NELSON

HOW MEN TURN FATHER OF CIRCUMSTANCE

2012-02-13T08:21:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY CHRIS WEITZ

STARRING: DEMIAN BICHIR, JOSE JULIAN, CARLOS LINARES, JOAQUIN COSIO, DOLORES HEREDIA, CHELSEA RENDON, BOBBY SOTO with EDDIE ‘PIOLIN’ SOTELO and NANCY LENEHAN

Carlos Galindo (Demian Bichir) climbs trees. Not the branched-out ones with footholds aplenty. He climbs straight-shooters like the Palm and the Coconut, where one would need fasteners and belts and boots for better grip. Blasco Martinez (Joaquin Cosio), Carlos’ boss and, for all practical purposes, a well-wisher, provides for the equipment. On one such climb routine, Mrs. Donnelly (Nancy Lenehan) down below asks Blasco if the man is insured. Blasco is immediate to dust it off, like it’s ridiculous to even think he isn’t. But we know. Carlos (along with Blasco) is one of the thousands of illegal immigrants living in Los Angeles, having driven in from Mexico, doing the odd chore to keep the fire burning.

In Carlos and Blasco we have two different kinds of immigrants. Blasco, who’s obviously been around for longer, has a ‘hit and quit’ sort of adequacy about him. He’s the kind of guy who’s got his legs on either side of the fence all the time. Carlos, on the other hand, has completely uprooted himself and replanted in more fertile soil as he sees it. He might not have authentication in America, but he’s got even lesser in Mexico. He’s like Miguel Santos in ‘Sugar’ (made by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden) in his preference to get lost in a sea of uncertainty than to stand stagnant back home. He doesn’t have deed, he doesn’t have document. But he has a son in America for whom he wants to make life better.

In his son Luis (Jose Julian), we have a third kind of immigrant – the first generation citizen. We see him watching ‘Cribs’ on TV in his introduction sequence. It isn’t representative of his desires and longings as one might be quick to assume. It’s representative of who he is. About fourteen years old as he looks to be, Luis is friends with Facundo (Bobby Soto) and has a girlfriend in Ruthie (Chelsea Rendon) who we come to meet in a sturdy encounter with a schoolyard bully. Ruthie does half the work by telling him about her family as Luis brings him down with giant-killing aggression. Detaining him, a Policeman asks him to take his shirt off, to check in which gang’s direction his tattoos seem to point. But the boy is unmarked as he claims he is – a claim which, as we know, is only true for the surface.

Carlos buys Blasco’s business getting help from his sister Anita (Dolores Heredia), a citizen by marriage and hence in a much better position. Closer to his dream than he was ever before, he goes for a spin and a show of heart where he picks Santiago (Carlos Linares) to assist him on his day’s work. He teaches him things about work in the garden and puts his boots on, ready to climb a tree, to show him how it’s done. At the top, we see him notice something we’re sure he wouldn’t have appreciated before – the view. He has finally become Blasco with a Carlos of his own, he thinks. Except that he, with his Rousseau-like faith in people, fails to see that no one can be quite like Carlos. Definitely not Santiago.

‘A Better Life’ is written by Eric Eason, based on a story by Roger L. Simon. It is directed by Chris Weitz, a Matthew Vaughn equivalent with his film choices. We know him from the exceptionally good-natured ‘About a Boy’, his adaptation of Philip Pullman’s ‘the Golden Compass’ and the even less forgivable ‘New Moon’, the second installment of ‘the Twilight Saga.’ This film, for him, is of a fourth kind and a debut of sorts. Its premise is immediately relatable to De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece ‘the Bicycle Thieves,’ which, I thought, the film neither shies away from, nor cashes in on. Eason (a filmmaker himself known for his insightful take on Latino communities in America and elsewhere) and Weitz weave it intricately into the Mexican underbelly of LA that the story and setting become an inseparable whole. They, along with Alexandre Desplat’s (‘the King’s Speech’, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’) music score and its exceptional photography (Javier Aguirresarobe) render the film perfectly organic.

Demian Bichir plays Carlos, a central role that’s only half the weight with Jose Julian as Luis strong on the counter-balance. They’re Father and Son in a natural conflict. Bichir is a heavyweight in Mexican cinema as I came to know. He has previously played Castro in Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ – he looks uncannily like him. I saw a win-win in casting Bichir to play Carlos, a father and a human being with unquestionable morality that falls short in only the fact that he’s an illegal immigrant, driven by despair. Bichir, who is no doubt a very important actor, empowers Carlos with a swagger and his piercing eyes, features that accentuate Carlos’ strength which helps him keep his head above the water. Also to his advantage is the fact that in spite of Bichir’s prevalence in Mexico, he is, undoubtedly again, less-known to audiences, worldwide, which is crucial, at least to a film as this, where it’s important for the viewer to stay close to character and not get carried away with excitement/confusion associated with the actor essaying the role. Brad Pitt needed to go gray to make ‘Babel’ believable, but Bichir has no such necessity. See what I mean?

But in spite of Bichir’s solid performance in all its glory, I was drawn more towards Luis and a convincing portrayal by Jose Julian. The boy looks fresh in high school and dangerously treading the thin line of well-being that splits better from worse. He’s a sort of product of negligence, but with a mind of his own and a maturity to weigh things, an effect of being raised by the unshakeable Carlos. He’s a father’s pride; he’s what Allison from ‘Havoc’ should have been to keep all trouble outside. He might not be what his father wants him to be and he most definitely doesn’t want to end up like him, but he has a moral obligation and an inherent love which he embraces as seen in his efforts to help the man. He sticks to him, in short, which Carlos, with wild-eyed pride, appreciates. They’re Father and Son, like I said.

‘A Better Life’ is a very important film. For 2011; for the generations to come. It’s a course on values and the importance of commitment, of trust and honour in a time that rejoices in a lack thereof. It, however, suffers from the problem and tries to give a remedy for harbouring such ambition – Carlos might not be a great role-model as a teacher, but in Luis, we have a very relatable student. His is an interpretation of his Father’s steadfastness and not a total reenactment which he decidedly doesn’t believe in. The champion element is his decision to not yield to peer pressure, which, as demonstrated by Carlos throughout the entire movie, is a fight against the odds. It’s delightful to watch an adolescent make that decision without the compulsion of suffering. Unlike ‘Havoc.’ Unlike ‘Thirteen.’

Demian Bichir is the grease-coat on this year’s Oscars with his ‘Best Actor’ nomination – a break from a haul of exaggerated performances, one of the most defining roles of the year. It would be interesting to see if he wins it in a dark-horse sweep. What’s sad though is that this is the only nomination. None for Eric Eason. None for Jose Julian, one of the best young performances I’ve seen in recent times. None for Cinematography or Music Score. Unfair. But then, the Awards are but a link between obligations and precedence where justice for all can’t be expected, let alone be provided. Yet again, we’d have to console ourselves with the thought that the best reward for a film is to watch it. And this is me saying you should.

A TUMBLE DOWN THE HILL, SANDLER-STYLE

2012-02-10T01:44:00.000-08:00

NOTE: To those who are familiar with my way, you'll find I'm not rating this movie. How much I liked it isn't a reflection of how much I'm supposed to like it, where I liked it like one would like a very bad episode of their favourite TV series. Adam Sandler could've played his own Aunt as he remembers her, but he's good at it. The movie, an elaborate Al Pacino joke with the actor himself in the middle. And I liked it for what it was - a Break from my Oscar-viewing frenzy, with a determination to get my opinion out before the ultimate verdict. Please do not let yourself be influenced by what I say. Thanks.

DIRECTED BY DENNIS DUGAN

STARRING: ADAM SANDLER, ADAM SANDLER, KATIE HOLMES, ELODIE TOUGNE, ROHAN CHAND, NICK SWARDSON, TIM MEADOWS, GAD ELMALEH with JOHN McENROE, JOHNNY DEPP, SHAQUILLE O’NEAL, DREW CAREY and AL PACINO

Jill (Adam Sandler) meets Al Pacino at the Lakers’ game. She tells him she’s heard of him, but hasn’t quite watched his movies. She tells him though that she’s heard he’s quite serious. And then she asks him if he’s seen Ryan Seacrest around. Pacino, on his part, can’t even get his name right (as goes the cliché). But he’s excited to know that Jill’s from the Bronx. He buys her a hot-dog on which he writes his number in mustard and ketchup. Jill’s not that excited about calling him for a variety of reasons.

A problem that I’ve had with Pacino is that I’ve seen him in very little comedies. ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ can be counted. ‘Ocean’s Thirteen’, for that reason, was way up there on my performance charts. It’s a role of his I liked more than his ‘Godfather’s and ‘Scarface’s and ‘Devil’s Advocate’s. There’s nothing challenging, nothing really demanding about these roles that could give the actor the comfort of playing someone far from his territory, of escaping into an illusion that he could conveniently create instead of treading the fine line that separates one’s movie-self from his off-screen-self. It’s harder to be interesting when you’re being yourself, but I’ve always believed that that’s the only way to roll. There’s a guilty sort of pleasure in this pastiche called ‘stupid’ than the drawn-out humour in sensibility quite difficult to achieve.

Al Pacino, the actor, and Al Pacino, the fictionalized version, share idiosyncrasies and trivia that ring a bell every once in a while, but what excited me more was the fact that Pacino was actually doing this movie. ‘Jack and Jill’, surprisingly, has a lot of stars in a painted ceiling that never calls itself a sky. There’s Katie Holmes who plays a literal diaper-changer mom. There’s the Sandler usuals in Nick Swardson and David Spade, along with a haul of bigger cameos.

This is something that’s likeable about Sandler (Dennis Dugan, to some extent). They never outdo themselves. They don’t even try. It’s a double-edged weapon. In someone like Matthew Vaughn and the dwindling David Gordon Green, it’s exceptionally annoying. It’s a dog-cat thing. You don’t like your Dog lying around, but for your Cat, it’s sophistication. Same goes. Sandler, in his last five movies (‘Funny People’, through ‘Grown Ups’ and ‘Just Go with it’) has played filthy-rich. I admire that about him. I’ve found it preposterous for an A-List celebrity to play down-to-earth for the sake of a movie. On the one hand, there’s dedication and ability and on the other, there’s a John Lennon fakery, hinging on the illusion that the audience can break from. If they wanted to, that is.

‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ is an illusion that the ‘Ocean’s Trilogy’ never banked on. It’s a Golden stance. Never joke about yourself when in costume. That’s what I didn’t like about ‘Tangled.’ That’s why ‘Enchanted’, for me, failed to enchant in spite of Amy Adams. It doesn’t help your illusion if you’re going to break it. Not everyone can be Steve Martin.

And besides, there’s guilty pleasure in an actor-cameo. It’s like exhibitionism to the voyeur who keeps wanting more. It’s win-win. Like Bruce Willis when he says, “How come the movie made 600 Million Dollars, then?” in ‘Ocean’s Twelve.’ Like Slash when he turns the knob to ‘animate’ on his Amp in the ‘Phineas and Ferb’ movie. Like Johnny Depp in this movie when Jill asks him if he’s from ‘Duran Duran.’ He smiles. I laughed. It was a giant-killing moment for me. High-Five Adam Sandler!

A Funny man doesn’t make a Funny movie just by being in it. Like ‘the Green Hornet,’ for instance. But then, you like the Man, you excuse his movie. You might even have fun watching it. That’s how it’s been for me and every venture of Sandler’s ‘Happy Madison Productions.’ I like Adam Sandler like how a folk-lover would like Kimya Dawson. I think his movies are trash, but I know he doesn’t care. In fact, he even deliberates this thought of mine. It’s like how Ebert calls Nicolas Cage the King of Bad Action movies. Sandler is a comedy-equivalent. He’s painfully adequate and lazy with almost no ambition that you shake your head in disbelief, but when you do it, you do it with a chuckle. This guy’s impossible, but you know you like him. He knows you like him. It’s better to drop all pretence.

ON A MAN AND HOW HE BECOMES

2012-02-06T02:23:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY GEORGE CLOONEY

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, EVAN RACHEL WOOD, PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, PAUL GIAMATTI, MARISA TOMEI, MAX MINGHELLA, GREGORY ITZIN, MICHAEL MANTELL with JEFFREY WRIGHT and GEORGE CLOONEY

George Clooney’s ‘the Ides of March’ is one of two movies in the Oscar race to present an insider story on a worldwide phenomenon. The other, of course, is ‘Margin Call’, a promising debut by J.C. Chandor which, I felt, fell short in the way it worked its acting set-pieces. Both are exaggerated versions of real-time events, the hike in drama demanding substantiation in performance. A good movie is one which leaves the viewer convinced. ‘Margin Call’, I found, didn’t quite make the sale. The acting powerhouse of ‘the Ides of March’, on the other hand, sent me home, satisfied. The latter faces the might of this year’s best in the ‘Adapted Screenplay’ category, while Chandor fights ‘A Separation’ in a comparatively easier pool for writing his own script. It’s a strong case of happenstance.

Ryan Gosling plays the believer in Stephen Meyers, a strategy consultant and a junior to Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), testing the water in a sea of sharks. The two of them are chief and deputy in Governor Mike Morris’ (Clooney, infrequent) election campaign. Steve writes Mike’s speeches and advises on his policies; he contributes with literature, in short, while Paul is a sort of steer-wrestler bringing the Bulls into their game. Mike, on his part, chooses to listen to them. We’re given a backstage pass to a Democrat campaign without having to deliver coffee to get a place. It’s as simple as that.

Equally simple is the premise. It’s Ohio before North Carolina in the Primary. Senator Thompson (Jeffrey Wright, solid) is the prize to win. With him, the corresponding party gets 356 delegates rest-assured. The Republicans, headed by Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell) under the guidance of Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) take a conservative stand, going for nothing but the right wing. Or so they say. Paul meets Thompson in an encounter that seems to go well. At least that’s what he tells Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei, refreshingly brazen, off-hand and tired), a reporter for the Times working close with Gov. Morris’ campaign. Stephen believes in Paul as he works his charm alongside, winning Morris, his audience and the advances of 20-year old intern Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood). This, obviously, is when things start to go wrong.

‘the Ides of March’ is a tragedy of errors. Two people make a mistake each, one impulsive with a misstep that hurts no one but himself, the other – a sillier and hence hefty mistake that could put the whole campaign in jeopardy. I presume I needn’t say who is who. It is also a tale of becoming, of David-turning-Goliath to match his strength, wisdom and its ugliness. It does not empower him with undying ability. It lays down before him guidelines of priorities and a protocol that would ultimately get him the job of his superior, working for a man whom he has to conquer to gain allegiance; whom he has to defeat to get to work for his victory. His ambition becomes an action plan with sacrifice incorporated into routine. And the end is but an end to an episode in the life of a man where we get to see what he has become.

The film derives its screenplay from ‘Farragut North’ by Beau Willimon, who had written the play from his own experience in the primary campaign of Governor Howard Dean in the 2004 Democratic Primary. It was premiered, I hear, as a lead-up the 2008 Presidential Election. Clooney, on his part, has made the movie a year before the 2012 Presidential run, the heat of election showing already.

Does this mean that this body of work, both in film and on stage, has anything to contribute to the actual political scenario? Is it an expose, in other words? Not entirely. The truth is that it doesn’t intend to be. It’s a tragedy that doesn’t get lost in a fortress of grandeur; which deliberates the impassive tone it takes to narrate itself made by a man who’s shown promise in this type of movie. After ‘Confessions of a Dangerous Mind’, ‘Leatherheads’ and the class of ‘Good Night and Good Luck’, Clooney crafts ‘the Ides of March’ to be his most-riveting, subtle and incisive performance of all as Director. He has a Clint Eastwood eye for detail, not compromising on technicalities, not dwelling on them either. The key is to communicate, to keep things simple and to keep them real. He does that with precision.

Should I even start on Ryan Gosling, the actor of this generation who’s tailor-made for about any role that he’s assigned to? He is Stephen Meyers – as charming, as vigorous, as angry and just as sad. He’s like Kevin Lomax (from ‘the Devil’s Advocate’) with a wound to show. Like James Clayton (Colin Farrell in ‘the Recruit’) pitted against a Walter Burke (Al Pacino) who knows to keep it shut. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are convincing as veterans Paul and Tom, permanent sets in their own ideals. To Paul, it’s all about loyalty. Tom, who is oversaturated with a cynicism that has him working numbers for life, takes it as a battle of wit. They have nothing to do with the candidates whose victory, ironically to them, means everything. It’s a consultant ideal. These men, with their lives, school us against belief for the simple reason that it is absurd. They’re not opposite forces in a morality conflict. They’re tablets prescribed for guilt-free functioning, where to overdose means to ‘do better.’

Which brings me to a serious observation I made. In every tale of ruthlessness, a woman is sacrificed. It happened in ‘the Devil’s Advocate’ (the dream sequence). It happened even in ‘the Interview’, a play written by Siddharth Kumar and staged at the Metro Plus Theatre Fest 2011. It happens in ‘the Ides of March’ as well, with Molly Stearns taking the fall for the sake of two men who, literally, screw her over. I understand how dispensable she made herself to be. But it’s frightening, nevertheless. There has only been one Monica Lewinsky in as far as I know. The rest stay buried with the truth that died in an honour-killing move. Any word out is scandal, any scandal is potential threat where all such threats need to be taken care of. It’s mind-numbing.

‘the Ides of March’ is like ‘the Ghost Writer’ of this year. As exciting, as well-made. Better performed. Even if it might not package the champion storytelling of one like Polanski, it endears in the way it lets itself be carried entirely upon the shoulders of the ever-dependable Gosling, playing a stronger, more admirable scapegoat than Ewan McGregor. His Stephen fits our aspirations. We live as him. We take his fall. We come out on top in the end. And we know we haven’t won. It’s a comfortable sort of defeatism that has us grow fond of it, because sometimes you lose a hand to keep your reputation. Reputation is what people think of you, which in turn is what Ida tells them to. That, in short, is the lesson learned.

ON A 'CRASH' AND AN EQUALLY IMPRESSIVE DEBUT

2012-02-03T01:01:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY J.C. CHANDOR

STARRING: KEVIN SPACEY, PAUL BETTANY, JEREMY IRONS, ZACHARY QUINTO, PENN BADGLEY, SIMON BAKER, MARY McDONNELL with DEMI MOORE and STANLEY TUCCI

There are two reasons as to why, I think, you’d want your Drama film to have an ensemble cast lined up. One: Your subject matter, your content is so dry you wouldn’t possibly survive without strong actor-endorsement. Two: There is no way you can possibly extract convincing performances from a second-rung cast as a Director, where to get a haul of A-list stars would mean a tenfold reduction of workload as well as a chunk of responsibility off your shoulders.

J.C. Chandor’s ‘Margin Call’ fits both explanations. Perhaps the premise, the theme of the movie makes it of utmost importance that it should communicate, the desperation to get word across necessitating the star-spangled banner the film signs itself on. But then you’ll find that it’s not a public welfare announcement. It’s one of those ‘quite there, but not quite’ sort of dramas where seriousness isn’t synonymous with sincerity. It’s theatrical, larger-than-life fiction voicing real-time thought. The actors make the movie, the movie is about believability of performances and the performances, in a full circle, are supposed to add meat to the skeleton – the core idea, as synthesized. It’s a difficult task.

Contrast that thought with ‘the Girlfriend Experience.’ This is where Soderbergh, I felt, begged to differ. He had an option. He could’ve cast an actress to play the misunderstood, almost always misrepresented monster of a woman whom the world has no clue about and yet is quick to spring up with its judgment, labeling her to put itself in an advantageous position as compared to that monster. Or he could’ve hired the monster. Simple. An actress would play a template, a product of research, a mix of what we know of Linda Lovelace, of Julianne Moore and Heather Graham in ‘Boogie Nights’; of Elisabeth Shue in ‘Leaving Las Vegas.’ But Sasha Grey, on the other hand, could give us an impromptu. No one can play Paris Hilton better than Paris Hilton. It’s not an acting credit. It’s simple common sense.

Half of the trophy is in the bag if the viewer doesn’t associate himself with the actors playing the roles, at least in a technical Drama. It’s why ‘the Social Network’ worked. It was an ensemble of actors either barely significant or snug fits in their respective roles, a case of promise than reliability. But then, how in the world can you possibly reel in half a dozen forty-plus actors who the world doesn’t really know, how many Christoph Waltzes can one possibly find? It’s a logistical difficulty, I understand.

But Demi Moore? Tying her hair back isn’t going to make her Tilda Swinton. ‘Disclosure.’ ‘Striptease.’ ‘Indecent Proposal.’ Her in this is like Cameron Diaz playing social worker in a movie called ‘the Good Teacher’ that she can’t even spell right. Sure she’s played Corporate before, but what kind? Moore as risk-management executive Sarah Robertson is lavishly miscast. She squirms like an eel in her clothes, except in this case she’s not supposed to.

We’re introduced to the premise in a cut-down, ‘Up in the Air’ style. We know the ground rules. Never use the term ‘fired’. Never mean to be hostile thought you obviously are. Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) is taken into a glass room with two women, one sugar-coating the drill, the other keeping it straight. It takes him a while to work around the jargon. He then tells his much-younger boss Will Emerson (Paul Bettany with a British accent, thankfully) that he’s halfway through working on a ‘shipwreck.’ Will tells him it’s not his concern anymore. He then asks ‘who’ (as in who decided to fire him) and narrows down on Ms. Robertson. He meets the woman on his way outside and asks her to fuck herself.

This isn’t before he hands a flash-drive to Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a highly-qualified and well-mannered analyst who works under him, asking him to continue with his work and to ‘be careful.’ Peter, for all intents and purposes, is thirty years old (twenty eight, he says) and shows the caution and maturity of one. His partner/friend Seth (Penn Badgley) is twenty three and accordingly erratic. Peter works on the contents of the flash drive and figures out that it spells impending doom. He finds that, according to the company’s volatility levels and consequential effects, the losses incurred in two weeks from now would be more than its Market Capitalization. Which, technically, means that Sam Rogers’ (Kevin Spacey) assertion that the 20 percent of staff who weren’t let go aren’t as lucky after all.

With the problem presented, we’re taken through the obstacle course in a hierarchical path. Peter calls Seth and asks him to get Will with him to the office. He tells him it’s not a situation where you clock overtime. Will, the saturated forty-something who finds it in his system to vie his Boss, gets serious and calls Sam, who’s cradling his dying dog. Characteristic of a departmental head, Sam can’t do the math, so he asks Peter to. Once done, he takes it from there to a committee headed by knucklehead Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) and consisting of Ms. Robertson and Ramesh Shah (Aasif Mandvi) who works numbers. The situation, as they find, is pretty much out of hand.

Forty minutes and I hadn’t gotten my head in until Cohen decides that the situation is too big for him to handle. John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), the Chairman figure, steps in, turning out to be most believable amongst cartoon-sketches shaded grey. It’s when he asks Peter to explain the situation to him in ‘simple English’ that we know what’s going on. “I can assure you that it’s not Brains that got me sitting on this chair”, he smiles. He speaks our mind. He’s not a pastiche of every tough nut we’ve come across before. I found Tuld to be of striking originality; imperfect, even clumsy, honest and brutal. “If you’re first out of the door, that’s not called panicking.” Obvious as it sounds, he backs Cohen’s decision to sellout. Sam, with all of Spacey’s exasperation, wants to come out clean. He wants people to want to buy from them again. Tuld and Cohen intend to cash in on the crisis. They’re flipsides of the same tainted coin.

‘Margin Call’ is like ‘Titanic’ from the moment it hits the iceberg. Except, here, everyone survives. Even Eric Dale. They’re all on life-jackets out at sea, searching for land in their chosen directions. Chandor romanticizes with his characters, glorifying their lives, their greed – even their pain, never rendering them obsolete. They’re God-men, the only bearers of a truth that they suffer from but won’t let out, lest it comes out on its own in due course. He’s especially commendable in playing pretty close to our ego, never giving way to the remotest assumption that any of his characters, however hard-hit, ever show to be pitiable before our eyes. This is possibly one good reason in casting Demi Moore, who doesn’t need a history to be hated. The others, on their part, win our apathy by speaking their mind. You know these people have had their fill. And you know they’re ready to take a dump on you. Fuck them, you think.

There’s a sweeping shot of the office about three-quarters into the movie. The computers are on, lights are out and there’s no sign of life. That shot inspired me. I’ve always been fond of looking at machines in an office when it’s closed. I think of it as a sign of futility. What use is a machine without man around? Of course, I exclude automatons from this list. The system is only as good as the people in it, the philosophy only as watertight as the believer sees it to be. ‘Margin Call’ is in good faith, but it tries too hard to impress. A couple of stars off the cast with interesting replacements, we have something solid. It’d do well on Broadway. It makes for a decent movie already – a very impressive debut.

A CELEBRATION THAT OUGHT TO BE ITS OWN REWARD

2012-02-02T03:06:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY MICHAEL HAZANAVICIUS

STARRING: JEAN DUJARDIN, BERENICE BEJO, UGGIE (the dog), JAMES CROMWELL, PENELOPE ANN MILLER with MALCOLM McDOWELL and JOHN GOODMAN

Michael Hazanavicius pushes the borders of Silent Cinema simultaneously paying his tribute to it with ‘the Artist,’ one of the most celebrated films made and released last year. It’s not mimicry. He doesn’t hide in the folds of yesteryear curtains on Hollywood’s majestic stage as the tycoons go out on a selling spree. The style is uncharacteristic. The performances go easy on exaggeration, the action being too continuous and gracefully paced. There has been enough deliberation in establishing that the films being filmed in the film and the film in itself are not two of a kind. George Valentin is not the same as Jean Dujardin, both being actors in movies that don’t talk.

Let me throw the cards on the table up front and let you know that I haven’t watched much of Silent Cinema myself. Charlie Chaplin is an exception. Laurel and Hardy, a bit of Buster Keaton and I think I’ve watched one film of the Marx Brothers. That’s about it. There isn’t enough nostalgia that this film could possibly evoke where I, quite frankly, belong to the ‘future’ where films talk, sing and dance with action choreography and with actors replaced by cartoons sometimes.

With that being said, it’s not like I wouldn’t like a Silent movie that doesn’t change my opinion. I’d ideally not want one to. ‘the Artist’, for one, doesn’t care. It’s not a prescription. It’s a poster. It tells you exactly what to expect from it. In fact, you’ll find it better to under-expect, much like I did. That’s how I ended up liking it more than I thought I was supposed to.

The film is set in 1927 and plays along the timeline. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a Hollywood actor peaking before his fall. Dujardin, reminding us strongly of a young Sean Connery, has the build as well as subtlety in his flamboyance to be playing the Superstar. We know he’s French but he’s made to look as Italian as his name sounds. I shall go on and assume that there hasn’t been an actual influence in the conception of his character, but if I had to, I’d say I see a Douglas Fairbanks sort of American hero in him. His movies, glossily-titled (‘A Russian Affair’ followed up with ‘A German Affair’) and almost entirely about him (a Dog plays second lead), are nonsense entertainment under the excuse of “This is what the people want.” Kinograph Studios could be an extensive parody, but I don’t know. I can’t comment.

Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, an aspiring starlet whose discovery is accidental, her success – much deliberated. Bejo’s height, slenderness and her good-natured face are almost uncharacteristic of the usual Hollywood heartthrob, we find. Garbo never smiled this innocent, as far as I know. Nor Paulette Goddard (‘the Great Dictator’). Maybe Virginia Cherrill, who plays the Blind girl in Chaplin’s ‘City Lights.’ This likeability and her confidence had me compare Bejo to a favourite, both of Roger Ebert and myself – Amy Adams. At one point, I almost asked why not her. Like I said, Bejo is too tall, too slender and (there's no other way to put it) too French with her physique. There were times when I could almost catch her tan. Adams, on the other hand, can feign haughtiness when she wanted to and come out likeable at that – we have seen her do that in ‘Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day.’ Plus, as the expression goes, she has meat on her bones.

But then there’s the effort of getting past the familiarity of as celebrated an actress as Adams, a barrier which someone like Bejo, who’s relatively lesser known, could easily sidestep. John Goodman as the no-nonsense Hollywood director Al Zimmer faces a much bigger problem. In Goodman, we identify more with actor than character. I could almost hear his throaty drawl in some (silent) sequences where he faces the camera. It’s a huge disadvantage. Malcolm McDowell (‘A Clockwork Orange’) with whom we’re as familiar, finds himself on better grounds in an almost unspeaking role.

This, definitely, would’ve been a big issue when films started to talk from being pantomimes with nothing but a music score conducted live or re-recorded. It would’ve been as bizarre to hear Chaplin talk for the first time in a movie, as it would be to watch Al Pacino go silent for the sake of one. Can you fathom that? This is the crisis that Valentin undergoes in ‘the Artist.’ He’s married to Silent Cinema, his actual wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller) being a dinner-table guest at most. He doesn’t want to talk. Neither do the Director and Producers at Kinograph. Silent Cinema had not lost its charm, but humanity, for the very simple basic nature of it, must move on. Valentin refuses to.

He does a Garfunkel, or a Ringo Starr as you could call it. He produces, directs and stars in a silent film called ‘Tears of Love’ where he writes himself as dying in the end, leaving his Dog and a woman behind. The climax is empowering; delightful. But there’s no audience left to savour it, save for Peppy. She weeps at the ending. We don’t know what got her to, we can but guess. The forsaken man’s last-breath effort. The sincerity in his drive to entertain. The actual visual poetry. The dreadful sight of watching someone she cherishes with all her heart suffer.

This is a masterful scene, by the way. It is an intercut between scenes from the movie being projected, the actor-director and his dog resisting dejection that’s soon to show, and Peppy, who watches it with a partner from box-seats. Valentin, the hero of the movie, is pulled into the quicksand as his Dog watches; barks. The woman shouts too, asking him to grab her hand. He doesn’t. He prefers to sink instead. He does. Both the Dog and the Woman mourn. So does Peppy. And there’s no question as to who aches the most, as Valentin, the actor-director, exits the hall with his Dog trotting behind, tailcoat flowing.

Most of the sequences, as I mentioned before, are contemporary with their style. There aren’t too many close-up shots with the actor disarmed and compelled to exaggerate his or her emotion. The shots are long, continuous and careful with their pace, the subtle and underplayed performances empowered by an even simpler, down-to-earth storyline. The treatment is lax, with the film’s little emphasis on detail substantiated/found in a convenient sort of compliance with the fact that, in spite of everything, it still is a Silent Movie. It’s as under-produced and under-designed as the new Indiana Jones film. And, quite like Indy himself, it finds strength in its own minimalism.

‘the Artist’ is made by Michael Hazanavicius, a French filmmaker known for spy-parodies. Jean Dujardin too, we learn, is a Comedian. These people are new to us, but we can guess as much. I once hosted and was backstage for a show featuring a celebrated mime by the name of Laurent Decol. The man was French, simple and funny in everything he said/did, and yet his act was tragicomic. The explanation is simple. It takes a humorist to celebrate the weight of sadness, to derive joy from it. We need a comedian, an actual funny man to bring depth and seriousness to a role, not sacrificing the human aspect of it in the process. In Pantomime, we have a clear assertion of this logic.

I started with denial, adamantly refusing to accept legitimacy of a passion that can have driven one to make a film like ‘the Artist.’ I thought of Rob Marshall, I thought of ‘Chicago’ almost a decade ago. The Academy finds itself obliged to honour films that celebrate the never-ending machine that churns out almost a thousand movies a year. ‘Mulholland Drive’, in all its faith, didn’t put in a good word. ‘the Artist’ does. It’s a clean tribute from someone who absolutely drinks into the idea of selling Cinema; an idea that distorted itself with the advent of Noir and subsequent Exploitation eras. I could not possibly associate honesty with such an intention. Neither did I allow myself to be convinced otherwise.

Nevertheless, ‘the Artist’ is a glorious film, pristine; an amazing hour and a half spent on watching people who know what they’re set out to do and are pretty good at it. The Actors. The writer-director. The music score, to some extent (by Ludovic Bource). Let me remind you once again that this, as much as it can be called one, is NOT a Silent Movie. It’s a crafty exploit that doesn’t step out of its own absurdist atmosphere – one of those films that could be made, that should be made. One of those films where watching and liking it would be its own reward; which should be its only reward. I hope the Academy agrees with me on this one. The statuette has better hands to grace.

THE PLEASURE OF WATCHING PAYNE

2012-01-27T02:52:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY ALEXANDER PAYNE

STARRING: GEORGE CLOONEY, SHAILENE WOODLEY, AMARA MILLER, NICK KRAUSE, JUDY GREER, MATTHEW LILLARD, ROBERT FORSTER, MARY BIRDSONG with ROB HUEBEL and BEAU BRIDGES

I feel dreadful for having delayed writing this review by almost a day and having not written it the moment I got back to my room from watching ‘the Descendants.’ For one, I’ve not reviewed Alexander Payne before – I’ve only liked him. I don’t know if I could do justice to someone as prolific and significant as Mr. Payne is to contemporary World Cinema. I didn’t know if I could do justice to someone I love, whose presence and contribution I cherish beyond mere delight.

There are facets to the man, there are sides that complement each other, sides that are of complete contrast that they constitute parts of one absolute whole. Payne, the humanist. Payne, the humorist. Payne, the upper-middle class storyteller, Payne, the undoubted champion of the ‘neighbourhood’, Payne, who cups his hands on the sacred flame of life and lights one’s mind with the illumination of his own self-conscious, guilt-subduing empathy. It has been seven years – seven very long years since ‘Sideways’, the last acceptance of inevitability, of loss, of suffering; of humour in helplessness. ‘Goodbye Solo’ was replenishment, Ramin Bahrani was/is of rare, definitive promise. Thomas McCarthy, Peter Hedges – they’ve all taken the boat to different banks of the same nourishing river.

But there hasn’t quite been the inimitable pleasure, the self-accepted perversion, the sexism, the misogyny as much as feminism and most importantly, relevance in the constrained, flawed and beaten-down morality of an Alexander Payne film character. Every single venture of his (with the exception of his debut film ‘Citizen Ruth’) has been an adaptation; his own characteristic translation of suburban stories richly detailed, neatly chronicled and striking with their simplicity. There is as much elation as there is heartache in these anecdotes as we find, there is glory in their simple little lives. It isn’t just nostalgia working, there is real pleasure in Payne – that which seems stronger in his return.

There had been a recorded downtrend in the sale of the Merlot as opposed to the Pinot Noir variety of red wine when Payne made ‘Sideways’ in 2004, speaking for writers Rex Pickett (who wrote the novel), Jim Taylor and himself through the staunch, stubborn and deadbeat Miles Raymond. With ‘the Descendants’, he heads off the coast and takes us to Hawaii, the surfboarding capital of America, where the landscape as we see it has immense potential to be monetized. In fact, there are a couple of shots where he dabbles with the scenery with the nosiness of a photographer who cannot resist himself, almost advertising the land alongside the fondness that comes with it.

Still, as exotic as the setting might be, it’s not landscapes that he’s selling. It’s the people, whose hearts are just as warm, whose lives as complicated and whose cancers, just as deadly like he puts it through to us in George Clooney’s fed-up, wise-cracking Tom Waits sort of tone in a voiceover right up front. Much like every other movie of his, Payne cuts a portion off the world and puts it beside you, making for a closer watch. These people might have their accents, they might have their weird wardrobe and footwear and extensive seafood diets. But, for all you know, they might be your neighbours.

Matt King (George Clooney with a performance of unforeseen subtlety) is a lawyer, a descendant of a native Hawaiian princess and hence the sole proprietor of a trust that owns about half the land around the place, whose legitimacy of ownership would die out in about seven years, thanks to the ‘Rule against perpetuities.’ He has two children – seventeen-year-old Alexandra ‘Alex’ King (Shailene Woodley, another to add to the list of assertive young actresses) and ten-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) with a wife (Patricia Hastie) who’s at the hospital in a coma after a misadventure on her motorboat. With the signing-over (to a certain Don Holitzer) coming in a week with all cousins coming together to celebrate the hundreds of millions that they’d cash in on with the sale, Matt has but one thing on his mind as he anxiously awaits his wife getting better so that he could make up for lost time.

Several things happen in succession. Matt finds that this wish of his to get back to his wife on some lost romance is futile. First of all, there’s no way her condition is going to improve. Second of all, he comes to learn from his very own daughter that his wife had been cheating on him. “What makes all the women in my life want to destroy themselves?” he asks. Elizabeth (his wife) with her speedboats. Alex with her drug-indulgence and alcoholism. Scottie, who’s invariably stuck with him, the ‘back-up parent.’ He’s one of those people who thinks the world is burning and doesn’t see his tail catch fire, where life’s this layer of fireproof clothing that makes it sure you don’t feel anything more than just the heat that gets you sweating and exhausted and down on your knees.

The transaction, the intrigue, the insufferable anger and the helpless reconciliation are all tied up in a simple loop filled with thankless, unforgiving, single-minded characters who seem one-dimensional because that’s as much of their stories that we come to know. The outlook is utilitarian, these people come and go in Matt’s linear course of trying to piece the situation together. The Father-in-law who doesn’t know his own daughter but knows enough to love her blind, the Lover, the substitute that she found for Matt in a possible ‘anyone but him’ kind of situation and his wife, the mother of their children, the proponent and platform of whatever he has for a family. The resilient cousin, to whom the sale jumps off the page on an uneventful life otherwise. The impassive youth to whom Alex clings to beat loss and loneliness with nonsense that can be excused.

It’s amazing how real Payne makes these characters look in spite of the fact that it’s like they’re made of cardboard and stuck on a screen. Also interesting is the bunch of actors that he’s assembled to play these characters. Robert Forster (‘Jackie Brown’, ‘Medium Cool’) plays the gruff, disapproving father-in-law, Judy Greer, who’s been in sleazy comedies one too many, is cast as the wife of the other man and Matthew Lillard (Shaggy Rogers in the ‘Scooby Doo’ franchise) plays the other man. Veteran Beau Bridges plays the only cousin with a voice of his own, that which, again, is almost representative of the entire rest of them as well. The only shortcoming could be how disjointed, disconnected and distant these characters are from each other’s life, which, of course, is also a strength considering the satirical, almost defeatist sense of romance that the story shares with the life of the people in it.

Clooney is beautiful as Matt King. Payne knows that, and we know that he knows from the amount of close-up profiles of Clooney that abound throughout the movie. Paul Giamatti can’t call for such focus. But Clooney with his sculpted, elaborately-lined face where every twitch comes out magnified a hundredfold strikes us down with the shaken superiority that he commands with the stripped-down nakedness of Matt King. Kevin Spacey wouldn’t have made for a better option. He’s like Dan (from ‘Dan in Real Life’) but at the onset of trauma, clueless as to what to do with his kids, the surreal weight of responsibility getting to him that he’s having to resort to asking one of them for help. Shailene Woodley as Alex is Alison Pill in ‘Dan in Real Life’. In her, Clooney and little Ms. Miller (as Scottie), we have three beautiful people that the exterior visualization turns out as strong as the actual impact of character. They’re heroes of this glorious story. They have charisma, in short.

Humour is in the moments, not the movie. There are those that make you laugh. There are those where you’d want to, there are those where you wouldn’t want to. But then, there are those times in life both on and off the screen where you can’t help but laugh, where the instance is so overwhelming, so hard in your gut that laughter is about the only thing you can hit it back with. Your humour is your means to retaliate, you retaliate with acceptance. You wish you could fight your way out of the quicksand, but the only way is down. And you find yourself faced with the helplessness of the situation, the raw irony, the heartlessness and the wholesomeness of heart, all at the same time.

‘the Grandeur of Doom’, as Keats once wrote, is a thing of beauty. Incomparable; indestructible. In your face. That’s ‘the Descendants’, in a nutshell.

'GOOD LUCK', I GUESS

2012-01-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY SUDHISH KAMATH

STARRING: MANU NARAYAN, SEEMA RAHMANI with VASANTH SANTOSHAM and RAJA SEN

NOTE: This review is what you'd call 'awfully long' and is full of spoilers, which doesn't mean you shouldn't read it. It only means you're not to read it until you've watched the movie as well. If your idea of a review is one that would tell you whether or not to watch a movie, then this isn't one of those. This isn't a reference medium. It's my own opinion, and exactly that. A compilation of what I felt and what I thought I should've felt when watching the movie and after. Cheers.

Sudhish Kamath postulates eight phases of a romantic relationship, chronicling them in the expanse of an all-night telephone conversation in ‘Good Night, Good Morning’, his second directorial venture that he apparently co-wrote with Shilpa Ratnam, a woman much younger than both him and his characters. The film follows a linear narrative from ‘Night Before’ to ‘Morning After’ in a split-screen rendition in B&W intercut by flashbacks and fantasy sequences. ‘Before Sunrise’ is an inspiration and the characters discuss it. There are definitely no Woody Allen references in the movie, which, quite frankly, pretends to harbor neither the wit nor the cynicism of standard Allen caricatures. It’s actually borderline Crowe in Linklater-denial, exactly how Kamath describes it to be.

Turiya Omprakash (Manu Narayan) is a second-generation American part of a foursome headed back to Philadelphia from New York where they were out drinking on New Year’s eve. In the car, he calls a woman (Seema Rahmani) whom the four of them chanced upon a little while back, drinking by herself. She doesn’t respond at first, but calls back.

Her name, as we learn much later into the movie as a carefully-deliberated mystery, is Moira, a Greek Goddess of fate. Turiya himself is fished out of philosophical waters, referring to one of the four states of consciousness as mentioned in the Upanishads. “The other three are in the car with me,” he jokes at a point of time as Moira looks his name up on the internet. That joke, as it turns out, is not a joke. I’m defenceless against this sort of contextual naming. And not to mention, tired. There’s a character called JC (played by Raja Sen), abbreviated like in every Indian circle of friends of names too long and hard to pronounce. JC is along with a Hussain (Vasanth Santosham), again an Indian stereotype. But then JC has purpose. He’s the wizard equivalent, the one that makes things happen; who turns water to wine. JC, Kamath confessed, stands for ‘Jesus Christ.’ Exactly what I said in response.

Moira, when constantly pressured, asks Turiya to assume she’s called ‘Nona’, which is like Latin to an actual Greek. The moment had me miss the ‘Vijay’s and the ‘Priya’s, if not the entirely ambiguous ‘Guy’s and ‘Girl’s (as in ‘Once’). In the end, I had to be thankful such redundancies didn’t waste more than a minute of my time. Although I took the liberty to waste a couple of yours in the process.

Anyway, the two of them start with taking off clothes and discussing breasts in an obvious foreplay. Moira asks Turiya if he’d like a banana. He responds saying he prefers melons, where he gives an 8 on 10 to hers. Such cheek isn’t uncalled for. What is conversation if not a sharing of idiosyncrasies? I once ranked nipples with a girl for two hours, from Charlotte Gainsbourg through Julianne Moore down to Sasha Grey. There wasn’t a consensus, we didn’t turn each other on with the topic and it’s not the best that I remember of her. It still qualified.

But then ‘Good Night, Good Morning’ overstays its sitcom-phase. We’ve a half of the movie spent on gags and nonsensical nothings, with the other half speeding up the sink into deeper waters. It’s not a disconnect that I’m talking about. It’s a stretch. Like a joke on both Michael Jackson as well as Justin Bieber in a sort of diversity move to bridge the 90s with the new century. It doesn’t work.

What lifts the movie is the moment it asks to be taken seriously. The second call-back; the ‘Make-up’ in Kamath’s own words. The time when both Moira and Turiya both drop their armour down; when Moira gets into her bathrobe and feigns nakedness. She’s past an attempt to kill herself, we learn from a standout sequence with ‘Silent Night’ playing in the background. He, on the other hand, still isn’t over the woman who left him three years ago. His suffering isn’t unreasonable, definitely, but hers is more pitiful. He’s the ‘virgin Indian boy’ against her ‘the Girl who’s had enough sex before that it doesn’t matter anymore’ stereotype. He hesitates, she groans. To him, it’s a beginning, with all its doubts. To her, it’s yet another tiresome journey. Through the same thing all over again.

The fact that Moira is even remotely interested in one like Turiya, whose sensibility doesn’t get past ‘the Matrix’ and ‘Mills and Boon’ and other ominous signs of the average Indian male says but two things. One - we’re watching a man’s fantasy. For all you know, there could be an ‘Inception’ moment with Turiya waking up in the end and having to spin a totem to check. She calls back, she calls again, she confesses, she calls the shots as he watches and comments. With her, Kamath says he intended to break convention about the perception of women in India or Indian cinema, at least. This being said about a movie he conveniently sets in New York with people who we relate to because Hollywood exists.

Secondly, Moira and Turiya suffer from the same flaw that they discuss at one stage of the movie. They don’t want the same thing. Not exactly. Moira wants solace, Turiya wants love (or so he thinks). To her, he’s a doormat; the safety-catch. And someone who’d love being so. In ‘Before Sunrise’, we worried about Jesse and Celine losing passion by forcing to stay physically connected. Here, it’s a redundancy – the tip of an iceberg with a promise for more. But the tip is off the parent, broken and floating. Turiya is a limitation that Moira, with her unboundedness, would outlast. It’s a disarming sort of certainty.

Her final decision, to Turiya, is a dream, given that he had already taken his shot at giving her up. For Moira, on the other hand, it’s a ticket to a rehab routine that would have her coming off stronger and cleaner in the end. He would’ve resuscitated her, nursed her back to health. She, on her part, would give him an experience to remember, in bed and out. They’d break as better people.

Of course, I’m extrapolating on the actual script which despairs to end with hope – a reflection of the very same creative liberty that I take to criticize it as well. It is a work of fiction that’s as open to the viewer as it was to the one who came up with it. Kamath has schoolboy aspirations with his concept, where he wants to ‘succeed’ in his romance no matter what. Even if ‘success’ meant taking the first step towards a sure-shot downfall. I’m not referring to the Allen-assertion that all love fades. I’m saying that this one will, one hundred percent. It’s about a woman who decides in the end to go with the flow, and a man who’d always try to wing it to his favour. It makes for a sad story, where the touch of optimism is but actual false hope.

This, ideally, is what one expects a co-writer to rectify, more so because it’s a woman. Or is she? In Turiya and Moira, I see an action-reaction pair, of a person talking to oneself. They’re like alter-egos, like they’re parts of the same schizophrenic whole. Like Eugene and Miriam from Winterbottom’s ‘Butterfly Kiss.’ The parasite and the willing host. It still is ‘love’, I don’t deny it. But between whom? It’s Kamath courting Kamath, as far as I can see, sticking to movie-standards to beat his folly.

A collage of tributes too many, ‘Good Night, Good Morning’ is pretty much the Critic’s movie, even if technically sound and runs like a racehorse. Elegant and carefully put together with a majestic music score, it’s a roller-coaster ride with no time to think twice. But then, it disappoints in that it fails to even make an effort at honesty. It’s an elaborate gimmick and is content to be so, riding on the fact that everyone, at one point or another, would’ve known a girl like Moira – too wise, too damaged, too out-of-reach. The film is beautiful because she is; ugly because it’s too much so. She is lent a hand to get her out of the water, he has volunteered to replace her at the bottom. And Kamath, only too gloriously, cashes in on this misshapen connection.

Linklater wrote ‘Before Sunrise’ with Kim Krizan, with ‘Before Sunset’ getting its lines from its lead pair in Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. I see this co-writing venture between Kamath and Rathnam as a move to touch upon that nostalgia, if not emulate the same. I cannot rationalize Ms. Rathnam’s involvement in any other way. It’s like if Kamath had a wife, she’d have done the music score, playing Nancy Wilson to his Crowe-desperation. At least, he’d have had her credited for it.

But I still do not dismiss this movie. It’s a nice watch, it has its moments. And I, for one, have seen a Moira before. Like I’ve seen a Summer Finn or even an Alyssa Jones. But then this movie is like I dreamt about getting her and then came forward, calling it real because I can recollect it and put it in bullet-points. That’s what Kamath has done. He’s put a fool's dream before a world that won’t disagree. It's silly, it's trivial, it's good to watch. And he likes it, like a writer likes his work. I wish him luck.

A PHOENIX FROM ITS FLAME

2012-01-06T02:56:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY DRAKE DOREMUS

STARRING: FELICITY JONES, ANTON YELCHIN, JENNIFER LAWRENCE, CHARLIE BEWLEY, ALEX KINGSTON, OLIVER MUIRHEAD, FINOLA HUGHES, BEN YORK JONES and CHRIS MESSINA

You remember the scene in Richard Linklater’s ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995) where the couple-by-chance decide not to exchange contact details in a pessimistic move to at least safeguard their encounter, if not give it a chance to succeed, vowing to meet after 6 months of no physical disturbance instead? Well, ‘Like Crazy’ takes the poison. We watch two really young, tactless, heart-on-sleeve romantics torture themselves with shock therapy sessions of pangs and subsequent resuscitation back into their dream and then shoved back on course towards either impending doom or sure-shot monotony that’s drearier than their flower-patterned notebooks and their heart-shaped beds.

Drake Doremus writes and directs this film like a love letter. It’s his own experience, we hear. Semi-autobiographical. That means the names have been changed. And locations, possibly; the rest of the exterior. Even characters, perhaps. Anna (Felicity Jones, with an incredibly endearing performance) tells her Boss at the magazine that she runs errands for that her writing is about someone who’s inspired her a lot and that writing about him is her way of giving something back. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) can only draw pictures of chairs when he puts pen on paper. This film has materialized. I guess that leaves one with no assumptions on who’s who.

But then that’s irrelevant. True that in a film like this, we (the audience) play the sick-in-the-head sort of postman who opens the letters that pass through his hands. Much like how in ‘Blue Valentine’ we played the guilt-ridden neighbour who listens in on next-door fights. We squirm in course of stories as these, however sumptuous. They’re like cholesterol that’s straight out of the stove and piping hot. But these, we find, are legitimized by cinema, the pervert-art. There shall be no check on pleasure, no holds barred. The correspondence is only as juicy as the words communicated with, the sex-tape only as good as the intimacy that’s visible. Empathy works against the viewer, but without it there isn’t really a point. Success lies in how disarming the experience turns out to be, fighting against one’s self-disenchantment. You believe, you feel. You feel, they win.

Jacob and Anna meet at college, like each other, get cozy and get madly attached, all with complete knowledge that Anna will have to leave the country to go back to England, where she’s from. At one instance, Anna overstays her Visa, reluctant to leave Jacob for the summer, an impulsive, immensely mindless decision without which the film wouldn’t have been around. We’re not to ask if the summer compensated in memories for the disaster that it turned out to be. It doesn’t matter. Not to us, not to Doremus. He jump-cuts to the point where Anna’s told she can be in America no more and is ushered back to England with but just a semblance of contact between them and their odd time-zones. Guess they’d just have to be thankful she’s not further from the East.

Anna’s parents are very much involved, Jacob’s mother is merely mentioned. They talk of marriage when Jacob tours England to visit. There are two things that discomfort him at that point. One is the obvious fact that Anna seems to be looking for alternatives. The other is the fact that he has one of his own. Then again, two things still seem to keep the couple hooked with each other, even if in varying degrees. A chair that has ‘Like Crazy’ engraved on the underside and a bracelet that spells ‘Patience’, both gifted to Anna by her woodman lover. As a counter, she throws loads of love and confusion, which, in course of time, morphs into clearer love. Her indulgence is a full-blown storm while his is but a cloudy mess. And they’re raining in different continents. That, in short, is their problem.

Jennifer Lawrence as Samantha (shortened to a tomboyish ‘Sam’) is Jacob’s alternative, before I forget. Although I doubt if anyone can. Both Yelchin and Jones grow in course of the film, Yelchin distinctively uncomfortable with those parts where he’s had to feign an innocence uncharacteristic of both his physical and emotional self. Jones, on the other hand, undergoes a near-perfect transition. Her performance carries the film and the entire weight of Doremus’ intentions, honest or not. With her, he finds his baby in a safe, immensely likeable pair of hands. Lawrence, on her part, contributes with a maturity beyond the ages of both herself and her character. As Roger Ebert would put it, in her we have a very important actress. Of this generation and the ones to come.

Pain turns pleasurable the second time around. The best way to beat it is to remember it; not forget. Doremus would agree. I remember telling a friend about how death takes people who haven’t even come to think of it yet. ‘Like Crazy’ shows a separation equivalent. It’s humble. It’s helpless. It fights fire just to get burned, and it burns in a flame that’s a glorious orange. The flame flickers, but it’s there. I hope you understand. It’s an honest love story with a likeable lead pair. And Jennifer Lawrence. She spikes it further. It works.

'ALLINOL' INDEED!

2011-12-30T08:28:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY JOHN LASSETER

WITH THE VOICES OF OWEN WILSON, LARRY THE CABLE GUY, MICHAEL CAINE, EMILY MORTIMER, BONNIE HUNT, JOHN TURTURRO, EDDIE IZZARD, JASON ISAACS, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN, JOE MANTEGNA, PETER JACOBSON, TONY SHALHOUB, GUIDO QUARONI, PAUL DOOLEY, JOHN RATZENBERGER with JEFF GORDON, LEWIS HAMILTON and VANESSA REDGRAVE

‘Cars 2’ is not a film that can pause to answer if you ask it to explain itself. It’s not futile to ask that; it’s mindless. It’s something the film sidesteps on its race ahead. Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) could have had a hand in the ‘Toy Story’ franchise playing grease-man in Operation Rescue-Woody. Same goes with Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). These are two cars with as much utility as depth in character. Their presence would make an ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ out of ‘Toy Story’ centered on a moral bailout. With them, you could’ve had more effective, much more diversified action that would pacify the Hot-Wheels-Kid as much as the Teddy-hugger; the Action-figure bully as much as the Barbie doll. They’re universal, in short.

And yet we find that John Lasseter, the man behind Pixar Animation Studios in both heart and mind, prefers to write a movie for them than make one out of them. And then a second. We ask why. Chinese food in China is ‘food’ where you can tell good from bad. Doc. Hudson in ‘Toy Story’ could have been the ‘Wise Old Hornet.’ With ‘Cars’, he became a character. He played Mickey to McQueen’s Balboa. Now we hear he’s no more.

It’s been five years since the film that portrayed people in ‘Cars’ in a mix of oil and water as thick as blood. It’s been sixteen since the one that built on the question of “what if your Toys could talk?” With Pixar, it has ever been a magical journey, through tall stories as a consequence of a heightened imagination that nurtures the same. They’ve had the means, they’ve had the method. They’ve got the wildness that gives means to the method. There’s no story untellable, no dream too far.

There’s none like Pixar that understands the concept of an animated feature. It’d only take you a look at the chronology with Pixar contributions to see what I’m saying. The ‘Toy Story’ series. ‘Monsters Inc.’ ‘Finding Nemo.’ ‘Cars.’ ‘the Incredibles.’ ‘Ratatouille.’ ‘WALL-E.’ Startlingly original stories brought to life with the help of computer-generated imaging. The animation is but an accessory to the storytelling, it’s the brain that dazzles. Its complexity is not evident, its joints not seen. All that shows is an organic whole, taking off with astounding precision. With Pixar studios, it’s all about the baby without fuss on the miracle of conception. They’re like a real force of nature that way.

‘Cars 2’ is no different. It’s an espionage routine set on a racing circuit with oil tycoons and an alternate energy bubble. A comprehensive turn of events fit into a framework that actually provides scope for questioning – how many films are we having to take for granted these days? ‘Cars 2’ is an exciting break from that drill. You accept the very basic premise and you get to savour the storyline, its logic intact. This world is nothing but talking cars, talking ships, talking 747s and helicopters. Fuel and water turn delicacies, the Big Ben is called the ‘Big Bentley’ with windows shaped like radiators. Dying is but engine-burst where people are cars. Like Lewis Hamilton. Like Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) who is sort of an Aston Martin, James-Bond-styled. If there was to be a superhero, it’d be the Batmobile. Or Mater.

There’s something very special about ‘Cars’ and its sequel. These are the only films that have had Lasseter involved in the creative process. Films that he’s directed, films he’s conceived. The others, he’s executive-produced. In Lasseter, I draw a Judd Apatow comparison. That he saves only the best for himself. By ‘best’, I mean the ‘closest to heart.’ Films that he simply cannot let pass. Films that, undeniably, are HIS. It’s uncanny, his eye for detail. The setting, the characters, the voice-acting, the little nothings you’d probably not even notice and the consistency in the same. It’s amazing how his cars are both real and yet extremely imaginative at the same time. They’re ‘intricately-detailed-characters’ taken a little too literally. Every single one of them is loveable. They all grow on you. Even the Queen (Vanessa Redgrave) – the ‘Shakespeare in Love’ sort of cameo by an equally exciting actress.

McMissile calls Mater ‘the smartest, most honest chap he’s ever met.’ Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) adds ‘most Charming’ to the list. ‘Cars 2’ calls for similar praise. It’s pure celebration that never runs dry. The only thing that’s missing would be a dance-routine. And I would watch a third film just for that.

WHAT THE... HECK?

2011-12-24T22:26:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY JOHN ERICK DOWDLE

STARRING: CHRIS MESSINA, LOGAN MARSHALL-GREEN, JENNY O’HARA, BOJANA NOVAKOVIC, BOKEEM WOODBINE, JACOB VARGAS, JOSHUA PEACE with GEOFFREY AREND and MATT CRAVEN

‘Devil’ is conceptualized by Manoj Night Shyamalan (‘the Sixth Sense’, ‘the Happening’) and directed by John Erick Dowdle (‘Quarantine’), two people with contrasting histories in this type of movie. Shyamalan can’t break crust without drama, Dowdle could have made ‘Paranormal Activity’ had it occurred to him. It’s two schools of thought in a destructive mismatch. Kind of like Nicolas Winding Refn meets a John Woo treatment in a horror-drama equivalent. The story could have worked with a little lesser, the film needed a whole lot more. The balance was never achieved.

Remember Joel Schumacher’s ‘Phonebooth’? ‘Devil’ has an elevator-replacement of that claustrophobic space, with the ‘voice on the other side’ taken a little too literally. And no Forest Whitaker to save the day either. You’re in for confusion. What is it that’s going on? There’s a difference between ‘suspense’ and a lack of clarity. The ball could have gone both ways on multiple occasions. Immaturity, we find, has been confused with prowess. We’re having to marvel at baby-talk. It’s cute in a puff-pout sort of way. It amounts to little else.

Ramirez (Jacob Vargas) narrates the story of how ‘he’ (personifying the ‘adversary’; the ‘alpha and the omega’ in small letters) comes to surface with a mission, how he moves in on his prey, and how there’s nothing anyone can do to put a stop. Five people are trapped in an elevator. We learn their names in a scramble and hence assume unimportance. There’s a mattress salesman (Geoffrey Arend), a temp on guard-duty (Bokeem Woodbine), a wizened old woman (Jenny O’Hara), a smartly-dressed young woman (Bojana Novakovic) and a young man (Logan Marshall-Green) who wears his jeans like overalls so you know exactly what he is. Glad we didn’t have an axle-grease giveaway as well.

The film opens with a man falling to his death like one of those crazies in Shyamalan’s ‘the Happening’. He holds a Rosary in his hand. Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) at the scene of crime tells his partner (Joshua Peace) the most obvious thing – that someone who’s grabbed his Rosary beads cannot have been pushed. Ramirez would disagree. So would the face in the elevator; the parlor trick. It’s freaky, it’s funny. But everyone is serious about it. That’s horror for you. Innocent people die, people are killed in front of their loved ones just to show the cynics. Come on. That’s not the Devil. That’s a truck-driver on an alcohol high running headfirst into a school-road-crossing. That’s an Adolf Hitler parody. We’re talking about the ‘only one’, the fallen angel. Isn’t it time we gave him some class?

Slowly we find that the five inside didn’t chance to be, but were meant to be. As was the Detective. That was a head-turning bit of detail, nevertheless completely anticipated. There’s no marks to guessing it’s a supernatural thriller and not a ‘whodunit’. It’s more like a ‘howdunit’. Safety cables, glassware, mirrors, electric mains all come from the ‘Final Destination’ franchise. The Devil has his contacts. He’s pretty sure-shot about that. People fall like pins and you’re not to ask if they deserved it. What saddened me was that you could have, but in a different movie. I wanted that movie. ‘Devil’, at one point, was so engaging, so brimming with potential that I desperately wished it wouldn’t disappoint me. It did. With the very ruthlessness of the one in question.

I can’t tell you more without giving it all away. Trust me, it wouldn’t matter. You could watch it instead, but you’d only be watching what you wish you wouldn’t. “How will it all end?” Detective Bowden asks Ramirez. “They all die”, he responds. “That’s all?” comes the question. It would be yours as well. It was mine. There has to be a remedy. Ramirez, a curious choice for the all-knowing, tells there’s hope only when people stop pretending and see what’s right in front of their eyes. Something that this movie never did, nor intended to. It could’ve been what it could’ve been. It never considered the option.

‘Devil’ is a bad Satan-flick. As a disaster-movie, it’s terribly underfed. It’s shot in a low-fi camera and it’s set in real-time, tying an ‘I want to fly’ sort of story to the ground. It’s neither Shyamalan, nor Dowdle. It hovers in between, lost. Talk about misshapen demons.

THE LONG WAY BACK HOME MADE LONGER

2011-11-29T21:32:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY JOHN HUGHES

STARRING: STEVE MARTIN, JOHN CANDY, LAILA ROBINS, DYLAN BAKER, OLIVIA BURNETTE, LARRY HANKIN, RICHARD HERD with BILL ERWIN and KEVIN BACON

I used to travel a lot when I was younger, to the extent that I got used to trains and surviving in one; getting by. Actually, I remember the experience to be quite uncanny. I’m talking about the time I was 13 or 14 years old and I had a trip to make almost every week, rain or shine. And I remember how it always used to be uncomfortable and messy at first and how, after the hours spent or days in some cases, the journey would have coaxed me to get into it. It had become an integral part of my life cycle. And the best that I remember of it is how there would always be a sinking feeling in my stomach as we neared this station called ‘Basin Bridge’ which was just a stop away from Chennai Central where I get down and make my way home, my Father with me. The train slows down, you see buildings for the first time – concrete, rundown and pale – as opposed to fields or factories that always served to remind you there was a little more to go. I’ve liked them only for that reason.

Neal Page (Steve Martin) sees the big city for the first time in two days that turned his world upside down. Or right side up. He’s sitting in a train that’s moving past buildings for the first time and he looks forward to seeing his family – his wife, his three children, their warmth and the sumptuous thanksgiving dinner, all waiting for him. It had only been scenic routes before, a scenery that he never got to appreciate, for it was against intention; it busted his action plan. There are moments when you catch sight of the buildings along with him: tall buildings in brick and stone. I’m not talking about the ‘Chicago along the horizon’ moment. I’m talking about watching buildings go by.

How much would Neal have given to just watch buildings go by sitting in the metro a couple of days before! The best of his project pitches. $75 on a cab he didn’t get into. $700 on a wallet that needn’t have been stolen. A whole lot more on credit cards that needn’t have burned. A rental car service that enraged him than give him a car. The woman behind the counter who only added to his fury, telling him he’s ‘screwed’ when he knows he is. A kiss on the ear from an oversized shower-ring salesman named Del Griffith (John Candy) that he won’t feel squirmy about anymore.

He has a moment just then. The same sinking feeling that I told you about. Neal Page, how much ever glad he was at having come back home, has had a journey. A journey – not a trip or a skip or a skittle. A journey. Something you’d never have these days, thanks to planes and A/C compartments and floating buses where you breathe the same air that you let out, but modified. You might as well be on a space shuttle or Michael Jackson’s gas chamber, you would never know. It still is oxygen, but it’s just not right and you know it. But then, you can’t step away from the grind now, can you? Not in 1987. Not now.

I’m sorry to refer to films from ‘the future’ to interpret ‘the past’, but ‘Crash’ (2004) written and directed by Paul Haggis begins with this line that’s also its underlying theme that goes like: “You’ve got to crash into each other just to make contact these days.” The statement is both literal and metaphorical. ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ is that sort of ‘crash.’ It’s about two people who are unlikely to have met otherwise – not unless they were forced into each other, there being no other go. It’s not a class difference, it’s not a question of conflicting moralities. It’s just basic human nature. It’s like having food favourites knowing what they become once you’re completely done with them. Del calls Neal hostile and intolerant which is ‘borderline criminal.’ Neal calls Del a blabbermouth amongst a whole lot of other things that make him live up to his name. Or Del’s description of him, at least.

John Hughes’ film is patchy with such moments and lack thereof. It’s an 80s film, a kind of exploitation era in itself. You had to be funny, you had to be bittersweet and you had to find a way of being heroic about it. Just like how you had to have a soundtrack that’s unclassifiable and thus characteristic. People liked those things. The idea beats the shit out of rendition, its conception – half the deed done. ‘My Cousin Vinny’ was an 80s film that stretched into the 90s. You see what I’m saying?

‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ is not the best version of itself, but that’s the way you’d like it. There have been more romanticized versions, from Kamal Hassan’s ‘Anbe Sivam’ to the more recent ‘Due Date’ with Robert Downey Jr. playing Neal to Zach Galifianakis’ Del. They’ve all had the same idea of a simple trip gone wrong. There’s John Lasseter’s ‘Cars’, if you want another example. But this film is like a ‘Sideways’ or a ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ for me. This is where it all began. And this, I find, is exactly what I wanted, in all its imperfections and its bursts of joy. It’s the original – and like how all ‘originals’ go, it’s not beyond duplication. But the experience, you’d find, is.

'HALL PASS' OR THE ABUSE OF ONE

2011-11-26T05:24:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY THE FARRELLY BROTHERS

STARRING: OWEN WILSON, JASON SUDEIKIS, JENNA FISCHER, CHRISTINA APPLEGATE, NICKY WHELAN, ALEXANDRA DADDARIO, STEPHEN MERCHANT, JOY BEHAR, LARRY JOE CAMPBELL and RICHARD JENKINS

The Farrelly Brothers have the inimitable knack of giving you a less-than-perfect version of their film. I don’t know why they do it, but they do it. They’re champions at it. They’re like kings at blue-balling people. All their films have a remarkable central agenda which they address (and fairly well at that) as much as their self-induced cheapness permits them to. ‘Shallow Hal’ dealt with a man’s inherent dread of going with a ‘less-than-attractive’ woman. They chased high-school love in ‘There’s Something about Mary’; even ‘the Heartbreak Kid’ was on a middle-aged man’s discontent about his relationships.

No, I’m not trying to romanticize their work over here. I’m actually telling you how much they don’t want you to. They would do anything to make sure you don’t have fond memories of their film when you’re done watching it. Anything. You’d be amazed. They’d show you penises of different shapes and sizes and colours, they would make a full-grown man defecate in a golf bunker, they would show a woman do the same on a bathroom wall and have someone ogle at it like it were artwork. I don’t know if this makes them the vilest of human beings in the world or if I’m just not a sport because I don’t take their shit. Literally.

Or I don’t know if they’re masters at pastiche who make you laugh your gut out one second and then trigger the same reaction the next, except it’s not out of laughter this time. They’re disengaging with such deliberation. It’s like they’re on a mission.

What’s even worse is that they do these things to really likeable people. And characters. You could put Jason Sudeikis in a sticky situation like this, but not Owen Wilson. Maybe Jeff Anderson, but not Seth Rogen. You see what I’m saying? Or maybe it’s just me. I thought ‘Horrible Bosses’ had it right in that it kept aside the best of its disengaging humour to Sudeikis and a little of Charlie Day but never Bateman. Because he just wouldn't do. He wouldn’t have been appropriate to be in an inappropriate position. Neither was Owen Wilson, I thought. Of course, I find that I’m talking more people than characters here. In my defence, the film stuck to their usual screen-selves. It was a Steve Coogan thing once. I guess it should be called a ‘Sudeikis thing’ from now. He’s the one who’s typecast more. Coogan at least has ‘Night at the Museum’ to his credit.

‘Hall Pass’ is about Rick Mills (Wilson) and Fred Searing (Sudeikis) who are given a ‘hall pass’ by their wives Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate) respectively. A ‘hall pass’, as we learn, is a week of freedom from marriage extended to a man by his wife to let him accomplish everything that he believes his marriage is keeping him off from. Or find that he can’t. In Rick and Fred, we have two kinds of men – one who’s disappointed that he can’t pick up other women and one who wants to. It’s much like the difference between Maggie and Grace themselves. Maggie finds she wanted a break from her marriage. Grace finds use for one. The two couples are written in stone on this script that wants them to get back together in this road trip towards each other.

There are no collisions, no discomforts. There is absolutely no irreparable damage. Nothing happens to the two couples to alter their courses even by an inch, the most disturbing event in one’s married life passes off as a beer joke. On the one hand, I was startled at how easily the Farrelly brothers could take in the premise (conceptualized by Pete Jones). On the other, I was annoyed at how easily they threw it away and how their film played along like a shameless farce. It was like double-indemnity but the contextual opposite. And what can make it worse? A Grand Theft Auto with the police involved and a psycho in the middle who simple had to be there. And a hospital scene. Yes, it had it all.

‘Hall Pass’ thus, like every Farrelly fare, is an idiot’s treatment of a serious premise involving characters who deserve more. There’s more happening with these people than what they show you, what’s going on is not just what they say is going on. There’s more to the film than what you just saw, something its makers can’t handle. A stronger film would have had a confrontation saying “Whose Hall Pass is it? Yours? Or mine?” This one drops a line at best. But hey, at least they mentioned it! It’s that line that saved some face. Without it, we’re talking reimbursement. Of time and energy lost in deliberate ‘stupid.’

AN ALL-HEART EXPERIENCE

2011-11-18T21:00:00.000-08:00

DIRECTED BY THOMAS McCARTHY

STARRING: ALEX SHAFFER, PAUL GIAMATTI, AMY RYAN, JEFFREY TAMBOR, BOBBY CANNAVALE with MELANIE LYNSKEY and BURT YOUNG

This is my first McCarthy experience of the three films he has made. I’ve watched bits and pieces of ‘the Visitor’ when they premiered it on Television. ‘the Station Agent’ has long been on my to-do list. Both are immensely acclaimed, the man himself deemed an up-and-coming writer-director of independent films which, again, do not stick to the usual norm. One of the reasons why I long contemplated writing this review right after ‘Dan in Real Life’ (directed by Peter Hedges), an immediate sample of a film that’s as entertaining as it’s full of heart. Well, I don’t think one can put ‘Win Win’ any better than that. Hence the hesitation.

The storyline of ‘Win Win’ is fairly convoluted, but pretty clear. Which means there are dimensions to it which, however, do not serve to complicate the premise. It’s one of those films which is so intricately detailed that it turns out to be quite simple and wholesome. Do you get what I’m saying? Life as it is has facets to it, only parts of which we come to confront on different days in different ways of living it. And yet, one can put it in a few words. Or in a paragraph.

Thomas McCarthy achieves that simplicity in his film, tying all ends together, welding his joints, making them secure so as to give the viewer a smooth, uninterrupted ride. There has been a lot of work, a lot of effort gone into this film which does not show on the surface. Everything that we see is undeniably a product of concise writing with utmost care. And the film, on its part, never ceases to be funny or smart – it might not always be tongue-in-cheek cocky, but it’s smart. It’s rich with moments but not in a face-saving sort of way. After watching ‘Win Win’ you might, you will go around recollecting sequences, possibly one particular sequence, a ‘turning point’ both figuratively and literally, but then you would have loved experiencing the film as a whole as well. Your joy would not have been curtailed to the lengths of scenes or lines, for the film in itself is utterly enjoyable. There is not a dull moment. There is not a vile moment in it. There is not a moment where you wish you had it a little differently. I had no second thoughts after watching ‘Win Win.’ It’s simple, whole-hearted joy.

Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a small-time lawyer who’s married with two kids. He goes for a jog every morning, with or without the company of best buddy Terry Delfino (Bobby Cannavale, less annoying than usual), and he spends evenings as a local high-school wrestling coach assisting Coach Vigman (Jeffrey Tambor, delightfully subtle). He values physical fitness and there is an inherent love for the sport, which doesn’t let the viewer corrupt his intentions as purely being after the money in it. Mike would not coach the kids if he didn’t get paid for it, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love what he’s doing. He reminded me of my father, who never said no to the extra money, but the thirst to get the satisfaction of having impacted upon at least one person – well I have been so used to that thirst that I was simply overjoyed when I saw it on screen, what can I say.

But then there’s a flipside. Mike’s a lawyer, right? The proverbial one. He doesn’t mind where his money comes from as long as he gets a fair bit of it. Actually, it’s not as harsh as I made it sound, but I guess you get my point? Anyway, in this case, he eyes a $1500 a month commission on serving as the guardian of Leo (Burt Young), who’s at the onset of Dementia. The man requests to be let to stay at home, Mike capitalizes on that request, takes control and puts him in an old-age home instead. It might not be as sad as you think it is, but it’s sad. The place has TV, incredible furniture, 24 hour service. But it’s not home.

Sometimes you need to get a little topsy-turvy to straighten yourself out. Kyle Timmons (Alex Shaffer, a jaw-dropping find) serves as motivation for that sort of inertia bust. He’s Leo’s grandson who has run away from a ‘druggie’ mother and has come to live with his granddad. Jackie Flaherty (Amy Ryan, with a startlingly likeable performance), Mike’s wife, assumes responsibility here. Reproached in the beginning by the boy’s appearance and his habits, but humbled by his story and conduct in general, she takes him into their house. Kyle becomes a Son she never had, or something close. To Mike, it’s business with a hint of emotion. The boy is a prodigious wrestler, one of uncanny skill and mental strength with a touch of ‘cool’. To Mike, he’s the dream student. A protégé. Someone he’s always dreamed of. But then, he’s not his own. There’s the boy’s mother (Melanie Lynskey, tailor-made) and there’s a price that he has to pay; people he has to disappoint. Including and especially the boy himself.

Paul Giamatti in any film instantly takes me back to ‘Sideways’. Mike and Terry are no Jack and Miles, but it’s remarkable how effortless Giamatti is in playing the guy who likes a friend to look down upon. He is superior in his being, but in a humble sort of way. “Who’s crazy?” his little daughter asks. “Me”, he responds, a dull smile on his face. Alex Shaffer is Kyle Timmons. But he isn’t. Kyle barely strings two words together in his language of ‘yeah’s and ‘okay’s and ‘sure’s. And he’s rich with his outbursts, at getting out exactly what he wants to put out there. Shaffer himself admits to being too extroverted to play Kyle. But then, that’s exactly what Kyle is. He’s who you try to be when you don’t talk for a long time that you get used to not talking. He’s an extrovert’s shot at introversion. And with that and his wrestling skills, you find it’s all that you want.

Which brings me back to my previous assertion. There’s absolutely nothing that I wanted more. ‘Win Win’ was as fulfilling as a film that I badly wanted to watch. It not only lives up to your expectations, but it pushes on the borders to make the experience bigger and more nourishing than you can ever imagine it to be. It’s one of those films where the experience outdoes its content. Like the scene in ‘Once’ where the man at the studio is brought to work by the sheer inspiring force in the band’s music. Well, ‘Win Win’ is like a movie-equivalent. It sets you upright in your chair, jumping with child-like joy. It’s exhilarating. It truly is, Win Win.

REALLY, NOW?

2011-11-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

STAGED BY ‘SHARAS’ PRODUCTIONS

NOTE: If you find this review to be humorous, you’re mistaken. If you don’t, you’ve got issues. Or you’re part of the ‘Sharas’ unit. Poster/names/insignia used neither with the consent, nor with prior permission obtained from the production group. Sue me. And once again, expletive-alert. If you have issues with the throw of words, I kindly advise you to stop reading any further. For this could be my most offensive effort at film/dramatic criticism ever. And a personal one as well. A first.

Their play had exactly what they claimed it had (‘Meta-theatre’, for dummies). A beginning. A middle. And an end. That’s as much as I can give to Saraswathi hostel’s production of Stoppard’s ‘the Real Inspector Hound.’ The Theatre-Fest version, I felt, progressed and we found ourselves struck by passable fascination as every facet of its actors’ potential was uncovered in the course of the play. It had mood, it had a certain deliberation towards elegance which I thought was intended, and it had Kalki Koechlin play a ravishingly convenient stereotype. The copycat version, on the other hand, limped along one leg at best with a squeak every now and then. Like a broken toe on an overweight tween.

And it had Saudamini, who plays yet another stereotype: the quintessential ‘insti-female-play-actor’ who can be roughly characterized as ‘smutty, amateurishly, with an arrowhead’s deliberation at crass humour even which, in effect, is non-existent.’ Do not bother to look that up on the Urban dictionary. It’s one of my own. I shall share it in detail with you if you’d like me to.

Her Cynthia, who’s supposed to be the sensual crux and pivot-point of the play, is unabashedly deglamorized. She wears a pillowcase, for heaven’s sake! And she porno-talks and kisses more than one person, but only behind a Japanese fan from the Audrey Hepburn wardrobe. A twitchy, freakishly-funny procedure that shouts 'Let us Kiss!' Where’s Zack and Miri when you need them? (You’d understand what I’m talking about only if you’ve watched the Kevin Smith movie as well as this train-wreck)

Jokes apart, I found her performance as inept as it was unnecessary. And of course, funny, including and especially those places it wasn’t supposed to be. Like when she stands between lines with a compulsive twitch or turn just to show a stay in character. Or lack thereof. Her tattoo acted better, I felt. It shut up and stayed still; warrants a special mention for that. Sushmita as Felicity was worse; hurtful, actually. One wishes she had gone a little easier on the eye; a lot stronger on the ear. Her Felicity, we find, speaks to herself. The audience is unnecessary. These were the two characters that made the Quaff Theatre production endurable. This version, on the other hand, throws an ultimatum. To stay or not to stay.

I did, incidentally. I wasn’t going to miss the climax for anything, given I knew exactly what was going to happen. It has an on-stage gunshot from a gun that shoots twice, miraculously, with a single pull on the trigger. Or wait… Three times, to be precise. It was like Albert could not wait any longer. Wheelchair mishaps are so embarrassing; plus, the beard must itch. The man was in a rush, looking for a kiss that he’d never get. For Cynthia didn’t have her fan with her this time. Duh!

Of course, I can’t talk. I’m someone who wrote and directed a double-disaster last time: two shoddy translations-to-stage of the same play (‘the Patricide’ that I killed). I played the wrong track for the climax that I changed halfway through, the first time around. Next time, we staged a complete Farce. Of my own play. Against intention. This director (whoever he/she is) has worked a miracle, comparatively, pulling this off. But then, it’s like Will Hunting says to Sean Maguire in ‘Good Will Hunting.’ “You spend all your money on these fucking fancy books, you surround yourselves with them. Except they’re the wrong fucking books.” Well, ‘the Real Inspector Hound’ is the wrong fucking play. Plus it has been done this season, and moderately well. Doing it again is like a ‘Transformers 3’ re-release. It was tortuous enough the first time around. Kindergarten skits are more honest. The phone-sex hotline would do better accents. The upside about this thing, I felt, was the swap of the maid for an effeminate butler (rules don’t permit a third actress) who comes up with a noteworthy performance. That was the only detail that pushed on the bar a little. It was kid stuff, otherwise.

‘this Real Inspector Hound’, in all, was an hour-long squeeze of a one-and-a-half hour play – a slurry of fake accents, bad girl-costumes (the menswear was fine, especially the trench copy-coat: Thumbs up for that) and a tasteless rendition with a stolen set. In short, it had every ingredient for Litsoc success. It actually placed second, losing out to a one-act clown-comedy show featuring… clowns. I felt like I was at Vaudeville, yesterday. God help theatre. Or at least Litsoc Dramatics. If that’s even possible.

A SOURCE OF HEDGE(S)D HAPPINESS

2011-11-05T23:02:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY PETER HEDGES

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, ALISON PILL, JULIETTE BINOCHE, DANE COOK, MARLENE LOWSTON, BRITTANY ROBERTSON, NORBERT LEO BUTZ, AMY RYAN, JESSICA HECHT, FRANK WOOD, HENRY MILLER, ELLA MILLER with EMILY BLUNT, JOHN MAHONEY and DIANNE WIEST

The thing about Peter Hedges is how less he tries to stop you from classifying him. And how, as a result of that, you don’t want to. He’s a writer-director of independent films who doesn’t stick to routine and thus produces a stronger outcome. ‘Pieces of April’ was reflective of that. ‘About a Boy’ probably lesser so. You could credit him for inventing a unique blend of feel-good fiction with a relatable storyline that’s simple and straight as people can be. There’s something very wholesome about the experience, a strong sense of empathy that he inspires. With Hedges, it’s not your life on screen. It’s a life you like, idealized, where everything is in the perfect amount, neither amplified, nor diminished. The ups and downs. The contradictions. The resolutions. And best of all, Hedges doesn’t push his luck – he tweaks it.

‘Dan in Real Life’ is no different. It’s a Hedges film. It’s about Dan Burns (Steve Carell), a columnist who gives parenting advice and who, appropriately, is a widower raising three girls on his own. Is he doing a good job? Who knows? Parenting as such is a paradox of free will and enslavement as well as everything in between. Who knows what a good parent is? Lilly Burns (Dan’s youngest daughter, a proud fourth-grader) could probably have the best answer when she calls Dan ‘a good father but a bad dad.’ Dan’s skeptical about the fact that she coined it; he thinks it came from his oldest daughter Jane (Alison Pill) or the lovestruck and angsty Cara (Brittany Robertson) and is probably right about it. But then they have a point. He’s the strict father of great kids who don’t look at themselves and admire his work. They’re defiant, and at their ages, they’re justified. We know for sure that they’re bound to grow up and feel more affectionate. For Dan’s the kind of Dad who’s better looked-back upon than lived through.

The four of them head down to the Burns’ family home, a seaside bungalow that always has someone running around, kid or adult. It’s Thanksgiving and they can afford to miss school for that. I’m unclear about the number of siblings, but there are four couples in the house including Dan’s parents Poppy (John Mahoney) and Nana (the ever-delightful Dianne Wiest) Burns. It starts with three, initially, with Marie (Juliette Binoche, who is as Americanized a Frenchwoman as Julie Delpy in ‘Before Sunset’) being the last one in. She is the newly-found girlfriend of Dan’s younger brother named Mitch (Dane Cook) like all younger brothers are. Marie calls him ‘fun to be with’ in a gym-instructor sort of way. We understand. He’s the real-life rebound guy that’s great at his aerobics. You know at once that he isn’t going to come good on the longer run. Literally.

A darker drama might feature intrigue, but here Dan and Marie find each other by accident and in ignorance. He plays librarian to her book requests. She gets his jokes and commands his actions. They’re like the movie-definition of soul mates. She then excuses herself and leaves early saying she has a new boyfriend whom she has come to visit. She gives him her number though and asks him not to call. He is hesitant, but his brothers disagree. They deem it not unethical as long as she’s not engaged. Dan, on the other hand, knows that for family, those rules don’t apply.

Steve Carell is the perfect Dan Burns. Not just him, but everyone is at home with their characters. Alison Pill is convincing as a seventeen-year-old. Dianne Wiest hits an uncanny high as a romantic-comedy-Mom with her portrayal of Nana Burns. Juliette Binoche, John Mahoney; even Dane Cook is well-cast. Every side character has been written, not just filled. They’re all well-defined, the mark of a novelist. The household is integral, Dan sticks out. It’s a love-hate thing. He’s the columnist who speaks too soon, only to find that life’s problems aren’t solved by printing retractions. “Someone hasn’t been reading his own column”, he says. Haven’t you felt that? It’s not a moral dilemma as such. It’s the bane of nature. Like finding yourself driving on the wrong side of the road in Rhode Island – you can’t even have a police officer set you right. For Dan, however, there’s hope. There’s Marie.

Roger Ebert derided the film’s soundtrack (by Sondre Lerche) as it its only flaw. He says it gives too much away. I was surprised to find I felt that too. It rang a bell. Aren’t all indie scores like that? ‘There’s Something about Mary’ spoke too right too soon – we need a new reminder. But then, ‘Dan in Real Life’ is beyond such letdowns. It’s organic and concise at that. And I found that to be a deadly combination.

ON OVERCOOKED RECIPES: ONE SWEET, THE OTHER SOUR

2011-11-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY RON HOWARD

STARRING: VINCE VAUGHN, KEVIN JAMES, WINONA RYDER, JENNIFER CONNELLY, CHANNING TATUM, AMY MORTON with CLINT HOWARD and QUEEN LATIFAH

Beth is the kind of girlfriend who’s around because she likes the guy and isn’t just morally obligated to be. I found her reminiscent of Emily Deschanel’s character from ‘Glory Road’ as well as one of Jennifer Connelly herself in the self-help kitsch called ‘He’s just not that into you.’ She’s the next generation. Women in romantic comedies leave their men only to return when proven against, to arms that always stay open no matter what. Beth is a progression from that stereotype. She’s the woman who has a hand in the resolution, not just reaping the benefits and signing her name on the ‘happily ever after’ charter. She’s organic, she’s more than that. And she’s played by the bankable Ms. Connelly who, I felt, dropped anchor and was completely at home with playing Beth.

But this story is not about her. It’s about everyone else. It’s about her boyfriend Ronny Valentine (Vince Vaughn) who faces ‘the Dilemma’ on whether or not he should tell his friend that his wife’s cheating on him. It’s about Nick Brannen (Kevin James), his friend, who spends too much time revving up car engines that he doesn’t see his wife texting as much as a tween. And of course, it’s about Geneva Brannen (Winona Ryder), Nick’s wife, who plays Diane Lane to Channing Tatum’s Olivier Martinez. The film in itself is like a comic ‘Unfaithful’ with two Richard Geres instead of one – one who isn’t aware of what’s going on and another who tries to put a stop to it. But then it’s not all that funny either because it can’t afford it. At one point responsibility kicks in and wants it to be honest to the emotions involved instead of coming out as a farce and then conveniently calling it ‘black.’

I thought the entire success of Ron Howard’s film rested on how well he treated the least common denominator. Beth, in this case (I leave out the sister, her husband and Queen Latifah’s frivolous little cameo citing irrelevance). Take her out and if the film survives, then it had better not been made. But then Connelly constitutes the entire acting credibility of this film. She, I thought, kept the whole film intact, as well as Nick, Ronny and the rest of the lot. On the writer’s part, I wished her more importance; to the director, I appealed for more time. It’s almost like a real husband-wife thing – the woman is so goddamn nice that you wish she were treated right. It’s not infuriating when she’s not. It’s plain wrong.

Overall, ‘the Dilemma’ is a film that has the ever-likeable Kevin James (though you wish he weren’t always cast as one among the money and hence the pretty wife), the successfully annoying Ms. Ryder and a deflated Vince Vaughn on a Jennifer Connelly platform. It’s a five on ten.

DIRECTED BY FRANK CORACI

STARRING: KEVIN JAMES, ROSARIO DAWSON, LESLIE BIBB, DONNIE WAHLBERG and KEN JEONG with the voices of SYLVESTER STALLONE, CHER, ADAM SANDLER, JUDD APATOW, JON FAVREAU, FAIZON LOVE with MAYA RUDOLPH and NICK NOLTE

I have always found it uncanny that the best things a person says go unheard of, lost inside his own head. In a sad way, of course. Griffin Keyes (Kevin James) speaks his mind out, but he does that only to zoo animals, the ones in his care. They eventually talk back. He finds they always could. One of them (a Capuchin Monkey) has Adam Sandler’s hoarsened and accented bawl. An alpha-male Gorilla has Nick Nolte’s deep-yet-friendly tone. Stallone does a Lion King while Cher plays his disapproving ‘better half.’ Them, and a dozen other animals, want to help Griffin get his girlfriend Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) back. Because she’s a supermodel. And because Rosario Dawson goes de-glam with gloves and boots.

The animals are a convincing assortment and an excellent platform for something amusing. In the end, only one of them gets the leg-up. The others just sit around and order in. Or well, almost. We have watched them talk in ‘Madagascar.’ There has also been ‘the Wild’ and ‘Open Season’ and sequels galore. What makes this film any different? There’s something inimitable about the delightfulness in watching talking animals in live-action. They bring out the child in you. That way, ‘Zookeeper’ is just about everything that was likeable about ‘Dr. Dolittle.’ In fact, it is everything that Dr. Dolittle ought to have been but never even tried. Plus, it has Kevin James at the centre. He makes better a fat man cartoon than live-action. ‘Zookeeper’ in itself is more like a cartoon that’s well-adapted, voiced by a kick-ass bunch of actors. It’s remarkable.

‘Zookeeper’ is THE talking-animal movie we have been waiting for, if there ever can be one. Sometimes you’d be so tired you wish you had a Gorilla that could drive for you. And you find you need a film like this for you to know that it’s a bad idea.

A WASTE OF SPACE THAT'S BRILLIANTLY NAMED

2011-11-02T08:27:00.000-07:00

(this Film Review is filled to the brim with expletives, which I felt the film warranted. I thus caution the reader and recommend that he/she discontinue reading right now if unwilling to encounter the same. I hope you'd understand that it's that kind of a film)

DIRECTED BY KAUSHIK MUKHERJEE

STARRING: ANUBRATA, JOYRAJ, KAMALIKA, SHILAJIT and RITUPARNA

Kaushik Mukherjee’s ‘Gandu’ is not a film. But it is a revelation. It brings to our notice a bunch of people in India who would do a things on screen than anyone else within the country would even dream of. The actors. The music department. The director himself, for that matter. I find that very reassuring, as well as intimidating and questionably so. On the one hand, I think they would inspire writers to come up with meaningful films about meaningful characters in a meaningful plot that would warrant the explicitness that ‘Gandu’ messes around with. On the other, they could spawn faithful stereotypes. Like a ‘Chuthiya’, for instance (excuse me for my language). Or a regional equivalent. The question is how well an actress like Rituparna (who plays every object of fantasy of the protagonist) would respond outside of her boyfriend’s territory – probably the same question that an actress like Kalki Koechlin faced post ‘Dev D.’ It pertains to Anubrata (who plays the fairly likeable ‘Gandu’) as well. We shall have to wait and watch.

I would rather not give away the plot of ‘Gandu.’ I do not wish to romanticize it, and I find myself incapable of telling a story without doing so. Hence I don’t want to. A film like this doesn’t deserve that. It is crass. It is deliberate. It doesn’t feel what it shows. Sex for Mukherjee is perversion. Perversion is compulsive. Films break taboos and remain intact with themselves. ‘Gandu’, I thought, was lost. It is absolutely non-erotic, wherein we know it tries to be. Mukherjee blends Gaspar Noe hallucinations with a Wong Kar Wai style. The effort is shamelessly visible. The result: a semi-erotic mess of a scene that holds one’s attention but for the wrong reasons. It’s bad pornography; worse cinema.

I talk about that one scene in particular, shot in colour that was meant to steal the show. I would credit the scene with as much potential as the encounter between Renato and his fantasized version of Malena Scordia in Giuseppe Tornatore’s ‘Malena’ (2000). My expectations only made the drop steeper. Sure Anubrata was hooked with eagerness; sure Rituparna sets the screen on fire. That is perhaps the problem in itself. Because the scene is ugly. It comes out as exhibitionist than celebratory. You watch the scene, you aren’t into it. Which makes me repeat my statement – it is bad pornography. A sex scene is like a concert experience: You’ve got to be there. This scene is badly edited, uninterestingly pieced. It’s plastic. It’s like a game of ‘Doctor’ at best, minus the innocence. Which is a big letdown for the engaging Rituparna, who, I thought, was feeling it.

I was reminded of Bertolucci’s ‘the Dreamers’ (2004) as I drifted off in search of a better place. Matthew (Michael Pitt) in the film endears with his helplessness. His charm is in his submission and the wild-eyed eagerness with which he’s up for the experience in the earlier stages of the film. Isabelle (Eva Green) is a warm place to be. Rituparna, I felt, was quite close. But our Gandu is no Julio or Tenoch (from Alfonso Cuaron’s delightful ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’), let alone being Matthew. He does a Rocco Sifredi. You expect him to do a ‘stand and carry’ next. Inexperience walks out the door.

But Gandu is capable of such innocence. He is, actually, innocent enough. The film, I felt, takes a likeable adolescent and distorts him for the heck of it. His thoughts are perverted, his music is too. But he isn’t. I found that hard to deal with. What do you think? Seth (Jonah Hill) from ‘Superbad’ had a very dirty mind. But then he was still likeable with it. Gandu, on the other hand, shoves it up his namesake. The music is mind-blowing, Mukherjee has talent with words. Rickshaw (Joyraj) is adorable. There are things that put a smile on your face. There are things that kill it for you. They make the film unacceptable. The good things stand no chance.

In all, I found ‘Gandu’ tastelessly bold and pointedly defiant. I didn’t think it needed to be. It’s cocky, no doubt. But then it’s like a 4-inch intrusion in an 8-inch business, too noisy to make up for lost pace. It’s like a bad dick-joke that I didn't want to hear; that I wish was told differently. Throughout 'Gandu', I wished for a different movie. So I stand repulsed.

THE 'LAUGH AT ME' POSTER THAT WORKS

2011-11-01T03:35:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE

STARRING: ROBERT DE NIRO, JERRY LEWIS, SANDRA BERNHARD, DIAHNNE ABBOTT, SHELLEY HACK with ED HERLIHY and TONY RANDALL

The funniest from Robert De Niro turns out to be his saddest as well. Martin Scorsese’s ‘the King of Comedy’ might not have any of the gags one would expect it to have, it has absolutely no stand-up save for Rupert Pupkin’s (De Niro) final monologue that comes as but a last gasp. But it’s funny. And cute as a button. You might have nothing to talk about once you’re done watching, you’d have no haul of memorabilia, no scenes or lines that you can tell a friend, but you absolutely devour what goes on when it’s on. It brings about the eagerness of the fan in you, never the disappointment. And when it’s over, you come to realize that Pupkin was no pity-bin where you could dump your sighs. He was just what he claimed he was – a really funny man.

Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis) is a television star who has it big on his own show that features such names as Tony Randall, Richard Dreyfuss and Elizabeth Ashley. Everyone else plays himself or herself, name unchanged, but Lewis is victim of a filmmaker’s caution, the sort of thing Steve Coogan was to clear of in the variations he has played of himself in a bunch of Michael Winterbottom films. But then again, an actor like Lewis would have a lot more to lose. Plus, this film is not about him. The star is distanced from the viewer, it’s but the minnow who’s supposed to endear as has always been the custom. At least up until George Simmons came along.

As Langford, Lewis keeps his initials as well as his style. He has a characteristically twitchy, effeminate walk that looks out of place on a middle-aged man. He's grumpy. He looks like the sort of person you’d never attribute comedy to at sight, but then change your mind the moment he moves. He’s funny when he’s afraid, funnier when angry. Some of his expressions are gems on screen except they’re products of timing more than prowess. The role is convenient, the actor a good match. You could upturn your dinner table just to watch him frown than eat with him and have a talk. He’s that comedian.

Pupkin, on the other hand, is the fan who gets funnier with failure. De Niro would come to do another performance on similar lines in Tony Scott’s ‘the Fan’ (1996), one that would serve to destruct the niche he had carved for himself with this film. I’ve always thought that comedy came easy to De Niro ('Meet the Parents', 'Analyze This'); it’s his lighter side that has appealed to me than the angry young man or the sadistic prizefighter or the dozen odd mob bosses he’s played. There’s nothing specifically stupendous that he brings to this film. Neither is his portrayal a show of heart – the film came rounds after his tryst with stardom. What sells, however, is the fact that he doesn’t have to put on clothes for this role. He’s already wearing them, he’s got what he needs. Pupkin is second nature to De Niro. The sad wannabe with all bitterness scraped out leaves a caricature pretty close to the actor's personality. Or an amplification. De Niro is at home with his performance as the clown without make-up. They can save the cherry for another film.

By the way, I lied when I said there are no memorable sequences worth talking about after the film. The cue-card sequence is absolutely hilarious, both during and after. But it’s one of those scenes you’d rather watch than be told about. Because it’s one of those films.

Martin Scorsese directs a comedy that doesn't want the laughs it gets. It’s not a comedy that wants to be – it’s a comedy that is. A little more colour would have rendered this ‘dark’ comedy unrecognizable. A little less colour, on the other hand, would have turned it black. We find balance. Scorsese’s film is as dry as it’s lively, as cute as it’s in denial about it, as intense as it tries to steer clear. It’s as intimidating as it is leisurely. It’s good.

DO NOT WATCH THIS FILM

2011-10-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY LARS VON TRIER

STARRING: KIRSTEN DUNST, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, ALEXANDER SKARSGARD, KIEFER SUTHERLAND with STELLAN SKARSGARD and JOHN HURT

Lars Von Trier has successively won his lead actress an award at Cannes. In 2009, Charlotte Gainsbourg bagged the honour for her portrayal of a mother who retaliates with sexual aggression against the pain of having lost her infant child in ‘Antichrist’. This summer, Kirsten Dunst walked away with the same for ‘Melancholia’, where she plays a woman who’s crippled by her fear about the end of the world. Crippled, as in mentally/emotionally. The film is said to be based on Trier’s therapy sessions during a depressive episode in his life, and it features Gainsbourg who’s already proven her worth in grieving with grace. Here, she’s comparatively cheerful. Dunst herself has had a popular bout of depression for two years, breaking the ice with her 2010 release ‘All Good Things’. This film is part of her comeback, and could very well be her definitive, breakthrough act.

That’s as much trivia as is required to understand where this film comes from and what nurtures it to an organic and rotting whole. Its achievement, I felt, was in the semblance of home as well as the equally-incisive portrayal, both of which had firm roots in the people involved. In other words, it’s a depressing film from a depressed person about a depressed character played by an actor who has faced the worst herself. That, I think, would sum up what the viewer can/will expect even before the film opens.

There’s very little to speak about the film, which actually doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s in two parts, one named after Justine (Kirsten Dunst) the bride-to-be who destroys her own wedding in a sort of defeatist endeavor like in a move to make the end of the world more sufferable. The other is named ‘Claire’ after her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose consumption by fear is procedural and intensifies with time and event. Justine plays the aggressor, Claire is submissive in the broadest sense of the word. This is not the first time I’ve watched Trier situate the entire emotional crux of the film with his women, their men accessorized. But here, he polarizes it. Justine and Claire are on the opposite ends of the spectrum. They, in all essence, complete the picture that he breaks in the end.

Does this imply that Trier is the feminist of this generation? Perhaps. It’s complicated, actually. He relates his depression to the suffering of a woman; somehow, I felt that he feels something very feminine about it. His men are plastic. He associates them with science, with logic, with power; with humour that he derives little pleasure from. His women, on the other hand, are pinnacles of expression, chasms of depth. We see shades of the woman in ‘Antichrist’ in Justine. She corks her sadness with sexual aggression, and suffers more at the relapse she helps trigger with it. I imagined for a second how it would be if he were to centre his story upon a male equivalent – that is, if ever Trier decided to write himself in a story. I think the concept of a woman has such an inherent sense of pity it’s bound to incite, which a male character, in his sexual dominance, would only lead away from himself. Somehow, the idea of a woman predating and suffering from the same seems far more acceptable. Even artistic. Or else it’s a consequence of Trier’s craft that renders us to believe so. I can’t tell.

Accepting that it’s backed by exemplary craft and deft use of ideas in Trier’s impeccable quirk, I take the liberty to call the film pathetic. It’s unendurable. It’s not even a film that can be enjoyed by a depressed individual; it’s no key to suicide either. I felt that it was a film that be enjoyed only by those in it; those snared by commitment and self-propelled interest to carve a way out of their heads in form of this film. Trier HAD to make this film, Dunst HAD to act in it – it’s in convenience to help resurrect her fallen career as well. She fits like a glove and he wears her performance like a crown. Dunst is both actor and character for the film that Trier knew exactly how to make. It comes easy for him, he extracts performances effortlessly. He’s backed by a talented bunch of actors who are well-cast and devoted as well. It’s tailor-made.

But what about the viewer? There’s this one film that Willem Dafoe as Carson Clay writes, directs and stars in at the Cannes Film Festival in ‘Mr. Bean’s Holiday’. The man is ruthless. He eats screen-space and deletes other characters to facilitate his own. I was reminded of that film when I watched ‘Melancholia’. There are films which disrespect the viewer. This one disregards us. It doesn’t care. It prides in its depression and destroys the world to beat its gloom. I’ve always had this theory that one would miss life lesser in its absence if one lived lesser. The film destroyed that theory of mine simply by reveling in it. I felt tainted. It does not eat into your optimism. It leeches on it and comes out strong.

Roger Ebert called Tinto Brass’ ‘Caligula’ (1979) a heinous excuse for sex in film. ‘Melancholia’, to me, is a depression equivalent. It's ejaculate. It's a 'burn after reading' that it warrants. Not a world-premiere. Or any premiere, for that matter.

BENEFITS? COME ON, SERIOUSLY?

2011-10-06T07:27:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY WILL GLUCK

STARRING: JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, MILA KUNIS, NOLAN GOULD, WOODY HARRELSON, PATRICIA CLARKSON, RICHARD JENKINS, ANDY SAMBERG with JASON SEGEL, RASHIDA JONES and EMMA STONE

The most engrossing aspect of Will Gluck’s ‘Friends with Benefits’, a boring self-advertisement of an overwrought product, I felt, were the sex scenes. Let me tell you why. Mila Kunis as Jamie, before she engages in intercourse (and a whole lot of other things) with Dylan (Justin Timberlake), tells him she has sensitive nipples. He, in turn, warns her of a similar situation on his chin. In the scenes that follow, we get to see his weak spot, but never hers. I was eagle-eyed about it. Not a trace. I felt cheated. It felt like such an ‘entertainer’ thing to do, you know? You hype a feature on a product that’s barely saleable otherwise (relating ‘Mila Kunis’ and ‘acting’), you make people wait for it even if only to counter-check or call for a contract-void, but then you never give it to them. The mystery is strenuous. For all you know, they might have used a body-double. I think they actually did. The girl in the long-range topless shot is not Kunis, but her voice distracts. Filmmakers these days are so full of tricks up places least expected. Like the one that Dylan seems particularly fond of.

What I said above is not an effort at undermining a well-packaged film that’s actually doing pretty well with critics and other audiences alike. It’s genuinely the only thing that I got to appreciate in the movie. And I actually called it a ‘movie’. That’s strange. I usually stick to ‘films’ – ‘Cinema’ for the rarer kind. This is one that chased cars in a guise of self-importance. I just sat down and counted them as they passed. One. Two. Three. Clichés. Pointy references for the heck of them. Supposed intelligence that’s but an abuse of ‘stupid’. Manipulation. Pretentiousness; it never stood for the stuff it preached. I mean the premise and the movie as the end product that plays in theatres and cineplexes and drive-ins and what not, didn’t go together. It’s like a bad lie that’s better untold.

I’m not going to discuss the plot outline of something that even a ten year old would get these days. It’s like what Roger Ebert once said about self-help books in his review of ‘He’s just not that into you’, as well as what Sam Elliott said about ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ in this film called ‘Did you hear about the Morgans?’ It’s that you don’t have to read the book to know what it’s about. Which means everything comes down to the other things – the surprise elements. Like in a sports film, where it’s about what happens off of the field than on it. The X-factors, so called.

So yeah, I thought this ‘movie’ had none whatsoever. I’ve never looked up to the abilities of either Mila Kunis or Justin Timberlake. They’ve been good in smaller roles, previously. Timberlake was alright in ‘Alpha Dog’ and as Sean Parker in ‘the Social Network’. Mila Kunis as Rachel Jansen in ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ is a role I’d ascribe sensibility to. What didn’t make sense was the move to give them both a wider berth where there’s ten times the chance to blow their covers. Emma Stone (whose role in this film is sheer suicide) made this transition to game-changer from ‘good new find’ (‘Superbad’ to ‘Easy A’). One can give that credit to Seth Rogen (‘the 40-year-old Virgin’ to ‘Knocked Up’) or even Jonah Hill (‘Knocked Up’ to ‘Superbad’). Never to Kunis. Never to Timberlake.

What’s even more of a bother is to see how many good actors have been wasted at the wasteful expense of no-brainer eye-candy. Patricia Clarkson. Richard Jenkins (who plays someone with movie-Alzheimer's). Woody Harrelson. I might add Emma Stone to this list, but the girl is on a downtrend. Still, it’s demeaning to be assigned to play a gawky John Mayer fan. Sucks to say you like ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ as opposed to something like ‘Gravity’ or the ‘Bold as Love’ cover. It’s like discussing Cohen and saying you like ‘Hallelujah’ the most. And that too because Jeff Buckley’s covered it.

I just plain-hated the movie, if that’s not evident by now. Maybe because it’s a John Mayer put-down by Timberlake who can’t spell music even on ‘Hollywood’ letters. Or maybe it’s because I think this film should never have been made. Not because ‘No Strings Attached’ got there first. It’s not even about that. And that’s what I figured from whatever little I paid attention to.

FEEL THE GREEK!

2011-10-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS STOLLER

STARRING: RUSSELL BRAND, JONAH HILL, ELISABETH MOSS, ROSE BYRNE, COLM MEANEY with T.J. MILLER, AZIZ ANSARI and SEAN COMBS

I think the most singular thing about Nicholas Stoller’s ‘Get him to the Greek’ is that in spite of the crassness of humour that the film did NOT sidestep, it turned out to be quite a likeable affair. How, I ask myself. Here is yet another film that rationalizes the eccentricities of a rock-n-roll musician, brands on him the ‘loneliness’ label that rockstars recline to as a convenient stereotype, that their lives are in actuality a sort of pitiable tragicomedy. Here is yet another film dealing with the disillusionment of the quintessential believer, and a reinvention in newfound belief. Cameron Crowe’s ‘Almost Famous’ is ‘almost’ the perfect cocktail recipe for this passive-aggressive music trip that every subsequent attempt has to be William Miller, but with differences. It’s inevitable.

And yet, I have to admit that ‘Get him to the Greek’ kept its charm. The weird thing is, I don’t know how. Not concretely. I think in Russell Brand (as the infamous Aldous Snow), we find a more convincing rock-n-roll star than Billy Crudup could ever be. Crudup had an image change, his Russell Hammond – a method acting venture. Brand, I felt, was playing himself or a very close version. He’s British, he’s fairly effeminate. He’s reminiscent of Keith Richards minus the guitar work. I mean, Johnny Depp had to act like him (Jack Sparrow, as we hear, is a Richards impression with improv) but Brand doesn’t find the need to. Russell Brand, the comedian, serves as a convincing template for Aldous Snow, the rockstar. For all we know, you could scratch the actual sexcapades (considering he’s married and it’s working) and you have him on your canvas, alive and breathing. Jackie Q (Rose Byrne) could be Katy Perry, although she’s more Madonna with the Karmic routine, but you get what I mean, right? They work.

Oh, do I have to tell you about the plot? I didn’t know what ‘the Greek’ was before I watched the film, so I don’t know if it’d be a ‘spoiler’ if I let you know. Or you may already know and it would be of no difference. Anyway, it’s about a man from a record label (an associate? I don’t know the jargon, so let me stick to that) who’s sanctioned to bring Aldous Snow down from Britain for a concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. That’s ‘the Greek’ in the title. I’m sorry, I’m bad at America.

Anyway, this man Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) has problems. Probably the most serious of them. Him and his girlfriend Daphne (Elisabeth Moss) work opposite shifts in a live-in relationship. They brunch together. They watch ‘Gossip Girl’ together. It looks like it can’t get worse, but you don’t buy that. Not when there’s Aldous Snow in the picture. He’s just out of a 7 year relationship with a son to show, and is back to living with his Mother who feeds him biscuits than love. Or, considering mothers, they both go together and he doesn’t see it other than for a moment of truth. But anyway, Aaron is on a time-bomb routine. The clock ticks 72 hours and then Snow performs, whole or broken. That’s the deal.

Like I said, Jonah Hill is no William Miller. What’s good is that he doesn’t try. He looks overgrown to recommence on his ‘Superbad’ cuteness (for lack of a better word!), but beyond the unshaven look, the extra pounds and the tons of puke, there’s still a fair shade of the likeable kid left in him. To quote a friend again, he still rules in the ‘capital letters’ zone. The rest of them are stereotypes pretty much like in every chemistry-anti-chemistry flick, there’s no Jason Lee to step out and impress. But even for that, Colm Meaney looked overcooked. It’s not the first instance that he’s been badly used, but considering it’s Apatow, you’d expect better. Sean Combs has his moments as Sergio, head of ‘Pinnacle Records’ where Aaron works. He says the funniest thing in the whole film, which actually happens to be factually inconsistent, I felt. It’s neither the Zeppelins nor the Stones that live longest, Serge. Last time I checked, Chuck Berry was African-American. Be proud, bro.

Nicholas Stoller might lack the deftness of a music-ingrained Todd Haynes or a Cameron Crowe, but he’s good value. His film ate its own words, I felt, and then puked them back out. I’m sorry there’s too much puke in my review – in my defence, there was even more in the film. But then, there was Russell Brand as well. It’s amazing how electrifying he is on stage, how organic the concert(s) look. For a parody character, he gives us quite the experience. His music sucks, but you feel the Greek. Kind of puts Stoller in perspective – you think he’d make a great record producer, he just turned shit to gold. As Filmmaker, I’d say he gets a Bronze medal, tops. Or as a critic equivalent, the half-smile.

HORSE-POWER GETS A MILEAGE BOOST

2011-09-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS WINDING REFN

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, CAREY MULLIGAN, OSCAR ISAAC, CHRISTINA HENDRICKS, RON PERLMAN with BRYAN CRANSTON and ALBERT BROOKS

To comment on whether or not ‘Drive’ (directed by Nicolas Winding Refn) succeeds depends on what one thinks it aspires to be. I thought it was intended to be a dark, tight action drama reminiscent of procedures from the pre-CGI era, where people blew up cars when they wanted to blow up cars. There are very few directors in present day (I shall conveniently exclude veterans who still stick to practices from ‘good old times’) that one can ascribe this ambition to. And in that, Danish Director Nicolas Winding Refn (the ‘Pusher’ trilogy) marks himself on a list that has Ben Affleck (‘Gone Baby Gone’, ‘the Town’) and Christopher Nolan (‘Insomnia’, ‘Batman Begins’) as champions of a mechanical revolution as opposed to its virtual counterpart. There’s supposedly an exciting debut in this line called ‘Bellflower’ (directed by Evan Glodell) that I’m yet to watch. That, I presume, would be all of the sane action that Hollywood would have to offer this season.

So the most that one can accuse ‘Drive’ is of lack of the same in its storyline, not exemplifying characters and interactions. I never wanted it to. Neither is that the only reason I’m not disappointed. The film does not parade on violence, augment the rawness of its action to atrophic amounts, or cash-in on the selling potential of its acting talent. It walks a fine line, sometimes it jogs. There isn’t a moment when it’s uncomfortable doing that, it never falters. And that’s as exciting as the film can get, which I thought was fine. It’s a simple film that sticks to basics. It works.

Like all action films that want their context established, ‘Drive’ begins with a prototype – a sample. A man, unnamed (Ryan Gosling, credited as ‘Driver’ for convenience) is on a negotiation as tart as his job. He drives. In the ten-minute sequence before the opening credits, Refn tries to establish his Driver as opposed to anyone else’s. He isn’t one of the Paul Walker types to get from place A to place B taking the least amount of time in an adrenalin rush. He’s organic, he evolves. Driving, for Refn (and screenwriter Hossein Amini) is driving slow as well, driving cautiously, stopping when required and taking the right turns at the right time. Skill here is information and improvisation. John Woo might incorporate motor-boats and helicopters into our hero’s skillset, but that’s another story. Our Driver isn’t a daredevil. He’s poise in impulse, topped by the slouchy, hands-in-pocket sort of attitude characteristic of Gosling. He’s stylized, but not made an icon.

If the film is only as good as the story you write the Driver into, then it’s passable at best. Hossein Amini’s ('Jude', 'the Four Feathers') screenplay is backed by a romantic affection, a certain fondness juxtaposed upon the Driver’s steadiness of mind in the eve of crises. That’s his direction and it’s a little unconvincing, I’m not going to lie. It’s too much in convenience where things fall in place and apart with mechanized ease and order. It’s straight, sequential and undisrupted. Too much so.

So ‘Drive’, with the stronghold of Mr. Refn, has a less-than-convincing turn of events. And Christina Hendricks. I presume we still have belief in directorial ability to augment an actor’s performance. Ben Affleck empowered that belief by making Blake Lively act in ‘the Town’. Ms. Hendricks is comparatively repulsive. She’s like a big, sloppy blot on Film-Reel – she’s got too much to carry with too little grace, and I mean that literally as well. Carey Mulligan, on the other hand, is as charming as Rebecca Hall was. Please note I’m only comparing the impact and not drawing an analogy. It’s vital to have an endearing, almost completely innocent character in a premise as this and Mulligan, who served as the Emotional Quotient in Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street: Money never Sleeps’, fits the bill. Also, of course, there’s a cute little romance with shades of respectability between her Irene and the Driver. Veterans Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman are convincing stereotypes. Oscar Isaac, as Standard Gabriele, has little to do but looks smart in sunglasses. That’s as much credit as I can give him.

I’m aware I’ve talked about two contrasting angles of looking at the film. But I think it doesn’t deserve to be seen through unassuming eyes – it doesn’t deserve to be hated as much as it’s liked. There are films that you like despite loathsome aspects. There are those you like after ignoring them, which is actually warranted. ‘Drive’ is one such. It’s good that it’s simple, bad that it’s overly so. And it has Ryan Gosling in another game-changing performance. He’s solid, he towers. He fits the Driver’s clothes and they look good on him as well. But then he punches like a girl and looks a little too soft when he smiles. Still, I’ll go easy on him. He’s one of the good ones, you know? Probably the only one these days.

SWEETLY CRAZY, CURIOUSLY STUPID, LOVEABLE

2011-09-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY GLENN FICARRA and JOHN REQUA

STARRING: STEVE CARELL, JULIANNE MOORE, RYAN GOSLING, EMMA STONE, ANALEIGH TIPTON, JONAH BOBO, JOEY KING, LIZA LAPIRA with KEVIN BACON and MARISA TOMEI

A Couple are having dinner together in a restaurant that’s like a do-it-yourself foot massage parlour. The two in focus are pretty still, though, you sense a casual, almost lethargic bit of tension between them. The air is then let out as the Woman (Julianne Moore) throws the D-word, much to the man’s (Steve Carell) surprise. You don’t know if he was expecting it, but it’s shown that he doesn’t take it too well. In the meantime, at their place, a 17-year-old Baby Sitter (Analeigh Tipton) walks into the room of the 13-year-old Robbie (Jonah Bobo) under her watch, only to watch him ‘doing something’ not too flattering that he assures he’s doing thinking about her. But that’s not before you’re shown that the Sitter harbours some pretty heady emotions for the man of the house. Elsewhere, two friends Hannah (Emma Stone) and Liz (Liza Lapira), the former asserting on the sexiness of talk show host Conan O’Brien, the latter ‘ew’ing at it, are approached by a leather-shoed line-dropper (Ryan Gosling) who goes for Hannah than the typical girl in Liz. To her, he’s just another ‘tomcat’ that she’d prefer to go home without. To him, she’s perhaps a Tiger-Moth to his Butterfly collection.

With that, I have introduced you to the ninth minute and possibly the whole premise of Glenn Ficarra’s and John Requa’s ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ (punctuated like that, with understandable deliberation). When was the last time that you watched a film that completely dropped all pretence and proceeded to show what exactly it was going to be about? (“We’re going to make your wife rue the day she decided to give up on you”) Only Paul Thomas Anderson would have taken longer, but second-time filmmakers Ficarra and Requa (‘I Love You, Philip Morris’) have no intention to survive on mystery; not when they have the acting potential to live it out for them. So before you know character names, before you’re familiar with who’s who in what way, you know what’s going on with them. With the individuals. From one person to another. I personally think that’s pretty great.

But the Weavers just can’t divorce each other from their lives. Remember the Fosters from ‘Date Night’? Well, this film could very well be a sequel of sorts where the goofy couple decide to give separation an actual shot just for kicks – an attempt at the impossible, only to learn later on. While the man talks about his wife to women out of his demographic, Emily watches ‘Twilight’ and takes to self-help books. Reconciliation could be thought as ‘just around the bend’, but the road is elastic, and it stretches and turns through the course of the film, through people and things and buddies and brawls before it ultimately gets there. Or somewhere close.

It’s incredible how easy it is for Steve Carell to play the kind-hearted screw-up that one can never hate, that even someone as sweet as Julianne Moore’s Emily comes off as comparatively harsher. What is a bit of a bummer is that it’s never unexpected. We’ve watched him from ‘the 40-year old Virgin’, through ‘Dan in Real Life’ to the recent ‘Date Night’ and even ‘Dinner for Schmucks’. In ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’, he just doesn’t disappoint. But Ryan Gosling is one who actually does. I mean, granted that his role as Jacob Palmer had shades of immense likeability, and granted that after ‘Blue Valentine’ (and the upcoming ‘Drive’) an actor is legally allowed to cool it down, I still had moments that I couldn’t stomach. A couple of things both said and done. Too ‘usual’. Emma Stone likewise. She’s so becoming a stereotype for the mature young girl that I wish she’d do something really stupid to get out of that mould. Probably feature in the next ‘Twilight’ as a replacement for Anna Kendrick, who’s wanted back in the real world real bad. Marisa Tomei is all-weather, Kevin Bacon (as the notorious David Lindhagen) not too much so, but they do their job with a fair amount of dignity or lack of the same. The pleasant surprise here is Analeigh Tipton, who plays the baby-sitter Jessica, torn between Boy and Man. To quote a friend, “For someone from America’s Next Top Model, not bad!” There is no way that Joey King (as Molly Weaver, the youngest) could have been given more weightage that I wished she had better not been cast, having carried the weight of ‘Ramona and Beezus’ on her shoulders earlier. Or dragged it along in a suitcase with a broken wheel. It just doesn’t make sense to give her a come-and-go anymore.

And so we’re down to the title. What’s ‘Crazy’ is how the film had to depend on a bunch of A-list stars (including Jonah Bobo and even Liza Lapira to a fair extent) to convey an concept that’s likeable by itself. What I felt was ‘Stupid’ was the casting of Joey King, which brings us to the last part. The ‘Love’. The film has loads, tons and tons of it. No one, excepting Robbie, says ‘I love you’, but you’re sure everyone thinks it. I did. You will. It’s crazy. It might even be stupid. But it’s heartwarming.

I'M SORRY, BUT WHAT ARE YOU AGAIN?

2011-09-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY JODIE FOSTER

STARRING: MEL GIBSON, JODIE FOSTER, ANTON YELCHIN, RILEY THOMAS and JENNIFER LAWRENCE

Jodie Foster gets us to call a full-grown man ‘the Beaver’. It's a woman's wish come true. He’s not just any man, he’s her husband and does a Cockney accent. It’s not thinly-veiled, it’s not suggestive. It’s in your face that you’d barely miss it. It’s in an introduction excessively reminiscent of Alexander Payne’s ‘About Schmidt’ (2002) that we are let into this contextually obvious truth – that he’s not called that for no reason, for he is one. I hope you know what I’m talking about, for if you don’t I’d suggest a look-up in the ‘Urban Dictionary’ – you might uncover some interesting details there, details that could help you encapsulate this disenchanting, stone-washed plain-clothe of a film in the palm of your hand. Not that you’d need that, of course.

There was a time when films literally had to slog to get their premises in. It wasn’t a time too long ago. I’m talking about the Nancy Oliver written ‘Lars and the Real Girl’, which had new-age Cinema’s all-weather man Ryan Gosling talk to a ‘real doll’ to beat his introversion and people found it scandalous. Walter Black (Mel Gibson), here, talks to a Beaver. Of all the nerve, right? Karin and Gus Lindstrom had had a whole lot of explaining to do to the whole of their town before they could legitimize the brother’s condition. Mr. Black gets a shrink-card that he wrote by himself. He’s the CEO of a Toy Manufacturing Firm (he inherits the company from his father and is not qualified for it, self-confessedly) and he finds a Glove-Puppet shaped like a Beaver (the ‘woodchuck’ and not the other one) in the small amount of trash he throws. He’s not a ventriloquist, he just can’t be. His accent's probably the peak point on his CV, so we’re into this job-compromise where he’d speak through the Beaver, but he’d move his lips too. His youngest son Henry is the blonde child who's got nothing to do but play 'cute'. I was struck by how easily he believes in the Beaver, especially when his Dad does such a bad job being one. The wife, Meredith (Jodie Foster) is ‘no questions asked’ before a 'Spiderman' sort of Catch-22, the older son Porter (Anton Yelchin) is quickest with the ‘F’ question. In moments, I felt like asking him one as well.

Porter has a little life on his own – it’s sort of a back story though for the film is obviously about Big Mr. Black and his Beaver. The lad ghost-writes for people, a process that gets him more than enough of an allowance, as well as the advances of the otherwise-impossible Norah (Jennifer Lawrence), valedictorian and pristine cheerleader who wants him to write her graduation speech, something she’s tried 400-odd times without success. The only thing that’d be harder is tying her shoelaces, but no – she’s got a 4.0 GPA, she’d probably even tie the Escher’s knot if you ask her to. But she can’t write her graduation speech, and that’s because that’s the only thing that Porter can. Convenient? He’s the Beaver’s son, remember?

I’ll tell you again why I referred to ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ in contrast to this film. It’s one that actually tried to nurture its premise to development. ‘the Beaver’ is Foster-bred at best. It’s justified, not felt. I’m surprised at how cinema has taken this less-than-favourable stance towards sincerity these days, what with efforts everywhere else. The casting in this film, for instance. Mel Gibson, who's just had to stiffen a wee bit more to fit his role like the puppet on his hand. Jodie Foster who’s played Clarice Starling like, a million years ago. Anton Yelchin, this studio kid in Hollywood that’s in every second teenage film that pokes its head out. Jennifer Lawrence, dear Jennifer Lawrence who was a said disappointment having face-lifted her ‘Winter’s Bone’ with X-Woman Mystique. Wait till you watch her in this film.

This is a film where I was surprised that the people who made it and were in it could take it seriously. I couldn’t. Somewhere along the drawing board, someone drew a Beaver on the Glove-Puppet and someone liked it. Possibly Ms. Foster herself. And I had to watch the film to know it was a bad idea.

A-PLUS, MORE LIKE

2011-09-10T23:23:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY WILL GLUCK

STARRING: EMMA STONE, PENN BADGLEY, ALY MICHALKA, AMANDA BYNES, PATRICIA CLARKSON, STANLEY TUCCI, THOMAS HADEN CHURCH, LISA KUDROW, DAN BYRD and MALCOLM McDOWELL

Will Gluck’s ‘Easy A’ is what girl-centred high school comedies like ‘Mean Girls’ weren’t, but should have been. In fact, I had indicated in my review of the Tina-Fey-written film about my yearning to see what a man had to say about typical high school stardom and the opportunity cost for attainment of the same. Bert V. Royal’s script got closer to giving me that experience than any other adamantly-defiant, anti-stereotype of a teen chick flick (read ‘Juno’) could ever have dreamt of. It’s a wild combination, where it’s both ‘in-your-face’ as well as emotionally disturbing, and has an ability to get effortlessly close to your heart. The key factor here is the relatively unknown Emma Stone (‘Superbad’, ‘Zombieland’), who turns top contributor by giving the film what no other teen film has even attempted – a convincing central performance, where the actress is actually as mature as the role demands her to be. A snug fit, Stone joins a list of young actresses that currently only has Ellen Page (‘Juno’, ‘Hard Candy’), and a possible Amanda Seyfried (‘Chloe’, ‘Boogie Woogie’). She actually takes it a notch higher, considering that she never tries to outdo herself in a performance that’s like the ‘Erin Brockovich’ of girl comedies. That’s right. Erin Brockovich. Someone should quote me on this.

‘How much would you give up to get popular in school’ has been THE recurrent theme in high school flicks through the ages. ‘Easy A’ and its protagonist, the cocky and flat-chested Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) give us a picture on how much one would gain with the absence of the same. For in her school (‘public school’ as Principal Gibbons firmly enunciates in his British accent), fame is synonymous with notoriety. People wouldn’t care if someone bagged a Science award or scored the Olympics – actually, people (in this school) wouldn’t really get that far – but you’d make it to text-message headlines if you hung your panties on the doorknob at a party with people watching through the keyhole from outside. Of course, you’d also have to have a gay friend you wanted to help with his reputation on the inside. You know this thought that says ‘for all we know, they could have just bounced on the bed and banged on the walls and not really had sex’? Well, that never strikes them. The place is so crude, the atmosphere perverted. Negative attention is the only attention, and it’s part of any sane rationale to steer clear. Olive, in real life, would have had to confess to the Principal and move out of town, but here she fights it. Or rather, she goes with the flow until it gets excruciatingly difficult. Or maybe she was just waiting for the faintest glimmer of hope and takes the next train out when she finds some. After all, she needs her ‘80s ending and she needs it bad. We’re ultimately given one, with stereo-speakers on a lawn-mover. It's good.

But you know what the best part about ‘Easy A’ is? There is no Prom routine. Can you imagine? Every film set in a high school ever since ‘high school’ was covered in film has had a stupid Prom as part of its package. Or a Homecoming dance. Whatever they call it. I was so tired of this thing that’s so jaded it’s even unfair to call it a cliché that I was almost in ecstasy when the film ended outside of a music-filled atmosphere where everyone miraculously knows their moves. Kind of makes this film like ‘Cruel Intentions’ minus the ‘cruel’ part. And it’s not a journal either (Do they even write those things anymore?). It’s a webcast, which Olive tricks the school into watching, thinking they’re going to get something slightly more than an ‘encore’. It’s her confession that’s the screenplay, the Indian being the first to get disappointed that that’s all there is to it. Obviously. Like, duh!

The film has a strong supporting cast in the parents and teachers that finds itself outrun citing irrelevance. High School, after all, is like the Vegas of pre-Legal age. Olive’s parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) give her the entropy to both mess herself up as well as clean up after. On the one hand, it sounds convincing. But to trust is one thing, to choose to remain ignorant is another. Thomas Haden Church as Mr. Griffith, the only person in school Olive respects, shows a sliver of Jack from ‘Sideways’ that I made the mistake of expecting more. Lisa Kudrow, strangely, fits as the promiscuous Mrs. Griffith. But the worst would be Malcolm McDowell as Principal Gibbons. There’s nothing graceful about his come-and-go role, I couldn’t imagine why he even accepted it in the first place. Nevertheless it's an insignificant worry, for everything in this film contributes to Olive sorting things out by herself in a sort of self-help way. Even the advances of ‘Woodchuck Todd’ (Penn Badgley) are just a reassurance.

It’s an out-and-out Emma Stone show, this transformation of rags to rockstar. And it’s delightful because she is. Not to take credit off her Olive, though – solidly real to her fictional environment. She's so exciting that she made me wish. Girls like her are so rare: They’re yet to be invented.

TO PARIS, WITH LOVE

2011-09-08T07:47:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY WOODY ALLEN

STARRING: OWEN WILSON, RACHEL McADAMS, KURT FULLER, MIMI KENNEDY, MICHAEL SHEEN, NINA ARIANDA, ALISON PILL, COREY STOLL, KATHY BATES, CARLA BRUNI, LEA SEYDOUX, GAD ELMALEH with ADRIEN BRODY and MARION COTILLARD

‘Midnight in Paris’ opens with snapshots of the city that looks to shy away from its own romance. Woody Allen’s nostalgia shop thus cranks open, the sequence being his dry remark not just on the city but of present day in itself. It’s also strenuously long, and in that it tests the viewer on his fondness towards the metropolis that its writer so rejoices in. Three years after, Woody Allen arrives with a follow-up to his sexually, metaphorically aggressive ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. Only this time, we find it’s even more about the city than just the things that happen in it; we find it’s more about the author than just his concept. We gear up, we’re excited. It’s an autobiography of a fantasy in a trip that goes farther back than his memory lane, delving in dreams on alleys and cabs and jazz bars and dark little corners of sweet little nothings.

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is Woody Allen dyed blonde after a possible corrective eye-surgery. He's also taller, more coherent and less of an outrage, though he looks a little too worse for wear. Minutes into character, we find how convenient it is to have cast the seasoned comedian in Wilson, who both cheekily matches Allen’s usual peccadillos as well as establishes his own prowess in playing the quintessential overgrown adolescent. His performance is clear-cut and fulfilling, maybe a tad too reminiscent, but it’s all good – it adds to the strength of a plot somehow reinforces itself with every little detail it provides. We have the Allen (in his more recent films) stereotype in Inez (Rachel McAdams), of a woman who likes her fiancé but not enough to stick to him. We have the disapproving parents, the art confrontation and an emasculating counterpart in Paul Bates (Michael Sheen) all too soon. In Sheen, we have yet another actor who seems to have mastered the Allen School of acting and dialogue delivery, a consequence of which we find ourselves struck by a cascade of performances that are only too faithful to the eccentric master. Kathy Bates is her usual, domineering self, Marion Cotillard as Ariadne, the woman of Gil's dreams, proves to be a true Diva of this generation. Allen has always loved the enemy enough to create crushing opponents to shower unrequited love upon, right from his decisive 'Annie Hall'. His Ariadne helps Gil find his way back to a reality away from dreams, a character detail that strongly coheres with Cotillard's portrayal of Mal in Christopher Nolan's 'Inception'. The name Ariadne rings a bell as well, although it was another character that was named so. Too much of a coincidence?

On the one hand, we have the dowdy, lost-for-life soul-searcher in Gil, our hero. On the other, there’s the man with the touch of gold in Paul. Allen’s women have never required reason to depart, while it usually takes him the entire length of his films to deem as futile his efforts on finding one. It’s strange how it’s both sad as well as incredibly delightful to watch the man retract to his once-wide-eyed longing for both closeness as well as closure. In his silence is a cry for help, his contentment a fantasy. And who can lend a stronger hand to lift to clarity than the prosaic representation of strength in agony of Hemingway (Corey Stoll) himself?

“All cowardice comes from not loving, or not loving well, which in essence is the same thing.” The quote pertains to the film as well. I loved it. I’m loving it. I will love it more, but not just to deem myself brave. When did we last see Woody Allen fall in love? Was it when he drowned in the emotional seductiveness of Dianne Wiest’s Holly in ‘Hannah and her Sisters’? Or when he coveted the unattainable Halley Reed in ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’? ‘Deconstructing Harry’ had him deconstruct plausibility of emotions in an effort at catharsis that he largely accomplished. ‘Everyone says I Love you’ was an even obvious satire and he followed it up with comedies and mysteries and this and that. In that hierarchy, ‘Midnight in Paris’ is a lost-fantasy; a reinvention. It’s a diary found in the attic of his middle-aged residence that’s but full of dreams and recollections of things that he wished had happened to him. It’s a treasure chest that opens to every viewer irrespectively, and offers as reward their very own needs.

Some people chisel, some people sculpt. Woody Allen just seems to have touched the city of Paris with a touch of life. He walks in the rain without an umbrella and paints the town in his shade with the water that drains off him. The quirky little man has a taller, blonde and stranger version in a delightful misrepresentation with the effect unhindered. And the two of them set out, stretching their feet, singing a song of their own called ‘to Paris, with Love’. With that, they have her bowled over. Much like me, much like you too.

A WISH DENIED FOR A BODY SWAP

2011-09-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY DAVID DOBKIN

STARRING: JASON BATEMAN, RYAN REYNOLDS, LESLIE MANN, OLIVIA WILDE, SYDNEY ROUVIERE, MIRCEA MONROE and ALAN ARKIN

How can a film hold close to a throwaway premise as this? David Dobkin’s (‘Clay Pigeons’, ‘Wedding Crashers’) latest offering ‘the Change-Up’ is written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the duo behind the vehemently anti-social ‘the Hangover’. If the two had us hooked by well-timed wit and a sprig of inventiveness in an otherwise cacophonous storyline, they atone for every good moment rendered in the predecessor with a distinctive, engorged anti-thesis in ‘the Change-Up’. Similarities fail to evoke nostalgia, familiarity goes beyond contempt to instigate a higher measure of repulsion and a shout out loud of “can it possibly get worse?” only to find oneself lost for words and comprehensively outlasted.

The writers are relentless with their efforts to gross-out the viewer, it could have helped if they weren’t as visible. Where’s the joke when you figure it’s shit on your spoon at about a half a mile away with an hour of caution in between? The worst this film could do to me is make sure I watched till the end with nothing promising, nothing new, nothing even remotely close to rating it watchable. We saw shades of characters being demeaned without reason in Dobkin’s ‘Wedding Crashers’, but the film still survived on the shoulders of actors who were mature enough to keep the plot interesting along with their own reputations. Both Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman here behave like they don’t have any. They’re like actors on vacation, roleplaying every second, swearing like it’s a contest. The interchange of roles is supposed to be an actor’s dream, but here it’s just a bunch of cons. I tried to rationalize casting choices for Dave Lockwood and Mitch Planko at different stages of the film. Perhaps Bateman suits the emotional realizations while Reynolds does better with the climactic kiss, but I wasn’t entirely convinced with my pet theory – I couldn’t get beyond the fact that this was yet another casting stereotype. Leslie Mann plays her usual version of a wife with a bit of a hike on unwarranted toplessness. And as is the case with any other body-swap film, her Jamie is completely oblivious to the same. But at least the writers had sense enough to make fun of it than leave yet another detail on top of a hard-to-digest pile.

‘the Change-Up’ is stupid enough to not be questioned, but too outrageous to be ignored. It’s like a montage of all infamous sequences (and by that I do not mean ‘dubiously famous’) from ‘the Hangover’, but aggravated to cruel extents. An accidental bang of door gets as vile as repetitive self-infliction, exhibitionism gets a disgraceful new high with the tiger replaced by a packed-to-burst shopping mall and profanity is home-schooled in a carefully-nurtured environment of violence. One could be relieved that it’s rated ‘R’, but it would only deprive the film of its actual audience – a world that knows nothing but ‘hoes’, ‘shows’ and ‘preggos’.

A good R-rated comedy keeps it clean, a bad one tries not to and fails. It’s the crappy ones that belittle the entire idea of adult humour to a capsule of sickness that only preteens can swallow. ‘the Change-Up’ is a kind of a bad comedy in crappy attire, where the outside stinks of juvenile excess while the inside rots of emptiness. Insincerity such as this should either not be made or should be made fun of. To venture otherwise is simply futile.

MORE LIKE 'HOPSKOTCH' WITH ONE-LEGGED SUFFICIENCY

2011-09-05T08:17:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY VENKAT PRABHU

STARRING: AJITH KUMAR, ARJUN, VAIBHAV, MAHAT RAGHAVENDRA, ASHWIN KAKUMANU, PREMJI AMARAN, TRISHA KRISHNAN, ANJALI, ARAVIND AKASH, JAYAPRAKASH with LAKSHMI RAI and ANDREA JEREMIAH

Can anyone take Venkat Prabhu seriously? Why does he even try? If being completely unoriginal and mundane is considered an achievement, then Cloud Nine movies’ ‘Mankatha’ is top of the game. I thought he hit rock-bottom in misdirection with ‘Saroja’ – ‘Goa’ was a sort of delightful reinvention in the sense that it was so nonsensical that it was actually fun. With ‘Mankatha’, Prabhu defies everything that’s good about him and he does it presentably well. The heist sequence in ‘Goa’ raised eyebrows up until they had cheek enough to turn it to a farce. ‘Mankatha’ isn’t. Saying it with a straight face doesn’t make it serious; neither does it help raise laughs. We find bad screenwriting on top of juvenile conception in a hilarious outfit that doesn’t even have the basic inventiveness to laugh at itself. Sad to say, ‘Mankatha’ is Venkat Prabhu out of form on a hunt for money.

How much can a film play against its own strengths? ‘Mankatha’ fails miserably as an ensemble film that doesn’t even try to justify its casting choices. Anjali as Suchitra Sumanth and Aravind Akash as Faizal come on extremes of an acting spectrum ranging from ‘unnecessary’ to ‘plain stupid’. Premji Amaran is as close in erroneousness with neither the comic timing nor the tongue-in-cheek humour that empowered his Saamikannu in ‘Goa’. We start to think that his importance is more because he’s the director’s brother than the fact that he’s the last person in the world for any role that demands the slightest of sensibility. He’s like a square peg in an octagonal hole where fits but miserably. Trisha Krishnan gets the wrong song sequence, her presence unjustified, while Andrea Jeremiah is like a stage-hand who gets a chance because they’re an actor short. The rest are tolerable, though Vaibhav gives the impression of being overused and repetitively so. Vijay Vasanth and Ajay Kumar make inconsequential cameos and we miss Jai among the lot – it would have been interesting to see where he fits. Probably a Hindi-speaking Police-Officer sidekick?

How the traitors get hold of the cash is not explained – a clear sign that this film is not to be rationalized. With a whole load of shenanigans and sleaze as an excuse for style, we have everything that can possibly bring a film down on levels of intelligence. But we’re not overdosed, we’re left conscious to see its flaws. The film is more of a hole than a roof where it’s absurd to want it to hold water. It’s a lost case that tries to not be so, and in that it fails. Its twists are guessable on a second-by-second basis, the action sequences are so overwrought you’d think it was better to watch machines collide in ‘Transformers: the Dark of the Moon’, and even the music score doesn’t help. Yuvan Shankar Raja ought to know that his main theme isn’t multi-purpose, it doesn’t make sense to use it everywhere. There are times when it clicks, helping with heroism, but on others it’s excessive. It’s disappointing to see a game-changing musician like Yuvan sticking to the rules of this one for a lacklustre score that’s all over the place. So much for musical direction! The chase sequences employ some hectic African beats in the style of a Paul Greengrass film (like ‘the Bourne Ultimatum’ or ‘Green Zone’) but have neither the camerawork nor the editing finesse to pull the effect off. Be it the green-coloured blood spurts or the close-range monologues, ‘Mankatha’ fails dismally at every effort where it tries to live up to a Hollywood counterpart. It’s tiresome with its relentlessness to be unoriginal that I wished it would just stop trying so hard to be. Really.

Ajith Kumar (in his 50th Film) is overexposed but manages fine. The character does not promise what the actor can’t provide, so we find sufficiency. It would have been better to add a little more dimension and screen-presence to the other stalwart in Arjun, making their face-off more excitable perhaps. But still, they’re only what they are: good patches on a bad film. Blots, nevertheless.

A BULLET TRAIN!

2011-08-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY: DAVID GORDON GREEN

STARRING: SETH ROGEN, JAMES FRANCO, DANNY McBRIDE, KEVIN CORRIGAN, CRAIG ROBINSON, GARY COLE, ROSIE PEREZ, AMBER HEARD with BILL HADER and KEN JEONG

David Gordon Green’s ‘Pineapple Express’ is the perfect Seth Rogen script. Rogen is the kind of guy who’d run a gag and then laugh with you. Or grimace. Or plainly just puke. Contrast this with his next action comedy (that he wrote), Michel Gondry’s ‘the Green Hornet’, which had him play uncomfortably single-faced and stuck to character. ‘Pineapple Express’, on the other hand, is entropic. It gives its unshapely hero a lot of space in his own comfort zone that the jokes are more natural and their timing sweet. He’s so disgraceful that it’s hilarious; and with James Franco’s consistent support act, Dale Denton and Saul Silver accomplish something that Reid and Kato never quite did. They click.

Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is a sort of delivery boy, except it’s justice he serves. He’s so messed up he’s found a legal way to take others down with him. He’d attend your seminar to make sure he gives you your parking ticket, he’d wait your table to give you harassment charges. If you were a farmer, he’d probably show up as Foghorn Leghorn. His girlfriend (Amber Heard) isn’t out of high school yet, his best friend’s a drug dealer who turns ‘civil’ when high, and he himself smokes more joints in a day than he has in his body, which in turn you’d never know because he’s fat. Fat, lazy, always ‘under influence’ which probably constitutes his rationale. He has more funny lines than a good stand-up act, he’s careful work that’s let loose. Saul Silver (James Franco) on the other hand can never smoke less than a particular amount that keeps him in character. He’s not allowed the erraticism of Denton; he throws fights, never rises in arms and is at his calmest best in the eve of crisis. He’s like the great master Oogway, but even less coherent. His wisdom is inertia, his aggression accidental. In fact, it’s so rare that it almost entirely never happens.

These two are as disenchanting as duos can get. They play idiots to each other’s intelligence, eventually coming out smart in the end. And on top. The adventure ends in conversation where they talk about it, Danny McBride joining in as Red, our Third Musketeer for all intents and purposes. They blast a hideout in their own way and settle down on the fact that Oprah can grow on people. Red’s taken seven bullets to one side, Denton’s lost most of an ear and Silver looks like he doesn’t know what hit him. Sarcasm smells stronger than weed, and admirably so.

I couldn’t help but think this was an Apatow answer to ‘Starsky and Hutch’, in the line of drug-busting comedies of the 70s and the 80s in Film and Television. Cops, convertibles, car-chases; love interests have nothing more to do than kiss and cause problems (lest you count kick and scream, as in the case of Carol Brazier on Ted Jones’ team), henchmen hurt each other as opposed to who they’re really supposed to kill, no happy ending is sought-after because things fall in place on their own. That’s what the Asians are for. Seth Rogen (with due respect to buddy and co-writer Evan Goldberg as well) has a comic timing which empowers the viewer in the sense that there’s no dilemma on when you’ve got to take him seriously – you don’t have to, because he never wants you to. After all, he’s the only reason ‘the Green Hornet’ was actually watchable. If Todd Phillips banked his film on the lethargy of a haul of actors including the ever-dependable Vince Vaughn, David Gordon Green has Rogen, with backup performances (the usual Craig Robinson, and even Gary Cole who has his moments). In that, we find, he’s got all that he needs.

‘Pineapple Express’ opens in a discreet, post-Prohibition setup involving Bill Hader where the forces first deem Marijuana illegal. The entire rest of the film drives the idea that it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s fast and fluent, and perpetually high on the bar-chart of fun. It’s relentlessly funny, and it never stops. Not for a moment. And if ever you think you missed something, it's actually got a recap!

But then again, you wouldn't.

BORING ADVICE

2011-08-22T03:45:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY EDWARD MORGAN

STARRING: JOHN KISHLINE, DEBORAH CLIFTON, KRITI PANT and EDWARD MORGAN

‘Success’ is 75 minutes of ad-man Rick Starling’s life – most of which you would sleep through. I did. Is it a distinction if a play deliberately doesn’t aspire to be engaging? I was wide awake through the lengths of ‘Gerry’; I even liked it. It’s one thing to be lifelike, it’s another to be in slow-motion. In that way, if Gus Van Sant’s film was ‘Waiting for Godot’ kind of absurdist, ‘Success’ is just plain absurd. It doesn’t seek your attention – it tests it. A champion concept if completely unsound, but the play doesn’t boast of a void. It’s half-empty at best, of inept experimentation.

“Some calls had to be taken”, Rick says to Aaliyah Nagir; she responds saying, “and some had to be made, I understand.” I don’t. Rick spends half the play on phone conversations, only one side of which we get to hear. He doesn’t look hectic or overindulgent – he says he wants more, but it doesn’t sound like he means it. He isn’t an Anthony Montana or a Gordon Gekko – he just acts like one and badly at that. It would be a different story if the effect was intentional, but the whole concept of the play works against that satirical note. It’s supposed to be a morality question. We think of films that have asked the same – ‘Network’, ‘Wall Street’, ‘the Devil’s Advocate’ – the list is endless. What had contributed to their acclaim were their unique abilities to engage the audience with their concept. But ‘Success’ seemed entirely disinterested to even remotely attempt that. It’s boring advice – how does it matter if it’s good?

Actress Deborah Clifton, as the mysterious Ms. Nagir, isn’t quite there with her Egyptian accent, which the ad-executive Mr. Starling (John Kishline, also Ms. Clifton’s real-life husband) points out. She says she attended college at the University of Wisconsin. I remembered a similar scenario in ‘Before Sunrise’, which was about ‘prowess in English’ than an ‘accent’. Here it seems more like an excuse for bad acting. The play succumbs to the slightest of logic. And I wonder what ‘Success’ it swapped that failure for.

(I know the tag says 'I'm Out of Here!' but in reality, I sat through the whole length of the play. Except I was asleep for most parts, as is made evident right in the beginning)

A CHILLING EXPERIENCE, ACTED OUT

2011-08-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY TRACY HOLSINGER

STARRING: TEHANI CHITTY, THUSHARA HETTIHAMU, SUBHA WIJESIRIWARDENA, RUVIN DE SILVA, BRANDON INGRAM, TRACY JAYASINGHE, PRASAD PEREIRA, NUZRETH JALALDEEN and TRACY HOLSINGER

How do you elaborate in a thousand words what the play encapsulated in three? ‘the Travelling Circus’ is brilliantly named, neatly choreographed and is sincere enough with its emotions. It enlarges Mike Masilamani’s quirky little story called ‘the Boy who Spoke in Numbers’ to fit the estranging motifs of a Brechtian play. It’s a street demonstration on stage where technology adds to the impact – we have shrieks and booms and magnified voices, monotones and back-projections in a sort of augmented reality in which the play finds nourishment. It’s too sensitive to be questioned, more so when it laughs at itself, where it surprises you with sparks of wit and irony. It’s like an Awareness Campaign that scores with heart armed by concept, but it scores points for conception on its own as well. There are moments when you’re truly touched, there are those when you can’t help but laugh out loud. And in the end you find you can’t get past the plight it depicts, in a bittersweet realization.

Two things – two distinctively singular sequences that, I felt, lifted the play. One where the play’s central theme of being ‘caught in the crossfire’ is made literal and the other, a scatter of lines here and there with which the characters narrate the trauma of their fictionalized lives. It’s slightly disappointing that ‘the Travelling Circus’ doesn’t take a side in Sri Lanka’s Civil war, but that’s only because it doesn’t want to. It voices the ‘Internally Displaced’ – Ignorant Defeated, it calls them. They’re refugees in their own country, subjugated and thrust with authority that’s plainly unwelcome. Soldiers in a war they don’t accept, their hope is deceptive, their fates unkind. And you’re made to wonder what’s more horrific about what you see – the situation of these people, or the fact that they’re having to reconcile with it.

Yet, the play is diplomatic – in the sense that it’s clear it’s a play. The characters have no names, they’re all ‘Boy’ and ‘Cow’ and ‘Kind Aunty’ and ‘Madam’. Sometimes the actors are emotionally absorbed into the premise, sometimes they stick out with acting performances. They speak in an English that’s hard to place, most of it predominantly of an obvious British tongue. We know the actors are Sinhalese, but the same cannot be said about their characters. Perhaps the play intends to be secular, perhaps it’s content with depicting one side of a story that deems itself sad. For all we know, the other side could be worse. It IS worse, as a matter of fact. But those horrors are skated upon in a whirlwind of dates and statistical data in the numbers that the Boy recites. The numbers are the heart of the play and they, in turn, are largely unclear. And the play then closes, hinting at a future Sri Lanka inspired and governed by those events and incidents that threatened to thwart its integrity. A rather soft ending, I should say.

‘the Travelling Circus’ is a people’s play and not a political play. It offers solace, not a solution. It’s an hour of substantial sympathy and empathy, from housewives to housewives who are going through worse; from Mothers to Mothers as they shudder in fear and from boys to boys, shell-shocked. It scores with self-empowerment, although it retracts to passiveness at times. And I repeat: It is NOT a political play. To call it one would deem it unworthy of the praise it receives, and I want to praise it. It’s an engaging play, a single tragic fable presented with quirks that make it both likeable and strong. Hence, it is but my sincere request to all alike: Please do not call it political. There’s nothing ‘political’ about human suffering, right from Joan of Arc to little Anne Frank and the Holocausts. And there’s nothing political about ‘the Travelling Circus’ either. It’s a reflection of an incorrigible human nature which consumes its own kind. A chilling experience, acted out – methodically, and sometimes strikingly so.

WHEN 'CHICKS' TURN CRAZY, TURN WOMAN

2011-08-18T05:35:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY PAUL FEIG

STARRING: KRISTEN WIIG, MAYA RUDOLPH, ROSE BYRNE, MELISSA McCARTHY, WENDI McLENDON COVEY, ELLIE KEMPER, CHRIS O’DOWD with JILL CLAYBURGH and JON HAMM

‘Bridesmaids’ shouldn’t have been about Bridesmaids – it makes it sound like a Venus answer to ‘the Hangover’ where it’s a bridal shower instead of a bachelor party. On the other hand, it promises to be a chick-flick that dies to disagree. But it startles one and all with an incredible display of heart that more than compensates for the crassness of humour in many a place. It’s a loud and frontal statement against men that humbly resigns when its views don’t apply. It’s sincere, and in that it’s a first – a film that wants to be honest to all alike. Man and Woman, Husband and Wife; Mother and Daughter (all adults, of course!) Siblings of the world might protest citing unfair treatment, but that’s another story.

Kristen Wiig writes herself in Annie Walker, an underachieving, out-of-work baker selling novelties for a living. She’s good with stuff but she’s bad at selling them – kind of like Randal from ‘Clerks’ except she’s a little sensitized with her cynicism. Hers is circumstantial, while his was just plain post-adolescent disinterest: She’s a burnout, or that’s what she thinks. She frequents a man who screws her over and over (literally), lives with aliens (a brother and sister pair from Britain) and is best friends with Lillian (Maya Rudolph) who’s getting married and married big. Annie is made ‘Maid of Honour’, an ordeal unfitting of one without a life of her own. With that, Wiig throws an ultimatum at Katherine Heigl’s '27 Dresses'. And I don’t even have to tell you who comes on top.

Our women don’t fraternize; they fleece each other. It’s a rat race up to the pedestal where it’s all about taking giant steps. The entire male kingdom would wonder why it’s so important to be vied for. In Annie’s defence, it’s understandable – she’s the best friend and hence wants to stay so. For Helen (Rose Byrne) it’s just plain, raw ego. I can’t imagine why Kristen Wiig didn’t play her part instead of retracting to the ‘shit-taking’ Annie. One reason could be the fact that she’d already been the annoying stereotype in Judd Apatow’s ‘Knocked Up’. Another could be because she wrote the whole thing anyway and it didn’t matter anymore. She’s had her laugh already, so she’d rather wait till the end for seconds.

Rose Byrne is a revelation. It’s difficult to ascribe villainy to her Helen, but she does a good job trying not to emphasize. She’s less-talk-more-work than being the face-contorted chick-flick meanie who we’re all supposed to hate; she's more 'vixen' than 'evil b*tch', if you get what I'm saying. But we still hate her because we take Annie’s side of the argument, which in turn we do because Annie floods the film with adept rationale, her gaping flaws being fun to mend. In short, she’s likeable and once in her shoes, Helen turns nemesis. Jon Hamm as the sexually aggressive Ted exists to make Nathan Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) respectable even though he does a fair job by himself. He has the laughing drawl of Seth Rogen and his eyes twinkle with stony, middle-aged sincerity inviting abuse, except he won’t take any. I like how the writers (Wiig and Annie Mumolo) extract convincing characters out of stereotypes, more visible in the film’s women than the men. It’s the company that brings a chick-flick down, but in ‘Bridesmaids’ they’re kept coherent and intact, even exciting in a fair share of moments. Like when Rita (Wendi McLendon Covey) complains about raising teenage boys; like Megan (Melissa McCarthy) when she calls her bridegroom-brother an ‘ass-h*le’ amidst the other bridesmaids. The quintessential pick-me-up monologue towards the end has its quirks as well, not to mention the (in)famous restroom sequence of ‘Girls Gone Wild’. Such pleasure!

For once we have a chick-flick that doesn’t try hard to be. ‘Bridesmaids’ is faithful to where it comes from, but is full of energy it doesn’t hold back. It drops all pretence and its girls really have some fun – sensible, mature, ‘adult’ fun. And we find we have some fun with them as well in the process.

P.S. Maya Rudolph so has to get out of the whole bride/expecting-mother groove. Someone better cast her in the next 'Kung Fu Panda' or something and make sure they don't give her a Pregnant Pelican to play. Just saying.

APPLICANT STATUS: ---UNDER REVIEW---

2011-08-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY AKARSH KHURANA

STARRING: KARAN PANDIT, KASHIN SHETTY, ADHIR BHAT and PRERNA CHAWLA

I thought ‘the Interview’ would go on to be an “it’s so mean it’s actually funny” sort of dark comedy, but it arrested that thought by showing some soul towards the end. I was confused. I chanced to ask this question to director Akarsh Khurana himself, who was kind enough to spare a few minutes for a little chat we shared. But I found his answer unconvincing. He said the sensitivity of their play (written by Siddharth Kumar) depended on the sensitivity of the audience – if we wanted the Boss to be ruthless, he would be, and if we wanted sensitivity then we have that too. A typical entertainer’s answer from a person who doesn’t deny he’s one. I appreciated his honesty but it doesn’t save his play, which is either a painful intrusion of emotions in a laugh riot, or an injection of humour in a social drama, both distinctively spelling ‘half-baked’. On the one hand, it tries to be as crushing as a Coen-invention like ‘A Serious Man’, on the other it takes off in an ‘Up in the Air’ sort of soul-search. I wished I could laugh it off, but then it slapped me with a moral responsibility to take it seriously. I couldn’t decide.

Let this not be mistaken for rawness, even though the play did have ample amounts of it. The presentation was raw, its concept not so. We don’t get to know what happens off-stage, it’s but our own crude extrapolation that we’re entitled to. The interview in itself is obscure, we don’t know who is interviewing who for what post in which corporation. The most we get thrown in are words like ‘Middle Management’, sufficient to define the scenario to a fair level of precision. We have a candidate who has been Boss as well as Employee, set to continue doing the same. There’s his superior in Keith who views him as a potential threat, a pawn moved against his own corporate status. And ultimately, we have the ‘Boss’ as part of an elaborate Good-Cop-Bad-Cop routine with the occasional turn of table. To add to this, there’s also a Secretary who plays both cause and effect in a distorted centre of attention.

The Interviewee corners his bosses, the ‘played’ gets to play back. We delve into fantasy in a flesh-and-blood guise – there simply can’t be a soft ending. The play takes a sensitized turn; a downgrade for the sake of subsequent climactic peak. And the ending isn’t ‘crushing’ or ‘horribly funny’, it’s just wrong. The characters have their catharses – the ‘Candidate’ in the fact that he’s getting a job, Keith because he’s finally getting his promotion, and the ‘Boss’ because his problem is ‘fixed’ as Keith puts it. The Secretary, on her part, finds the highest form of peace. The problem here is that I was denied mine.

I liked how the Candidate reveals to his Boss that he’s about to marry the woman he once molested. I hated how the Boss responds with a similar story of his own. Bosses don't respond to subordinates, they Boss them! And I liked the sigh of relief as the Candidate breathes an “I got the job!” to his fiancée, but I hated the intersperse of sensitivity between bouts of indifference. It’s like our characters ‘reconcile’ into who they are as opposed to being themselves – a contradiction to corporate mentality. I felt as though Siddharth Kumar was prepared to do anything to reap his share of laughs – a trait I empathized with, the sloppy debut that I’ve been through as a playwright. I liked every imperfection of the play in form of premise and presentation, how actors, as characters, fidgeted when inactive; how their exits were announced but not explained. The play stuck religiously to its sequences, its back-stories giving scope for conscious and unconscious imagination – I liked that.

But then I hated how it got so carried away with its own pet concept, much like how I did. Well, what can I say? I am self-critical. Even more so when I find my flaws manifested in someone else, where I don’t have to go easy on them. This ‘Interview’ brought out the Boss in me. And I don’t fire it altogether for that, but I strongly maintain that I expected something more. It’s an Upper Management thing.

A SHIRK OF 'NECESSITY' AGAINST 'DEMAND'

2011-08-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY PRASHANT PRAKASH and NAYANTARA KOTIAN

STARRING: KALKI KOECHLIN, NEIL BHOOPALAM, GULSHAN DEVIAH, SUHAAS AHUJA, PRERNA CHAWLA, RATNABALI BHATTACHARJEE, VIVEK GOMBER and PRASHANT PRAKASH

Tom Stoppard slaps convention and kills critics with ‘the Real Inspector Hound’. It’s perhaps a mark of who he hates more. Or perhaps not. I’ve always been biased against parodies for the simple reason that I believe they try to play to two different audiences. It’s like how Zack Brown remarks with the intonation of Kevin Smith in ‘Zack and Miri make a Porno’ on how their ‘Star Wh*res’ would cater to both Star Wars nerds as well as those who consume porn in general. Writers have forever leeched upon this thin line separating a satire from a tribute. And in that context, ‘the Real Inspector Hound’, I thought, liked what it scorned, though there were times when it dared to differ.

Two critics discuss a play in progress. One of them gets to be cozy with the fresh faces, the other is still an understudy and laments about it. The two then proceed on separate streams, often crisscrossing in conversation. The former fantasizes about the actress, the latter strays to places sinister. Tom Stoppard deems one critic an infidel and the other a would-be murderer found guilty in intention. Playwrights shall be overjoyed by this concept, critics would arm their fortresses with tongue-in-cheek. Either way, our critics (in the play) then step into the play-within-the-play one after the other, a ‘whodunnit’ that ties both worlds together. And they find themselves confronted by characters than actors in a recurring sequence such that they know what’s happening and yet fulfill the pre-destined plot.

The play-within-the-play goes into a lull when the critics speak, the critics in turn don’t raise a word when a scene is in progress. They’re an orthodox audience at a conventional play. They don’t interject – they summarize. And they succumb where Stoppard wants them to. Yet, ironically, it’s a critic who has the last laugh and snares the effervescent Cynthia (Kalki Koechlin). Maybe that’s indicative of his favouritism towards a select few. Maybe not. I would never know.

Kalki Koechlin reminds me too much of Eva Green. They’re both French, they’re both petite and graceful, sexy and mature, and they both smoke like kettles! This is a dangerous comparison, however, for it throws Koechlin in brighter light than she warrants for. Nevertheless, she’s fairly eye-capturing and her performance effortlessly outclasses the rest, who are more about fake accents and impersonations. There’s barely scope for directorial credit (or set design) either, lest one ought to throw accolades for not destroying the integrity of the play. But the actors did have good comic timing, consistency and stage presence. They kept the play alive and managed to get all their jokes through to the audience. Neat, but doesn't knock you out. Still commendable, right?

The Q&A session after the play had an Elderly enthusiast ask the cast and crew as to why they didn’t ‘Indianize’ the play. I had an even more fundamental question – why perform this in the first place? ‘the Real Inspector Hound’ was a British play written in 1962, while both Prashant as well as Kalki have ‘proven their ability’ in writing their own draft (‘the Skeleton Woman’). It’s an Indian Theatre Festival in 2011 that features foreign plays as well – where’s the burning need to adapt? Just a thought that irked after an entertaining performance. I shall let you ponder upon it, if you would.

THIS DUCK IS LAME!

2011-08-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY KARTHIK KUMAR

STARRING: T.M. KARTHIK SRINIVASAN, YUDHISHTHIR RANA, ANIL SRINIVASAN, ANISHA SARAH VARGHESE and KARTHIK KUMAR

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes from David Mamet’s ‘Duck Variations’ as far as its premise goes. It’s about two guys who sit on a bench and philosophize about ducks, drawing parallels where they can. I was reminded of the scene in Gus Van Sant’s ‘Good Will Hunting’ where Will Hunting (Matt Damon) asks his therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) if the ducks were some sort of fetish in a ‘taster’s choice moment between guys’. While that sequence went on to prove him wrong, ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did nothing to bust an existing conviction of mine – that I was about to watch a bunch of people try too hard. The conversations were stressful, even though the scenarios turned out to be pretty inventive. The setup and performances helped raise a few laughs while the dialogue turned it to a grimace. I wish Indian (English) theatre wouldn’t try to emulate its Western counterpart. It’s like the duck that tries to fly with its wings clipped – it falls too hard.

The play featured three motifs. One was director Karthik Kumar ‘breaking the Fourth wall’ carrying out overwrought audience-interactions. The second is a duo in different scenarios, belting different forms and structures of ‘Mamet-speak’ (a form of dialogue popularized by the American playwright). Thirdly, we had a couple of video clips which tended to not only disrupt the actual flow of the play, but also destroyed its idea as a whole. It’s one thing to reveal the concept, it’s another to just throw it away. ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did exactly the latter and seemed happy to do so. To add to this, we had pianist Anil Srinivasan fill in with interludes that got redundant after a while – the play crossed the delicate balance between adequacy in music and an over-score. He had me wishing for that elusive silence that the play began with – something that was harder to get than the fact that ‘the Hindu’ actually included this play in its Theater Fest roster.

Nevertheless, the play was verbose despite its share of glitches (like using ‘seeked’ instead of ‘sought’ and ‘juxtapositioning’ instead of ‘juxtaposing’). It was, in a teeny-tiny little way, a fair bit of fun; the no-brainer kind of fun. The audience, for most part, would not have understood what was going on. I myself had a pair of neighbours who were busy texting on their mobiles, even at the time they were not asked to do so – let me not get down to telling you any more about them. The runtime was too much given the lack of substance, which diluted it even further. Still, it had a fairly continuous narrative that seemed well-motivated, at least until Karthik started pleading with ‘fifteen more minutes of patience’ and then ‘ten more minutes’, consuming a half-hour in that process. That too for sequences which weren’t worth the stretch and served to distort the whole idea of the play. It’s like we walked into a public service announcement – nothing could make it more pretentious.

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes a whole, flawless, magnificent Duck and breaks it to chunks with a crucial lot missing. The whole point of it, in short. And It then proclaims vegetarianism. Of course, I speak in metaphors – after all, I did sit through a 'child's play' that liked to call itself smart.

A 'REAL' ROLE MODEL

2011-08-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY CRAIG GILLESPIE

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, EMILY MORTIMER, PAUL SCHNEIDER, KELLI GARNER, R.D. REID, DOUG LENNOX and PATRICIA CLARKSON

‘Lars and the Real Girl’ is a perfect sex-satire. It has good measure of wit, and yet stands apart with its sweetness. It’s a comedy film that’s never insecure to harbor the necessity to laugh at itself. In a time where films usually shy away from (inevitable) mental and emotional retardation, this film, its writer and its lead actor come out stark-naked with their intentions and are brave in doing so. And with her efforts, Nancy Oliver castrates the viewer, lifting us to such drastic levels of innocence that no other film or writer has ever accomplished before. There are so many little questions that one would have wanted to ask which would have been wiped out in the course of the film – magically extinguished in its ‘Little Prince’ charm. It’s a rare accomplishment by an even rarer film.

Gus and Karen Lindstrom (Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer) are an everyday couple pregnant with their first child. The man is an embodiment of typical, snarky narrowness, the woman – of the wild-eyed eagerness of an expecting mother. She likes to act like one already, finding apt candidature in her brother-in-law Lars (Ryan Gosling) who seems to be a little down on the ladder of mental growth. He looks like a big Teddy Bear and has the mind of a child with gentleness to match. He is not beyond intelligence, though. He carries himself fairly well, earns his own living working as a clerk and knows enough about the internet to order online. In other words, he’s yet to come to terms with the world outside despite the fact that he’s ready for it.

There are (ideally) two ways for the film to accomplish this feat, both pushing hard on the borders of believability. One would be for Lars to drop his defences. The other would mean the same about the world around him, in this case being a small, snow-covered, parish-sort of a town. And Nancy Oliver, consistent with a mother’s kindness and sensitivity, takes the more improbable, exhaustive route, giving the viewer the uncanny pleasure of having experienced something truly ‘one of a kind’.

Everyone owes it to Lars (including Gus, who pleads guilty for abandoning him his childhood, the reason behind his ‘condition’). Everyone does everything they can do to help rehabilitate him. He’s lovable, he’s everything that’s good about being human. Wouldn’t you do the same to the one person who could help you believe that there is a future in being utterly and mindlessly kind? Our town convenes, we have a meeting with the Reverend and other respected men and women where they decide they’d do their best to assist. They would just have to ‘play along’ with Lars’ sincerity, and they don’t find it too hard. One cannot say the same about the younger generation, though. They can’t seem to get past the fact that Bianca is a sex-doll. Even Margo (Kelli Garner) who has a crush on him for a good part of the film, decides otherwise. She’s taught her lesson in due course. So is Gus Lindstrom. Their rationale stands out of a premise that works to linearize every single character towards finding their Samaritan self. They’re thorns amidst flowers, but they blossom into acceptance – inspired by the kindness personified in Karen and the lot.

Patricia Clarkson as Dagmar, Lars’ (or Bianca’s) therapist, is amazing. She’s one of the most learned people in town, as well as the most experienced actress amongst the whole cast – her performance lives up to both majestically. Ryan Gosling is 27 years old, but he doesn’t look like it; he doesn’t behave like it. I refer to both actor as well as his character in this context – you’d understand if you watched the film. And I don’t even have to tell you about Nancy Oliver. Building on a concept that could swing both ways, she serves to keep it straight out of sheer sincerity, backed by Australian director Craig Gillespie (of ‘Mr. Woodcock’ fame). Overwhelmingly kind-hearted and never short of wit, ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ is an abundance of chuckles on top of a perpetual smile. And I didn’t feel touched by the ending – I felt happy about it. It was like I was part of the effort resulting in consequential relief: I applauded. It’s a good film, an even better story and a great experience. I was glad I was involved.

(This is my second review of the film. The first had me trying to play 'smart' and unscathed. With this review, I admit I'm impressed; that I loved it)

A SONG ON SELF-DESTRUCTION

2011-08-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY LARRY CLARK and ED LACHMAN

STARRING: JAMES BULLARD, JAMES RANSONE, STEPHEN JASSO, TIFFANY LIMOS, AMANDA PLUMMER, WADE ANDREW WILLIAMS, JULIO OSCAR MOCHOSO and MAEVE QUINLAN

Let me not worry about spoilers because you’re probably not going to watch this film anyway. ‘Ken Park’ begins with Ken Park killing himself at a skate-park by blowing his brains out with a smile on his face. The film then goes a full circle to get back to the point where it explains ‘Why’. He is what is called a ‘plot device’ – he does not go beyond the title, but he serves to explain it. He’s like the ‘Amy’ in ‘Chasing Amy’, a working metaphor for the film in itself. In this case, he’s representative of the pointlessness of the film, an experiment that’s futile as it’s meant to be. Larry Clark knows it and perhaps that’s why he called his film ‘Ken Park’ and not something like ‘Restless Teenagers in search for Joy’. It’s like a deeper, scarier, more explicit version of ‘Kids’ that speaks of its maker’s experience in the years that followed.

Larry Clark is an intriguing filmmaker. His boldness knows no barriers, his conception more on experience (‘Ken Park’ is based on his journal, we’re told) than an attempt to incriminate. He doesn’t point fingers. He situates himself in the middle of his characters in a wild-eyed man’s effort to find beauty in their dysfunction. Even his overtly controversial, yet-to-come-of-age film ‘Kids’, a juxtapose of clubbing, consumption and underage sexuality, served to shine some light of awe on a thing as emotionally destructive as date-rape, where (I felt) he gives the viewer the boy’s pleasure in executing it despite the dry irony of the whole situation in plain sight. Teenagers aren’t subject materials for Larry Clark. They’re objects of his fascination, his films as cocky as the people it’s about. The man was about 50 years of age when he started making films. ‘Ken Park’ had come about in his 60th year, but the man relates to teenagers like he’s one himself – in fronts of both innocence as well as dangerous perversion.

Roger Ebert, in his review of ‘Wassup Rockers’ (Larry Clarks subsequent film), inquires as to whether it makes Larry Clark a pervert. I felt that the filmmaker answers that question in ‘Ken Park’, in a scene where one of the branches of a tree hides the frame partially as we look into Claude’s household from the skateboard confrontation to the Father’s (Wade Williams) guilt at having been rough on his son. We wait till he breaks down, moved to tears, and we proceed to the next scene. I thought I heard the statement loud and clear – the man is unafraid of his perversion and he hands the apple duly to the audience, with the air of one who always shares his things to the most intimate detail.

His characters come in a wide variety, ranging from ‘explainable’ to ‘eye-popping drastic’. While Shawn (James Bullard) can be thought of as a guy who takes lessons from his girlfriend’s mother (Maeve Quinlan) on how he could keep her ‘happy’, Rhonda, the woman in question, is an accommodating mentor if you had to explain. The key here is you shouldn’t want to. I felt something similar when I watched Lee Daniels’ even more powerful ‘Precious’, a film where I was as lost for words as the counselor towards the end. I simply couldn’t absorb its premise, as brilliantly as it could have been offered to me. Same with ‘Ken Park’. There are emotions in it which, even if not relatable, could be understood. There are those who elude, and then there are those which I could not tolerate. Like Rhonda’s little girl often in focus, dressing her Barbie watching Lingerie Models on TV. I pitied the girl who actually played that part – it is an age where curiosity can’t even be acknowledged, let alone entertained. And I asked myself who the bad parent was. Is it Rhonda, or her actual mother?

Forced Incest, Gay abuse, promiscuity – there’s so much going on in this ‘journal’ that it looks more like a travelogue on the underbellies of the USA. It looks assembled, not like it’s written from experience. I liked how the characters both acted their ages as well as strayed out of them occasionally, be it above or below (as in the case of Tate). The best part of the film is around an unnamed character who tells us about the trauma in his Father’s death, dewy-eyed; the rest is indifference. Our teenagers are very resistant, but each story succeeds in breaking into their little worlds, giving us glimpses of who they really are. And yet, ironically, it didn’t break into mine. I didn’t know if I liked this film, but I felt it was sound. And I don’t know what that qualifies as.

THE RING, THE STING AND THE ICONIC STEPS

2011-08-08T03:55:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY JOHN G. AVILDSEN

STARRING: SYLVESTER STALLONE, TALIA SHIRE, BURT YOUNG, BURGESS MEREDITH, CARL WEATHERS, THAYER DAVID and JOE SPINNELL

It’s hard not to like Rocky Balboa. Anthony Gazzo (Joe Spinnell) would agree with me in spite of the fact that his star henchman hands a fair share of pardon votes without consent or consultation. And in that, he fails to be a good debt-collector, while his debt-collecting activities makes Coach Mickey (Burgess Meredith) scorn his talent in boxing. He punches dents on his opponent to make up for his lack of grace in a sort of counter-balance of abilities. He’s modeled on Rocky Marciano in a Chuck Wepner plot, both of which are duly notified – he worships one and quotes the other regarding his duel with the legendary Muhammed Ali, who in turn is personified in Heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). It’s astonishing how much consistency in detail that Sylvester Stallone manages to empower the film with, all balanced on the very broad shoulders of his majestic performance.

Stallone the actor and Stallone the writer never try to emulate each other. The writer knows exactly what the actor is capable of doing, while the actor has an impeccable idea on what the writer wishes to channelize through him. Of course, this would be the case with any other writer-actor, right from the inimitable Chaplin through the likes of Woody Allen, down to George Clooney (in ‘Good Night and Good Luck’) and even Seth Rogen (in ‘Superbad’). But Stallone, we see self-satisfaction - he doesn't try too hard. It’s a casual, yet adequate performance in a script where there are no surprises. The emphasis is neither on conceptual intricacies nor in portrayal of the down-on-luck Boxer who corks his anger inside a Samaritan bottle that cracks but just once. Instead, all focus has been directed in making ‘Rocky’ the most stylish film that Hollywood has ever seen, where every sequence would render itself memorable, some even to fever pitch. And it accomplishes that rather royally, without as much as a whiff of anything deliberately provocative. We have a Gangster, but not a gun. We have a charming woman in Adrian (Talia Shire) and there’s Rocky’s relationship with her, without shedding a single garment that her introversion wouldn’t allow. And we have sport – deep, passionate sport – without cheap thrills or a manipulated ending.

In short, ‘Rocky’ does what his cinematic peers from the past, present and future have done, except he does it effortlessly, being full aware of both capabilities and requirements. His strength isn’t showcased, his perseverance flickers, but his sincerity never changes course. He’s human, and he’s got game.

Sports films usually tend to explore the sportsman’s psyche through the game he plays and the way he plays it. Stallone was one of the very first to distinctively focus on his activities off the field to explain his behavior when on the field; to justify his rationale. ‘Rocky Balboa’, the last installment, finessed this to overwhelming proportions. In ‘Rocky’, we catch a glimpse. Stallone captures his suburban grit as well as the lack of it in a package of such boyish charm that his Rocky endears beyond mention. The effect is made even more pronounced by a simplistic background score that keeps its faith (and brilliantly so!) to the single track in ‘Gonna Fly Now’ composed by Bill Conti. And to top it all, there’s a certain rawness in in the film’s friendly locales, which complements Stallone’s down-to-earth rendition, thus making us feel like we’re a part of the town. We root more for the kindhearted bum from the neighbourhood than a representative of anything heroic about cinema and its protagonists. The effect is uncanny.

But ‘Rocky’ is anything but realistic. It’s an exaggerated drama saturated with heroic moments in simple premise. It’s not cinematic, but it’s well-directed. It’s a pure, honest-to-the-core entertainer that banks its success entirely on how endearing its characters turn out to be. And in that, it’s a ten on ten.

ON HOW TO TURN 'LOVEABLE' TO 'LACKLUSTER'

2011-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY TAYLOR HACKFORD

STARRING: RICHARD GERE, DEBRA WINGER, LOUIS GOSSETT Jr., DAVID KEITH, LISA BLOUNT, LISA EILBACHER, TONY PLANA, HAROLD SYLVESTER, DAVID CARUSO and ROBERT LOGGIA

‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ is a badly-acted film that has an impressive premise otherwise. Think about it. It’s about a man who tries to hide his insecurity behind ambition that which in itself he’s not too sure of. A Will Hunting minus the genius ends up with the dead-faced Richard Gere (as Zack Mayo) who has nothing to show but the twinkle in his eye, part of his boyish charm. A fear of guilt and clarity against commitment, his tortuous army-camp experience (pilot training, in this case) finds a bright spot in the time he spends with Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger), a working class woman who plays the stereotypical anti-stereotype as far as quirks go. It’s a romance in intimacy, alongside which a friend and fellow peer in Sid Worley (David Keith) hits it off with Lynette, who’s Paula’s friend. Music speaks louder than love scenes as the two couples devour each other, the first confrontations of reality turning out unconvincing. It’s a hiccup and nothing more.

We’re tying two worlds together here – on the one hand, there’s the battle of life in a frontal metaphor – the training camp under the Devil (Louis Gossett Jr. as Sergeant Emil Foley). On the other, we recline into a sensual affair. Zack has had a bad past, changing hands from a gullible mother who died waiting for the man who’d never get back, to the Dad he’d never ever want to be. Paula’s mother has had a similar past as Zack’s, except she’s found solace in the paper mills and in a man who wouldn’t leave. The two of them find theirs in this similarity, in what I thought was the only genuinely romantic scene in the film which scores two-on-two in both conception and performance. They both evolve with each other, Zack particularly more so because she’s ice to his wounds. To Paula, on the other hand, he’s a sign of hope, of emotions the both of them would be much better without. The rest of the film (whose premise begins pretty much only after halftime) is about accomplishing fulfillment of this fantasy romance.

Zack distrusts Paula fearing emotional blackmail in the prospective future, something that the viewer knows she’s incapable of. Lynette is, though, but Sid resorts to trust her blindly in the course of things. A comedy of errors of right conviction against the wrong person in which, surely, only one could/would be made to work, at most. There’s no marks to guess which one that would be.

Taylor Hackford is incredible with his dramatic poise in scene setup, but he does a really bad job with a really bad bunch of actors. Richard Gere is larger-than-life. He looks convincing with shoulders squared and a puffed-up chest as he runs his hand through his mop of hair like a starlet on the rise. We wonder what he’s doing in an army camp. He’s flamboyant, he’s fit, but he’s incapable of getting across a single emotion. Nor does he try. Debra Winger is loveable as Paula, the wild-eyed, hoarse-voiced brunette who could light many a hall with her presence. She works the magic in a whirlwind of intimacy, but her bitterness in later parts is but a voiceover from a disconnected universe. Same as Lisa Blount as Lynette, a character of startling practicality who’s reduced to a bitch by a premise that’s hostile to anything real. The ‘Femme Fatale’ is insult to injury, as much as David Keith’s situational puppy-dog. The sequences are fairly sensitized, but the actors have none – which works only in the case of Sergeant Foley because that’s what he’s supposed to be. His borderline smiles and the post-rescue frenzy are saving graces to a shipwreck of performances where everyone’s decided to abandon ship.

I didn’t hate watching ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’. I was disappointed. This is supposed to be a stylized film that ends at an inimitable high in rainbow vividness. And yet the scenes lacked any sort of real impact – they served no purpose but to advance the plot, which in turn was all about its sequences in a cyclic sort of let-down. I shall remember this film forever as one that I wished to be excited about, both before and after, and as one that adamantly refused to give me the pleasure of having enjoyed it.

AS BEAUTIFUL AS THE ELUSIVE 'AMY'

2011-08-04T06:17:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY KEVIN SMITH

STARRING: BEN AFFLECK, JOEY LAUREN ADAMS, JASON LEE, DWIGHT EWELL with BRIAN O’HALLORAN, CASEY AFFLECK, JASON MEWES and KEVIN SMITH

There’s this scene in ‘Chasing Amy’ where Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) reveals to her girlfriends that she’s dating a man who she thinks she’s possibly in love with. The group is disappointed, one of them says “another one bites the dust” – something I was thinking about at that moment, coincidentally, where I feared the film was about to take a delusional turn. But what was in store made me feel a whole lot better (by that I mean ‘a whole lot worse’) and I understood. It was a bad scene in a good film; irksome, but tolerably so. That aside, Kevin Smith gives us his best ever, where he handles the emotions in an everyday complex without resorting to too much of his characteristic, forced witticism. For once, his characters are more real than they’d ever get, something he’d resort to again only in ‘Zack and Miri make a Porno’. For once, they do more than repent – they hope and shout and shed tears than pass it all off as a comedic routine that’s otherwise called ‘life’. For Kevin Smith, it’s a first. For the viewer, it’s more than just a sigh of relief.

Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) blasts the whole concept out as the film nears its end in a fashion not unlike a press interview. The title never inspired hope in the first place and he slams the door harder on any prospect of reconciliation. But it’s not a dead end. It’s an endless road of dealing with oneself. A sort of purgatory where the ends wouldn't ever meet.

Ben Affleck is an endearing man. He has an overall laid-back gait superimposed on painfully-withheld emotions in his Holden McNeil, serving him to be more relatable than just ‘understood’. It took me just a car-confession to step inside his shoes; the scene where slap-happy turned sensitive in an uncontrolled upchuck. I empathized. Alyssa Jones, the film’s ‘Amy’ makes Summer Finn look absurd. It’s tough not to compare even if in contrasting eras, but we find that in this case there’s scope for none. Kevin Smith does that by manifesting himself in her striking originality. Alyssa, dressed in a lusty rendition by Joey Lauren Adams, is as talkative as Silent Bob is not, though she’s equally clear-cut with her sensibility. And it’s not just her: Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), Holden’s disapproving friend, tells him he’s too conservative to stomach someone like Alyssa. “She’s done things that we’ve only read about!” he tries to explain. I was amazed at how much that hit me. Isn’t there such a point of emasculation in every man’s life? It’s his pet concept that he coaxes to perfection with this film, having done a brief overview in ‘Clerks’. Even more impressive is how he manages to impact with the simplest of conversations. He has the rare ability to make representatives out of every single character than just the usual case of the male lead, as a result of which we have a film that eases you into vulnerability in all directions before a full-blown confrontation. This is exactly what I was looking for!

If ‘Annie Hall’ shushed Alvy Singer up in his attempts to rationalize their break-up, Alyssa Jones opens Holden up to a whole new world, quite like how he accredits her back in that car which I never left. Both films have their share of ‘male-endings’. Annie Hall breaks up with the man she left Singer for. Alyssa Jones turns tearful in a half-hearted attempt at denial. We witness an exciting rebirth of the sensitized conversationalist in form of Kevin Smith, a man who has the guts to put the blame on man than woman, and comes on top with his decision to stomach it than shy away.

In a time where comedies are purely physical with over-emphasized sexual tones, we have a film that talks its way through and stays quiet when it has to. It’s funny, it’s incredibly romantic; it’s crazy-sexy in its own off-hand way, and it’s got a lot of heart. What more can one ask for?

KNOCKS YOU OUT

2011-08-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY JUDD APATOW

STARRING: SETH ROGEN, KATHERINE HEIGL, JASON SEGAL, JAY BARUCHEL, JONAH HILL, LESLIE MANN, PAUL RUDD, MARTIN STARR, CHARLYNE YI, IRIS APATOW, MAUDE APATOW with KRISTEN WIIG, BILL HADER and KEN JEONG

The best thing about Judd Apatow is that jokes apart, he’s about family. Or that’s how I see him at least. I see him as the guy who’d even tag-team with his wife (Leslie Mann) in a laughter routine where they belt dirty joke after another and then wind up the day with a family dinner laden with ‘chocolate milk’. Harris Stone (Harold Ramis) as our Ben’s (Seth Rogen) father makes a brief come-and-go appearance as one who asked his Son to not do pot while he did it every other day. Alison’s (Katherine Heigl) mother (Joanna Kerns) on the other hand asks her daughter to ‘take care of it’ because she’s got a career ahead and that it’s ‘not the right time’. We’re full aware of the conflicting backgrounds of our characters, and I still had one curious question in mind – which one of these individual sparkles is Apatow in his full-blown, original manifestation? Surely he had shades of both Ben and Pete (Rogen and Rudd) who help each other into their respective families even if they can't help themselves. And then, like I mentioned, we have Ben's father. Even the doorman at the club (a cameo by Craig Robinson) appears and perpetrates possibly the best scene in the film. Yet, and I’m only taking a wild shot here, I happen to find his women with the writer's driving force in getting their men to take charge. Catherine Keener’s character in ‘the 40-Year old Virgin’ is followed up in a split between the Scott sisters (Heigl & Mann), who lead a struggle against and alongside their respective men, not to mention a densely-packed pack of slap-happy friends.

We pity them as much as we scorn them, for they are likeable despite doses of bitterness. After all, women don’t all ‘come’ sweet. Neither does life.

I wouldn’t call ‘Knocked Up’ a film about an unexpected pregnancy in the real sense of the word. It’s a film about an impossible pregnancy, one that 9 women out of 10 would terminate. You would not like a man like Ben to father your child, let alone be around to raise him/her. He is a funny man, yes, he’s fair bait for Vince Vaughn as he puts it, but you have the whole rest of the film as circumstantial evidence; it’s a disaster-sequence except it all ends fine. We’re watching a one-in-a-million chance that could potentially come with a disclaimer. Or perhaps Apatow would beg to differ. Either way, it’s a gestation period you’d readily swap for guilt on the absence of it, but the woman keeps the baby, delivers it in a bout of exceedingly original comedy – something Apatow and his lot would go on to make a trademark of – and the film reconciles with itself in form of an ending. And we do the same with ourselves, for we have spent the last couple of hours with the nastiest of jokes as well as a fair amount of heart.

Judd Apatow proves his worth in turning a not-so-uncommon premise and a less-than-perfect bunch of actors (Katherine Heigl in particular, wild with all her blondeness and yet short of sensational) who work together to give us something so likeable that it lingers. The excessiveness of obscenity in his humour, particularly in the physicality of it could turn out to be bothersome. But he more than makes up for it with some memorable jokes that you can carry right with you to a dinner table at a college party. There’s a Kevin Smith fearlessness coupled with Semitic fire, and he giftwraps it in a casual, yet slightly goofed-up tone that spells ‘Seth Rogen’. I can never get enough of that man.

At the very beginning of the film, the group of friends discuss ‘Munich’ and how it was the first film to have portrayed Jews as killers than victims. Eric Bana, who plays the protagonist in ‘Munich’, is unanimously hailed as the very reason that they get laid these days. Coincidentally, Eric Bana lands a role in Apatow’s next directorial venture ‘Funny People’, where he plays an Australian. Just a thought, let it not bother you. Go savour the film if you haven’t already. If you have, then you should go over it again like I did: you’ll find it never gets too old.

A BETRAYAL TO CINEMA

2011-08-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY SUDHA K. PRASAD

STARRING: VISHNU VISHAL, SRIKANTH, SHAMNA KASIM, POONAM BAJWA, THYAGARAJAN, TANIKELLA BHARANI, RAJEEVAN, MANOBALA with S.P.B. CHARAN and POOJA UMASHANKAR

I hate Tamil films that take on their Foreign/Exotic counterparts, be it of present date or yesteryear. I hate those that derive from previous Tamil films even more. ‘Drohi’ is one such. Its plot outline had too much of ‘Agni Natchathiram’, in all fronts of sense and nonsense. Sometimes it’s good to keep the faith. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s just plain stupid. I don’t even have to tell you which category I think ‘Drohi’ as well as its shortsighted maker in debutante Sudha K. Prasad fall under.

Sami Srinivasan (Srikanth) is an impoverished Brahmin boy in Royapuram, a locale that supposedly brings out the beast in everyone. It’s like being born in a battleground, or so Ms. Prasad seems to think. I have my reasons to differ, but that’s another story. In this, however, the ‘thayirsadam’ as he’s called looks up to fellow classmate and the schoolyard bully in Karuna (Vishnu Vishal), only to be taken for granted in an abusive misunderstanding. Thus we have our premise, as pointless as it serves it be. What irked me even more was the pronunciation. ‘Karna’, as half of the world would know, is a Kshatriya with Shudra upbringing in an Epic that in itself is racist to inimitable extents – the ‘Mahabharata’. While in Samudhirakani’s ‘Nadodigal’ the name served as a metaphor for the protagonist’s selflessness, in ‘Drohi’, it nonchalantly aims to hint at his caste. Is this a necessity? I would think not. We’ve witnessed the extremity of Chennai’s underground in such films as ‘Pudhupettai’ and ‘Polladhavan’ without the deliberation. Ms. Prasad only loses further respect by alluding to the same.

As shameless as the film with its lack of sensibility are the female leads. To dote upon is one, to offer to enslavement is another. Ms. Prasad’s heroines seem to do both, their conviction being the only stronghold here. Shamna Kasim (a.k.a ‘Poorna’) is who I allude more to in this context. At first shot I thought of her Malar to be a hooker, only to repent for my grievous mistake later for she’s far worse a stereotype than that – she’s Karuna’s sister, and hence an object of a vengeful ploy as well as sexual satisfaction, wherein she’s gladly up for both. Women don’t seem to need men to degrade them, they seem to do a great job themselves; Ms. Prasad only strengthened my viewpoint on this. On the other hand, we have Shruthi and Lochani (Daughter and Mother, both played by Poonam Bajwa). The Mother had been an object of Karuna’s fantasy, a less-sensualized Malena Scordia, and hence has to retain her youthful sexiness. The Daughter is a set-piece – she just comes and goes. There ends the dual role. In addition, we have Thyagarajan, who gives us a good performance of a crappy role for which he's inexplicably miscast, and then we have Manobala in a hopeless effort that raises eyebrows than laughs. Tamil filmmakers have been too much into their ‘City of God’s and the worst of Tarantino; they also patronize Mani Ratnam. It's intolerable, we’re desperate for redemption here! And Pooja Umashankar (‘Naan Kadavul’, ‘Pattiyal’) seems to be the only tolerable choice in this casting-misadventure that aims to be an action-thriller. What a joke, right?

I had been into a bit of details as far as the film’s production went (let me not discuss my source here). As far as I know, the ‘Drohi’ I saw is a definite product of compromise although it most certainly couldn’t have been better. I found emphasis in all the wrong places and it tries too hard to please – and that too, not the intellect! More than being an example on what the Tamil film industry could do to promising talent, ‘Drohi’ is a sort of reverse-osmosis. It shows us how the absence of talent and sheer blind faith to predecessors are actually ripping the Industry apart. Bottom-line: ‘Drohi’ is not just a betrayal. It's a crime.

GRADUATES, BUT NOT WITH HONOURS

2011-07-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

DIRECTED BY MATTHEW VAUGHN

STARRING: JAMES McAVOY, MICHAEL FASSBENDER, JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ROSE BYRNE, NICHOLAS HOULT, OLIVER PLATT, MATT CRAVEN with JANUARY JONES and KEVIN BACON

Matthew Vaughn is widely regarded to be a fresh new face to mainstream filmmaking, both figuratively and literally. He entered with the quirky action-flick in ‘Layer Cake’, took a smoldering diversion deep beyond the Wall in ‘Stardust’ and returned in form of his terribly misdirected ‘Kick Ass’. From the man who has dealt with three different genres in his only three films, we have a fourth. His versatility speaks for itself, his inventiveness – in lesser volumes. With that, I do not deny that he’s a remarkable director, he seems to be fine with just ‘good’. And ‘X-Men: First Class’, in all its promise, suffers exactly from its maker’s syndrome. A convincing back-story is all that it tries to be, and in that it succeeds. Which is a shame, because I felt it could have done a whole lot more.

You don’t need to have a fondness or a sort of reverse-nostalgia towards the future ‘X-Men’ to appreciate this ‘First Class’, but you need that to like it. I didn’t. Somehow, I still can’t get past the idea. Mutation is a necessary evil – necessary because it drops anchor on sustenance and development to facilitate it further. ‘Evil’ because it’s preposterous to the existing generation; it’s base-betrayal. We witness a race that considers itself as beyond even American liberalism, let alone the ‘all men are born equal’ communism that governs the Soviets. But there is a split – on the one hand we have the snake-charmer. On the other, we have the wildlife enthusiast. The admirer embraces his pet, even more when warned of its fangs. The film progresses to an antagonism of common threat. The rest is history.

What then, I ask, of destructive mutation? What of mutation that cannot even ask for equal rights? Would the entire spastic society of the world back me on this war for betterment? Is there an actual society? Would that even make sense in the first place? How much longer do we sustain this ‘no questions asked’ rule of commercial cinema that exists for no reason but to better itself?

It seems that we’re in the era of the prequel. George Lucas perpetrated it with his reestablishment of his ‘Star Wars’ spectacle – we fed on its maker’s still-enduring frivolity, lost in faith. Christopher Nolan then emerged, his reimagining of the Dark Knight a rare combination of ideology, inventiveness and solid screenwriting. ‘Batman Begins’ could be the best of hero-films on my list, I was amazed. We gear up for a ‘Spiderman’ kick start with Marc Webb (‘(500) Days of Summer’) at its helm. There’s a scare of even an ‘Indiana Jones’ prequel as the fifth installment. The world does not understand how easy it is on the writer’s part to work on existing characters; it’s a question of information against imagination. And if to succeed meant to dare, then Matthew Vaughn scores a lukewarm five against Nolan’s hard ten. What’s even worse is that he’s okay with it.

Still, I liked the film for its briskness despite signs of slack; for its eagerness to entertain for a pat on its head. I even liked its predictability for it let me say “I told you so!” But I hated its art-direction where I felt it was under-emphasized. As for the usual jab at the actors, I beg to differ. Sure each had a substantial acting performance under his/her belt (James McAvoy – 'Atonement'; Michael Fassbender – ‘Fish Tank’; Jennifer Lawrence – ‘Winter’s Bone’; Nicholas Hoult – ‘About a Boy’, ‘A Single Man’), but is that enough reason to not do this film? I don’t think so. What if their pasts were to be a revelation told in a Xavier-like premonition? Films as these are a part and parcel of every actor’s chronology, where it’s not as much about the performance as it’s about the energy of the same. Vaughn’s pack seems robust: They work, unquestionably.

But the same cannot be said in the case of the film. I questioned its necessity, but I found myself entertained. What can I say, it’s adequate! It definitely emulates both Bryan Singer and all his efforts, but let me maintain that it’s still faint praise that it calls for. And again, that’s all it seems to need.