023-07:00Midnight in Paris - A Tale of Magic Realism"Oh to be transported to that world you yearn for, the times when the creative giants mingled at parties, literary salons and welcome you, caught in a magical time warp, into their midst. You gape with awe at rubbing shoulders with the masters and they are blissfully unaware of who they are to become in the eyes of a future generation" - that in a nutshell is Woody Allen's delightful new movie. We know Allen best from the times of his love affair with New York. Barely has any filmmaker captured the pulse of that enigmatic city and its inhabitants like Allen. And yet now he churns out movies set in European locales. Some are hits, a lot misses. 'Matchpoint' and 'Vicky christina Barcelona' had shades of brilliance. With 'Midnight in Paris', he gets his groove back.<div><br />
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</div><div>Gil (Owen Wilson) is on vacation in Paris with his uptight fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her rich right wing pompous parents. He is a successful screenwriter in Hollywood who is discontent with the hack writing he produces and longs to leave it all to wander the streets of Paris, which is filled with the footprints of literary geniuses of a bygone era, and complete work on his novel, become an actual writer. Inez, on the other hand, loves her riches and wishes to settle in upscale American suburbia. While Inez lives the night life of Paris with friends, Gil would rather catch some air wandering those historic cobblestone lined streets and at the stroke of midnight encounters magic. A vintage automobile draws up and he is transported into the Paris of the 1920s rubbing shoulders with literary giants like Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald as also artists Picasso, Salvodor Dali.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Magic and reality blend as night after night Gil makes the journey into his favorite period of history and has his manuscript read by the great Stein for some valuable inputs. Glimpses into Scott and Zelda's tumultuous relationship and Hemingway's masculinity, love of adventure and all the famous salon meetings at Stein's residence of the 20s ring true. He meets the luminous Adriana (Marion Cotillard), who is Picasso's lover and muse and finds himself attracted to the rich beauty and deep mind. A man considering himself a misfit in todays times with a desire to have lived in that golden era of American literature slowly gains insight into love, desires and finally finds himself in Paris. A breezy watch, it is heartwarming how 'Midnight in Paris' leaves us with that very important life lesson - whatever we seek for, we should keep at the present else no era will be good enough. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Peppered liberally with a host of great performances in cameos like Kathy Bates as Stein, Adrien Brody as Dali among others, the stand out performance comes from Owen Wilson who embodies the character Woody Allen played role after role, to perfection. It is safe to say he plays the best Woody Allen after the man himself. The sincerity and enthusiasm shines through in his hero worship for these greats who knew not at that time the greatness writ in their destinies. He is a revelation. Rachel McAdams is efficient as the shrewish, spoilt fiancee. One wonders what brought these two in such a mismatch of a relationship. Maybe their shared love of Indian pita bread. Marion Cotillard is bewitching and just gazing into those enormously expressive eyes, one can believe her to have inspired great artists.</div><div><br />
</div><div>For lovers of literature especially American as well as art of the early twentieth century, and those responding to the magic of Paris, this is an exceptional watch. For those not familiar, this is an equally enchanting ride. Paris looks picture postcard. There is a brief period when time moves its hands back into late nineteenth century 'Belle Epoque' Paris which is Adriana's idyllic era. There is a certain nostalgia associated with bygone eras. For every era, there is one before it to yearn for. But time, after all, moves forward for a reason. </div><div><br />
</div><div>Released in 2011</div><div>Playing in Theatres</div><div><br />
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</div>Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-10338318236752592722011-07-10T12:47:00.000-07:002011-07-10T12:47:54.886-07:00The Town - Boston's crime neighborhood come aliveA movie about a bank robber who wants to walk away from his life of crime, having found love and an alternate meaning to life. We have seen it all before. However Ben Affleck's deftly directed and acted Boston crime drama 'The Town' springs a pleasant surprise in its execution for the majority of its running time. This is a movie we can predict each twist a mile away, yet it manages to hold our attention and engage us in its characters' graphs. That is no mean feat.<br />
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</div><div>Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck) heads a four member gang of bank robbers living in Charlestown, introduced to us at the beginning of the movie, as the neighborhood of Boston that produces more bank robbers than any other part of the country. Indeed crime is more a family occupation in this Irish neighborhood. Doug's father is serving hard time for not snitching on his friends in a crime gone wrong. At the onset, the movie gets down to business with a gritty bank robbery. Hidden behind skeletor masks, they loot the Cambridge bank and then take the bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) as hostage. She is let go unharmed, but the gang soon finds out that she lives right in their neighborhood and there is a chance she could point them to the FBI. Jem (Jeremy Renner), the psycho trigger happy member that every movie gang seems to have, wants to "remove her from the equation". Doug, the level headed leader, however takes matters into his own hands. He befriends her, trying to find out how much she knows. In the process, love blossoms. </div><div><br />
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</div><div>The movie takes its time to delve into the Doug's psyche. Here is where Ben Affleck shines as a director. There is in particular a scene, where he talks of his childhood, when his mother walked out on their family. Observe the leisureliness in the dialogue delivery, the correct pauses and the nuances so telling of the effect that incident probably had in shaping his persona. A recovering alcoholic worn down by the world he inhabits, Claire comes as the change he wants to make in his life. Hoping to escape to Florida with her, he reluctantly takes on one last job. And of course, things start to go wrong.<br />
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</div><div>Where the story lacks in novelty, it makes up in its interesting characters and the great scenes they inhabit. There is Jem who is like a brother to Doug, but is the wild boy who needs taming. There is a scene where he walks in on Doug and Claire at a cafe. He is furious to find Doug warming up to the girl who could be a danger to them all. The way he plays the scene, striking up a conversation with Claire, all the while with Doug in tension that she might identify Jem from the fighting Irish tattoo on his neck that she had seen at the robbery, is marvelous. We also encounter Jem's dopehead sister Krista (Blake Lively) who is Doug's former girlfriend and a mother to a little girl. She is a mirror to the girls growing up in this neighborhood of crime. How she is played by FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm), who knows the robbers but is unable to collect sufficient evidence for a conviction, are highlight sequences.</div></div><div><br />
</div><div>Ben Affleck who previously directed the solid gritty Boston kidnapping drama 'Gone Baby Gone', proves that as a director he is here to stay. The Boston underbelly plays his muse and in this minefield of crime, he has an eye for the human drama behind it. He is at his best not when filming the heists, which are all predictable yet exciting, but when he explores the people involved. He lingers on those little scenes telling us a lot more of the characters than written in the screenplay. A lesser director would have swiftly moved along to the next plot point. As an actor, he is a revelation as well. The lean, hard physique with a bang on Bostonian accent and a weary face, Affleck lives this role. In fact this movie is strung by great performances in great sequences with crisp dialogues. Chris Cooper playing Doug's imprisoned father shines in his lone scene as does Pete Postlethwaite in his role as the menacing Irish mob boss who runs a flower shop as cover. Watch him blackmail Doug into one last job, all the while snipping at the stems of roses. Chilling.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Based on Chuck Hogan's novel 'Prince of Thieves', 'The Town' could easily have ended up as another routine cops and robber thriller and in parts it is just that. But what elevates it, is why we want to watch this movie and tell the numerous makers of the genre, this is how it could also be done and maybe it will just work better. Ben Affleck is one director to watch out for. I look forward to seeing more of his work, this side or the other. Watch the movie, you will get it.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Originally released in 2010</div><div>Available on DVD</div><div><br />
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</div>Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2649413723551825290.post-32870525478811888702011-06-17T16:13:00.000-07:002011-06-17T16:13:16.030-07:00Eat Drink Man Woman - Marriage of Life's ElixirsMost of us know and respect Ang Lee's works. His deep understanding of the fragilities of the human heart have been ably showcased in movies such as 'Brokeback Mountain', 'Lust, caution'. Delving into his filmography I chanced upon one of his earliest works from his Taiwanese roots which was later adapted by Hollywood as 'Tortilla Soup'. The movie - 'Eat Drink Man Woman'. And it was a satisfying discovery indeed. A tale of a father and his three grown daughters living together in Taipei, it looks at the paternal bond between a strict, emotionally distant father and the daughters who are at the wings of taking their owns flights into love, life and liberty.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9Zkykeu7qKFBQb-eshDWKETnA5ST3rOiXS2aDCpy9EHWLP-U_uI7RUhfSq0G2xX0uC74ElkA6SzV63Z2Jfk8Izd9VsjrquifSViMahklyMz_8DXQFpodzHdJtPdVtwI62j1H-eTSJcTB/s1600/images-4.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs9Zkykeu7qKFBQb-eshDWKETnA5ST3rOiXS2aDCpy9EHWLP-U_uI7RUhfSq0G2xX0uC74ElkA6SzV63Z2Jfk8Izd9VsjrquifSViMahklyMz_8DXQFpodzHdJtPdVtwI62j1H-eTSJcTB/s1600/images-4.jpeg" /></a>Chef Chu (Sihung Lung) is the best. His culinary delights have feasted the very important personalities of Taiwan. However, somewhere along the way he has lost his sense of taste. Ironical for a head chef. He cooks out of habit and relies on his longtime associate Wen to tell the quality of his lovingly prepared masterpieces. Indeed food plays an exquisitely important part in the proceedings and to see them being crafted from the ground up is a delight to our gastronomical senses. Where Chu so successfully brings balance in his profession, he flounders to maintain his relationship with the girls.<br />
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The eldest daughter Jia-Jen (Kuei-Mei Yang) is an emotionally repressed chemistry teacher who was thwarted in love nine years ago and has yet to recover. Seen as an old maid by her family, her suppressed desires flutter back to life when she meets the new volleyball coach. The middle sister Jia-Chien (Chien-Lien Wu) is possibly the most successful, working as an airline executive in the process of a promotion to their Amsterdam office. Focussed and work oriented, she comes across as the hardest of the sisters till the layers peel to reveal a sensitive, mature personality. She is also an excellent cook whose dreams of following on her father's heels had been shattered by him. Girls don't make chefs, so she was sent to get an education that mattered.<br />
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The youngest Jia-Ning (Yu-Wen Wang) studies and works at a fast food chain. Her track involves finding love at the cost of her friend's struggling romance and some lies. Alongside runs the track of a family friend, a divorcee with a little girl for whom Chef Chu prepares elaborate lunches to take to her school. There is also the mother of the family friend, a widowed garrulous, borderline rude woman who has her sights set on the chef. Holding an observant hand with a smattering of comedy, Ang Lee makes us understand the characters. The father who belongs to an old world, is unable to communicate with his offsprings who are no longer his little girls. He prepares elaborate Sunday dinners for his daughters which they must not miss and the process is painful, as a dinner table laden with his lavish cooking worthy of a party, sees the girls pushing around the food unenthusiastically in their plates over stilted conversation. The easy camaraderie and joy of gathering at the table is missing. Hence, maybe his delight in feeding the little school girl and her friends their daily lunch.<br />
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The sisters all caught in their own webs, play out equally well. The elder daughter's cautious approach towards opening her heart is especially interesting and rings true. Though the conclusion seemed too comic, for the depths the characterization had provided. The youngest daughter's ironical work place is a sign of the winds changing. From the times of crafting elaborate meals from scratch, where food and its preparation was an art, to the world of fast food. We see both worlds. Finally it is the middle sister's sensitivity that stands out.<br />
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The performances all work, the characters are all interesting because they could be any ordinary person we bump into in our worlds. Every life carries a story and when a film maker makes the effort to carve a story around ordinary lives, that is hardly dramatic or climactic, he achieves a 'slice of life' cinema. Ang Lee went on to make a mark in Hollywood and has made some big movies. This was a very promising beginning from a man who is still growing from strength to strength. As a character says "'Eat Drink Man Woman' which is Food and Sex - Basic Human Desires, cannot avoid them". A marriage of the two, that was dealt with utmost sensitivity and a little humor in this small movie with a big heart.<br />
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Available on DVD<br />
Originally Released in 1994<br />
In Mandarin with English Subtitles<br />
Best Foreign Language Film Nominee at the Academy Awards 1995Sudiptahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00156671852667665264noreply@blogger.com0