"Beowulf" (3D) (2007) - Movie Review

The difference between “300” and “Beowulf” is that the humans in the latter take the aid of Computer generated animation too. In more explanatory terms it means that it is an animation based upon the computer imagery giving an illusion and reality of the actors/actresses in flesh and blood. It is a legendary story of hero and his deadly skill of slaying creatures of disgusting elements wrote as a poem with anonymous author. When I went to “300”, it is for the experience rather than the story and it appealed to its material. It did not alter much for “Beowulf” and with 3D it stressed more on the experience. It is truly entertaining and loyally flawed for its genre but miraculously survives by animation and screenplay.

Growing up around these legendary tales of great warrior as that of “Conan the Barbarian” and lot other movies, as the time goes by it is a skill to present the film in a different dimension. Director Robert Zemeckis who knows the mechanics of it, weaves the tale through the spectacular visuals of computer animation and the trump card beauty factor of Angelina Jolie. It is something unexplainable when the superficial element becomes a deception and seduction of believability which goes as mystical as the demoniac character of Grendel’s (voice of Crispin Glover) mother (voice of Angelina Jolie).

The 3D is breathtaking when the crispness of the minute strata of skin, complexion and the touch to the screen factor hits us as hard as a stormy wind but still feels as a breezy air. It cringes when the details of Grendel are navigated so close to our eyes and the yellow blood and saliva of the monster oozes onto us. And I think about the MPAA rating of PG-13 wherein it champions itself into the region of R-rating comfortably. It struck me quite surprising and some what threatening when the animation is used as a luring factor of PG-13 viewers in actuality goes far beyond it.

The known story gets over fast and as predicted. The turn occurs when Beowulf (voice of Ray Winstone) meets Grendel’s mother. A warrior tipped into the wells of lust and greed. As solid, structured and muscular, he looks, as she circles around to make him the prey of two deceiving mistakes in life. There is not much after that to see the long after his reign, he is tired and helpless. But wait, what am I talking? There is no analysis of the character but an observation and imaginative games of the audience in terms of their perception moulds the layers of them. This weird property of it borderlines into a film which skates on the shallowness of the characters and manages to do it successfully enough to make it disappear in the midst of grandeur.

True to its marketing, the picture will offer a good entertaining but looking within, it has more holes and tears than Beowulf making over the generations of demons. We never understand the real agenda of the demons. They acquire wealth and store it in the depths of a cave. What is the use of it? Mixing fantasy with the real world has its share of making us know more about the persons in it. As it goes for King Hrothgar (voice of Anthony Hopkins), who has a secret which gets passed on to Beowulf. Mentioned earlier, the demolishing beauty of computer generated Jolie does answers their instant fall in integrity and character, but it would have been better to stop with it. The film ends with a note of some reform in Beowulf but it does not nail strong enough with the screen. It wears out along with the animation which becomes nothing new after an hour and half in to the film.

With contradicting opinions of mine, I had a good time. I would not go about hailing high for its visuals and cast but it does not aim high either. I got irked by the brutality but it is required to hate a character merely for its appearance and its merciless visceral executions of its victims. We hardly know any of them and it should be for a movie focused to fit in the genre. The errors props up when they try to explain themselves for fulfilling their conscience.

"Colonel Redl" (Language - German) (1985) - Movie Review

Colonel Redl was a high ranked Austrian officer during the periods of Austria-Hungary but also a Russian spy. The film at the very beginning says that everything is fabricated but has the historical events attached to that correctly; otherwise it does not make sense. The film directed by István Szabó is a study of that character. We feel sorry but awfully nothing too of Redl (Klaus Maria Brandauer), since his idea of himself did not mean much to him. His life is a constant pretension of some one he never even comes close to. He believes in the Emperor because his mother said so at an age of innocence. Redl takes it most of his life.

I never dared to look for an answer to the person next to me in examination because of my mother’s words of “It is better to get a zero than to cheat in exam” when I was a kid. Those words nailed into me so hard that I stick to it blindly. While at that age it is merely a fear, as I grew up understanding the integrity attached to it. It went easy for continuing that practice from that young age till the point of realization and did not impose a pressure upon me. Redl’s realization is situation of conflicting and disastrous results. Something he has worked for many years. This denial of him mounts up the frustration, crisis and an end, an end he wants to but the same contemplation runs in it too.

He disconnects bonds with his family. He loves them but does not want to expose that he is Jewish. His abiding nature is some times irritatingly loyal. His adulthood makes him to see things what every one sees. The mistakes made by his godly Monarchy. But he convinces himself that these things happen and finally it is the individual responsible action which adds up to the success of a regiment, he believes that would excel. His reasoning is correct but the purpose of that action is opposite with that of rest of the people. But Redl needs to fight something more than political disbelief in him. He is gay. When a “Brokeback Mountain” still instigates whispers, strange looks and a stupid phobia in the current “modern” world, it is suicidal in every aspect during the times of early 1900s. And to top it off is the military designation. Consisting one hundred percent men in the unit who measure their virility of testosterone in blood and sweat as bravery and in bed with women.

The story of this man who lived a life of pretension and fake ignites an identity in us. He discards his trueness, distances his family and even ruins the friendship or his love with Kristof Kubinyi (Jan Niklas) for one thing of repaying the opportunity provided by the Emperor. As a poor peasant he gets to be educated and trained in privileged school. Training focused more on nourishing the faith over the ruling kingdom. The film does not take the main cover of sexual orientation per se which can either be to the period of limited acceptance of the concept or as such that being a part and not the whole itself. Either way it plays as an essential ingredient than an overcooked dish.

Two things mark well ahead of its time and those are performance by Klaus Maria Brandauer and the excellent cinematography by Lajos Koltai. Brandauer’s modulation, body language and physique represent the true self of the character and the performance of delivering the dialogues moulds the falsifying nature of Redl. He is clear and lucid in his eyes but in a room with himself or his only lady friend Katalin (Gudrun Landgrebe), he exposes the nature of his identity. It is ironical to be a counter intelligence officer for Austria and also a Russian Spy, he was never able to truthful to one side in it too.

The cinematography magically acquires the whiteness of snow and the buildings of the geographical location, but it is the application of light source in every scene which invents a style I have often seen in Indian Cinematographer P.C. Sriram. Sriram most of the times applies it for glossiness but Koltai blends in with the symbolic direction. The essence of the Redl and his life is symbolized in one scene. He is been called by his wife to come from balcony where he stands thinking. He looks, then comes back and carefully closes a shining light by three windows. Even then light shines on him and he finally brings the screen. But it still leaks out with same strength in the unclosed mid part of the screen. With all layers of shield, he is still illuminated by who he really is.

The film did not affect me as a great tragedy. It affected me in how living in a classified society puts some one to move away from them and honestly believe in the shade of unreal façade. The story is not about the right and wrong of Redl. It is the analysis, dissection and finally his discovery. It might shake up or fizzle out or be stagnant but the experience of understanding Redl should be a hard task to be missed.

"Lions for Lambs" (2007) - Movie Review

Why patriotism is considered the only avenue for doing something for the country or as such for the living foundation of human being? It is due to the dysfunctional and the corrupted politics which as its very nature has not only put the thought of not getting inside of it, but shuns most of us to taking the duties necessary to step forward. The idealistic, as the term itself brings some classification of impossibility, are set to make their start in army as courage or join the politics to succumb for the alterations in their beliefs, thoughts and desperation – better of the worst. Truly titled “Lions for Lambs” is a direct quote of a German officer during World War – I saying about the courage and bravery of the soldiers led by the inefficiency of their leaders (which they also enlighten us during the course of the movie).

As such the stretch of taking the multiple stories connected for convincing true nature throws light upon how the Americans and in fact looking the big picture of any country, we see how the information is been sold, misled or sits in distraught of non-action members of it which forms the underlining essence of director Robert Redford’s film. Lined are the stories of decisive and maximum force of action into the life of a human into this world. What is to survive, live, fear, breathe and fight for comes in the bouncing arguments of each sequences. Two of the sequences do much of the conversations and discussions, the movie beckons upon. The interview of Senator Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise) by Janine (Meryl Streep), which is more of a political execution of marketing strategies in the name of honesty and redemption. And how does this action of clinical catharsis happens and the answer Irving gives is fight fire with fire. In fact more fire with burning fire. If deploying the troops in Iraq is the mistake, then take it to the avenging deaths of the innocent people of 9/11, the real target in first place on September 12th 2001, Afghanistan. This is the preaching and slogan of terms, the Senator uses upon. In the intensive cross fires of questions and explanations comes the real thorn for Janine as a journalist. The media became an integral part of spreading the directive emotions the people needed. Hatred, vengeance and action. The three terms of culminating the hoisting of flag of freedom as it sounds and mainly to infest feel good factor into them. After six years, every one is confused about what exactly it is and given up what it requires to step back from the messed up situation. Is it the end? To shun away comfortably into our sweet luxury of disarrayed security and circled interest of immediate loves? Redford questions quite strongly and inventively through some thorough performances by himself, Meryl Streep and especially Tom Cruise.

But what exactly does Redford conclude upon? A constant question circled over the head to look for solutions but as it ends, there is a solution within us. Every time a discussion is evolved out of a movie, it means something for its making. A discussion worth having which may not change some one forever as it does in the movie for the kid, Todd Hayes (Andrew Garfield) but something which might result in the small actions for any one. Its good to start some where.

With a nice approach and shift of momentum in every scene, I did find it odd when a class of students easily uses profanity. May be I can accept the happenings inside Professor Stephen Malley’s (Robert Redford) office, but during my Masters in University of Missouri-Rolla, I have never witnessed or heard of such easy talking. I did hear (and you know what “hear” means) about an angry student use an “f” word over a professor which (obviously) resulted in some consequences of its own. I will not forgive it for the strong agenda of the film. A director/actor good at building a short and thoughtful film should have rewired those properly.

A multilayered story line needs the immense aid of editing and acting which rightly leverages the film and unexpected slip down (and it does appear just before the end) now and then only formulates into a sensible cinema in the end. It is skin on fit role for Cruise but his charm is for deception and not to impress young voluptuous girls, his straight powerful eyes are not for seduction but for marketing him into the clean chair of power and acquisition. He had a similar scene in “Magnolia” with a reporter slowly bending him and breaking as it goes. Cruise over there showed complete destruction and unconvincing ego shredding slowly and out here he gives the same but twists the tale to frost it with eloquent swindling. Streep’s body language and expression lifts up the conversation into a room full of lies and blame.

It does seem like an endless circle of conversation. It appears more of throwing stones at each other rather than coming for a stop which reflects the act of engaging in the war. The lining of those infinite talks end again in an open gate but sparks something. And I seriously hope one not choosing violence (even it means against patriotism) to be the only way of doing something to this big giant structure of conflicting emotions of ego, belief and misinterpretations.

"Lars and the Real Girl" (2007) - Movie Review

Chuck Noland of “Cast Away” starts speaking to volleyball in fear of his loneliness. In that no human’s island, he desperately tries to keep himself company. In a sense of avoiding going insane, he keeps him sane by talking to aptly named “Wilson” as the brand name. Anyone approaching him for the first time would look at it in an obvious sense of some one going out of his mind. Perceptions, plays a key part in both the cases. With Lars (Ryan Gosling), when he talks with a doll, he does not know it and others know he is going insane. Chuck Noland knew he was talking with volleyball while Lars believes his doll to be a lively girl.

Lars has lost touch with being around with people. He stays outside in a garage of his Brother Gus’ (Paul Schneider) house. So here is a man who for every possible opportunities of a community so willing to help (as we see them easily accommodating the change Lars brings upon) and a girl in his work Margo (Kelli Garner) interested him, he opts to stay out of it. Nothing much is explained about it. There are some more things the movie does not explain much which as a whole lacks and also what essentially is important for an independent movie, solemn emotion.

Gus’ wife Karin (Emily Mortimer) needs to stand in front of Lar’s car to invite him to their house for dinner. He stands in the door step of their house while conversing and does not let them inside his house either. He is a lonely man who prefers to be with himself. Lars one fine day knocks on their door and introduces them to his girl friend, Bianca. The problem is Bianca is a human sized doll. A more precisely, a sex doll his cube mate in his office comments early in the movie. “Anatomically correct” is what he says. He is deluding himself is the statement of their family doctor Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) says and advises to keep the show going until he does not need of it anymore.

The plot is well set. The start invites us quite anxiously. We want to know Lars. We want to understand him which sadly rest of the others in the movie does not want to. They care like the whole world is falling upon him, true. They do everything possible to make him feel not different. But no one really touches the base wherein they take a moment, sit and talk with him. Every one is so cheerful and accommodative, but the real thing of getting to speak directly with him or the attempt seems to be not shown. Even Dagmar graces around him and we only learn that he does not want to be touched. While it tells us how remotely one person has secluded himself from every one, it leaves with the same expression as any one in the town does, sympathy. But I do not think that’s the real emotion director Craig Gillespie would have aimed upon.

The movie works marginally appealing overall. It is nicer to see a lifeless doll gets its life with every one else and how it becomes a greater part in a community. It is believable to have a town with people like that. They are closed and look out for each other. At one moment while I was questioning why they are not explaining his delusions, I stopped and let me reminded of a thing. They never promised and the film never committed on giving something over it. Hence I put off that thought and went on. And as the end progressed, it brought out the question back into my mind. Gus and Lars have a talk on manhood which Gus takes a turn into his own apology of how he left Lars with their father to pursue his family life of his own. Lars never seems to mind about it and it rarely seems to be his present state of actions. What exactly did happen in between them? Was Lars always like this of being alone? And if he moved very recently into their house, how does it appear that every one acts as they know him for quite a long time?

As it can be summarized, the main intention of the film is to make us see through the world of people who want to be listened and responded of their way of liking and desires. But we never see it in action of importance or something to strike us comically or emotionally. When Lars spends a night with Margo, it appears more of her having a bowling fun than with Lars. But they try to turn it the other way round. These are the scenes which fail to strengthen the relationship they desperately want to build.

Ryan Gosling single handedly brings us strong, charismatic, sweet and lost Lars in many ways possible. It is his final tears of lost for real makes the film stands for its purpose. The choices of winter season, the pink colour representations are some nice touches to have the feel of happy but in a near end of losing some one, fits the bill. The film is a feeling of mirage. They make us feel hopeful of something but we never see it.

"American Gangster" (2007) - Movie Review

Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” looks compressed even with the whopping two hours and forty minutes of finely detailed crafty crime/drama film. I would have liked some more climatic turmoil of emotions with Frank’s (Denzel Washington) personal life that is with his wife Eva (Lymari Nadal) as that of other side of the coin in the movie Detective Ritchie’s (Russell Crowe). Yet the film is as classy, closely arranged and quite meticulously constructed film for an epic art on gangster/cop movies.

Year around late sixties and Frank Lucas takes control of the Harlem by Manhattan from his late boss; he looks at an avenue for doing a business of his own. A business as a pyramid IBO says as his own, only difference is the Lucas’ material of distribution is heroin. The rise of the Lucas business is shown as any other gangster saga would do. The film’s balance lies in not giving the punching lines as one would expect to. With strong performers and stars as Washington and Crowe, they do not compromise on it. I guess that’s how a good actor plays their part. They stick to their channels and focus on the character they have been given.

Frank’s gesture of acute and sharp anger to rattle the members in a room encounters an unknown dimension of indifference when the same comes facing Ritchie across the table. He sees some one different from the people he has seen all his life. An honesty and lucidity rarely visible in his line of trade and mostly in cops at that point of time, where Frank Serpico took the stands in 1971. Hence Frank knows what he is dealing with. The two counter pointing characters come face to face in the final ten to twenty minutes but the screen split till that time makes them stand on the same scale. The editing works its charms when their lives are shown in parallels. Ritchie fighting for custody of his child and Frank dealing with his big family of brothers and cousins.

The film is not as detailed as “JFK” would go and not as violent or thematic as any gangster picture would lie on. Instead there is a combination of both in a nature of stealth and expose it aims upon for its content. I was not able to care for both the characters. Frank looks like pretty much content till the date he got into the hands of law while Ritchie is surviving on his acknowledgement of his honesty and well being. While he knows it cannot be expected much from his cop circle, he begins to expect the deserving nature in the ongoing case of custody. The punctuating significance of that is flashed in front of him when he hears something so terrible and so true from his wife Laurie (Carlo Gugino) to rethink who he really is. Self-righteous is a subconscious succumbing of admiring yourself too much to be lost in it, forever.

Frank is a mystical stature as Washington gives us. He is calm, calculative and viciously deadly when it comes to sitting on the wrong side of his table. He is a routine man. We know that even before the team of Ritchie narrates his daily time table. He is neatly dressed and lays low. He lies really low. He calls up his brother Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who begins to mimic the flashy Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.) to say that loudness draws unnecessary attention, especially tricky for his business. He breaks his own rule not able to deny the flashy coat his wife gets him. He gets the attention. This is the one mistake he never wanted to commit.

There is something so peculiar and ironical about the lives of cops and gangster. In most of the gangster movies, the motivation for consistent progress in their field is to enrich their family. It also forms a weak point too. For cops portrayed over the screen, they have a bad marriage or relationship with their counterpart. Struggling hard to keep up with the “normal” family life they and their better halves seek. Still both of them fall short and hit hard on the floor. Their jobs defeat their purpose, I guess but without that they seem to have no purpose.

In the widespread movie of drama and crime, Scott chooses three to four acupuncture points to lift the material from the line of normalcy of goodness to greatness. To do that he needed the supporting characters as less stardom as possible and challenge the main characters with authoritative and convincing balance of expressions and confrontations. It comes through the role of Mama Lucas (Ruby Dee), Laurie and of course Washington and Crowe. But to assemble them into the order and place to create those moments, that took Ridley Scott to put it good. I was not able to care much for Frank or Ritchie, as they seem to want one another but I admired Ritchie for his honesty and Frank for accepting who he really is. “American Gangster” is not about two people learning about one another (which would have been great for the shortened three minute friendship between them to venture into a new film of itself) but two people learning about themselves that they pretty much ought to have expected as eventuality.

"Bee Movie" (2007) - Movie Review

There is a high level of bar set for “Bee Movie”. A small creature interacting with the humans was top notched in an adult and yet funny and sweet manner by “Ratatouille” for all audiences. But Jerry Seinfeld’s stamp on this would have had team up for the challenge. There are strong one liners but does not add up to save a plot flimsy and sometimes uninteresting too. I being “Seinfeld” fan thought that couple of dry jokes could only be got by the series fan. I caught couple of those. The whole movie is a material of Jerry trying to insert in a plot with no care and seriousness it wanted to carry through the film.

As Barry B. Benson (Jerry Seinfeld), a bee is astonished to learn that his life is tuned for good; he begins to venture into the outside world along with the pollen jocks. And when a commander/trainer for pollen jocks says before the great adventure punctuating that “Remember, Bees cannot fly in rain” then there should be rain. We know that it is not exactly for bees but for us. Barry stumbles into the human world and yields to temptation of speaking to Vanessa (Renée Zellweger), in thanking her for saving his life. Then you can see why the story loses its control.

In “Ratatouille”, the surprise of the human knowing a rat moves fast but there is a sense of a shock and the character itself is so longing for some one to hear and mainly understand him. Vanessa clearly is dazed and confused when Barry speaks up. It moves on faster too but the way we get to know Barry in few but strong initial scenes did not carry the same for the character of Vanessa. Hence she is stuffed up in a script which desperately in need of female character to counter up Barry. They become friends but trying to take it up in to an infatuation/romance at the start is just oddly creative and even in the animation world it does not work out well.

Seinfeld in one of his interview said that people of course will identify him in the character and added that if he was born as a bee, it will be like Barry. It is absolutely true. We do see Barry “Seinfeld” Benson and it is the reason lots of jokes which would have lulled up if some one else voiced for it intrudes positively as a chuckle. The problem is that they did not work the surroundings around him sufficiently. They sure did build up a plot but it is tacky. Bees, the tiny fellas with fear of bitter sting also having their sweetness of charm are on their own territory of ironical characteristics. There could have been numerous plot and personality build up in the hive itself. And sure does reflect when the sequence involved out there.

We want more bee terminology, inside jokes and building up of their routines. When the movie started off, it was so promising. It perfectly identifies with humans in day to day routine of clock work in boring busy way. The enthusiasm rose up to see the society looks at itself in a way it has never looked up, of course in its animated funny manner. I do not need a human to learn that. Or even if it is, the comparison should have been an obvious manner of how ridiculously same both the architectural form up of both lifestyles are and there you have a laugh, creativity and a thought too. It started off with every thing of those and knotted into this mess of law suit, interaction with humans and a Hollywood cheesy finale to down it up further more.

Sure the film does not drain you (as any animation movie) and it has action comedy for kids and dry trade mark Seinfeld moments. But grouping together it as a film does not add up to its value. As for the animation, the buzz or the pace or the creativity goes very little when competing with the current giants of big time films.

I do need to say that I did expect something for the banner of Seinfeld. But as “Seinfeld” sitcom with grows on you as many episodes are watched and revisited, we do not have so much time in a movie theatre. Hence you can see directors Steve Hickner and Simon J. Smith hurrying up the plot. While Vanessa was going nuts and unbelievable in hearing a bee speak, the rest of the human world automatically acknowledge it. Seinfeld does use it to his advantage with a one liner by jabbering up something when the world expects the bee to speak and then coming up with a casual kidding. Seinfeld strikes but movie does not.

"In the Shadow of the Moon" (Documentary) (2007) - Movie Review

How did you feel? This is the eternal question which every time some one does different, I mean totally different and out of the world, any one would ask. How did they feel? How did you felt? And honestly how does any one remember the way they felt when that wondrous occasion happened? Even when the surviving members of the NASA team of the Apollo series of mission to moon tell that, it is feeling so small to be negligent but something for once in the history of humans shared equally all over the world when they went through and set their foot on another world.

This is a documentary which would be a treasure for the science enthusiasts. We get to see the rare and unimaginable clips of the pictures and motion pictures taken by the astronauts and by the NASA during the missions. It is an experience to view those and get the feeling to see hanging desolated and serene particle is our earth suspended as a light in the darkness of space. The dashing blue of the ocean, white clouds of heaven shying the brown rugged beauty of land are seen from a distance only very few encountered in this era of humans. For that, David Sington directed “In the Shadow of the Moon” is something to be vaulted into the everlasting journey of humans. As a documentary film, it just might tip your patience around the mid and the final ten minutes regains control to unite us as it supposed to into the interesting and moving reminder of our existence.

The up close shots of those men seeps pleasantly their emotions through their wrinkled expressions to straighten up in delight, passion and nostalgic. The film is a good thing for once to sit back and look at those times. The precious times when for political drive and scientific thirst, lot of people sat for their own and for others, country and earth to build umpteen rockets, lost people and still kept on going to do something which marked humans as one for once. Technology as our lives and body has taken to be granted now a day. There is a sense of those when we see the documentary and especially when Alan Bean tells that it is good that we have weather. It is good to breathe, it is good to see people, it is good to buy an ice cream and enjoy it while melts. It is good to be alive and write this.

Despite brining the feeling they anticipated, the documentary loses the grip in the midst of the details of the step by step journey of the first ever landing on the moon. The men who patiently, modestly and quite openly admitting what they went through and what they did not as many would assume, is a clean feel of air in a documentary where there are possibilities of making it a reality drama. But it should not have elongated more than seventy five minutes. I wonder why even after giving me the satisfaction of something invisibly appealing, it fell short. May be I have started to take technology for granted more than I supposed to. The feel of instantly reaching any one anywhere in this world has mesmerized me in to the sweet curvature of fantasy land where to get amused by these things go flat and steady after a while. But this is a movie to be cherished for the epic voyage it gives us and to take the times of those moments when the whole world watching the TV for those steps in to the foreign body indeed brings goose pumps.

They did address what I wanted more of. The feeling out there of being one and alone and appreciate the stillness of that unknown surface, the entire population can only imagine while those few felt it for real. They tangentially touch it but not dig deep into it. I would have also loved to see how much their life changed. I did not ask for a dramatic movie but to finally conclude that they are humans and they did something no one could ever do. Quite true, but every one could not do everything and punctuating that along with their post Apollo 11 experience in further would have given another dimension. But I will not complain much as I generally will for most other movies which gave some sluggishness, for the fact that I am alive and breathing and will cherish it as Alan Bean says.

"The Marriage of Maria Braun" (Language - German/English) (1979) - Movie Review

Even if bad acting and untold emotional rattling is forgiven, “The Marriage of Maria Braun” the first in the BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland, official name of West Germany) trilogy of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder does not fill in good memories of a good cinema. In Germany, a nation surviving the war and a country to be rebuilt from scratch, one woman desperately tries to build a life for her so determined that she goes cold and numb which becomes a self destructive exercise in forgetting the real intended purpose for her survival, love. The film let down by some bad acting and a screenplay of dullness, negativity and no soul is dead in most of its frames.

Maria Braun (Hanna Schygulla) amidst the bombs and bullets marries Hermann Braun (Klaus Löwitsch). The marriage lasts for half a day and a full night which still lasts forever for Maria. She hopefully goes to train station every day to get a word from Hermann posted in war front. The currency is just a paper now and things which are remotely useful or for pleasure becomes the money. But we do not feel the real intensity of it since the protagonist is emotionless. She remains rigid to the happenings around and which does not mean she is happy. She wants to live a wealthy life along with her husband. Even upon learning that he is dead from Hermann’s friend, Willi (Gottfried John) who returns and rejoins with Maria’s friend Betti (Elisabeth Trissenaar). This is a crucial scene when it happens. While she is happy for her friend, she is broken down to nothing by the loss of a reason for her living. Hanna Schygulla an unusual beauty falls flat which marks the start of a suicidal script with a bad casting.

An obsessed person over a life of future of herself and her husband, she pursues with an African American army official Bill (George Eagles) and in fact gets pregnant with his baby. If in 2001 disaster “Pearl Harbor”, the dead character of Ben Affleck can return with asinine predictability, then the 1979 German movie has all the right in the world to have it. Hermann returns and that’s when things goes bad to worse when Maria kills Bill (may be she wanted to hurt him to make Bill leave the grip over Hermann). Schygulla again does not capitalize the anchoring point of the film with confidence and emotion.

It is not that she cannot act because the film uplifts specifically during her encounter with Mr. Oswald (Ivan Desny), a French Businessman she meets in train and advances her career through him. We get that she is straight as an arrow in affairs and blunt to bludgeon him with unexpected rude truths. She knows what she wants in per se of sexuality and her love belongs to only person, Hermann. She surprises with giving Maria a definition of whom really is she. We come to know her blind love for her husband and while she does not tell to Oswald, she makes it clear of the so called relationship they have. The twenty minutes of it is the only true honest moment the director spends the film with us and more than that is the tenure when Schygulla is convincing and good in her Maria.

It is a dreadful position to be in a place torn down with a non-existent economy or future to rely upon. To have a dream like Maria had is an honest ambition. It is also sad that to survive and to achieve it, she needs to pass on through the men but what I do not understand is the missing face of Hermann. He does show her love by taking the blame for Bill’s murder but even through the bad acting of Schygulla we see the relentless and desperate love she has for Hermann but we don’t even see the slightest hint of it in Hermann. A failed chemistry glaringly shows the bland screenplay further to its crawling demise. There are good things to say about the film too. Camera work and the angles of the placement along with its movement with the characters are catchy and try to enhance the positions of each personality in that scene. The only supporting role which remains true to its character and performance is Ivan Desny as Oswald. A man trying hard to find his last days to be filled in peace and pleasure from a woman filled with bitter and pain.

This film and the next two movies in the trilogy are supposed to be iconic in the play of women in the building up of West Germany as it is said. I sympathized with Maria and all of them to live through the post war trauma of finding hard for a social life and coming to an existence of importance in a shattered world. I was able to do that after the movie was over and when I read about the scenarios of the situations they were in. I did not sympathize for the route Maria took and fall into the depths of lost personality. Unfortunately reading about it does not invoke the same feeling. The film’s failure bodes up high and clear for that.

"Dan in Real Life" (2007) - Movie Review

I had some doubts on how Steve Carell is going to differentiate himself from his previous films and also from TV series, “The Office”. His mannerisms and face comics especially in situations of embarrassments or awkward scenes were the reasons behind it. He makes “Dan in Real Life” more worth watching till the end which loses its tracks and falls for the stereotype ending the Hollywood now has materialized and seasoned the audiences to expect and relish upon. Anything new is good and new for considerable amount of repetition loses its shine and interest.

Director Peter Hedges gets us to know Dan (Steve Carell) so fast that we sympathize without much knowing about him. He is a widower with two teenage daughters Jane (Alison Pill) and Cara (Brittany Robertson) and their baby sister Lilly (Marlene Lawtson). Dealing with kids is as such a painful complexity of parenting and with teenagers it just gets more tangled. And they are girls and as a father and mainly as a man, he knows other men of their age. I can assume may be not literally of not being a parent but on some level the empathy of a single father and his horror imagination of his daughter with another boy. He knows the boy and his thoughts, because he was him at one point of time. But what he does not know is that the girls are growing and it is life. You can be watchful but being over protective is going to move the kids away. As soon as they think they are adult, handling them as an adult is not feasible but making them understand the traits of adult hood as they get to see the world is something Dan need to learn on. The kids in their school days as generally think that their father is completely devoid of love; Dan’s daughters are no different, especially Cara who strongly believes she has found her true love in his school mate, Marty (Felipe Dieppa).

He works as an advice columnist moving on grieving for his lost love, his wife. And at the edge of his career advancement, the last thing is his daughters not liking him. They go for their regular yearly get together with his parents, brothers and sisters in Rhode Island. With everyone in the tender care of their loved ones, Dan is confined and located in a laundry room with the washing machines rambling. Left alone, disliked by his kids, he is tired and sad. He goes to get newspapers and bumps into Marie (Juliette Binoche) who flows herself up so fast to Dan (thinking he is the book store guy) but lets him speak once they sit for coffee. Dan desolated by every one not intentionally but seeing people happy remind him of how much he misses it finds love. He does not believe it as we would not either. He gets her number knowing she is in a relationship but hopes to know more about her some day. He is revived and mainly being wanted. He is happy to have a conversation where one listens. May be his brothers, sisters and parents do not want to rekindle the trauma and with Marie as a stranger, he feels fine. To twist the tale and really understand him, situation cracks up Marie turning out to be the girl friend of Dan’s brother, Mitch (Dane Cook). Whether it is true love for both of them within this small span of time is explored and confirmed only to make the situation awkward, broken and finally ending it in a silly formulaic fashion.

I loved the first forty five minutes. And Sondre Lerche’s songs are fitting and the café mood for a holiday feel the film has. Here is the guy who is trying to do his best for his kids and after a long time really wanted to be loved. We sincerely and truly sympathize for Dan. His brothers and sisters are busy with their lives and Marie in front of him teases not sexually which would have been the immediate option for any story like this but her gelling up with the family. It is a strange thing how an advice columnist in the middle of desperation is lost but every one is human. Dan is in tight position and no one to talk to which is why he wants to remind himself of his kids, but they are at the stage of opting for Marie or any others than Dan. Tangled in between he turns out to his niece and nephews who are 4-6 years old and talks his feelings in a general context which even his fourth grade daughter understands and asks him whether he is ok. He is not.

It is understandable for the eccentric outbursts of Dan not able to see his love going away with his brother and fitting with the family. It should have been him than his brother. He deserves that and the audience knows that. Things go in an auto pilot mode when Marie acts strange too. There could have been different methods for her to react on Dan’s connection but she opts to be jealous in a strange fashion not fitting her character. The problem is that we know Dan but we know very little about Marie who misses those targets of silliness and childishness which was perfect on Dan.

Another let down is both him and his kids end up not making truce with each other in a way it supposed to. Here is their father drained and drenched in misery of loneliness and affectionless scenario in his worst part of life of dealing with his daughters’ growing up, they just do not tie the knot. It is a story of Dan finding his love and facing the fact of his daughters’ plane of growing up along with them. It leads us to that but only addresses his love but finishes it in hurried fashion compromising the honesty of the first forty five minutes.

Why does films need to pair up every one and make feel some one deserve or not deserve something instantaneously? Mitch seems to find his true soul mate with Marie as much as Dan. The film does not want him either to be sad face or deserving. They finish him with an unwanted pairing up. When for Dan, we feel he deserves the love, we still know it is not the right way and the film says it and with Mitch it is a customary wrapping up of things. “Dan in Real Life” holds up for Steve Carell and for the first hour, but tumbles upon for formula in the end. People will not face a disappointed ending but leave with an unsatisfied smile.

"We Own the Night" (2007) - Movie Review

I was cleanly stumped by how much the plot thickened and surprised me as the movie progressed. It is good to see a film daring to market something else and contains a package of different substance in it. I was expecting a tug of war in between two brothers separated by the law which have been played brilliantly in lot of Indian movies mainly the Bollywood’s “Diwar” and the remake of it in Tamil, “Thee”. It is quite co-incidental that I was talking about these movies with a friend of mine, Karthik. Well it is nothing like that while I would have wanted but it has other factors to make it a good movie.

It takes a veteran actor like Robert Duvall as Burt Grusinsky and two well matured actors like Joaquin Phoenix as Bobby Green and Mark Wahlberg as Joseph Grusinsky to generate the heat in between them without any foundation of these three characters’ history. Bobby does not want to be linked with a cop family to climb up the ladder of profits and running a club for his boss, Marat Buzhuyev (Moni Moshonov). He takes his Mother’s last name to separate as much as possible from his family. The movie is set during 1988 at Brooklyn, New York which apart from cars and the drug flow does not need much of period or location. Bobby with his girl friend Amada (Eva Mendes) is setting up a foundation for a family as his own. With Joseph as his cop brother and dad Burt being so proud of Joe following his foot steps, he is an outsider. One cannot blame Burt when his son and his girl friend inhaling pot before entering the honorary function for Joseph. But it runs more than that when Bobby is warned and asked about the information of a Russian gangster Vadim Nezhinski (Alex Veadov) visiting his club. Already being looked down and humiliated, he discards them and goes on his own. Bobby and Joseph clearly strike each other for attention of their father and it gets the height when Bobby is busted and erupts. This is the part where the story could have been taken anywhere and especially as advertised. They surprise us.

Phoenix has acquired this talent over the period of time to make himself comfortable in Bobby. He knows that he has been in the wrong foots with his family and takes responsibility for the happenings. He starts as an underdog and ends as some one else. His transformation from a coke snorting club manager into a different personality is more of his performance than a screenplay. Wahlberg with his punching foul mouthed Dignam in “The Departed” shows a different cop Joseph. He gets less screen time but it is the steam he generates with Phoenix which makes us to build up their history by ourselves. We believe that Joseph had everything right with his father. In the span of getting his attention he might have overstepped his brother. We do not know but we can feel it. Two things got missed though. Eva Mendes as Amada was only used as an intimacy for Bobby than support and mainly I would have liked few more scenes of Joseph and Bobby confiding and facing the history which has led them out there.

There are two terrific scenes which brought me closer in anxiety and tension. The drug bust and the rainy car scene which nailed and broke the traditional handling of those sequences which are gripping and tense in every moment of it. The film sustains by the performance and may be that is the reason at the end of it, we feel a little void. The plot which thickened so hard and engrossing failed to capitalize on the bond in between these brothers who had their way different but need to come in terms for a common goal. Robert Duvall at his class forming the bridge in between the two has his moments with Phoenix of comfort and care which explains a lot about the mood of change he shows. He does not believe in Bobby and when he sees it in him, we see the difference.

Director James Gray is good in materializing his talent in the right manner but does not quite finish it as punching and polishing. The terror the character of Vadim should have been propelled even more. Bobby fears as hell and we know why for the reputation Vadim has created but we miss it at the crucial moment. The suspense as the Hollywood has come up with now is no more of suspense than a guessing game. Out here they do not at least play open games of that sort but use it as a nice finish for a full circle of events. I would have loved to see Phoenix and Wahlberg crack, curse and produce that the love they shared for their father is mutual. It ends in that way but not the way it moves you. It brings the regular ritualistic smile for a movie like this.

"The Darjeeling Limited" (2007) - Movie Review

Wes Anderson finds his rhythm in “The Darjeeling Limited”. The reaction for “Rushmore” was confusing on accepting that I got entertainment but not able to completely accept it. In “The Royal Tennenbaums”, it got extended further more and yet Wes Anderson along with Owen Wilson perplexed me. If a character is mean, how can you gift wrap it and provide as a syllable for a film as a word? These guys have the answer and “Rushmore”, “The Royal Tennenbaums” has seasoned me on what to see in their films. Entering with that premise, I was thinking whether a first timer of this experience would have the same fun I had. I am positive about their enjoyment.

With the short film opening of “Hotel Chevalier” which is marked as Part 1 for the main feature, the feel of the horizontal camera movement boosted to look forward a cool, funny yet substantial film of a kind. In “Hotel Chevalier” we meet Jack (Jason Schwartzman) having himself to hanging on to his ex-girlfriend (Natalie Portman) and we come to know it is vice-versa. Still these two know their relationship is in a non-survival stage. The zing of the break-up and the nostalgia of it are visible in both of them. It does not make it difficult to understand the main feature if the small film is missed but the information and picture of knowing what happened to Jack amplifies the joy and how different it is going to be for him in the end of the film.

Francis (Owen Wilson) has a control issue which we come to know he inherited from his mother (Angelica Houston). He calls on his brother Jack and Peter (Adrien Brody) to go on a spiritual cum personal explorative journey in India. As soon as they meet and greet each other, we do wonder why they need to invent their connection and revive their lost brotherhood. They look fine and appreciate each other. Soon we come to know the reality over their smoke and drink session. No one trusts each other. Jack and Peter have some kind of trust but they break it in the journey. They sure need a reconnection and more than that they need to grow up from age 15. They are competitive in such a high school kid fashion. The way they discuss their “being raised” and the gauging of their attachment towards their father tells us how lost they are. But more importantly than that is we get to know how much they have been disconnected from each other in these years.

As much as we get to know their personal relationship in question for Jack and Peter, we never know Francis. May be he got into this lock hold of loneliness and wanted to bond to the only two people in the world who can understand him and of all unconsciously like to be controlled. Wes Anderson’s character are a touch of fantasy of dysfunctional nature but the human value they emote in the unpredicted circumstances make them come to earth with the possibilities of their existence. Francis has bigger agenda than the spiritual reconnection. That is to meet their mother who has shredded off the relationship and hard enough to not come for the funeral of her husband and these three kid’s fatherhood hero. Brendan (Wallace Wolodarsky) who is the personal assistant in the depths of other part of train for Francis wonders why Francis asks again and again whether she knows and is aware of their arrival. Francis says, “What if she does not wants to see us?” and Brendan still wondering, “She is your mother”. This is the believability Anderson creates. While it is astonishing to have an assistant being as controlled for the lonely man in an alien land in a train, he gives these lines to promote the inner enigma of doubts in his characters which are facts for many.

The merchandise which identifies a character is another inventive and independent piece of his film making Anderson brings in. This is not a “Lost in Translation” and the Indian back ground just provides a background of its taste and blend of classical and cultural spiciness reflecting this strange and interesting personalities. As Roger Ebert mentions about the character of Rita (Amara Karan, who by the way gives a short and impressive performance) in his review about how the screenwriters managed remove the stereotypic samples of Indian people, I got reminded of my view as such being an Indian. Indeed I was surprised and kind of doubted the possibility of a character that can have a boy friend. And also instinctive and “non-Indian” enough to be intimate with an American in a train rest room. You know what, I have said to my American friends that sex seem to be a matter of taboo in India especially pre-marital is looked upon as a crime but it happens without notice and now a day seeing the story of the movies coming out in India, it is surfacing. Rita is real and I believe it.

Anderson’s execution of his style is pitch-perfect and addresses many colours which were present in his previous films but missed the soul. Here he collects the roots of his creativity and blends in properly with this performance by three estranged and aloof characters of his previous films. They remind those fanciful mean fantasy people existing in a world Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson created for them. The dynamics and the properties of emotional gravity varied on the control of their screenplay. In “The Darjeeling Limited”, Anderson with Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman bring them to the real world and mix them in there where those laws do no longer exist. The characters does not know it and behave to their honesty which is what makes this movie come out of the screen and speak with us jovially, mean and sometimes enlightening as well.

"Red Beard" (Language - Japanese) (1965) - Movie Classics

It has been nine months I watched “Red Beard” one another classic master piece of Akira Kurosawa. And during these nine months, I have tried writing a review for it and never got it completed. Not that it failed to grip me but the enormity of the film’s numerous stories and facets of changing faces has often left me looking for words. I write this on my fourth sitting and still not sure whether I will be able to complete it. Let me make an attempt to cover the entirety of the film.

Films extracting the tough and delicate environment of a hospital have the arduous task of assembling the life sufferings, pain and the joy of coming out of terrible physical and mental conditions. There are movies dealing with doctors solving complex conditions, cracking up a tough patient and the tragedy. “Red Beard” involves those but it directly relates to the social conditions and the cruelty done to the society. Innocent beings getting tortured and mutilated for the materialistic profits are liberated in this film. And I am not talking about the patients but the young doctor who learns life and knowledge is more than reputation and materials.

Dr. Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama) is a youth with the zeal but the absence of patience. He enters the hospital run by Dr. Kyojio Niide (Toshirô Mifune) known popularly as Red Beard. Dr. Niide is a strict and disciplined person. He is bold and at any point of time not hesitant to tell what he thinks. He knows the process of how a new person gets indicted in an environment of this kind. Dr. Yasumoto is immediately dejected and frustrated by the actions of Dr. Niide. He refuses to function and opts for being stubborn. In between the time he is about to settle, the doctor who Dr. Yasumoto replaces bad mouths about Dr. Niide. This propels the uneasiness and the tough environment the hospital poses over him. Dr. Yasumoto is head strong due to his knowledge over the material of medical treatments. But he gets the real tinge of how realistically brutal is the line of physical treatment. He goes unconscious when Dr. Niide and his associate try to operate a female without anesthesia.

This is the initial hour and half of battle between Dr. Niide and Dr. Yasumoto. The remaining part of the movie deals with how slowly the young doctor understands the passion and commitment Dr. Niide has over his job which ignites the same in him. He feels inferior to have opted to run out of the hospital to be the personal physician of Shogunate. While it seems that this movie is only about the issue of a young doctor discovering his ability and application of it, the film focuses on social and philosophical issues in depth. The emotions and the world of uncertainty are exposed. The story of love and dedication is stamped in various sequences. Kurosawa even deals with the delicate subject of infatuation. Dr. Yasumoto rescues a girl, Otoyo (Terumi Niki) from the streets and saves her from the miserable position of being in a brothel by a crude old lady. In a movie when we think a character is in love, hate with subtlety of expressions, we look for other characters to tell those. Here Kurosawa uses the nurses and people who work in the hospital. They taunt among them on the girl’s jealousy when the doctor looks for other female of his own age.

Kurosawa does not waste any of these people laying, wandering the center of hopes, desolation and death. There is person facing his death and has earned the respect of the other entire patient when he is taken to his home for his last breath. He painfully confides on the loss and desperation he had in the minimal life he spent. Similarly the small kid who comes stealing and falls in friendship of the Otoyo and how he is lacerated and wounded by the depths of poverty of society through those two innocent eyes but has seen the worst scenario.

This obsession towards nature of Kurosawa is an exhibition of his characteristic. The season and rain are the elements he uses with an acquired and born mix of skill and implementation. As per the story and the narration the weather alters itself not in a sense of awareness the audience might create but fitting in a perfect sensible anchor for the scene. And the conviction and reasoning for the actions of characters he gives completes them. Dr. Yasumoto learning the complete person of Dr. Niide, we have this knowledge well ahead than him. Not because we are given the details of Dr. Niide, in fact we get to know completely along with Yasumoto but it is the situation of the hospital. One who would opt to stay in the heart of illness and sorrow with small to no hope towards amenities and survival of a patient, it is the will, courage and humanism in this steel bodied acerbic character. We make judgments but positive view towards the characters which has those. The closure is full circle and it is not formulaic but justified.

Every Kurosawa’s movie is punctuated by the performance of Toshirô Mifune and here it is accentuated by the entire cast. The supporting roles have their time of independence to have their screen and they improvise it well. After nine months, I do not exactly remember every detail of the film but the trembling tragic moment of the kid with a face inscribed into the viewer’s heart is still visible clear. My attempt may not have covered the spectrum of omnipresent emotions in film running over three hours but managed to retain one solid image to give the readers a gist of the presentation which is the kid’s face of defeated and melancholic tragedy. Kurosawa produces one or more images of this sort in his every film.

"The Tin Drum" (Language - Hebrew / Italian / German / Polish / Russian)(1979) - Movie Review

Now I stand here to bluntly and quite harshly I have ever been to a movie and it is been adapted from a literary legacy of post war scenario of the same name, “The Tin Drum” by Günter Grass. While the infamous scene of the actor David Bennent who was 11 years old at the time the movie was made playing Oskar involving in oral sex and an intercourse scene which of course shocked me and left me as sick as possible, I was sincerely hoping that he is a grown up dwarf and as expected I was disappointed and angry too. But the problem started way before that.

Narrated in a shrill and creepy voice, the film starts with Oskar’s Grandmother Anna (played young Anna by Tina Engel and elderly by Berta Drews) protecting their grandfather while hiding in her four skirts from the police impregnates her too. If that is bizarre, then we see Anna’s daughter and Oskar’s mother Agnes (Angela Winkler) married to an older man than her, Alfred (Mario Adarf) without any difficulty sleeping with her cousin Jan (Daniel Olbrychski) who is polish. When Oskar pushes himself out of the womb not ready to face the world, the only thing which keeps him growing is his mother’s promise of getting him a tin drum on his third birthday. He becomes three and gets his tin drum which he plays irritatingly at times when peace is necessary. He sees the ugly world of his mother and how the noisy and corrupted world is. He decides not to grow and remain three. This is the magical realism style of the book and the movie adapts along with it. The film then takes on to boringly, disgustingly and shockingly explains the life of Oskar and his life of being of no growth, physically.

I had lots of problems with the film. For starters it is how insensitive and boorish the entire characters in it are. No one shows signs of love, affection or care at any moment. It in fact looked as a misanthropic movie. It is not that sociopaths wander but how cold and dark the characters are. They smile but it is not real. They cheer but it frightens us. There is no level of comfort whatsoever in any of the characters. Even Agnes’ and the sixteen year old Maria’s (Katharina Thalbach, who actually was twenty four when the movie was made) slight affection towards Oskar do not appear altruistic. The movie well before the shocking sexual scenes easily becomes creepy and sick. I am not being judgmental about looks but David Bennent’s expression and the character of Oskar scared me to hell. The evil eyes and the scream he shouts with his face and voice is so sinister, nightmarish and threatening. While it might be an accolade for the actor, it freaked me out for the entire film time. He rarely talks and when he does, we hope he remains calm and threaten us instead. The mood is dark and downing. In its mellow form of crawling pace of characters, it sickens us mainly due to the characters being insolent and cold. We see the toy shop owner Markus (Charles Aznavour) with an untold desire for Agnes during her Thursday visits leaving Oskar to him and passionately pursue her sexual desires with Jan. And when Agnes decides to eat tons of fish which she disgusts to punish herself of the sin, I lost it. Actually before that when the eel scene comes up and the cooking method after that, I wanted to throw up and switch off the DVD. I felt it is not right to write a review without seeing the whole movie. I even thought of opting for switching it off and not writing a review. I pulled myself back in very minimal hopes of redemption in the remaining film. It only got worse and I regretted watching the full movie.

Oskar remains three at fourteen and forthcoming ages. They do not answer whether his brain growth stays at age three too but his sexual tendencies aggravate to his age. I have no issues in portraying Taboo in the film. It is a happening and as long as the actors involved know about what they are getting into, it is fine. At the age of sixteen tendering to sexuality, no one is spared of it and I sincerely accept it. While they had the courtesy of involving the female counterpart Katharina Thalbach in this scene who was actually twenty four, knowledgeable to make her own decision and aware of it, how the parents or the director did not think of eleven year old Bennent? I got reminded of the character Elliot Stabler in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit saying this, “I think sex should be one of the best experiences in life, not one of the worst.” I cannot be a judge on worst or best in this case but I feel that as a kid, there are very high chances he was not aware of what exactly is happening out there and it is wrong. There is a reason for legal age.

I have not read the book and the film only made not to, but let me not conclude on it. The internal tangle of unknown trauma, emotion and the holocaust time period are sad and tragic. Director Volker Schlöndorff terrifies us in jarring fashion on kid rather on the situations that we along with those stern faced characters become rigid and numb being unmoved by the war crimes. I have said a movie bad, worse, sucked but I never have said that I hated one. I hated this movie and hope this be the first and last one to be so for me.

"Little Children" (2006) - Movie Review

Why is it so creepy when a film centers so much around the sexual urges and mistakes of a group of grown up adults? Sex has often and predominantly been branded for its depiction and knowledge as such. Even after so many books, films and topics, talking out openly has never accomplished the normalcy of gesture in manners or behaviour of it. It is the reason of flimsiness in its entirety and the shame we have acquired from the times of Adam and Eve as one of the concept of origins, its debate of a sin or sacred goes on. And when the sacred or sin takes a rough form of untold urges and dangerous turns, it is even scarier, uglier and totally buried amongst us. “Little Children” is about sex as a form of its own and how it projects and be as a part of every human. How it is also a part of character which explains about some one. Not in their way of doing it, but the need of wanting it. Wanting to be appreciated, recognized and loved.

I can very well sense the readers now branding the film in a derogatory tone. Is it something so wrong and devious to make a film about it? Many might not even interpret it as a feature of lust and see it as affairs of lost passion and invisibility among their family. Yes it is that but in terms of the physical endurance and wants. Such is how the personalities lost in their series of past steps in their life to meet upon in this swift and dull end of mid life crisis. Sarah (Kate Winslet) sees her kid Lucy (Sadie Goldstein) as a form of hindrance in her boring life of being judged upon by the team of home makers in the play ground. She cannot forget the kiss to Brad (Patrick Wilson) to ridicule the posse. Brad’s openness in accepting the failure of a successful career and staying home with his kid Aaron (Ty Simpkins) rejuvenates Sarah. She identifies the commonality of a failure in them. More than that, it is the sexual tension which arises due to that kiss. This is where I liked the movie than any other which handles subjects like this. They are of course constantly reminded by the moment of it but do not jump on each other when they next meet. In fact Brad tries hard to not gain attention during their second meeting. But they meet and start to become a regular visitor to the pool house. Their kids get along great and so are the adults. It is more than a passion of lust but a face to it. It blossoms in the undergrounds of Sarah’s home, a symbolic depiction of how their relation is going to be.

Equally important and disturbing story line is the life of Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley) living with his mother May (Phyllis Somerville) who so unconditionally loves and believes in her son. Ronnie is out of the prison for indecent exposure to a minor. He is a pedophile and he knows it. A sin as the form of sex takes it face. The film’s sensuous affairs are sins and in that they discover the image of it being an expression. An expression which misses from each other and in case of Ronnie an uncontrollable instinct he desperately wants to stop. As much as any one would not be near this person, Larry (Noah Emmerich) an ex-cop gathers his maximum hate towards him. He consistently night hawks May’s place. He has a past which is how and why he is and who he is now. Angry, frustrated and again feeling lost in the clan of tough men and heroes. That’s the reason he single handedly tries to champion the abuse to Ronnie, hangs with cops to form a league and may be a liking of Brad for his physicality as a man.

Brad has lost of presence of being a man too. He no longer wants a career of choice as his wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) wants. His life is not busy and mainly fading and draining in his daily routines as a house dad. He loves his son but also loves the feel of being strong and present. He is cramped in between this and with Kathy denying the attention as a husband and man, he is more than happy when some one listens to and may be tell the suggestions he wants to hear.

With these characters of misdirected expression of love, sex and rage comes consummation in the final episode. While Sarah’s wants seem without any strings attached as such her husband Richard (Gregg Edelman) opting for pornography than his wife, Kathy is busy cutting costs and working as a documentary film maker for PBS. Sarah’s involvement and desire appears justified and it is in a way but the responsibility she carries along as a mother takes precedence.

The narration of Will Lyman adds to the dark cloud of strange and cold uncomfortable ness. An afternoon in a week day as I have said in other earlier reviews is boring. In this film it is dubious and frightening at times. Marriage is an eternal battle for togetherness. Children are the warriors and victims when the battle is lost. Their innocence becomes their curse and roots up as a case of scar for no wrong of theirs. Here amongst those they are played as alibis and later realized for the decisions that reflect on them.

It is daring film by Todd Field with strong support of acting. It does not tell the aftermath which would have been cold and disastrous. Facing the consequences is never a pleasure cruise. But there will be a freed soul to fight for their presence in the right way and not in some laundry room.

"Across the Universe" (2007) - Movie Review

Indian movies have the standard of having five to six songs regardless of the nature of the film. Musical in other world is quite different. I did not see “Chicago” or “Moulin Rouge!” or “Dream Girls” but I watched “Once” which a different musical of its own is. “Across the Universe” is the first official branded musical I watched and it was not good. It had its colour and cheers but soon faded off into a lethargic motion of melodrama.

The time period the story set is the sixties and how the young and energetic Jude (Jim Sturgess) falls for Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). It is a Beatles mania with the twist of change in handling of vocals and in some case mood itself. Beatles songs are all easy going and relaxing. It does not take much of a discovery path in to the darkness. Which is the reason they attracted and pulled in much wide range of listeners. Even in the current trend of music lovers, their variety and diversity in handling the mood across it is a musical exuberance. I liked the initial introduction and how Max (Joe Anderson) and Jude get along, the thanksgiving dinner in Max’s family where Jude meets his sister Lucy, their travel to New York and those happy days. It worked nicely because it reflected the mood and style of the Beatles as such, as I explained before. It is a happy land with beauty and youth bubbling out.

The disaster creeps out in mellowed fashion when the attempt of paving loss and pain into this sweet tale of two lovers. The songs become dull and I agree on the reasoning behind it. When the expression of sadness is expected, it should hit the viewers. It should not make them think why there is a stagnant stale mate of events in the screen. In fact I was even able to bear when the group takes on the crazy bus ride where we get to hear and see Bono of U2 sing “I am the Walrus”. It takes its slow demise after that. I stopped feeling for the characters of Jude, Lucy, Max, and every other associated with them.

And the colour and energy did not liven up as it is aimed for. If for the take of war and its hatred causing the fall of humanity is the focus, the mentality of Max in some good songs would have elevated it. Max’s war sequences are used as a way of distraction and a common distress with other characters. And the fight which separates the lovers can be as childish, low and stupid to be possible to be precise. Or is the genre of musical is prone to have the clichés of these kinds as it is expected in blockbuster summer mindless action movies? Even then it is how the film sets the expectation as the minute goes by than a settled moviegoer.

Director Julie Taymour’s attempt in giving an ensemble display of colourful themes with the cheering quality of Beatles’ sweet snippets of relaxing simplicities is a good idea but fails to carry it all across the movie. Even for a Beatles fan it would be hard to embrace the whole film to relate with the scenes, emotions or colour. I would not give up on musical but “Across the Universe” is a bad start for me.

"Gone Baby Gone" (2007) - Movie Review

Every time I think about abiding the righteousness in life and small things which question those in day to day activities, it is an easy task to be performed. But when I put myself in the delicate and decisive situations possible in mind, I know the right thing, but is it worth of it is the question lingering and alarming in my brain. At those points of time, I cannot hold myself in admiration and disbelief on those great leaders who stood still and managed to stick it with their skin. Ben Affleck’s directorial debut holds to the same and comes up as a well presented movie with discussions to ignite.

In “Good Will Hunting”, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon brought so much of nativity to their homes in it. Boston as their hometown is a proud shield they wear whenever they get to pen a creation or appearance as such. Affleck’s selection for his first venture to adapt the Dennis Lehane’s novel of the same title is no surprise as the foundation is based on the neighbourhood near Boston. Lehane can be remembered for lending his story for Clint Eastwood and give us “Mystic River”. Seeing both of his creations transform into screens and walking images, the man has the knack of dissecting a slice of a human’s conscience.

Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) look as the perfect couple and when Kenzie mentions to others as “his girlfriend” on very few occasion is when realize they are not married. The chemistry in between them is well crafted that it is quite surprising that they are not married. This chemistry comes into test during one of the crucial scene in the film. As the story unfolds into this hunt for the missing kid Amanda (Madeline O’Brien), the projection reminds “Ransom” genre movie and within half an hour, we also realize it is the complete opposite of that.

The movie is framed with knowing people and dealing the talks. The talks Kenzie makes to get the information on acquaintance than the flashing of badges. This is where living in a neighbourhood and streaming into the holes and bricks of the street helps for him. With perfect associate by his side, he is involved with a hesitation from the Uncle and Aunt of the missing kid Amanda. They are invited with stern eyes and comments on the experience from Captain Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and detectives Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick (John Ashton). And he proves his tips of knowing the right people instantly.

The film is about Patrick Kenzie than any one else. As in the final scene when he asks the mother Helene (Amy Ryan) “what about Amanda?” we are remembered how much we too along with everyone missed this kid in a dangling fate. The test of the values and principles is really defined when some one hits a fork road of life and death. And in a cruel joke of the situations, it is the life and death of some one else than theirs. Kenzie stands in between the people behind the actions and the result.

Laws and something called as the greater good are lost children of the right. Thinking about taking up a crime to the justice and have a system convict it and the difference of personal justice is sometimes confusing. The criminal justice by the system end of day is by another bunch of people who are not related to the victim or the accused. If the same kind of relationship holds for a person declared fit, is it there no difference at all? But somewhere when the heinous act is reeked in to the faces of the person, he or she becomes related and loses the judgment. Kenzie’s continuous hunt for the truth brings him to that situation.

Hollywood is blessed with so many class actors who every time deliver more than what it is required and that makes them class. Ed Harris as a cop of his own choices of right and wrong challenges the presence of other actors in the screen harshly and friendly. Casey Affleck as Kenzie gives a convincing and strong character. It is quite tough to believe that a soft and child faced actor can carry the arrogance and harshness the character needs at times with vigour and zeal. In a way his mild mannered face helps in giving the person the stillness and lucidity required to take decisions affecting many at conscience level.

As I started with myself in the situation of Kenzie to see whether I am for the challenge of righteousness, I honestly do not know. The murky line we ourselves have generated to shadow the clarity of the truth and a lie gets riddled. One thing is clear that we cannot decide a life for any one but we can help it in the right way. Deciding lures as the right thing to do but what the burden it carries along till the death is something not to be carried upon and not right being held upon. Every one does the best and whether you do it the way it is supposed to is the question “Gone Baby Gone” asks.

"Into the Wild" (2007) - Movie Review

The purpose of life, the materialism and the outlook on the society is a bone of contention for the topic of spiritual, philanthropy and more than is the sustaining happiness. The story of “Into the Wild” is a story to be told and while puts a magnifying glass over those topics, it questions the inner self of humanity. It is a true story of Christopher McCandless who burned the materialistic invention like cash, social security card and any existence of his identification to grounds and started traveling. The film is based on the novel by Jon Krakuer to give those chronicles of McCandless.

Chris (Emile Hirsch) has been fighting the lies and hypocrisy of the world perpetrating into the expectations and settlement one is been pushed. It is a thought which goes in most of the people. The invention of economy and the structural societal formation is looked upon either as a cage of liberation or system of brilliance. What exactly the lives we live upon to be accomplished? Making a career, raising a family or devoting yourself to the spiritual world is some of the common agenda of every human being in the current system. The life of Chris may question it and answer it, if you are ready to explore it.

Chuck Noland in “Cast Away” never anticipated or wanted the lonely life of survival in the island for four years. But Chris thrives for it to be his life long ambition or more than a goal it is a dream. Ambition is a career word which is another thing Chris hates upon. While it is his dream, he wants to explore the life of nothingness. Nothingness of money, property and strings of relationship to be tying down and slowing him out. He has no goals as such but he knows it is time to escape from the toxic city of bricks, corridors, glass windows, traffic signals and mainly the people wearing masks.

On his travel, he meets people; he makes friends and touches their lives. He is the knowledge to the mystery of monotonous routine of boredom. While he wants to cut off all the contact with the possible human lives, he acquaints the people and immediately makes him likeable. May be it is the openness of accepting of whoever they are and lives for the person he is. Some one like that is Jan (Catherine Keener) who herself has been on the roads and asks Chris to be in touch with his mother, as she is missing her son. He works for Wayne (Vince Vaughn) who exposes him to the earning and living of hard labour. These are the people who are surprised and quite concerned for him and his adventure, and also respect it. This is this respect which adds one more layer of trust, belief and affection in their friendship. And Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook) wants to make more than that.

His journey of two years did take him to the Alaskan Adventure. He hitches and paddles, walks and climbs and catches on train to get a destination of limitless abyss. This mystery of unknown surprises and locks to be broke upon excited him I guess and took him one step closer to the real adventure of his life.

Sean Penn potentially gives an Oscar film of the year. It is a film which takes its pace, time, visual and destiny to strike on its points and vantages. It is not a monologue but a conversation of human existence and the relationships involved. Alvin Straight in “The Straight Story” embarked to repair and reinforce the lost relationship with his brother. That is a journey of new faces, places and experience. He sees good people and shares the thorns in the past. Chris meets lot of good people but the thorns he does not share, his introspection and inner analysis of existence and embracing it becomes the epicenter of this film. The fight and zeal of a man alone explored in “Cast Away”, “The Straight Story” and “Into the Wild” is the magnitude of how much humans can possibly stretch themselves which goes beyond the technology and the made up choice of routine.

To understand the nature of Chris is his sister Carine (Jena Malone) who narrates along with him in this film. Without that we would have seen the one side story of him but to acknowledge it and accept it is the difference the film makes out here. Referring to it as film kind of makes me sad as what happens in it, happened. The end is a beginning for many and may be to question one’s presence in this earth itself. The realization of this intersection of numerous points in us and others to make us operate in a condition called lifestyle and society.

Holbrook gives one of the finest supporting performances for this year and I hope to see him nominated for the Academy Award. Emile Hirsch should be proud of playing Chris and physically puts him into stringent and dying conditions of danger, passion and emotion. The cinematography of Eric Gautier plunges closes up and zooms out along with Chris to be next to him every next adventure he pursues upon. To anchor those moments are good original songs of Eddie Vedder.

While it looks like Chris runs away by the emotional tension and disappointments with his parents, it is more of him as such being an adventurer in his nature. If not then, it could have been later. The disappointment drove him fast enough but it is an eventuality as his quality is described by his sister. His life may be thought as an act of idiocy or liberation. Any one can pass judgments for which Chris will be the last person to care about. Some where in his loneliness, he found the relationship of existence. His survival unlocked the key and definition of happiness. It may not be lived upon for eternity but the fact of realizing it is worth living a moment. “Into the Wild” is the best movie of 2007 so far and one of the best of all time.

"Rendition" (2007) - Movie Review

The problems of interrogation and the means to attain the information may have benefited several thousands of lives but is it really solving the issue currently at hand? With a fragrance of evidence about Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian who is married to an American Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) is detained at the airport during his return from South Africa. He is interrogated without any presence of lawyers by the CIA and then he is sent to North Africa covertly for further interrogation.

“He passed the polygraph” says Lee Mayer (J.K. Simmons) and comes reply from his superior Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep) saying it is not a fool proof test. Mayer says that we think about it only when some one passes it. Honest to the story that is how convenient they turn them into this option of extracting the “truth”. Anwar is clean as a crystal but he cannot explain the calls he received from a guy he denies knowing calls from a man named Rashid who is responsible for the blasts which killed one American and several others. The terrible bomb blast which took the life of Douglas Freeman’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) colleague which puts the interim in charge for the CIA operations in North Africa i.e. to stand helpless to witness the interrogation.

Kelly Sane’s screenplay tempts to conclude on Anwar at various moments. In fact we strongly at very many instances doubt the veracity of his statements. He denies and accepts certain basic information. The film does not get us to resolve on the issue but to be a statement. Is the circle of torture really solving the issue or creating future suicide bombers? Do they pat themselves on making some one to give up information or create something just to escape of this brutal mechanism of visceral and psychological torture? The film does not offer solution but an announcement on what exactly this leads to. May be the fear the terror plots have manifested has taken the intelligence and the people too far to trust and believe any one. Also, how come the violence imposed upon them puts them in right when the people whom they are doing this are alleged upon murders and bloodiness. What is the baseline of morality or value gets detained out here?

Megan Gill’s editing renders itself in to these different characters entangled in the center of the bomb blast. I will not reveal much but the editing provides a path breaking resolve to this multiple story lines. Let me say that it has invented a new form of handling and playing with the time line for a story.

There is no definition of the cause or aim of the terrorist group which is being shown. They are Muslims as how much there has been a fear generated now a day. They show how the concept of religion and god, being manipulated over the young minds harbouring those for solace in “brave” fashion as opposed to let them out to cherish their liveliness. Any act of violence on the basis of anything at all comes as a selfish solution to quench their angst of feeling better. The realities disappear and the time and energy spent upon on to sharpen their rage could have been applied for a way out of the misery.

“Rendition” does not answer some of the questions but there is a right of privacy in those corners. Or may be it is the flimsiness of the intelligence being handled to base something on different hundred things of possibilities. With a multitude of cast members, it is a team performance as such in supporting or anchoring the role of others. But as a personal choice, Jake Gyllenhaal gives one another character of recognition. As Douglas, he has the worst day in his life. From an analyst of information he gets himself into the witness of torture mechanism implied by Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor) mercilessly. He knows the job and the drill. He is still coping up with the trauma of the bomb blast. Gyllenhaal at any point does not let him loose and expose this character open wide. He carefully consoles himself in dissolving in the hookah or wandering clueless. He gets the call from Corrine and she asks whether he is new to the role. He says, “This is my first torture”. He says on the front of him as a person and for the circumstances he is in. Not every one takes a job of certain position to decide some one else’s life which might in turn affect many others. Here he doubts Anwar and he has the reason. But does it really bring for a method so cruel to get the information is what nudges him consistently?

As the stories come for a rendezvous within itself, the adrenaline director Gavin Hood pumps in us is fascinating. It is not a chase scene but there are lives at stake. But the camera work and the editing is enough to kick us off. At certain point in the film, we give up for a happy ending as there seem to be no end to this circle. The jobs CIA doing are as they say to save lives and the terrorist march on as an individual, Khalid (Mohammed Khouas) foolishly. What every one does not think is the surrounding lives they affect in the process. The right way seem to be not the current solution in the scenario they give, but after twenty to thirty years, when the next generation looks back to ask why they did not do the right thing, there might be lots of guilty faces.