"King of California" (2007) - Movie Review

Charlie (Michael Douglas) is worried about his existence but he is a man without the awareness of other’s existence around him. One such would be his daughter Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) who has grown up without his help, especially in the past couple of years where he spent his time in a psychiatric facility. He has one goal after he came out which is to find a treasure. He firmly believes that it is buried underneath these suburbs of California and he is persuaded that he has decoded it out of an ancient Spanish explorer’s journal. In this film by writer/director Mike Cahill makes an independent film to get star cast.

Cahill provides little to no history on this father-daughter relationship but covers great regions to something witty at right spots between them. It is sometime unbelievable that Miranda has given up emotionally on her dad in these two years. Charlie though is capable of emptying that trust. For starters he has a bushy beard. No one can trust an old man buried in beards and has wicked smile with wide opened eyes. Adding the treasure hunt makes it easier for Miranda to give up on him. But this is not the first time he has found unique ways to disappoint her.

Charlie is not the kind of person that exist only in his own world and forget his surroundings. That is the beauty and comic factor in Michael Douglas’ performance which is that he very well knows the people and place around him. When he discovers that the treasure’s possible location is somewhere in the big store of Costco, he does not hesitate to place surveying equipment in the middle of clothes section and walk through eagerly following the measuring tape pointing to the target spot. After cornering a spot, he tells with excitement and frustration that of all the places this great treasure resides on the foot of Costco. He is a man knowing what he is doing, just that it is far beyond anyone could fathom about.

As Charlie steps up on his search of this mythical existence of treasure, Miranda is lured in. She has kept herself to the life she is leading by working long hours at McDonalds and keeping everything to herself. She does not have friends and the only dear thing she loves is the car she managed to buy with her hard earned money. She likes this way of life wherein she has grown responsible to take care of herself at the age when school matters the most. She is an example of a generation settling for simple jobs to run a meager life than an ambition.

For sometime now I have explained the irony in the formula coming up in the independent films. As any genre which has become a formula in this long tenure of film making, independent genre is fairly recent and hence it is getting into that mode of cruise control. Being a formula does not mean being unoriginal or a bad movie. Many of those run down genre has succeeded employing those cliches and predictability with some very good writing and some performances to believe in those writing. “King of California” is one such.

This is not to say that the film takes on its known route. It is indeed quite unpredictable when the clues Charlie leads on becomes more real as he gets closer and closer to his goal. The predictable factor is the bond that gets developed between Charlie and Miranda. People viewing this film are no naive personalities to expect a thrill ride of protagonist’s delusional treasure hunt. This is a character development and how they develop together into these two distanced people getting pulled in by this unbelievable hunt becomes this film. In Michael Douglas and Evan Rachel Wood we see those people and begin to believe in them coming together and be that father and daughter.

Mike Cahill takes baby steps in his debut and puts up a firm foot with some good acting and light punctuated writing. We are swept away without the feeling of being dragged on into this ride. There is a pay off we can take ourselves out of this gold rush aim, Charlie pursues with Miranda. This is that kind of film wherein they can make death sweeter and tragedy a little more lighter. It is not dark comedy but an acceptable independent genre tragedy we come to find peace.

"Paris, Texas" (1984) - Movie Classics

A film titled “Paris, Texas” is mystical enough for any film lover if they know any better but they would also begin to wonder whether they chose the wrong movie some forty minutes into it. Not because it lacks the momentum but it gets us irritated on this silent character (Harry Dean Stanton) in the beginning. Right from its aerial view of the southern Texas desert till its final frame of downtown Houston in the background, it is a film of something unlike any movies I have seen, because I have not seen the films of Wim Wenders.

This wandering nameless man is with full beard, sun burned, exhausted and dehydrated in the desert. He stumbles and knocks down unconscious in a gas station to be woken up a doctor. He does not speak. Not because he is not able to but he does not want to. Soon the doctor finds something on him which points to call a number. Walt (Dean Stockwell) is on the other end of the line surprised, shocked and unable to properly react after hearing the news. He informs his wife Anne (Aurore Clement) that his brother Travis is in some remote town in southern Texas. We are also informed that Travis disappeared on them four years back. And no he is not in the town of Paris, Texas.

Travis tests the patience of his brother Walt and his audience. He restrains from speaking and any form of body language. He completely shuts off communication and Walt is understanding about it. He carefully asks what happened and Travis simply is unresponsive. He does not stare away, rather looks right through the eye of Walt and leaves emotionless. Something has died inside of him and it is beyond anger, hate, sadness and least of all happiness. Walt does not know what to make of this.

Walt manages to get a response out of Travis finally and after that it is another battle to get him to LA. Walt and Anne has been taking care of Travis’ son Hunter (Hunter Carson) for the past four years. Travis meets him and reacts to him. Hunter is told the truth that Travis is his real father but he does not know the reaction to this situation. All these happen in our world, the world where drama is not something to be poetic about. Here the drama does not happen. The drama is simple, expected and very real.

In between all this, we are haunted and kept impatient on the secret of this four years which has pushed Travis to be wandering alone and walking dead in the unexpected part of the country. This is not a suspense and that is exactly director Wim Wenders tells when he keeps the film to this character being silent and denying all forms of explanation to those lost years from the face of the life he once had. Walt has almost given up hopes on finding Travis and Jane. Anne is worried that they need to part ways with Hunter whom they have raised as their own son. There is no drama in that either.

Anne informs Travis that Jane was in touch and sending money for Hunter which prompts him to leave again. He tells Hunter about his plans with whom he has reconnected in the beautiful unadulterated emotional way. Hunter is a smart kid and a prospective geek. He decides to join his dad. Somehow he seem to know that his family is not in LA. Not much tears needed to inform that to us. These are the effective serious but casual scene shifting Wenders gets into. Soon enough we do not care about the four years mystery and are totally focussed on this father-son journey and their hunt for Jane.

“Paris, Texas” then reaches out and hugs you very slowly and presses against itself. The warmth is tender, understanding and safe. This is a film which knows its audience like a mother towards her child. It lets them wander away and be restless. It does not tease rather keeps ignoring and conditioning with silent treatment. And when we understand what we are here for and whom we are caring for, it wraps under its presentation. The distinctive powerful guitar strings of Ry Cooder vanishes after that and emerges back during the last drive we see of Travis in the film.

Eventually Travis meets up with wife Jane played by Nastassja Kinski and in other films the situation of Jane would be a cliche that is asked to be sympathized. Wim Wenders makes it about the characters and not the surroundings. When Jane and Travis finally talk, the film lets out and goes into uneven emotional trips. Everything about Travis’ behaviour gets a new light and we do the most basic and quintessential act in a film, empathize with the characters.

Never even aware of Wim Wenders I began watching this film. I loved the manner in which the titular location is kept at bay of being visited and not happening at all. The performance of Harry Dean Stanton is as Travis, mystical. He appears dangerous when we first meet and then dissolves into this state of calmness, coldness and sudden flow of care. When he smiles, the whole world appear to be elated and his odd speeches on his parents is a poetry by itself. “Paris, Texas” begins as an experience then becomes an experiment and finally into an emotional lyric for Ry Cooder’s tangiest and cracking guitar strings.

"Sita Sings the Blues" (2008) - Movie Review

Ramayana, the ancient Sanskrit epic has been told, retold, re-retold and imbibed in the minds of any Indian. Despite several films and stories on the books and comics, its expiry date in an Indian mind never arrives because more than a fable and moral policing document, it is an entertaining story. Purely treated as a fiction it has all the elements to fulfill a complete blockbuster. Do you need melodrama? Here ready to be bathed and drowned in the rivers of crying from Sita and immerse into the immense sentiments between Rama and his loved ones. Do you need action? Be vigilant to watch out for the bow and arrow fire works. Not satisfied, how about jumping monkeys and Hanuman as the strongest entity on the universe who kick Transformer’s butt out of this universe? There is no suspense though but who needs those in a blockbuster.

Beyond these entertaining values, people of India advise their offsprings to take the great teachings through the characters. Rama the protagonist, is portrayed as a monogamous man with a glorious personality of unquestionable obedience to his parents. Sita the female lead, devoted in every atom of her body to her husband Rama would tear herself into pieces to fulfill the duties of the traditional Indian woman. Lakshmana, the brother and side kick of Rama, is another 500% devotee of Rama. But honestly, this reviewer thinks Rama is a male chauvinistic jerk, Sita is dumb and unnecessarily melodramatic while Lakshmana is the only element in this equation to have some sanity, though he is insanely hot tempered. No one comes out and says it aloud, not at least on a silver screen. There might be contemporary discussion over this as I have with my friends but coming out and filming it to what it is with satire, spoof and modern approach needs guts, inspiration and imagination. Writer/Director Nina Paley has just those and provides the entertaining story with simple animation, easy conversational comedy and through songs of Annette Hanshaw.

Paley tells the story of Ramayana through three shadow puppets conversing the story flow, the possibility, some controversial moves of the characters and simply having fun with it. As it is told with spectacular Indian accents and animation to match it, there happens another story in parallel in the current day. Said to be autobiographical, it tells about Nina and Dave living in San Francisco. Chance gets Dave to Trivandram in India for work and for reasons unexplained happens to drain the love out of Dave for Nina. Their story runs with certain similarity in the emotions of Ramayana but an ending of course unlike the epic.

What does Nina Paley trying to achieve telling an epic which is nothing new to Indian audience? May be her angst over the characters and the philosophy and rules drawn out of it drove her to draw similarities in certain of her reaction to such situation. Or may be she wanted to have fun with it and meanwhile give a look, feel and voice which never even passes the distant corners of a creative mind observing this epic. Though this is not aimed at Indian audience alone, it will be a unique experience for the audience who might not be aware of this story and the history. They get the colours and songs which is so fascinating to them from this country. They also get something they can easily associate and laugh along the way through it.

Over and over there is creativity in story telling. Taking the faces from the traditional drawings of these characters and then mixing it with her own perception and turning it around for another spin of the characters, Paley keeps afresh the look and feel of this Sita. The blues songs begins surprises and delights us in this unthinkable atmosphere and situation. Then the choreography which goes for it brings out guffaws in the movements of these animated figures. After a while though, the arrow for tolerance shifted to “pushing it” region for the numerous songs and similar choreography. Except that part, “Sita Sings the Blues” keeps you tickled and guessing on further amusements it promises to provide.

Nina Paley had to go through several copyright issues since she used Hanshaw’s songs. Being a DRM free activist herself, she decided to distribute this film for free which is a true gift to the audience. It is available for free viewing in youtube. It is also available for download from her website (http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/watch.html) in DVD format which is the mode this reviewer took. Hence I would personally ask the readers to reach out for this film online and let your friends, enemies and loved ones know about this beautiful film.

“Sita Sings the Blues” does not come out and slander this whole epic as someone might draw conclusion from this review. Most of it is personal viewpoint and the fact that the film takes similar tone brings it out strongly in me. Paley takes an ancient story so popular and heavily followed and taught fable into modern culture of liberated women and open minded men. In today’s world, Rama is not a hero rather a dangerous stereotype of Indian male who is insecure, doubtful and full of ego. Sita is not an exemplifying wife rather is melodramatic and blinded by traditions while having the unpredictability of women existing in this billion years of existence in universe. For me it is a brilliant satire, bold depiction, colourful imagination and an originality that begs for its viewers to spread the word around.

"Paper Heart" (2009) - Movie Review

Charlene Yi has a personality beckoning attention. She has the goofiest glasses and an undone hair. She looks 16 but she really is 24. She plays herself in a mix of documentary and mockumentary in “Paper Heart” along with Michael Cera as a version of himself which becomes a sweet romantic tale and then a little longer than expected. It is a creative production and an almost realistic portrayal of a fair relationship springing between Charlene and Michael.

Charlene Yi is a musician and comedian. You might have seen her in some of Judd Apatow’s film as this Asian girl in the background. She does stand up which I was not aware of but in her “Tonight’s Show with Conan O’Brien”, her act said much about her style. Here she plays herself as someone not believing in the idea of love and the possibility of her not having it at any point in her life. It is not that she is stubborn rather she has a very convincing feeling that the particular emotion in her body is absent and incapable of occurring. Nicholas Jasenovec is the director who in turn is played by Jake Johnson in the film. He takes on the challenge of Charlene trying to find whether there exists love and how various people define and feel it.

The film takes the crew along with Yi on cross country journey. The reason to flee into different states is merely to get a diverse collection of people from various region to get a wide spread opinion on love. The movie works and in its quasi documentary and fiction it brings together Michael Cera and Charlene Yi in the possible scenario of liking each other and eventually the possibility of them being in love. Charlene though is not sure about it and that becomes the twist the film plans on for a long time.

Cera has been very successful in playing himself of various kind in most of his films. Except for “Youth in Revolt” which I missed and very much be the same, rest of his roles have always been Michael Cera with different name in a different situation than the character. It is what the directors wants and the story beckons. Soon I believe he might be in trouble of playing himself alone and losing among the alternatives. Here he is good as he has been. He meets Charlene Yi and both have a connection which is the shyness. Michael comes forth and takes the step to approach Yi and Yi cautiously takes it up. The scenes when they hangout are realistically romantic than many of the rom-coms generated as the byproduct of money and star cast.

In between their romance, Yi interviews several people from real life on their journey towards this mystical feeling. The very first one is Mike Modrak, a divorcee and he explains how he got married only at the age of 43 and then got divorced because they were not the same person after sometime. He also explains how his true real love was someone long time ago before he met his ex-wife. After that he tells a story which is shown as a puppet show by Yi and “Paper Heart” becomes a different film than many others which attempt and aspire to be. The film has several other stories said in that manner which does aim for cheap sweetness but a Michel Gondry way of inventiveness.

“Paper Heart” though gets slightly buzzed as the end approaches and begins to sway away a while. It eventually comes to the stop we knew and ends in its sweet manner of story telling. Jake Johnson playing the director is another key element in between Michael and Charlene. As an aspiring director, he is hoping to get a cinematic ending to his documentary and on a personal level a happy one. Here the film takes another bold approach of reacting to that attitude than going hysterical about it.

“Paper Heart” is a convincing mocku-documentary and it makes Michael Cera and Charlene Yi a couple we would believe in. With so many flurry of impossible and incorrigible rom-coms, films like these need to have wide spread reach for those audience who cannot alone lose themselves cuddling to their loved ones but also find a genuine film made in a creative and inventive way.

"Iron Man 2" (2010) - Movie Review

What can be more fun than to watch an adorable jerk going off on screen again. The performance coming from the actor capable of replicating several inner demons of himself, Robert Downey Jr. is again the reason the fans would like to see “Iron Man 2”. Tony Stark after satiating his ego of revealing his identity as the Iron Man at the end of the first part of this franchise comes back with more ego. He gets more help too from side kicks, villains and further arrogance in Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, his rival in business.

Nothing has changed in the way I came out of the theatres for both the Iron Man products. Clearly entertained and Robert Downey continuing his best keeps this film ticking and involving the audience. This is no “The Dark Knight” but it is not “The Incredible Hulk” either. It rattles between the obnoxious “Transformers” and a sensible characterization which evens out rather to the benefit of the critics and the audience. Jon Favreau now knows the working formula not in the story but in the casting and characters.

Favreau gets Don Cheadle substituting Terence Howard for Lt. Col. James Rhodes, Sam Rockwell as wannabe Stark in Justin Hammer, Scarlett Johannson as the underground operative for the upcoming Avengers initiative and none other than the threatening villain Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko. Gwyneth Paltrow runs along the caretaker/guide/friend and the CEO of Stark Industries as Pepper Potts. Amongst these we get heavy artillery, attitudes, sarcasms and some story we might not even care for.

After 6 months of boasting and achieving super power dominance around the globe to have peace, Stark has two battles to fight. One is to find a cure for his chest battery which is slowly poisoning him. When your body suit is capable of demolishing an entire army with fire power, there has to be some side effect and they call it Palladium poisoning. The other is to resist the government which is forcing him give the Iron Man suit. In between these comes Ivan Vanko for revenge and Justin Hammer for money and competition.

Oh, I forgot to mention Samuel L. Jackson coming in as and when the screenplay and Tony Stark needs to reinvent itself. Of all this star cast, only one emerges victorious and there is no surprise that it is Sam Rockwell. He is the perfect candidate for being the equivalent cocky arrogant bastard as that of Downey Jr. and if you are doubting it, just see him explain the weapons he has to provide for the US army. He is more than a salesperson out there. His character enjoys laying out those detailed information about each of the dangerous science project which are also precisely capable of doing that.

“Iron Man 2” is a big science project of a millionaire, again. I cannot find much difference between the first one and its sequel other than numerous talent cast. They bring their strengths with them to the film. Thankfully there are no annoying tensions of untold love pondered profoundly between Pepper and Stark but it has to end there which I was ready to accept. Don Cheadle is the perfect side kick for this uncontrollable man while Rourke does not have much than to have golden teeth and Russian mumblings.

Having noticed in the past few paragraphs, the reader would observe that more focus has been given to the cast than the story itself. That tells you what happened. Nothing wrong in a film being completely overwhelmed by the cast and done so effectively. “Iron Man 2” works precisely for that. The graphics are kept reasonable and the calamities, well it always comes when there is a war going on between demolishing robots among egocentric businesspersons.

Jon Favreau has got himself a great job. He knows the deal and he plays for the house. He chooses his players carefully and keeps them entertained with the tricks. Strangely enough he is very honest about those and explains that these are all obligatory steps. Sometimes as a critic you have to respect that honesty and enjoy the game. Most of the times you get burnt and deceived but in Favreau’s case, he works it out.

"35 Shots of Rum" (Language - French/German) (2008) - Movie Review

Never I have seen a film so self aware of being in a movie and never I have seen a film so full of itself. This is “35 Shots of Rum” which needs a drink of its own to realize that slow passing and dull moments in life does not mean artistic film making. Vague in each of its characters, mood, dialogue and music, this film makes you question whether life is such a boring event. Such as it seems that of Lionel (Alex Descas), his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop). They are father and daughter living together and have been that way for a long time. What appears to be this silent warfare towards its audience of emanating the untold but deeply tied devotion of daughter towards father bleeds you of interest.

There lives two more residents in their apartment complex tied to this abysmal life of Lionel and Josephine. Noé (Gregoire Colin) is a lonely vagabond wandering through the globe and returns now and then to his apartment only for his fat cat. But it appears he has a thing for Josephine and vice versa. Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) is another lonesome character living in the same building and happen to have a motherly attachment towards Josephine and a liking for Lionel. The relationship between these characters are spread around like bread crumbs behind your couch and there are no clues. You figure it out some where at the end of the film when there is no choice than to tie these people up with the little known details and boredom. When Josephine kisses Noé, they better have something going on.

People stand, stare and torture us in their silences. Lionel does the best and he has a knack to smoke without passion or pain. Even when his friend Rene (Julieth Mars Toussaint) retires and breaks down, Lionel has nothing to offer than stand still and deliver a line out of no compassion. In these empty spaces they stare, they would hear ring bell or a movement of shadow which brings a smile to their lifeless face obsolete of any real emotion.

Is this the form of movie making I am not aware of or is it something I am sociopathic towards? Nothing can explain other than the dreadful lost time of my life towards this critically praised film. Directed by Claire Denis, this is supposed to be the love a father and daughter share and how much it takes for them to face the reality of letting go of each other to move on with their life. There is no question in those delivery but why would you go with such a hollow presentation that has happiness written with sad letters? Only Denis can answer.

When a film scores 97% in rotten tomatoes, there needs a time alone with yourself as a film critic to think whether I missed something or the artistic bone of patience has wore down in me. There cannot be more appreciation from this reviewer towards a film which takes a precious slow attempt in revealing the simplest of things in life. I cannot get tired of watching “Man on the Train” which has characters similar to that of this film but with a sense of its presence and an emotional factor so much in abundance without wrestling itself with melodrama. “35 Shots of Rum” becomes pretentious and its characters for whom we do not care irks us to move towards the end we desperately wait.

There are symbolism which I did not care for and the subtle humour I was not ready for. It has laser thin characters wandering around the depth of the photography and the wide spread amount of muteness not alone in the sound but in the story itself. It drips the energy out of you with its apathetic nature and in the end even when someone gives up their hopes up for learning the mythical meaning of this 35 shots of rum, I wish I had a drink before. May be then I would have realized within ten minutes into this film that the tilted judgment of alcohol would have saved me from losing the valuable time.

"The Class" (Language - French) (2008) - Movie Review

A teacher is hated, admired or treated as a simpleton by the students. The psychology of a kid in his/her high school days cannot be contained in a box. Everything appears opposing their ideas and clueless philosophies. Adverse and opposing reactions are the tool they carry around. Attitude, arrogance and disobedience are seen as a shield than one step closer to the future they would not want. While my existence was doubted in high school, I took a complete different tone during my college years. It was more than a rebel and it was an act of someone finding things for the first time. I missed the high school days to learn those and at college it all erupted. Though I do have to say that the best times of my life happened during those ruffian days. “The Class” would bring back those memories and we begin to feel for the teachers. I did.

In this semi-autobiographical story, François Marin (François Bégaudeau) is the French teacher working in the inner city public school. The students cannot get more diverse than this. Starting from Wei (Wei Huang) to Souleymane (Franck Keita), the room can hold hands and sing “We Are the World” but that is not going to happen. These are kids coming from the rough neighbourhood were violence, poverty and emotional distress are a regular sight. All those pour into these walls. It gushes towards the teacher, the person who cannot say much or more than that is that he/she work by the rules and the atmosphere these kid’s live in do not. Hence they become either easy targets or compassionate shell.

Director Laurent Cantet makes it as realistic as a film can be. There are no inspiring stories, not the Hollywood cheer leader style and there are no breakthrough method which gets Mr. Marin to connect with his kids. He is patient, soft and makes his class interesting. Not alone talking with the grammatical bore the language comes and needs but with the regular debates and entertaining projects he gives. But these are not the kids who will leave him soft.

Everything erupts around the class. Always a retaliation and the students never ever give up on talking back. Being a teacher is the toughest job to build up for. On one hand you have the ego of being the elder person and the expectancy to be respected. On the other hand you have the kids going ballistic on every thing and pushing all the right buttons to get the worst reaction possible. In between these, a teacher has to sense the atmosphere and do the right thing which is easier said. Mr. Marin is pushed into those territory every moment when he steps in his class. How can we educate a kid when they go to great lengths to refuse it? More than that how bad it makes you feel when they are instinctive and impulsive in those things and more egoistic than yourself?

“The Class” is a step by step process wherein the kids break Mr. Marin. These kids are brilliant when they work their magic. They are all given the project of writing a self-portrait. The project is given to express more than where they live and what they like but about their personality and what makes them tick. François wants to read their mind and get an honest opinion so he can justify himself of going further. Souleymane the least expected candidate for a novel idea comes up with intriguing photographs of his family and friends. Mr. Marin succeeds in it but fails miserably as we go on.

The students are nice and attentive when they are held by their teacher’s command in a subject. My disobedient times as a student in colleges were due to the lack of respect I had for the staffs. Majority of them were a fresh graduate and did not have a clue about the subject or keeping our attentions straight. It is not their fault, they needed a job and they got one easily through the college I went. But it changed once in a while. We remained silent despite not understanding a single word from a lecturer because her hard work was evident in her details of conducting a class.

What “The Class” becomes is a game of respect. The clashes of ego and beyond that comes the emotions and the reality outside of the school which never gets shown. Everything in the film happens in the school compound. The staff meetings, the issues of having a coffee maker and teachers breaking down. François is put in the spot when the time comes and he explodes. He insults couple of his kids and it leads to an an expected violence. The kids with so much potential throw away their future and you have no one to blame than the society. It cannot get more tragic and touger to be a school teacher in an inner city public school. It is where you see the students at the verge of becoming an adult and sealing themselves with the fate they might want at that moment but is a disaster for rest of their lives. The sad part of being the teacher apart from the miseries is to watch these kids go through with that and there is nothing in the world you can do about it. “The Class” is funny, witty, tragic and sadly realistic.

"Helvetica" (2007) - Movie Review

Not often do we sit by the couch and think about the air we breathe and the light that spears through the customary curtain in our living room. Not often do we adore and admire the shape of the letters than the content it carries. Gary Hustwit omits the meaning of a word and corners our eyes to see the shape, design and a poetry which goes into this universal font which goes right by our eyes day in and day out.

Hustwit exposes the community that does not come out when you read the ubiquitous presence of any word anywhere. Back in the olden days when printing and typing were the mode of expression of texts, the design began to formulate these diagrams for scrambled pieces for a completion. Helvetica was born in 1957 and no one knew the extreme nature of its pandemic spread.

A documentary which does not become an overflow of information and trivia, does not take much to show the font as we walk on the street or glare at any text. It has attained a monopoly in the designer arena leaving nothing much of a choice in picking something for a sign, poster or simple text. What is so mesmerizing about this font? What is the beauty these graphic designers of different generations qualm about the presence and deviation of this system of shaping a letter? All are there in “Helvitica”.

More of the films that becomes intimate with its viewers are the deep down buried forgotten incidents in them. For me this brought the time when PC was a big deal and the first one I lay my hands on got the chance for me to dig in the Windows 3.1. In that was the text editing tool where MS Word did not step in. The idea of so many fonts to choose from was an experience by itself. Soon enough I was beginning try the hundred different fonts on silliest texts. The medium through which I was able to do that was the generation in progress. And by now, as simple keyboards strokes with mouse clicks, the process is faster, smoother and precise. The ancient days of carving stones, steels to get a proper print has been erased by the technology.

This sudden growth is not despised by the community but they strongly say which I agree upon completely is that the technology makes it faster and easier on the process but the imagination comes through the artist. Through these different people we understand how the art of typefacing has its debates and arguments on this monster which has spread across the entire globe.

One part of community, the modernists marvel this font. The space in which it got designed and the clarity of that might not be amusing for certain audience. The designers speak that language and if you can be a recipient of that unexplainable and true feeling, “Helvitica” is the documentary you got to watch. The postmodernists are fed up with this over usage and they take order in it and spin around for chaotic beauty. Their conversations are nothing short of interesting.

“Helvitica” has some brilliant editing and carefully selected music to take us to a tour in an art gallery and a vacation of different kind in our living room. Before you know it, there is a hunt for the texts and the art involved in it. In the film we sparsely read rather look at the structure in which the alphabets are aligned, separated, conjoined and the sense of enigma in the wholeness of it.

I have been volunteering for a program wherein I have to teach the sixth graders the concept of global market place. Despite my insignificant knowledge of it, they provide a guidebook on the contents and activities planned for each session. The very first one was the explain the trade, imports and exports while the activity was to find simple items in and around your house to see the country that manufactures it. The hunt began and almost 99% I found was made in China. They were there all along these years and never noticed the enormity in which these all come from one country. After that I saw products made from China everywhere. Helvetica will be everywhere when you are done with this film.

"Greenberg" (2007) - Movie Review

Noah Baumbach should have a radar for passive jerks. He can sense them of various kinds, sizes and shapes because in “Greenberg” he provides one more kind of this lost and uppity person. He resembles a little bit of Bernard Berkman from “The Squid and the Whale” and a tiny layer of Margot from “Margot at the Wedding” but he also has a taste for comic from the writing works of Baumbach in “Fantastic Mr. Fox”. It does not have to be said more that the writing is impeccable. This is “Greenberg”.

Baumbach’s film will be in my best films of the year is about a mean man but an ability to be the nicest guy. He is self righteous but he is ready to put that down and lend a helping hand in odd times. It is the film wherein romance happens in ways you would not expect but makes you feel that it might happen to us and we would very well flip out like these two. That would be Florence (Greta Gerwig) and she is 25 coming out of a long relationship. Ben Stiller’s Roger Greenberg and Florence go on dating without dating or at least Roger goes through it in superb denial.

Greenberg is a New Yorker coming to Los Angeles to house sit his brother’s home while his brother and his family are on vacation. This is a long last home he has not visited for a while. He is also out of a nervous breakdown. He is rough on edges and a little bit inside. Florence and Greenberg meet at an important point in their lives. Florence is wondering how to move on after a break up in a long term relationship while Greenberg is scared to get into one at the age of 40.

He has taken a vow of doing nothing. Though he writes personal letters to editorials sighing his concerns over several corporates and its culture. He admirably succeeds in the nothing part until he begins to deal with his emotions. He has a loyal and trusting friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans) whom he has not seen for several years. In their early days, Greenberg and Ivan with his buddies were an upcoming rock band ready to sign a record deal. Greenberg chose to decline it as it went against his principles. It will be the right time to bring back the uppity self righteous person for his principles.

While other band members made well for themselves, Ivan is going through a separation from a wife Greenberg does not like and is a computer personnel. Things have taken a different route for these two and this is the time to deal it. Baumbach uses Ben Stiller in a non-Ben Stiller way. Stiller while is a talented artist doing the same thing in different movies (especially in his “Tropic Thunder”), invents himself out of those stereotyping in “Greenberg”. He fits the odd characteristics Baumbach has over his main characters.

Florence finds Roger interesting. May be because she admires the honesty in him of not putting up with the system. Even if it is in the destructive way or may be she knows the deeply buried sporadic good and nice guy in him. Greta Gerwig not alone is convincing as the attractive but not completely well groomed 25 year old, rather makes sure that the oddity in her attraction towards Greenberg is smooth and unquestionable.

Visiting the city he grew up and living at his brother’s huge house which is a constant reminder of his own failure, the film has humour so home to Baumbach. There is a house party sequence wherein Roger gets high on several drugs and becomes hyperactive and mainly modestly honest. It is not used as a funny bone moment or a lethargic attempt to settle for an easy humour. It gets the set up for the perfect ending which leaves the audience with a smile to take home.

Noah Baumbach as Wes Anderson not alone creates original characters but repeats it with several layers and a different personality and importantly very real. We are the combination of multiple traits and most of the times the films decides a set list labelled on its characters. The completeness helps but the vacillation of the real human mind is Baumbach’s special territory. Here we laugh at/along with Roger and despise his calculated jackass behaviour but we are with him through this tenure truthfully and hope the best for him.

"Factotum" (2005) - Movie Review

“Factotum” is a misnomer for Hank Chinaski (Matt Dillon), the low life of this film. He navigates from one job to another as a wave of changing mind than actually performing it. He is at the drain to be flushed out, not by the society but by himself. This film is about his attempt to push his envelope further down. Down and down, again and again. He succeeds in every step of his way, improvising effectively. This is not a pleasant person. He is a drunk, chain smoker, a spiteful character who is absent of any possible evidence of consideration to others and he does so by laboriously being insensitive in passive actions. He is writer’s dream which is to have a character to fathom, explore and explain to the readers of a book and the audience of a film.

It is adapted from the novel of the same name by Charles Bukowski. Bukowski is considered to be an expert writing about these kind of characters and the lives they lead. He himself is a one from the information I gather. Chinaski’s taste for irresponsibility is simply put in first scene. He drives a cooler truck without unplugging it from the socket and drinks at the delivery place leaving the ice to melt in the truck. Irresponsibility is going easy on Hank.

Hank writes, always. That is the purest form of work he ever does with passion, honesty and consideration. All for himself than a reader. Words are the only place he is justifiable and meaningful. Rest of his life is a planned and accepted disaster. May be that is his job for writing well. May be to experience it first hand. The experience of losing a soul within the body and rupture in the dirt and debauchery of the city.

Hank is also a great procrastinator. Now you may think that it comes with the package but no, he does it as an art. His procrastination goes through lifting his leg up to walk and even hold the cigarette in his hand. This is a man wanting to be Travis Bickle without the motivation to kill any one. It is impossible to let go of a character like this for someone like Matt Dillon. He takes it and does everything he possibly could. He succeeds and cherishes his role. Despite the critical and box office success there will be a work for a devoted actor to remember. When they find it, they hold on to it tightly and proudly. As much as “Factotum” might personally is a tough movie to judge, Matt Dillon can take his efforts and dedication to pull his character around with honour and pride.

“Factotum” begins with this man and ends with him where he started. He is though gone beneath everything above the Earth. This alcoholic finds a woman. This is Jan (Lili Taylor), another alcoholic. How they meet is unnecessary because they are meant to rot together. Hank moves in the day after they met and begins to continue his life style. He also gets a job in a bike warehouse. There he finds a friend of convenience. Manny (Fisher Stevens) and Hank share the passion for betting on a horse and they do well. For a while and thought Hank leads a life with money. He appears to be changed but he is not.

The film is a continuous stretch of Hank’s organized failures. It is not about hopelessness but it is about a writer’s twisted mind to go all the way to collect his material. He does not say it and the story does not hint it. This is a personal observation which the writer himself would deny it. He involves himself with this pathetic life. That can be the only reason for this man full of words and wisdom. He recites his writing to his viewer, saying how we pursue our life and frustrating while doing it.

Director Bent Hamer absorbs the material and appear to have worked each and every word of the material. The book happens in the 40s at the midst of World War - II but Hamer makes it for the sinking today for Hank and Jan. There are no solace, comfort or redemption. Despite these low moments and constant self destruction Hank does, “Factotum” begins with aspiration and ends with one too. It provides its point and the reason for its exercise in the end. It is a too devastating to realize the stretch of a writer’s honesty. That is both admiring and saddening. On one hand, Hank has provided his most honest writing by going through with this. On the other hand, he has become that person he writes about. He does not appear to enjoy the life he leads and does not aspire to shake out of it. Every smallest step towards it is immediately put off with a distractive booze.

“Factotum” is not a pleasing film. It made me unsettling and boring in the sandwiched layer of this wretched livelihood. The love or the supposed love Hank begins to have and finally associate with himself towards Jan becomes effortless to us in the end. He leaves us on a high note saying the most unexpected, unusual wise words for him and yet the most truthful. “If you try, go all the way. Otherwise do not even start”. Hank chooses the worst decision of leading this life. And he does not try but goes all the way. There is no turning back.

"Bubble" (2005) - Movie Review

Steven Soderbergh can be stylishly classy as “Ocean’s Eleven”, stylishly real as in “The Girlfriend Experience”. Here he is painfully real in “Bubble”. It has non-professional actors almost playing themselves in a way and it goes through the lives of these people in a span of a week. In this town of blankness, nothing gets dramatized even though there is so much of it happening.

In a small town is Martha (Debbie Doebereiner), a forty-ish single woman with no kids taking care of her elderly dad. She appears to have no life in this town but she is not aware of it. She works in a factory which manufactures dolls. What a strange place is this factory. To see the bald, hairless and eyeless model is more than eerie and creepy. But this is the oddity in this otherwise checkered town.

Martha provides ride to her neighbour and her only friend, a young man Kyle (Dustin James Ashley). Kyle works at the factory too. The conversations between them are unbelievably realistic and the humour in the film is how much we see those lifeless talks we carry through in a day. Lifeless but those are the starters for a good one yet Soderbergh does not let his characters speak those. Not because he did not want to rather because it does not happen.

In between them comes Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins), a young single mother. She immediately takes notice of Kyle and Kyle her and Martha on both of them. Martha is the old woman obligated to be nice while Kyle is the single most outstanding candidate for Rose. They are bound to happen, for better, worse and for the heck of it. In all these sequences, things happen without a fuss. No evidential mention by Martha that she is teeny tiny jealous of Rose and teeny tiny possessive about Kyle.

Soderbergh can be unique and adamant in his storytelling and flagrantly grandiose in some other stories. He chooses this setting because the story out here has either been dramatized or never been told for what it is. As much as the life of these three appear to be boring, this is the real life of the daily happenings in any of ours. This is not sad but these are the people, the talks that goes and emotions that are unspoken and deeply hidden. These happen without the need of Meryl Streep or Al Pacino.

The music of Robert Pollard cannot carry anymore on the tone what the film is about. It has guitar strumming of several chord in an unpredictable order. It is not out of tune or irritating but not pleasant enough to embrace it. It is enough to have a curiosity on the music and the scene which it plays for and it is the grey area between annoying and entertaining. It never settles out or yearns its audience. It is as Soderbergh’s presentation, unique.

The film is said to have been shot with no script. There was an outline laid out by Coleman Hough and they worked the rest on improvisation. It is how it gets the ambience of stinging non-fiction. The people talk to fill out the time they are obligated to be surrounded by others. Martha and Kyle have been conveniently living in those moments. It does not take a great cheerful and colourful personality to shudder the balance. All it takes is a young girl of Kyle’s age to respect her hormonal instincts.

“Bubble” is a statement on the lives. Not on this uneventful town rather a part of ourselves in our daily existence. There are no “Hi, how are you doing?” to a stranger in India but there are plenty in the US. That is the best quality which soon becomes a meaningless exercise. Such is the people in “Bubble”. They have become their life’s meaningless exercise and they have basked in the boring comfortableness of it. Even the slightest alteration can craze up the sublime.

"In the Line of Fire" (1993) - Movie Review

The romantic obligation in a potentially great film is the worst punishment a film lover could run into. You have a deadly character, another deadly character and much fist fight running through psychological games and conversations. Then there is a cushion in between these tough moments posed as a tough agent and an equal to smoothen the tension which not alone becomes sexist but denigrates the notion of the audience wanting to be satiated of such cheap pleasure. This is “In the Line of Fire”, a victim to a worst crime, though common in the Hollywood called compromise and it is painful to see a talented director who gave “Das Boot” and this almost perfect film. It is Wolfgang Petersen.

This is the last film Clint Eastwood acted under a different director than himself and he brings his roughed out persona with the eyes so menacing begging to surrender his opponents. He is Secret Service Agent Frank, one of the guards close to JFK during his assassination. He is old, spent his time, worked out his reputation as the lonely lion and his body is getting too tired up for his job. He is haunted by messed up individual calling himself Booth mouthing around his plan to assassinate the fictitious President in the film. He does so through phone conversation and as any lonely assassin, chooses to fraternize with his opponent. Frank is chosen specifically for the reason of being the one letting the bullet to be taken by the JFK but more than that it is a compassion by Booth. Booth empathizes, sympathizes and closely associates himself to Frank.

Initially we suspect Booth to be a simple freak knowing to press the right buttons to get Frank go nuts about guilt and cowardice. When John Malkovich becomes this man from the voice, the simple freak is real and more so, dead cold serious about his mission. Even beyond that is the affirmation he brings upon his audience. This man is going to complete his work and he is perfectly capable of it. Not because of his advanced gun he is building at his workshop and not because of his technical craft of scrambling his phone signal to be untraceable by the nerds in the department but plainly talking over the phone with the scary Clint Eastwood’s Frank. Malkovich is more than a villain.

The story is only and should have been only about Frank and Booth. It should not have even rested a minute on the shoulders of the flirtation between Frank and the only female Agent in the film, Lilly (Rene Russo). It should not have even shown the face of the President. It should not have settled for a redemption of its old hero. This is not about what the character deserves and gets but should have been about the manner in which he gets it.

The most crucial scenes in the film are the phone conversations between Frank and Booth. In those scenes John Malkovich reigns and Eastwood sublimely rules in his own way of letting the character take it. These two are men given themselves to the job and have undressed themselves of any social skills. They have either chosen to or been chosen by the job to lead a life like that. In Frank’s case, the job sucked him out of the longevity he could sustain a relationship with another human being and in Booth who we learn is a killing machine for the government has a mind created by the job and himself.

In many of the films, where the protagonist is threatened, challenged and often compared with the deadly antagonist of devilish nature, antagonist assumes a friendship with his adversary and in the lapse of doubt and some sprinkled guilt, the protagonist assumes that too. Sometimes it is apt and cannot be more right as in “Heat” and other films miss it (and for weird reason I could not come up with a specific one. May be it is my mind). Frank even at the very end does not share that assumption as Booth does. May be the denial runs so high but these are two different people.

“In the Line of Fire” breathes its genre as a thriller in every step of it. If they could have removed the character of Lilly or at least treat it as an equal as the character says so, there is more thickness in its people’s persona to clash and chew on between Frank and Booth. Even Dylan McDermott’s Agent Al as Frank’s partner is routine and mainly predictable. It has two great actors doing the best roles and it loses itself in not understanding the capability it holds.

As much as I loved the film for the most part, some of the known settlements bothers me to great detail. There is nothing more worse than a great film doing silly blunders for the supposed wider audience. (spoiler ahead) Think about “In the Line of Fire” I had in my mind. The story follows everything except Lilly is there only as a good agent and Al remains as a good partner without being sacrificed. And think about the final part of the film wherein Frank comes home with Lilly though in my version he comes alone after the press hoopla of him being the hero. He is tired and sees the empty house. He plays his phone messages to hear Booth talk about the possible outcome of the assassination. Frank hears it with cold face when Booth says as in the film, “What is there to move on with your life? We are meant to be alone” That is a downer but has a real character to it and a goddamn respect it deserves.

"Night Moves" (1975) - Movie Review

Movies are about reactions. Love, hate, pain, nostalgia, anything resembles the human gets lighted up. Sometimes it is nothing, I mean not even dislike or hate but a simple plain nothing. You did not mind the film but did not devote yourself to it either. “Night Moves” might fit that bill. May be it is the mood I was in or may the tone of the film, it fell right on that spot. As the credits rolled up with a boat circling drowning plane and a murdered girl, it is poetic and cold.

From the mid seventies, this picture is nostalgic in the costumes and attires of that period. That includes a twisty music by Michael Small. The bass guitar funks out the melody when there is an expectation in the plot twist. The story begins with Private Investigator Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman). He works in Los Angeles which means he would end up with a film celebrity somehow or other. Here it is Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward). A moderate celebrity to be precise, passed over her prime period has called in Harry to find her sixteen year old daughter. Apart from drowning herself in alcohol and looking a lay in the men she meets, Arlene has little motherhood left to find her daughter. Harry does not mind as this has been the soul which has running his engine of life.

Harry has a personal life which has departed its emotion from what we witness with him. His lovely wife Ellen (Susan Clark) is having an affair with Marty (Harris Yulin) and he goes directly to Marty than to ask Ellen. Their marriage appears to be hardly functional because there is a deadness in the space between them. Harry does confront Ellen but only delays and avoids the barren truth that it might be over for these two. His case takes him to Florida Keys and there he meets his assignment Delly (Melanie Griffith) her step father Tom Iverson (John Crawford) and the voluptuous Paula (Jennifer Warren).

The major part of the film is the set up for the final twenty minutes of helplessness for Harry. Harry’s past life is a professional foot ball player and he has jumped to a complete different domain. What made him drive to this occupation is unknown but he likes clues and tracking them. He is not great at it but he is good at it. He has muscle and maturity that he can wait the waiting out. He takes as it comes and when the free spirited and tempting Delly runs around naked and inviting danger, he simply stays put. There is a kindness in his presence and that takes the time for any one to reach out for him.

Delly does reach out after a dreadful experience underwater which would become the turn of events the rest of the film. “Night Moves” though deprived of any real sense of feeling for me, is a film out of sorts for the times when the change in the film tone were either extreme like European films or dumbed down in the silly action films. This film directed by Arthur Penn lies in between and produces a rhythm of caution in its execution. It is patient and things happen so fast in the final twenty minutes that you wonder whether we are missing something.

Gene Hackman carries the weight for a character haunted by some unsettled memories and dealing with a marriage break up through his job. Hackman provides a common man doing a job which has only been glorified or animated by the Hollywood. Here his job appears simple, lot of travel, meeting new people and let things fall than to chase. Yet the hollowness in the work is not because of the extending time but the people he crosses.

It is one of a kind film. It does not say much and it does not move fast. It paces through as a normal day and moves crazy as an episode of “24” though with more sense than the TV series. Strangely it does not invite an emotion from me and it ends with a haunting note which weird might it sound, is not haunting enough. Its dark territory need more time to get a feel for it but may be I am cold hearted. Still the problem I see in “Night Moves” is that it places its tragedy without an empathy but wants it though.

"The Losers" (2010) - Movie Review

“The Losers” is everything that indicates of summer blockbuster around the corner. It also indicates that how hard it is going to be for me. Another adaptation from the comic world, Sylvian White directs this explosive, sexy, grungy, sleek and predictable film. Why they are called the title is unknown, may be they would eventually lose everything in their life? Too philosophical for a bang-bang film.

Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), Jensen (Chris Evans), Roque (Idris Elba), Pooch (Columbus Short) and Cougar (Oscar Jaeneda) are indeed “The Losers”. Team working for CIA, they make sure bad people are killed and they are done with pure fun. In that opening sequence for showing their talents, they jump in among fifty men with AK-47 and take every one of them with pleasure. Then they rescue a group of children used as a mule for drugs and in the chopper they were supposed to leave, they let the kids go. The helicopter is targeted and trashed completely. They fake their death in the process with no choice and vanish. These are the good guys.

Apart from a radio voice, Max is the man who wrote their script to be killed and hence Clay the moral compass of this gang cannot get over the dead children. In comes Aisha (Zoe Saldana) the sex pot with a fetish for violence, offering them ride back home and an opportunity to kidnap Max. Everything is funded and she is in for something else, if you have not figured that out already. Thereon it is shoot first and ask for grenades immediately.

So it is becoming a procedure for the apologies from my side to the unknown readers. The readers looking for a good time absenting them from themselves and bedraggle in this action ride. I am with them and would like to switch off myself if a movie lets me do so and have fun with it. “The Losers” did that a few times with Chris Evans and Columbus Short making their characters work on buddy comedy. It also invited me in for a cool experience with some grunge rock music. But in this short hour and half film, it was elsewhere with me.

For a movie goer looking for that moderate entertainment to barely get good value, the film meets just what they need. While I did like these guys beyond the shooting game, they are not the buddies who I would think it to be cool to have drinks with. They are fun among themselves and does not strike a level of empathy with their audience. In action films with random comedies, that becomes the make or break deal.

Take “Midnight Run”, one of the best action comedy films I have ever seen. Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin bring two spectacular characters. An ex-cop turned bounty hunter and an accountant who embezzled his mob boss on the run. Both of them live among the undergrounds of low character in some level or other and yet at the end of the film, we absolutely love them. Robert De Niro’s character is foul mouthed, bad tempered and would not be a good man to hangout with but we get him and that gets a special point. “The Losers” can be left in the comic books with fancy faces and graphic presentations instead of a full blown film.

Sylvian White like many directors up and growing has worked out the stylish factor for a macho film. Every one of the directors with good financial back up gets that right. May be it is the music video trend that has brought the muse in them, they do a damn good job of mixing action, sex and music in precise fashion. White needs to work out his story and characters now.

Aisha’s character should have been more than a bad girl ready to get rough. She is brought in to play around with the sexual tension among these men and as though cracking a joke, she ends up with Clay with no questions asked. There is not even an attempt to make it a little more important to keep on our toes. “The Losers” will dethrone the existing box office number one and many people will look at me crazy for taking a high pedestal but I did not have the fun I thought would have.

"This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (2006) - Movie Review

When the Deepa Mehta’s “Fire” got it release in India, spur should be putting it lightly among the public. There were threatening demonstration and demolition of theatres screening the film. Now that is something to be scared and you want the members of the censor board allowed it for viewing maintain secrecy, but they are not in India. In India, the majority of the audience are ultra super conservative crowd when it comes to films. Here in the United States, the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) is the sole owners of an unofficial censor board but official rating systems in the film industry. Here is this body of unknown people and they declare them as the representation of American parents rating the movies you and me go to theatres and rent in DVDs. Ever wondered on what basis they give these ratings? No one knows.

Kirby Dick the director of “This Film is Not Yet Rated” takes the war on MPAA. He is not as dramatic as Michael Moore but borderlines on invading privacy. He hires a Private Investigator to finally reveal the MPAA raters. This organization formed when silent films were the main stream to be this supposed guardian to channel the creative works and deem the right audience. Sounds good to me. We do need a guideline and especially when you do not want your kids to see what they are not ready for. Kids do what they want to do eventually though but you do not want to open the door. There is a conscience of responsibility. But if that guideline is more of a standard for box office numbers to be high, what happens to the independent film makers?

The documentary interview film makers Kimberly Pierce who made the daunting “Boy’s Don’t Cry” and was slapped with NC-17. She did not mind as the content indeed needs an age limit but the studio was backing off. Promotions go away and it is like the sick kid no one wants to play with. It is tainted. Several independent film makers go through this and the MPAA cuts off their chances for any kind of marketing or box office return. The creators only ask for transparency which is completely absent in this organization.

Movies are the artwork of a team spirit. It involves directly and indirectly several people. It is an organism and the birth of it comes through many people. When the hard work is done, correcting, criticizing, worrying and spending immense amount of their time, a group of invisible people comes to a closed building with a guideline to rate not even present to judge and decide the miniscule chance of returns for a film. But beyond that is the unfair criticism and it personally offends the author of the work.

Kirby Dick lays out the discrepancy and the no sense strategy in branding NC-17 and R-ratings unevenly on films. There is a funny way in understanding the few opinions which come out of these MPPA. You cannot show too long of an orgasm is one such. We saw a glimpse of pubic hair and that is NC-17 is another argument. And the icing on this whole thing is that there are two religious representations involved in the appeals. What is so secretive about these raters?

Dick links the tie ups of this corporate studio giants to have a strong recommendation on this organization. The head of this corporation Jack Valenti has been proud and righteous about what he has established. Policing might be wrong to say but dictating with unknown rules behind closed doors calls for more severe term than that. There needs a body to provide a guideline for the audience and I will not dispute that. I use it as a guideline for my choices of viewing a film or at least makes me prepared on what to expect out of it rather than shocked. But when it directly affects the income of some and them having to be in the dark of not knowing why they are deemed such rating as they would not expect is hurting.

Any organization of deciding authority runs into the bludgeons of criticisms and unfairness. MPAA initially appears to be running on to that but the simple democratic action of being transparent is denied and that goes far out of line in the country which boasts itself of the system it governs. No one questions that there are films for grown ups, kids and the in between but to not have a method to at least have a semblance of fairness sickens the way MPAA operates.

“This Film Is Not Yet Rated” is a film to be watched by every parent and of course due to the images they show it is not surprising that it gets rated NC-17. Kirby Dick includes that process too in the documentary and revealing the raters he found using his PI. The public declaration of Jack Valenti is that all the raters only work for 5-7 years and they are the representation of the American parents. The raters here are not those and that explains everything that is wrong about the system.

"The Puffy Chair" (2005) - Movie Review

Certainty in many things is a demand but in relationship it is not. It scares the men and in the days of the liberated women, it scares them too. In this era we have discovered and confused on the phenomenon on selfishness while it morphs and reveals as freedom. When it feels right to tie the knot? When it feels she/he is the one? Is it the reason for our life or is it the security we want with the person forever with whom we are at the height of our happiness? Several Hollywood films say those and many of them cheesy and disgusting. Few come through in the independent stream. This is the Duplass brother’s “The Puffy Chair”.

Josh (Mark Duplass) and Emily (Kathryn Aselton) are having dinner. It is a special dinner as Josh is about to venture out for a trip early next morning. She wants the night to be hers and he is glad to hers but there buzzes the phone. A dear friend has called him to hook him up with someone he knows. He is downright rude by completely ignoring Emily and plainly insensitive along the way. She wonders whether she really is dating this person. She rips out the table cloth and walks out. Josh slowly gets out to see where she went and comes back home. Next day Emily wakes up to a soothing music coming through her bedroom window. She peeks to see Josh playing her song in the boom box as the beautiful “Say Anything” have gifted the men to placate a rift with their girl friends. She smiles and he invites her to the road trip. This is Josh and Emily, the couple on the cusp of a proposal or a break up.

Written by Mark Duplass and Jay Duplass, “The Puffy Chair” does not dissect the whacky out of the ordinary characters. Josh is a sweet guy with a sweet tooth for the misery stupid jerk we have seen in our friends, and a little bit in ourselves. He can be super sensitive in hunting down a replica of a puffy recliner chair his father used as a gift but cannot spend extra 10$ for one more person in a motel. Emily knows this and the good outweighs the bad side for her in this young man. She puts up with this.

So the trip is the plan of Josh to say hello to his brother Rhett (Rhett Wilkins), pick up the chair from the seller and drive to Atlanta for his dad’s birthday. Rhett has a bushy beard and brown eye. He has a smile which would comfort any one at pain. He is the easy going hippie of the suburbia. When Josh and Emily visit him, he is hiding in the bushes and comes out with a video camera. In his apartment, he shows the video he shot which is a lizard carefully moving along and providing a strange sense of aestheticism and organic feeling. He is so involved in the surroundings that he does not even remember his dad’s birthday. He decides to tag on and the way he puts it is not intrusive but a smooth blackmail. He gets on the van.

Duplass brothers carry a drama with the similar treatment of natural flavour as Rhett carries himself though they are more responsible than him in their task. In this road trip, people get married, people get disappointed and people get thoroughly confused of themselves, situations and relationships much like our day to day life. We are around the characters and swing by them in conversations. “The Puffy Chair” might be the perfect exemplary of the trend of modern young men and women in this phase of their relationship forced to go beyond it. Josh and Emily from the tell of their body language mention us that their boyfriend-girlfriend tenure has sustained some great mileage. What is next?

And with the young free soul brother finding love in a night and decide to tie the knot , the pressure only gets higher. This does not help Josh in escaping the decision. For Emily this is new to see Rhett being spontaneous but Josh knows better. He does not oppose what Rhett is up for. He rides along and enjoys his brother’s impulsive actions. He warns Emily for not getting her hopes up on a great happy ending for Rhett but at the same time he administers the impromptu wedding on the wee hours under the influence of alcohol with beautiful vows and love. Josh is the complex miser we would never understand the reason for his snobby behaviour.

When everything is pointing fingers towards the commitment phobia Josh, we are stumped by the drive for Emily to push for a permanent fix. It is almost a David Mamet moment when Josh catches that off Emily. These are simple couple with the most common problems of any two people in a relationship. It amuses me that after all these years of so many people in relationship and researches, one would expect that someone would have figured out an answer for these problems. “The Puffy Chair” is one another great inspection of this simple complex thing called relationship and it in its tiny independent way takes bold steps, twists and settles on an ending which is again, so typical of the today’s generation but not so typical for a film about a couple.

"Brother's Keeper" (1992) (Documentary) - Movie Review

“Brother’s Keeper” is an honest documentary. It has a fair eye on its primary people and shows a real life court case without drama, because the reality of that is confusing. Watching this film exposing to a society and people rarely seen in the US. It follows the Ward boys as the people of Munnsville, New York call these old man in their sixties. Delbert Ward, Lyman Ward, Roscoe Ward and Bill Ward were brother living together in a torn down two room shack for all their years. The documentary is the trial of Bill Ward’s death and his brother Delbert Ward being charged with murder in the second degree.

This is not a drama, well it is but not the kind we are used to. These are people oblivious to the world outside of them, rather do not care about it or think about it. All of them can sparsely read and they cover themselves with beards and wrinkled skin. These are not the ordinary men we would like to converse on our way through a lonely road with nothing but their shackled house. But these are the ones we will be seeing and may be get a taste of their living existence.

Directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky are interested in the Wards and more interested in this battle of supposedly hick people and the city slicks. Before this murder trial, even the townspeople of Munnsville did not care much about the brothers. Yet they do not care because that was not their business. The time though has come to stand for them and they stand well for them.

Bill Ward was said to be suffering from excruciating pain. One of the brothers say that he cut himself with a chainsaw. Delbert Ward says he found his brother dead and they called up the neighbours and few friends for help. They go through procedure and for odd reasons, they suspect it to be a murder. A mercy kill by Delbert by suffocating his brother to relieve of his pain. Took into custody, he was questioned with the people he can barely able to understand and vice versa. They needed a confession and they get it without him having no clue of what he was signing.

“Brother’s Keeper” will not affect you in emotional level. It does not portray the love these brothers have for each other. In fact I am not even sure how they relate to that fact. They have lived together all their life and prison might provide them with clean health and surroundings than their house. It is shabby, unclean and gets a super definition for the term mess. They are farmers and that appears to be their passion, though not much is said.

The reason we do not get an in depth exploration of the Wards is that they have grown with the disability of expressing or exploring themselves and the surroundings. They are of course happy in their land and they mind their business as other farmers do. The film documents the sudden burst of the media interest into their story and this changes the Wards too. Not again in the significant fashion we would expect it to be. The change though is significant to the townspeople. Delbert has never came out to a party and danced.

“Brother’s Keeper” is a film which merely tells that there are wide varied people in this far and wide land. They have their life designed and their lifestyle how much ever different from the modern world has, had defined them in certain way. The prejudice we have over these farmers have made the system to come for a strange conclusion than an investigation.

The film did not affect me. Neither did it attempt to. It simply puts forth these happenings in this town and this shift in the attitude of the people around these loners. Suddenly the community unites and stands by Delbert. More than the Wards, this is a story about how sociologically different and similar we humans are. “Brother’s Keeper” is a bland documentary and it is designed to be so because the life of the Wards has the colour we modern freak are far away from.

"Death at a Funeral" (2010) - Movie Review

Why would someone want to remake a UK not so bright comedy “Death at a Funeral? Why would they make it scene by scene without any more additional touch or tone to the original which in itself needed more flair? More than these two why’s is the biggest why of all would be director Neil LaBute, the complex storyteller of “In the Company of Men” and “Lakeview Terrace” take up this venture. Well, learning the answer will only more painful than the questions itself.

“Death at a Funeral” as mentioned is a scene by scene remake of Frank Oz’s UK film of the same title. In this version it focuses on an African American family and their friends, siblings, cousins and uncles. When I reviewed the original film, I mentioned that this is a comedy which builds up to the final half an hour punch lines but worth the wait. When you know the punch lines already, the wait is not worth it. But not every one would have seen the original and I am assuming they will find this comedy fresh. Yet the original and this one has the same problem of not the greatest laugh out comedy and for that fact not the passing time one either.

Lot is on the mind of Aaron (Chris Rock) apart from his dad’s death. A stolen attention by his younger brother Ryan (Martin Lawrence), his wife Michelle (Regina Hall) wanting to impregnate her so that her pregnancy could shut her grieving mother-in-law (Loretta Devine) and the several other things which on a plot line and trailer would invite a hoot for fun. It does in these small moments and does it in bad taste deliberately and celebrates while doing it. All is good for a great laugh. True, but there are no great laughs. Small smiles and you watch it with indifference.

There are several potential supporting roles apart from the lead of Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence. In the original Alan Tudyk did an admiring job of being the accidentally drugged Simon and here James Marsden rises up to the occasion being the single grace trying everything and putting himself out here literally to get the guffaws and he gets it. Tracy Morgan, Luke Wilson, Danny Glover and Zoe Saldana try to revive a failing patient.

And what a good actor Peter Dinklage is and here he redoes the role again in vain. Here comes another why, why would Dinklage undertake this role when he would have known what the original fizzled out to be? “Death at a Funeral” is many these questions which goes on and on for an hour and thirty minutes. May be it affected me doubly to revisit the film.

The thing is I did like the original a little bit and have a positive review and I am surprised to find myself disappointed with this remake. May be when someone decides to give a different flavour of a splendid plot in the screenplay for the American audience, you want to explore the originality in places. Especially if that someone is a talented director having a care for dark territories with a comedy merciless yet realistic.

I do not have much else to say about this film as I did most of it for the original film. I almost did not write this review as to wondering what is different about this to have a say about this. Then I began to sketch out the questions and the expectations it automatically came with and here Iam crossing the one page mark in my review. “Death at a Funeral” is a little fun if you have not seen the original but if you have then it would be painfully repetitive and disappointing in every step of its way.

"Kick-Ass" (2010) - Movie Review

Before going into “Kick-Ass”, I need to analyze these supposed waves over the fact that 11 year old Chloe Moretz uttering the C word in the film. But more than that would be the bloodshed she creates. There is a sociopathic smile she drops after she massacres a roomful of supposed criminals but that is how she gets brought up by her Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage), a man for vengeance in a super hero costume. My take on this is that if Quentin Tarantino did a similar portrait (which he did through cartoons in “Kill Bill” series for Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Isii) and he would be praised for the novelty which he should be. Here when director Matthew Vaughn does something out of a comic book, the world comes in barging with judgments. Did it disturb me? Yes, but that is the nature of the Hit Girl and this is how it will go down when someone grows up by a revenge seeking man.

When the world and Hollywood has ended itself from the unstoppable river of super hero films, here comes “Kick-Ass”. It happens in a very real world and the high school kid Dave (Aaron Johnson) is not doing so bad. He is not the loser kid but not the popular kid. He is the average kid, as many of us are. But we need cravings, itches and then the possibility of being someone to be liked, loved and cared. Dave is no different and as he narrates that the every one at some point or other in their life had this fantasy, he wants to do it. He wants to be the super hero.

Apart from the violence from kids, “Kick-Ass” has lot more to offer than many might ignore. It has Nicolas Cage for starters as this lovable and scary father training his eleven year old girl to create an appetite for violence. She does everything daddy asks which includes sustaining multiple rounds of short distance shots from her dear father himself. She obliges and later they have ice cream together. Underneath this bubbling relationship is a hurt father gone wrong all over his life. We get a snapshot of the tragedy and we are not convinced but good enough for his bloody idea to get even, with the drug kingpin Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong).

On the trend of “Watchmen”, “Kick-Ass” gives a rude shock to the fantasizing crowd to be their childhood super heroes. Dave dresses up in mask and his first effort results in to get steel bones than bringing crime down. One good thing is that his nerves for feeling pain are jacked and he can withstand several beatings though his fighting skills needs more than training. It needs to give up.

Vaughn gets serious, then funny, serious again and poetic and finally an old fashioned Hollywood ending. The dialogues are calculatedly subtle and amplified. It is like programming software, you do not sweat and write a lengthy code to finish your job or sweat a lot and finish it in few lines. Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman do not sweat and yet write one line to finish their job in style. It is evident when Dave compares his jump from fantasy to real action as that to serial killers.

If someone few years ago said that Nicolas Cage as the tied up hostage super hero burning would yell and guide his kid daughter to kill several men in the dark, I would have called you crazy. Who else than Cage can pull out a scene like that to work without embarrassing the film or himself? And who would have thought that the director of “Layer Cake” would make it with style, dark poetry and sentiments?
“Kick-Ass” alters between fantasy and reality that sometimes it takes the former to show the possibility and the later to show how bloody it could get. Though the film does not take the conscience stand of right and wrong, it sees its characters as right and wrong. As any super hero film would do, Mark Strong becomes the unquestionable villain while his aspiring sleazy son Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) surprisingly becomes a partner in crime.

Chloe Moretz has proved herself a worthy child actor in “(500) Days of Summer” and the recent “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. Here she pulls the toughest stunt literally in both acting and action. Mindy is a marginally experimental product of her dad and she moderates that with care. We weep for her and are ridiculously worried and scared. She can slice a throat without hesitation and enjoy a hot chocolate simultaneously. What happens to her after the film might not be a pretty picture in the real world, but we are shooed off before that. “Kick-Ass” is violent, disturbing, funny and beyond that, is unique. You might have a problem with kids swearing and spilling blood but that should not be a reason to dismiss this film.

"Conversations with Other Women" (2005) - Movie Review

Aspiring and being is two different thing and “Conversations with Other Women” lives rather comfortably in the former. It is about two people, a man and a woman in their post mid life crisis stage but living in the past. We do not know they have a past till the split screens annoy the hell out of us. Then it assumes to be comfortable with itself and wrongs me in collating multiple screens. They are so distant and so apart. It is rather unbelievable to think these two had a past and they were madly in love.

Thin and sharp Aaron Eckhart is the man while the soft woman with a devilish spray is Helena Bonham-Carter as the woman. They are in a wedding and he notices her, she notices him with her peripherals. She is searching for a place to smoke, he smiles at her restlessness and wants to say Hi to the cuteness. He gets two drinks and swings by to offer. She says she does not drink but he says she smokes. They drop an empty laugh. This reads well and plays mediocre. Thus becomes a film full of mediocre moments.

Hans Canosa, the director has worked hard to provide multiple angles of the same conversation in hidings. This technique is spot on when the couple takes the elevator and a nosy Bridesmaid (Olivia Wilde) is in the middle. There it blossoms. The awkwardness splits and partitions. Canosa’s film has a never say die attitude though. Every time I was in the verge of this split screen ending soon, it goes into further ADD of flashbacks and possible behaviours of other characters these two mention to be with.

Whether two people once had this magical relationship for short time run off due to insecurity and age come back in their late thirties to talk as strangers? Yes, definitely. It was done so beautifully in “Before Sunset” the sequel at its best for its predecessor “Before Sunrise”. There happened two people, strangers to be precise and fall in love hopelessly. They take the audience along with their hearts. Then they split and meet back in the sequel. This film is an experimentation in merging those two beautiful films and showing it badly in two screens.

May be if the story was said without these search for focus, it would have given an opportunity to learn about these two. Both of them are with someone else and this ache carried on by each other for all these time is clear. They want to sleep and then what? The film moves on with no surprises and as the characters are destined to be unfinished and vacant inside.

The film fails because there was no spark or chemistry or connection or whatever the today’s online dating scene suggests to have. The ambiguity of them as strangers and simultaneously in the complex way Canosa puts across to indicate their connection in the past seems more than subtle and less than interesting. But these are two talented actors working quite ambitiously to give their best. The sound of the idea would have deceived them.

“Conversations with Other Women” is not an experimentation in the story or the characters. In films like these where the sweet knife fights want the audience to love the couple depends on the dialogues and the film has some fortune cookie statements. It is not cocky but uninteresting in itself. While writing about the disappointment of the material, I was able to come to the right reason for its debacle. And it is its own killer. The couple are introduced as strangers and then there is hint of their past. The characters know what they are playing and that is the passion which reignites them. The joke is fun to play when the involved party are participants. Out here, audience are in the dark and we do not understand their inside joke and we do not appreciate the director’s rudeness in having a personal moment. “Conversation with Other Women” ignores its audience and does not become self absorbing enough to kindle the devious poetry in it.