"Career Girls" (1997) - Movie Review

It takes enormous time for a film maker to give a character to its completeness in the required slot of time. In Mike Leigh’s “Career Girls”, we get to know two women who were room mates six years earlier in their college days and we can deduce their reactions and suppressed feelings within this hour and half film. They are Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge). In the college years Annie replied for a wanted room mate ad and meets a vocal, loud and strong Hannah. She is already living with a room mate Claire (Kate Byers). Look at how they play a game around Claire to get rid of her as time goes by. If any of you do not go chuckle at those times of little machinations around room mates and friends, you would be lying to yourself.

The film goes back and forth between the present day were Annie is visiting Hannah in London and their days of living together as students. Both have grown up to be a much neat looking women. In their dingy apartment, they do not care about how they maintain their room or how they dress up. Now they look for views in the house and appreciate the neatness of the home. Annie who used to be insecure, low self confidence and never meeting eyes with anyone and jittering with an asthma allergy and a skin condition over her face is now more confident and has control over what she wants to say. Hannah has toned down her loudness while retains the metal gear of toughness and bold face under all the situations. She looks men low and beats every one of their encounters with putting them down with her jokes.

While “Career Girls” never achieves its height as Leigh’s other films does especially with too much coincidence creeping up and pulling off something unusual, it is a look on the pale life of regular person. Stable job, decent living and the quest for right partner never settling in makes it not a miserable but bland style of living. Both have changed a lot from the college with the core qualities remaining the same. Hannah is still tough while Annie is still naive. But both are in the scenario to acknowledge it and live with it.

Hannah and Annie initially reserve themselves. Quibbles of petty things bother them. Both feel the waters of each other’s current characteristics. They meet a new person after so many years. A long forgotten friend is a stranger with the swallowed time. But not so much when the gates are open and the guard is released to get into the swings of rhythms which kept them together during their golden days.

Annie and Hannah are strange combination. Both are different in their experiences and behaviour but they sensed that from each other which began their friend ship. In their short time, Hannah decides to look for a flat to buy and begins a surreal experience but mainly long last people they knew in college years cropping up in a single day. One such is Adrian (Joe Tucker), a smart player who sleeps with Hannah but gains the love of Annie only to stomp on it. He is now a clean and neatly attired estate agent. Then is Ricky (Mark Benton) a chubby and clumsy person who rarely opens his eyes while talking. He likes Annie but Annie thinks she deserves better looking men than Ricky. They meet him now which is shady region in the film but tells more about the regret and guilt we would never able to give up for the mistakes done in those maturing times of youth.

It is a film which would see ourself visiting the friends we hated as room mates but still loved them having around. Or may be we really all had nice times. Whatever the relation would have been, time wipes away the ego and mostly with no one to see after in that situation, it is an insight into the person we once were. It is bitter sweet. Sighs, laughs, nostalgia and everything. Everything that would rekindle the times best and worst.

Leigh extracts the best of all the actors and pulls off comedy in unseen circumstances. It does not have a plot to follow nor there is a change in the characters at the end of the film. Both identify each other as the person they were in many aspects. They begin to wonder all it takes is a couple of days talk and weird coincidences to see their friendship. “Career Girls” may not be the best of Mike Leigh but certainly is a very good film to visit up the old buddies of us in a nice flat with same capability to irritate and humour us.

"Man on Wire" (Documentary) (2008) - Movie Review

What is the aspiration to climb mountains or to do the activity whiskers away from the death for a person? There is a nameless passion living inside them to be in a place where they have imagined so many times in their every night’s sleep. That imagination need to be felt. They strongly express that human right to feel it and chase it with everything they have got. Nothing could discourage them and the consequences are immaterial. It is the moment they would wait for, the time were explanation is futile and the experience comes into the umbrella of one thing nurtured all through their life, soul of the mind. This is James Marsh directed documentary “Man on Wire” and one such person is a French man named Philippe Petit.

The film basically would vividly tell how Petit and his friends planned this operation to barge secretively on to the roofs of World Trade Center and tie a wire in between these two gargantuan structures and then Petit’s walk of death would be performed. We do not learn about how they got funded or how Philippe’s passion grew and whether there was failure after failure and the performance itself. What we see is one instance of his passion explained a little bit in his young age. That is when young Philippe tore the news article about the construction of the twin tower and ran across the streets to find his destiny and he was nineteen by that time. He walked the wires between tall structures and be in the moment. All through the film we never question his reasoning however absurd and dangerous it sounds. Of course we are convenient by the members being present today but beyond that we have displaced those questions when we see him walk over the tight wire.

With the eerie and deeply affecting music of Michael Nyman, the members who helped him do this magical act explain as in a heist film. They had all covered with insiders and other helpers to get Philippe to the roof. His friends Jean-Louis, Jean François, Jim Moore, Alan and his then girl friend Annie along with many other key players see something in this man as we see, they are pulled in by the adventure. But more to the fact there is a person who wants to do what he wants to do and in many ways they are dissatisfied with their inability to dare the life which drove them to take extraordinary steps to help him.

Philippe and his accomplice rode up as workers on to the roof top while dodging largely easy notices from the guards. On the other tower the crew experiences the same thing. The film works as a thriller and we hold the thoughts whether they would be caught or not. James Marsh makes us even forget their agenda on the roof. For a serious time we do think of them escaping rather than Philippe’s walking. And in reality they would have thought the same.

Philippe in the film giving interview runs around, hides behind the curtain, gestures with hand and speaks animated on the ordeal to get his act performed. The camera in one moment follows along his hand gesture from top describing so detailed that the cinematographer Igor Martinovic truly wants the audience to be pulled in his explanation as he did. And it is a great story to tell. How many of us can tell that we broke in to the then tallest towers in New York City and have assisted a man to walk from one roof to other over a rope with no strings attached for safety.

What is moving about this film is something without title. Something in the reviews I talk and talk about which are the moments. The passing time of the stillness we miss to appreciate. There is a profound image in that. As Philippe says even if it would result in death, what a beautiful way to die doing what he was passionate about. We do not grasp it entirely and we honestly could not. In the current event of life we pass up those opportunities to break free and follow what it would be the gut says. When a person does that over the screen which is clearly a sign of madness in the regularity of one’s life, it transpires into a feeling unknown inside of us.

Many people and I would presume the audience would ask what the journalists in New York in 1974 August 7th asked Philippe, which is “Why”. There is this burning desire for reasons. Reasons to pursue life, reasons to wake up, reasons to the stages of life set by the standards of the society. We have been bred into a life of such to hunt for reasons and most of the times that helps in getting the knowledge we seek for. But there are these frames in the day when reasoning seems absurder than the act of complete bizarreness. When the images of Philippe between the towers springs up, you will realize there is no why out there. There is nothing in the world which could describe that feeling. Of course there needs an existence of space and time where the languages can suffer in scarcity of its words to describe those. It is perfectly alright to be like that.

"Defiance" (2008) - Movie Review

Edward Zwick’s “Defiance” repeats the problem what his very early film “Glory” had, devoid of life in its characters. “Defiance” tells about the survival and fight of a group of Jews which of course is a display of bravery, courage and hope unfortunately misses the idea of screenplay breathing energy into those people. It neither represents a true account nor goes for the action pack (of course not) material. It does the first blunder of proclaiming the film to be a “A True Story”. Yes the story is true but the film cannot be the actual portrayal of the events. This obviously has attracted hell of a lot controversies which is a regular complaint when films are made from real life. Here though the film intends to claim of being accurate by saying “A True Story”.

What the screen writers Clayton Frohman and Zwick stepped on the novel “Defiance: the Beilski Partisans” by Nechama Tec would have been a gold mine as film makers would see and honestly speaking the film does display many evidence of a great film, but suffers from lack of character development. The acts and paths of the brothers Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig) and his immediate brother Zus Bielski (Liev Schreiber) towards the predicament they were in are their conscience and decisions but the film does not make them a character we could associate ourselves into the story.

At the break out of the Nazi’s capture and jailing of the Jews in the ghettos, the Bielski brothers Tuvia, Zus, Asael (Jamie Bell) and youngest of them Aron (George MacKay) flee into the woods. With their families killed, the brothers begin to meet various other Jews coming in flocks from the villages and ghettos. Soon they become caretakers and begin to form a community around these people. They begin to form a small town amongst the woods. Of course vengeance and conscience cross paths between Tuvia a diplomatic man for the most parts after he gets his blood for his parents while Zus looks for immediate action. Both divide on the matter of war or to stay human for most of their lives. They separate in the middle of it.

Edward Zwick’s “Defiance” tries to be a detailed story yet misses its counts on the characters it starts to focus. The professor Shamon (Allan Corduner) and the philosopher or “intellectual” as he calls himself, Isaac (Mark Feuerstein) develop the cliched comrades in this suffering by having hard debates which dies off after one scene. Similarly is the bad apple in the group Arkady (Sam Spruell) who has a sleazy smile and two dialogues to impose himself as the villain in the clan. Along with it are the ladies who come and go as the story wishes for their male partners.

There is a very intense scene when a German soldier is captured. Every one surrounds him and the German says he has a wife and got kids. But no one is ready to listen. Of course not because they have rage in their heads but also fear of letting him go as he would guide the troops right in to them. At that moment Tuvia looks at the situation and his younger brother Aron leaves the scene. Every one begins to butcher the soldier while Tuvia does not know what to do. He becomes a calm accomplice because he has no choice. That is a powerful scene which got to be ended on what Tuvia’s perception or his words of wisdom to his younger brother. Instead there is an emptiness which should be there as an element not as incompletion.

No doubt that the act of the brothers in real life is something unimaginable and the history which has not collected those which is surfacing now is surprising but the film does not capture that. The work of resurrecting these people and their acts are given as an illusion of erecting facts without souls. But in actuality the facts can hardly get right and I mean to say the details of the emotion. The emotion divided among on to live as community and whether to defend or fight with the definite end of dying. What went on their minds is impossible to reproduce and that is where the film should have taken its stand. It assumes to know their characters but it hardly does.

The actors do their part with the material they are given. Craig and Schreiber especially make believe their brotherhood and their views diverging in opposite directions. The film plays strangely as a routine we have seen which actually should not be. It merely goes into the concept of living as a community but does not sink its teeth in how they maintained peace, law and ordinance in a small country they have formed. Zwick has all the good scenes and all the right casts and in fact a great story but does not breathe the necessary element of fresh air of characters in it.

"The Reader" (2008) - Movie Review

A person draws a picture of her or him to the people they meet. It gets mingled with the thoughts and perceptions to each of them they meet and their understanding. The truth strangely as it can be has a version of itself in different form for each of those people about one particular character. Even the closest of the friends might be some one who might not expect anything nearly to the one they have drawn. Under exigence circumstances or simply in the events of daily activities they can be some one else. Is there a complete calligraphy of a person on a definite paper of living? Quite honestly not. Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) is a woman with a dominance and develops an affair beginning to see the face of love towards a much younger boy, Michael Berg (David Kross). Her picture of who she is when the past runs in the minds of grown up Michael (Ralph Fiennes) is not a question with a simple answer.

Michael gets his teenage crossed with a much older Hanna. It obviously begins strictly as a passionate physicality and then after the regularity of their love making leaves the gap to fill, Hanna asks what is Michael learning in school. She is drawn into the literature and wants to be read the books Michael studies. Michael with shyness as time goes becomes a great reader which prompts him to the career of being a lawyer. No talking comes between them. It is reading and passionate sex.

That part was a beauty of eroticism and sensual literature. And Hanna makes her to be affected by the books Michael reads. But little does Michael knows about Hanna who is opaque. She is a statue with firmness and nothing but her command and wishes. Not stern but she reads the mind of Michael and says it with firm voice which he obliges to do. Both in this web of unknown outcome begins to fall for each other. Michael more so as he is the young boy hitting the barriers of sexual exploration. For Hanna, well no one can really understand. She till the end becomes a woman who cannot be understood.

Hanna steps out of Michael’s life and comes back in a court room. She was in SS and has worked as a guard seeing the death sentence of hundreds and hundreds of victims in the ill fated camp. What happens then and how Michael’s fellow students perceive it and how he perceives it becomes the element of debate and ambiguity in the “The Reader. Hanna’s stale clinical explanation of doing her job only makes it worse for Michael. He feels to be a part of the guilt she is been charged of.

Watch how Kate Winslet walks Hanna Schmitz. How she has attended to the detail of a woman in an authoritative character and an attachment of masculinity to the manner in which she speaks shows her liking to perform this role. What I liked most is the young actor David Kross. He is this kid as Hanna always calls him who in his fantasy begins to like the woman. He goes beyond the sex and wonders about the love and the nature of it changing his life. And when the knowledge of Hanna in court room unfolds he is confused and do not know what to think. That perplex and the eventual seclusion of his emotional side are well enacted by him.

“The Reader” tells three parts of the story. One being the affair, the second is the crucial part of Hanna being tried while the later part of grown Michael trying to see terms with the acts of Hanna and himself towards her. It in its second part brings a long lasting unnoticed question of what were the people thinking. How naive, coward and evil of them to not react and ignore the staging of ultimate evil. And at the same time places Michael as the man who knows this person and the haunting past of the very same lady. Where does justice stand? Where does morality stand? Is there even a conclusion? When things happen and unforgivable acts are done, what is the solution? Forgiveness, revenge or peace? All open questions and the answers guessed are not helpful because it only brings fear for those moments where we could not forgive ourselves.

“The Reader” is a complex film with story taking courses abruptly. It has the beauty of the literature and the poetry of eroticism. And it has the cruelty of not providing solutions because there are always no reasons and no end. It lasts in the souls and in the conscience fighting the bitter battle within itself. As “Doubt” we are frustrated with a state of unsettlement. It does not blows your mind but confuses you on the stand of rightness. “Doubt” was a success in the dissatisfaction but “The Reader” is a little bit more than that. It has compassion in its story telling and leaves us with questions. And we have a whole life time to wonder about it and compare it with our shapes of realities.

"Last Chance Harvey" (2008) - Movie Review

If life’s mistakes can be writ off by a single toast speech then it would be a happy world. Of course you have to be Dustin Hoffman to do it in man walking over a high wire and as his character Harvey Shine who has been notorious for embarrassing himself and others as said by his ex-wife Jean (Kathy Baker), he comes very close in doing it. He does it by interrupting his daughter’s step father Brian (James Brolin) making a toast on the wedding. “Last Chance Harvey” is something you learn how great actors can salvage a cliched story telling with a good help from the writer and director Joel Hopkins.

Harvey is getting too old for the hip job of jingles and he is coming to London for attending his daughter Susan’s (Liane Balaban) wedding. Kate Walker (Emma Thompson) works in the Heathrow airport asking the tired and grumpy passengers for that two minute survey. As expected Harvey avoids her quite rudely and settles in a wedding he is seen not alone as an outsider but some one to be aware of sudden awkwardness. He is bombarded with bad news one after another culminating in missing his flight back. He hits the airport bar and there is Kate reading a novel and drinking a white wine.

Harvey and Kate talk and it all comes together not in a intelligent conversation as “Before Sunset” but that back ground score and mild laughing and casual comfortableness the couple find each other to say that “Yes, they are having a good time”. What saves that preposterous routine is Hoffman and Thompson. From one stage after another they make sure that they are the couple who have come to enjoy each other’s company. In that the film does not sink to the low of romantic formula comedy and absolution happens over the screen.

With Harvey citing work reasons to skip reception it becomes clear of why his daughter Susan decides to opt for Brian to give her away at the wedding. The reaction in a regular film would have been to ride on the sympathy wave over Harvey. We do because the nice feature in seeing a film is that you can make a complete jerk into a charming personality for that couple of hours. We do need to know how much of a pain Harvey was and we would not care about it. He is the main man and the audience root him to succeed in this chain of debacles. Dustin Hoffman does not think so. He carries that nature of the audience but adds the history of Harvey being the scene maker. And as the eventuality of that happens, it is walked by an actor in control but letting loose of his character for the obvious embarrassment but keeps him on the leash to have that toast speech happen. I would not see it happening in the real life but in “Last Chance Harvey” it is a wonderland of a reality.

The other part of the Hoffman is through Thompson whose character is constantly pestered by a five minute phone call from her mother (Eileen Atkins) she loves. When Kate is been set up for a date at the early moments of the film by her friend she detaches herself from the possibility of an effort towards a possible relationship. I can understand her mind going in circles seeing the man opposite her advancing towards boyfriend, move in and marriage but at every single step of breaking up in those stages. Stepping into the race of love, it has to end some where and the hurt is imminent. But there is a mind within mind grinding those lovely moments which comes along with it. Emma Thompson in that makes us see the insecurity and fear of risk without much of commotion in everyone.

“Last Chance Harvey” is no great romantic story and has no great conversations or liners to remember for. It is a simple story we have seen much younger couple over the screen zillion times. This time around it is the veterans but gladly it has the veteran actors who can juggle it blindfolded and might even perform upside down without any issue. The audience of “Last Chance Harvey” sat one row beside of me, laughing and completely getting in between these two people. They are teenagers, but wait, I saw couples leaving happily too and there you go. The people will be happy and it is a good reason to be happy for.

"The Third Man" (1949) - Movie Review

The music in “The Third Man” is supposed to be considered a great piece of work. A dusted art from the dark corners in a wine bar in Vienna was brought out when director Carol Reed and actor Trevor Howard fell in love with the Zither music by Anton Karas in there. If I had to listen to it as a music and not along with the film, I might have liked it but when it is forcefully gelled with the film, I could not stand the music. I tried to embrace it but it irritated the hell out of me when the spectacular eerie shots of Robert Krasker were followed by a comical and unsuitable score of Karas. That would be a major factor in me not able to fall in love with an otherwise good film noir.

Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) comes to post World War - II Vienna with the four powers still having their zone of control and dominance. In that emerges the black market and racketeering. Martins a novella writer has arrived to meet his long time friend Harry Lime. He is received by the shocking news of his accident. He attends the funeral where there are the suspicious personalities and a lady to charm him. The lady would be Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli). As his pulpy novels, Martins begins to investigate after an out of chord stories from couple of people who were there during the accident and his friend being said as a racketeer. That puts him into the rough and high attitude Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and his smart and sharp soldier Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee). Also to give in to the eventuality is Holly falling for Anna becomes another factor in this riddle. Now you should know that Anna was Lime’s woman.

While the set up seems easy to be predicted, “The Third Man” has a lot more than that in store. For starters would be the beautiful Vienna and the cinematography in gripping the stone roads and broken buildings. The tilted angles of the camera to view from atop and up close to the faces and the shoulder looks where the characters are confused and are in a dark. But the chase in sewer is where the man is given his freedom to get the lighting, darkness and shadow mix and give us a flurry of sleek shots. The silhouette of Martins going into the tunnel and the culprit to be caught turning with a pose to perfectly mark the thrill of noir.

The film which takes its time to move through mazes of paranoid and air of doubt gets a jolt and charm from the entry of Orson Welles. Without revealing much of the plot Welles comes as this curt and daring personality. A devious man who explains to Holly on the expendable nature of people to earn profits and have a livelihood of enormous value. He sees himself as the soldier of fortune with a few small heads to stomp and have his life of wealth. But how much do we love that man. For all the time Holly took to even get a stare from Anna, Welles’ character without any scene with her make us understand how much he can command the attraction from the same lady in a jiffy.

Looking close at “The Third Man” there would be flaws in plots and the untied knots which would go unnoticed. It is an experiment for the days of strange nature of cynicism evolving in the climate of post war. The settling dust does not recede the tension and cloud of international upheaval existing through miniscule events fearing to form a chain reaction. That is the atmosphere the story happens with Russians, British, Americans and French in a constant hold for their part of their property and how it plays down to the life of the people living out there.

I have heard bad music for a bad film but I have never experienced a bad music for a good film. The casual Zither tone sucks away the enormous gravity of the noir darkness, seriousness and of all even the sharpest sarcasm done in a wicked comic play. It plays comical almost the entire part of the film and it is not funny. The only part which it did good is the final sequence when the hopes are risen and snubbed with a mellowness and the protagonist’s reaction to it fitting it nicely. “The Third Man” is a film I almost loved to be driven off by its score.

"About Schmidt" (2002) - Movie Review

How would be the day after your final day at work? Will it be just another day with the bright sunny morning or is the sun not going to rise up for you anymore? As the clock passes the time to kick off and get out from the house, you would be in the warmth of the cozy blanket of nothing to get up for. This is not the Sunday or the holiday but a day after the routine kept up for years, almost the entire part of your life keeping it busy and paid you for it. This is the day Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson) begins to think of his life. What it has meant and it is not looking good.

Warren has finished his last day as the Assistant Vice President of a very large insurance firm in Omaha, Nebraska. He has nothing left to do other than stare as the clock hits five to check out from this room of escapist life he had forever. He has to go back to his wife Helen (June Squibb) whom he does not know anymore. She does not know him either but knows what she wants out of him. Keep him in check when his wandering mind steps him off the standards they have been living. Not big and not drastic. Just a little itsy-bitsy things which cannot be screamed or yelled but it is put to be nice which cannot be retaliated other than agonize the hell out of Schmidt.

Warren is an old school conservative office worker and a meticulous statistician. He knows numbers well enough and he is cheap. Cheap not because he opts to but it has become his skin and flesh. He has convinced himself to be rightful of his actions and lie himself to live with it. You can see it when he is dearly lovely daughter Jeannie (Hope Davis) asks him why he chose such a cheap casket for the funeral of his wife, Helen. Helen’s death makes him go crazy as a magnetic needle disturbed by external forces. He misses his wife he hated and immediately hates her again when he finds out her affair with his best friend Ray (Len Cariou). He dislikes every existence of his future son in law Randall (Dermot Mulroney) and he has a good reason though he has sufficiently ignored his daughter’s life for a while to have some weight on his words on his advise to rethink her marriage. In this chaos he pours out his heart and breath to a foster child Ndugu in Tanzania through a charity service. He needs that much stranger to make his inner anger heard.

Warren is not perfect. And his life has not been perfect and being a man of numbers, he wants it to be one. And the old age is carving him up nice with empty times. He takes a road trip on the RV his wife made him buy before her death. He decides to do something what he thinks. He takes trips down old places he grew up and roads never taken, very safely though. Nicholson plays a subdued and average guy without flamboyance with all the energy and interest sucked out of this personality dangling in the middle of the road looking for attention and passion. He is too lazy and too adamant. He has lived a life and “About Schmidt” is an acknowledgement of his mistakes, choices and plain simple existence.

Alexander Payne never goes far away with the indie nature of the film. He is too calculative and I mean it as a great compliment. When the emergence of indie was seen as hip, he adopted it for the nature of the story than a style of it. He shapes up Schmidt through the brilliance of Nicholson to get into this awkwardness, selfishness and subtle foolishness with the aid of Kathy Bates as Roberta a two time divorcee and the mother of the groom.

I have seen “About Schmidt” a while back and for some reason the comedy in it did not roll me laughing at that time. Regardless of it, I was moved by the film. Now watching it again, it is a film of comedy. Complete comedy surrounded by the uncomfortable characteristic of Schmidt and the annoyance of not able to do anything to make a difference in his life especially in his daughter’s life. While it is true that Randall is the guy every one would stay away from due to his up to the face nature and jumping from one idea to other as picking pebbles on a lake shore but Schmidt sees a little character of himself in it. He also sees a lot of himself in his daughter and does not want her to be like him marrying the wrong person.

“About Scmidt” is about Schmidt. Old age is a character associated with it and not becomes the talking subject. Retirement is a tough thing. Being idle is the toughest thing possible. The greatest danger about it is the addiction towards it. While at the edge of your life if that is something one wants to do, it is an enjoyment but if some one repents it every day, it has issues. People generally at that time get involved with their future generation to keep them occupied. Schmidt is concerned of his very immediate generation, but the problem is he has to be concerned about himself before that.

"The General" (1998) - Movie Review

“The General” is a slow but a nice construction of a criminal consumed by a pride of being poor and tough been driven to paranoid and ultimately only gets a moment of the life he once had before he gets shot. The person is Martin Cahill (Brendan Gleeson) the infamous Irish thief who pulled off daring heists with simple technique with a crew loyal to him of course until the end one by one get in the mix either by the Garda the Dublin police or by carelessness to leave Cahill stranded on his own with his family.

With respect and authority as called “The General” Martin is a man grows up in slums and takes immense pride in being so. He is so attached to the place he ran after stealing groceries that he stays put in a tent until he literally gets begged by the authority to leave for an upscale apartment. He hates authority and repeatedly says “Us against them”. The “them” is never clear apart from the rich and government. But he owns a luxurious house cleverly put on his sister in law Tina’s (Angleine Ball) name who would become his second wife which will be gladly suggested and welcomed by his wife Frances (Maria Doyle Kennedy).

In this mix is his counter part who is police Inspector Ned Kenny (Jon Voight). I am not sure what attracts a sympathy in the police man way from Kenny towards Cahill because he advises him constantly on giving up on this trade. Martin is a stubborn man and if I can say an irritating personality, at least for the police and watching him I would have been too. He insults them with disregard and mere smugness. Every time he pulls a heist he faithfully makes his alibi by visiting Inspector Ned Kenny.

“The General” is not your regular heist film. For that fact it is not a heist film. It is a study of this character who formulates a crew who are blindly loyal that they let him divide the money and hide it and circulate it when he wants to. He of course tests the loyalty cruelly and unmercifully when he suspects one of the crew stealing by nailing his hand to a snooker table.

I was not impressed by the film to tell you the truth even though it redeems to a little bit as the end nears. What Martin stood for or what he put the pride on for is a question mark. Since it is based on the real guy, you cannot argue much with a man’s character of who he was. But the film made on him cannot use that as an excuse because there is something which amazed the director by the character of this personality to drive a film. What was it never gets answered. Or this puzzle of his movement in not giving up to the authority does not become a good game. The Garda stoops to the level of cheap tactics and ultimately wants a dirt fight to make Martin give up. Not that I am defending the guy but stooping to his level does not make it right which he himself says to Kenny.

Martin is the smart person and he is not alone aware of it but develops this arrogance in intentionally playing dumb and insult his opponents. He always hides his face as though to tease the curiosity of the press and the public. He pulls off crazy stunts and delays any legal process getting down on the ground and taking it down by simple bare hands. He is a pain and he makes them feel it not in the way of extremity but sort of an irritability. Gleeson brings that in appearance and the funny way he brings out the words. He gets ruthless when he needs to and when he breaks down almost to the police, we only get a bit of hint of his humanity.

He loves his family and lives harmoniously with two wives. He poses as the Robin Hood but succumbs to the head strong he holds. The police deals the smirk on his face with the medicine of his own which is to annoy. They annoy and harass him and his family to an extent that leaving the house for a peaceful dinner alone with his family becomes a luxury. Except for the house he does not seem to hold much money from the robberies.

“The General” is a strange film. I was neither amused nor annoyed by it completely. I believe it is due to the subject they take on and the person they focus. He has principles which are only aware to him and he changes them as he wishes. We are in the dark of his intentions and he is not insane enough to disregard his actions as a pain of childhood. Director John Boorman got robbed by the real Martin and that stirred him to take up this story when Irish journalist Paul Williams wrote the book of the same name. He sure is a complex person but a film on him may be was not a good idea in my opinion.

"The Good German" (2006) - Movie Review

Can a film suck the energy out of you so that you hesitate so much to even write a review? Yes it can. Does not need to be a dramatically horrible film but just enough to push you off the edge of boredom and laziness to make you think like that? And it is little too troubling to see the talent pool of Steven Soderbergh with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett spoil the fun of watching a film. Especially if it also tries to reenact the black and white film noir experience in a particularly bad script. This is “The Good German”, a film with no interest drawing whatsoever from its audience.

With a faithful presentation in terms of colour, music and look, “The Good German” is on a murder mystery happening in the post World War - II Berlin. Jake Geismer (George Clooney), an American war correspondent comes to Berlin assigned to a boyish looking Tully (Tobey Maguire) as his driver. Tully is a snaky character having his slimy arms wrapped around a German woman Lena (Cate Blanchett) and earns his living in Black Marketing. There is an Emil Brandt missing in this picture for whom every one is looking for. That is the suspense out here which links these three and many others that when it is out you have no interest in knowing the truth as it seems.

The conversation in the film is supposed to be this shadowy things of mystic and suspicion. In the attempt to do that the character speak as if they were reading from a cue card. In the effort to bring back those acting days, it is a faltering presentation of a loose screenplay. Frankly we develop a stoic curiosity in knowing about Jake, Tully or the ever suspicious Lena. The film noir theme it poses does not stir any smart and quirky one liners or the looming investigation leading to strange lands in an already desolated and departed post war Berlin.

There is a passion to make this film in concentrating on the moods and elements of the old 40s films. The shadows are not glorified but are maintained of their ingenuity in putting its mark on a noir picture. The music by Thomas Newman is devoted to replicate the music of those times but Newman has his way of inserting his trademark tunes. Unfortunately though the talented work of his goes to the bland story of “The Good German”.

The film has patches of voice over narration. It is used as a prop put in heavily for the heck of it. It does not add any purpose or clarity to the film. It becomes the huge blame and incapability the voice over generally has on the opinion of coaches for screen writing which is that when the characters does not have real dimension to add an agenda or emotions, it is a cheap tool to convey those to the audience. Here Tobey Maguire’s Tully uses it to say his contention on dealing in Black Market while Lena and Jake have little to nothing to add a dimension to their hollow characters.

Lena is a neither a femme fatale nor the forbidden fruit every one goes nuts for. Honestly there is no attraction in Cate Blanchett to get that role kicking and craving. Nothing against her beauty but the mystical eagerness which generally pulls in the sane men to the madness does not seem to come out of her in this film. She stares in the light in wide angle or submerged in shadows with a constant absence of passion or deviousness. Her damsel in distress is another vacuum in the story of nothing but locations of broken buildings and sweaty uniforms.

“The Good German” is a perfectly formed boring film. There is nothing as a sense of direction or an effort to have a suspense we would care for. In the story telling we are distracted by the visual due to the lack of material in the characters and their deliveries of dialogues evaporating well before it is uttered. “The Good German” sucked the energy out of me and managed to evacuate the enthusiasm even to slam it in the review.

"Forrest Gump" (1994) - Movie Classics

I read here and there on the net and came to note that most of the people who reviewed “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” could not able to skip mentioning its resemblance to the classic “Forrest Gump”. Apart from sharing the same writer Eric Roth, its semblance is nothing more than an epic story of a fictional man. It is true though that the writer had some kind of inclination in reminiscing the days of creating Forrest Gump in Tom Hanks through certain dialogues in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. It never crossed the quality of the film though.

“Forrest Gump” was in basket of many movies which passed right in front of me and missed its view when the whole world witnessed it as a phenomenon in 1994. Although there was another unnoticed classic being in its roots which unfortunately came along with this film but sure got its recognition later. That would be “The Shawshank Redemption”. Today through my regular lazy Sunday I skimmed through the DVD shelf of mine and in the list of films to be watched, I dug in to this. And how much more can be fitting to be viewed on a lazy Sunday afternoon to kick off the hazy mood I had.

Forrest Gump sits with his box of chocolates in one of the benches of Savannah and begins to narrate his life story to strangers. Out there when the feather from the far sky finds its way to his foot steps, it is a symbol for a fairy tale story. With the regular apt and artistic interruption from realities of life, the film happens in the land where people are not immediately pulled in back by the outspoken and a rather shifted style of speech by Gump. He is bullied and put down as a kid by his home town boys in the state of Alabama but he clings on to the words of his Mama (Sally Field) and his child hood sweet heart Jenny (Robin Wright) to run and take the road in his times. And when he grows up he begins to meet the people who steers his life through their friend ship in Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) and Lieutenant Dan which Gary Sinise makes an enlightening performance of it.

Forrest Gump is shown as a man of adventures as Sinbad or the stories we have heard as kids. He is of course not the regular kind of protagonist as kids would see as role model. He has the skills which comes natural and the key part in separating from the rest is that he as other people never sees it as a specialty. He never sees as some one away from the crowd. He sees it as a simple thing life has to offer him and he leads on the path where he is led on by his spontaneity. As his couple of years in long running along the country which he does for no particular reason, his days that are kept busy by the tasks he gets into are without reasons. They are the sands of time for the love he wants to learn, attain and live.

Tom Hanks in one another discussion with the friend who I had argument for Tom Cruise too mentioned his problems with Hanks. But not as bad as he had his spite for Cruise. I remember him saying Hanks bringing Hanks in his characters. I am not sure what his view on this film but if he has, our friendship is on line. There are filmmakers and critics who talk about commitment to a character. I have seen great performances and I am sure every one had them committed to their character but this is the film which shows it. Tom Hanks does not create Forrest Gump as man with monotonic voice over along with a slight modification in mood but he makes him a person of emotions. If on the face of Earth comes a man like Gump then he would cry like what Hanks’ Gump does and run like Hanks’ Gump.

Robert Zemeckis went ahead to collaborate with another classic favourite of mine with Tom Hanks, “Cast Away”. And in “Forrest Gump” the skill in the screenplay of Eric Roth does not get lost in the making over the white screen. It savours in showing this character because Zemeckis understands the character through the screenplay. He treats him as a person jumping from the worlds of a story book into the reality of this world for a period in this film.

The songs resonating the times, the historic footage of many rhyming the times and the props and people and moments are all sounds of the times passed by. It does not advocate values or way of life but a clear sense of story telling. It is a bed time stories for adults ready to sleep in the corporate world and wake up for their clock work or may be kick off a life they wish would have or find the hidden happiness existing right around the corner of their house. “Forrest Gump” in accumulating the times of the past several decades became a land mark of its own time.

Despite my thorough enjoyment of the film, I was wondering what caught the attention of the audience world wide to really make a critically acclaimed film a box office hit. What do they see in it which made them to never forget the film and make memories surrounding it? Many would say a sense of principles reflecting the traditional American way of life or some would say the beauty of film making. It is of course a slice of an American life hidden in the towns and counties of the country. Yet it does not preach anything what is right or wrong. It is also a beauty of the film making in providing a pleasure time with an empathizing character. But most of all it is that time wherein we forget ourselves in listening to a story. The story we are so awed and absorbed by the adventures of some one fictional in a world so different from ours. We begin to believe in putting ourselves in that land of fiction and swim through it. As kids it was so real and posed as an inch away from the life we led on. The growing up withers the beauty and mounts the cynicism. I believe “Forrest Gump” took every one to that time when fiction was real and the possibilities were endless. For me it is the reason why I watch the films and why I love every single minute of it.

"Gran Torino" (2008) - Movie Review

Myself and my brother were dancing coming back from the school in the city bus heading our home. It was a Saturday afternoon and in our school they sometimes had half day on occasions. The jubilation is to watch a film that called itself “Dirty Harry” with a very mean and rough East Wood on the covers if I am not wrong. See in those days we do not watch a film if in the introducing titles there were not any “Stunt Co-ordinators”. And with the video guy boasting so much of the action in the film to our dad, we were singing literally of the name “Dirty Harry”. Little did we know that the action in Eastwood’s were something we could not embrace as kids. But I remember “Do I feel lucky?” which stitches in the heart without even aware of its appreciation you had. Someday I will watch it but you get to see “Gran Torino” for Eastwood in these days and seriously I can only describe it with some cursing attached to it and truly representing it, that he is one mean bad ass who will literally kick ass and take names.

Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is “the” American. Trimmed hair, polished shoes and that groan emitting at the site of the American tradition bullied, butchered and tainted which he sees in terms of the immigration in the current trend. He wonders what the kid in a priest suit Father Janovich (Christopher Carley) knows about life and death. He wants to get up and slap his grand kids who are caught up in the world of texting and trendy dressing and more importantly forgetting the respect for their elders. These are all happening at the Church for the funeral of his demised wife. He pretty much has lost the shield from his wife who would have buffered every one to him and vice versa. Man she would have had to put a lot with him but he is a sweet smooth guy when it comes to women which he advises later to the neighbour kid Thao (Bee Vang) and they obviously do not get started on a right note.

Walt is in this neighbourhood with Hmong predominant residence. He is a racist and bleeds when seeing his America been occupied as comes with every old traditional hard proud people of any nation. Being a Korean war veteran, he has two things which would be his panache of work and appreciate his skill at the art. One being his 1972 Gran Torino which he got himself once he got out of Ford manufacturing plant. Second would be his instinctive reach for gun and slurs. That makes him a tough man to reach. Valor is the language he would speak. Man is a religion and he thinks every single kid earns it when they grow up. Of course he lives in 50s as one of his sons say. They are the typical sons who never really got along with Walt not surprisingly but also produce offsprings who see them not respecting their father and hence comes easily for them to follow it towards their grandfather.

I have seen Eastwood as a director than as an actor. He gets this stories and builds them with a non-stylized original scenes. And when the picture culminates we would have been involved with him along with his building of this film. We would be in the sides of his film’s people and in a half awake dream would appreciate it in both sense of reality and imagination. That has been the only characteristic I could able to underline of his films. He makes good movies and often migrates into greatness as time goes by. In “Gran Torino” he depicts Walt Kowalski with dialogues which can only be said by him with his thorn filled voice and a face frightening the hell out of you.

Walt lives by racial epithets and he takes immense joy out of it. He belongs in a country and wears it in his shoulders. He has friends who knows his frequency of what he is. They fight over with racial remarks as a symbol of their closeness as his barber Martin (John Caroll Lynch) does. But more importantly is a person of rightness when the situation comes. That is how he gets involved when his neighbour girl Sue (Ahney Her) gets in trouble.

You work with people with racism in their heads. In fact it would shared amongst day in and day out and argue about it on its wrongness and prejudice of it while the others for it. They are the people when they meet other races and gets to know would become great friends too still sharing the same views only that they have an exception. The problem is they never give that chance to their perspective to see everything with openness than to leave for options to shrink. Walt is one such who does not lose his perspective but becomes a good friend with his neighbours who are not Americans. He still groans with resentment and irritation when his new doctor is an Asian. He never changes but it is about his peace in life. He is in constant denial of not having to confront his haunting war nightmares despite his wife’s last wish for him to confess.

“Gran Torino” is fun to watch of Eastwood giving punches on the screen with his point blank eye to eye straight arrowed dialogues and sometimes with bare knuckles. Never does his Walt flinch on how his people skills are hurting other. He stands by it and lives by it. Clint Eastwood is solid. And when some one says that there is an image of that in a character. Everything needs to be felt to see the real thing but you would know what I exactly mean when I say solid. “Gran Torino” is another film from this man who never takes rest.

"After Hours" (1985) - Movie Classics

Prologue - Paul Hackett wants to get laid. Epilogue - Paul Hackett wants to go home. Paul Hackett wants to get a second of a sleep. Paul Hackett wants this night to end, forever. Paul Hackett wants to return to his boring work of word processing. Paul Hackett wants to live out this reality of nightmare. Griffin Dunne is Paul Hackett and his nightmare is laugh riot in a sick way in the Martin Scorcese’s “After Hours”.

In the wake of evening, lights up a night for Paul. He visits a coffee shop and gets into a conversation with a bright and edgy woman (Rosanna Arquette). Not the spark but something to invite a call. He goes home and calls back immediately. The fantasy land of men works out the calculation to get laid in an hour with forty five minutes to travel and fifteen minutes to chat. The terror begins in a taxi cab ride swinging him like a roller coaster without a safety belt wherein he loses his last twenty dollars. Broke and left at the door step in a long and distant downtown of New York, Paul Hackett is stepping into the night of his life.

What a movie to watch and laugh every single frame of the trouble he goes through. How much twisted and a tone of dark comic does writer Joseph Minion has that he cracks down on this character like a psychological torture experiment over his enemy. Not gross, not creepy but just enough to walk the line to laugh on his stumbling pile of problems. In the wet streets of the city where the moon has disowned it by the crankiness airing out, Paul goes from one trouble after another with his curiosity and after a while his desperation for a place to say.

Everything is surreal. Extreme out of the reality coincidences but intertwines on the strangeness of a late night. The woman from the coffee shop is named Marcy and lives with her room mate Kiki Bridges (Linda Florentino) making sculptures out of old newspaper and plaster of paris. She teases him over for a massage when Marcy is out and when the time is about to tick in to make his move, she sleeps. Then comes Marcy and he gives the spooks for any one and wonder what made Paul to do such an impulsive action. He forces out only to be stuck in the place forever.

Have you gone through a day wherein there is no possibility for any right thing to happen at all? I am sure you would have or at least the anger and frustration in one pans in the other to cause a ripple effect. I went through in my trip. In an Island where winter is a bad season to be stuck in a mess, I got stuck in the Ocracoke Island. Missed the first ferry by two minutes and then fog loomed. Missing the second ferry and waiting for it, I steered in to the stupidness of driving over a beach. Got stuck in a fog filled beach with a car ready to pummel me if it had life, I was desolated for twenty minutes. Finally got help and came back to see the fog persisting not to let the ferry leave. I waited for three hours and it felt like I would never be let off this island. But I was having different kind of fun though. It is nothing like what Paul goes through but I could relate his struggle of been stuck in a place with a terrifying thought of no escape.

Michael Ballhus swings the camera from behind and brings in front while keeping the character in focus and then follow the corners of the desk in a congested office and shots down the key drop like a failed rocket on to the face and lifts it up. You are dizzied and enchanted by that and fall right into the theme of the film of topsy turvy land and space.

Apparently “After Hours” was a self motivating and much needed film for Scorcese since his first attempt on “The Last Temptation of Christ” got shut down. Depressed and desperate he landed on this script. This is an entertainer and the love for film is painted through out. Griffin Dunne as the guy in a mess gets invitation from all the women he meets only to be terrified in to further weirdness. He goes to a bar and the waitress (Teri Garr) leaves him a funny note and invites him to her apartment where her bed is surrounded by mouse traps. Another woman (Catherine O’Hare) who gets off a taxi accidentally hurts him and again, invites him for helping but in the meanwhile doing everything possible to forget a number he got from directory service. And she has a license to drive the Ice Cream truck. Finally is an old lady June (Verna Bloom) sitting in the corner of a surreal German Disco Club minding her business and she becomes Paul’s only hope for surviving the night. But no, she wraps him up as a sculpture in order him to go unnoticed by the vigilante gang mistaking him for a burglar. June leaves him out there stuck in it. This is one of his few mishaps in a night of bumps, beat and lots of running.

“After Hours” is the funniest and truly artistic film I have seen recently. It takes this character and spins him around like a dancing toy keyed on. Then they key him on and put near clearly defined paranoid circumstances. One instinct after another he seeks out and with enough beat knows that anything after this would only lead further mayhem. “Final” Epilogue - Paul Hackett wants the morning, if it comes.

"A Path Gone Before" - "Into the Wild" and "The Godfather"

“A path gone before” is a special section I decided to come up after watching two films today I have enjoyed a lot before and now. One is my personal favourite for the year of 2007 “Into the Wild” and the other being ever classic “The Godfather”, the DVD I bought is the The Coppola Restoration with finer picture you could ever come up. The reason for the section while is the birth of these two pictures runs more than that. The actual should films should be “Michael Clayton” and “Gone Baby Gone” which I have watched three to four times and every time it grew more on me. In fact “Gone Baby Gone” did not even make the best films of 2007 of mine. Hence there are films which by remote invitation asks me to view again and gets better and better by further viewing. This time though “Into the Wild” and “The Godfather” takes the stage but in coming times the films which missed the eyes on first viewing would get its turn. And it would be no wonder to see “Michael Clayton” and “Gone Baby Gone” pretty soon.

So what am I going to write in this part of the take on the films most of which would have got reviewed by me? Nothing new. I might revisit certain scenes and allow myself in getting more up close and personal with plots and sequences. I would not stop myself in the fear of spoilers and hence would warn you all that it might have those for sure. As always feedbacks, opinions, scoldings, debates and anything are welcome.

“Into the Wild”

If “The Shawshank Redemption” made enormous appeal in the life I was leading, “Into the Wild” is the next step to it. I write what I felt watching a film but honestly the most I can really identify is when I discuss it with people. And in this I was not able to figure out the exact precise thing which made me feel affected for many days after watching. When I was discussing this with my friend Mathi, he said that when some one sees a slice of their life on the screen even if it is an ambition unattained that hits some where. I would not dare compare myself to the character but the purity of Chris in his choice and consequence absorbed me which I aspire upon. But without Sean Penn and the actors especially Emile Hirsch it could have been disaster and this disaster would have costed many people’s hearts which have already gone through enough tragedy.

I have suggested this film to every one I know of. Almost every one hated it. Hated it because of the character than the film. Many said he was arrogant, hypocrite and what not. But as a film it struck them as it did me in a different way. For the people who hated it, please watch it again and when you look over the change of his heart and the actions he does, it is a true picture of one’s life. Chris took an approach many of us do not take upon in that phase we go through.

I got to tell that I avoided watching it second time since the film affected me so much. I have seasoned till this time to be able to appreciate and take deep effect of any good film but not stop me from functioning. It should always be an experience to be cherished even in a very bad film. Hence I am glad I viewed it again.

And this time I again was moved to the edge of tears from the great performance of Hal Holbrook as Ron Franz. It is a performance which rarely comes by. It travels from the realm of this fiction on screen and reminds us of the true existence.

“Into the Wild” is a philosophical film. It mainly deals with the systematic existence we have created upon. It cracks us open and invites us to the world we missing in. And with today’s ease of travel that is something to be done upon in each of our life.

“The Godfather”

There was a special occasion when the National Television Channel in India couple of decades ago announced the telecast of this film. People were talking around and my mom especially was eager. She as an avid reader has read Mario Puzo’s book and wanted to see it on the screen. I was a little kid knowing nothing about it. Then after several occasions not much interested in seeing, happen to watch along with a friend in my graduate school. It was summer holidays and he was renting the old VHS tapes. That was the first time I saw “The Godfather”, the universal classic.

I have after that managed to view it once or twice but today when I put on and the shadows of Don Corleone appears on when Bonnasera comes for justice, it still appears new and pure. There are films which wears in the run of time. As the days go by and the people who were fascinated by it watch it again notice the simple flaws and mistakes in it. “The Godfather” does not have a single scratch visually and in its whole content. It is not the first one to have that but this is the polished work of cinema which travels through time and stands still and clear.

With the man Marlon Brando himself moving through the air of acting and living in Don Corleone with Al Pacino, James Cann and Robert Duvall in their youth confidently playing their characters, this is the film every kid in the life of the earth would watch and be impressed.

The film is a study of men who indeed kill people for living. They have developed this code and custom of carrying their action in terms of business but strongly tying them to the human relationship of family and honour. While Don Corleone is the protector and enforcer of the law in the streets of the New York, their actions are all profit based. What is done now will be repaid later. Not in currencies or jewels but on crucial favours determining many of the outcomes.

It is a corporation which has the tools of bullets, strings and knives. It has the chain of command and unlike today’s market of failures is a well run and pragmatically aligned business by a leader placing values above profits. True that value is based on crime but they stuck to it with a respect. We almost forgive them. That is how good does Coppola with his team of performers make us.

The sepia photography is a treat especially with the Coppola Restoration. It is a gem of a collection worth every numerous watch. The beauty of the Sicily, the closed doors of the Corleone’s business meetings and the restaurants of homestyled authenticity are polished, perfected but historically preserved.

The film is a meditation of power and betrayal. It is a hymn on the art of coldness. And in Michael Corleone it begins to depart from the humanity his dad stuck on. He cares too but strictly for the family. And if the family needs a self cure of cutting of the bad cancer, he would not hesitate to do it. He as any rigorous fanatic of certain thing also runs with a convinced feeling of doing the ultimate righteousness. He sees it as the strongest decision which is cold hearted and down right wrong to us. But we secretly are attracted by that quality. He is that person of magnetism for doing such darkness with an ice cold grip.

Al Pacino transfers Michael into this soft and no trouble seeker into a man doing what should be done for the family. The person who comes as a spectator, begins to understand that being step above this heartless actions of his enemies is the method to follow in order to sail this family through.

The art of using the body language became visible through this film. The eye balling, the gesture of simplicity and the way some one seats themselves suddenly became signals of interest. “The Godfather” in its every minute is a relishing experience. Knowing exactly what we are going to see and hear, it is even more rejoicing. And in the restoration it takes as much closer to the theatrical viewing.

"Saroja" (Language - Tamil) (2008) - Movie Review

Director Venkat Prabhu should have a great talent to edit the darkened frames of his film “Saroja”. Almost three quarters of the film happens in night and for whatever reasons going with no lighting at all did not help the screenplay made up of nothing but a lazy haphazard work. My friend said it was amateurish but he is being soft. The film goes beyond trouble to make it the cool picture. Venkat Prabhu comes from the MTV generation in the southern part of India and he heavily utilizes those in his film rightly shot even after a not so cool appearance by music director Yuvan Shankar Raja.

“Saroja” begins on a very promising note with “Chennai 60028” element of having that casual environment. It has the friends making fun of themselves and basically using the formula of playing that cocky characters meeting the ultimate embarrassment. And in that Premji Amaren as Ganesh Kumar is perfect. He does the same role what he did in the previous film. In fact I have a strong feeling he plays himself in both the films fitting the screenplay. He should be a fun guy to be around. His comic timing adds a little to the falling story once the group of friends traveling from Chennai to Hyderabad decide to take a different route due to the highway been blocked by an accident. Those are brothers Jagapathibabu (S. P. B. Charan), Rambabu (Vaibhav Reddy) along with Ganesh Kumar and TV serial artist Ajayraj (Shiva). All act the idiot guys and that is not the issue.

The titular character Saroja (Vega) is a school girl been kidnapped by a gang led by Sampath (Sampath) and demand ransom from her father Viswanathan (Prakash Raj). The crazy route of these four friends leads them to the spot of turmoil which is Sampath’s den. Then begins the cat and mouse uninteresting game between these people in complete darkness. Now and then they bring a laugh and that should be the good part of the film.

Let me start with the music which is average if not bad. Yuvan Shankar Raja should be a little bit ashamed to lift the Beethoven’s score when the Van collides. The score very famously used aptly and perfectly in “A Clockwork Orange”. The songs are good and the back ground score is jarring at times. Why does hip hop and rap typically constitute a class of being in current trend and more importantly how it is presumed unanimously to generate the style and coolness the film needs which sadly does not. What happened to the eerie and methodically constructed music not depending on these unwanted influences the same person did in “Katrathu Tamizh” and “Pudhupettai”?

It is said that the film is heavily inspired (politically correct term for plagiarized I believe) from the English film “The Judgment Night” which I have not seen. It can be only assumed that the original was shot in a visible dark with more substance. So there are colourful cut shots from Tony Scott’s influence and interlaced editing in many of the other Hollywood blockbuster and I would not complain on taking those but do not play it like a kid finding a new toy. After a while it becomes a gimmick and hurts our eyes.

Almost two decades ago came a film based on similar plot called “Arangetra Velai”. It had three characters not getting along with each other using a wrong call to revolve their fortune. That film not only was hysterical but also cared for the characters. We wanted them to succeed in their plans and have a good life. The characters in “Saroja” are the people who are there to generate certain timed dialogues for a good laugh and then hide in the bushes of indifference.

Venkat Prabhu’s comedy works to great amount when the care is there. Rest of the times it seems like a filler. It is me writing a college exam during my bachelors degree. Just keep on writing without any remote possibility of logic or sense. The target is to fill the pages and that gladly got me the marks I needed. “Saroja” does not.

"Australia" (2008) - Movie Review

“Australia” is a celebration for director Baz Luhrmann both cinematically and in a particular feel of belonging nationally. The cinematic part is a homage to the romance epics taken in those earlier times of Hollywood. Whether recreating those in a modern effects and possibly shined dialogues worked is a different thing but “Australia” is neither a great epic as it proclaims to be nor a over dramatized show of romance and melodrama. It simply plays grand and still runs on low profile. The sets, costumes and location glitter the budget but the film itself is a cautious approach.

In the late 30s at the edge of the war about to hiting the place, an English Woman Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) arrives in order to meet her husband who is there maintaining their cattle property. As the hunk of the year, Hugh Jackman is Drover a man for hire to do cattle management comes along to pick her up. With her English attitude, Ashley has regular tussle of high class with the field man Jackman. She is invited by the sad demise of her husband. She is said that he was killed by an aboriginal King George (David Gulpilil) by the dubious and suspicious Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). In turn of events it is learnt that in ending the cattle business for Ashley, Fletcher would be aiding the competitor Carney (Bryan Brown). By this time you can also understand who actually killed Ashley’s husband.

The film runs the underlining brutality slain on the half caste kids born for a White man and an aboriginal woman. Till 1973 the children were separated from their parents to be raised in a Christian atmosphere in order to diminish the bloods of aboriginals in the future generation. A film covering those made based on a true story was beautifully presented in “Rabbit Proof Fence” wherein three kids escape from the missionary school and track back to their home.

Fletcher has planted his seed and in the farm is the kid Nullah (Brandon Walters) whose grandfather is a nomad aboriginal King George. Nullah begins to like Ashley and the bond develops through the hard man ship they go through to herd the cattle to the Northern Territory to keep the farm running and stay in business. That marks the first part of the film which has some spectacular stunts and known results of the ordeal. Ashley and Drover fall in love to no one’s surprise.

Luhrmann’s film can be watched through in a good guessing game. While the end of the cattle journey appeared to be one film of its own, knowing the time period of it I knew it is going to run for another hour. I would not crib on that but it felt like a stretch. A stretch in the sense of me writing a review and the obsessiveness to have one and half page of content. You think and think and want to extend it and the final product would be a meager satisfaction for the inner self deceiving the conviction of the content. I do it now and then and some time it works. In the deception sometimes gives birth to material I almost forgot. “Australia” could have made it without the whole war and the rescue of the kid sent to the Mission Island in this extension.

Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman are rightly matched. Jackman as the figure of representation of being that Australian Outback man is uncanny on his physicality, body language and the attitude as such of that hero from the classics. We need no exemplified scenes to ensure that we believe in it. But he appears to us fist fighting and that is an overstatement for his character.

The 166 minutes film is of great production value using every penny of it till the final scene. The visuals are worth the watch for the film despite its flaws. The title kind of misleads you in expecting to see the long history of the country. Yes it has the history of the aboriginals and their chants and magics, but those are used as plot pushers. It suits the circumstances though. I would still prefer the impressive “Rabbit Proof Fence” if it comes down to watch for the beautiful land. I would not want to discourage people in watching this on theatre. With the apt cinematic elements it does not bore you and the sight of the country is great to tolerate the over abundance of mundane predictability.

"Marley & Me" (2008) - Movie Review

A friend once said pets are an emotional masturbation. People who got offended, please when did masturbation become bad? Anyways, I have always thought that point across several times. And I concluded that any form of emotional extent in our life can be attributed to that. His view may be is that the emotion cannot be compared to the human relationship which I would strongly beg to differ. “Marley & Me” should be watched by him as he could understand the relativeness in a life of many attached to it.

I never had a dog but I grew up with couple. The first one called Jimmy, a nice active dog and it loved us unconditionally despite having a different master and a family too. So there it goes, the unconditional love from a being. That is truly a sign of desperation but life as such as a consecutive beckoning of those love from many, humans being the most prominent ones. “Marley & Me” is a story of course of the dog and the “Me” being the John Grogan (Owen Wilson). His dodge to the bullet of expanding the family from his lovely wife Jenny (Jennifer Aniston) brings Marley into their life.

Marley is a neurotic and constantly active dog. It runs off, chews materials indigestible by robots and basically ruining every possible worthy moments in the life of theirs. But as with the adoring nature towards this creature, it becomes that part of their life. The character staying there when they make memories when the time actually comes for both of them to begin their family. Yes it is a glowy fabulous life of a couple whose story of failure is done with so much optimism. It is cheery to see it though. Something natural comes out of it in the performance of its lead actors to have them this life which gets hold of them without waiting.

“Marley & Me” is good because it does not literally becomes the running prop for the film. It has characters building themselves around it. And in doing so without the knowledge we as the audience rarely notice how Marley creeps under our feelings as with the family. It is annoying as anything and in fact at one point Jenny after couple of kids asks to give it away. As all things push their limits, Marley does too and they take it as their role to stick on to continue doing what they have been doing pushing it harder than before.

Grogan is a journalist with a boss aptly played by Alan Arkin. To give a contrast of life his friend Sebastien (Eric Dane) a lone playboy adventurer journalist is given side by side along with John. Somewhere later in the film when their paths have gone far apart in distant and life, they meet again. Both of them share a moment in each others reminiscing the days they were together. Both have not changed and in a slightest way envy the lives of each others yet at the end of conversation are happy with what they have got. Moments like these makes “Marley & Me” a sensible film.

Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston has to be thanked for their portrayal of this picture frame couple. Wilson being that average guy while Aniston the out of league lady for him but likes him for his casual outlook in taking things as it comes along. He has a philosophy of surprising himself and that becomes his motivating mantra for extending the arc of his skills, maturity and life. Alan Arkin as his boss is amicable, calmly cheerful and has that sense of understanding his people especially the ones he could smell the life he lived already.

I had a good time seeing the film. I entered with a not so good attitude in seeing it but came out happily. I am not going to lie about a little over the top emotions and cheerfulness in the film but it captures it perfectly. It attends to the moments in us where the regularity of this systematic living makes sense in those. The picture perfect family does make it the hardness worth it. It is a family film and works hard in making it balanced in all the emotions possible with as much optimism possible too. The thing is it is not on your face, always.

"Doubt" (2008) - Movie Review

“Doubt” is a display of performers doing their best within four walls of mistrust, suspicion, blame and disagreement in between each other. It evolved into screen from a play written by John Patrick Shanley to the screenplay and directed too by him with an awareness of its cast. It has Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams in for their part of each stand. One a friendlier and comforting Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the other side of this is the strict rule book and old traditional obstinate Sister Aloysius Beauvier and the calm and novice Sister James (Amy Adams). Each have their doubts and that becomes the steering wheel for the film.

I saw the film twice as the first time was after a long day and long stretch of films. While the strength of the film which is the performance is unshakeable, its take on the point of the film never arriving to conclusion made it incomplete. While that is the intention of the director it felt like an army waiting for its attack order in the battle front never getting it at all. The movie is magnificent in its actors performing the dialogues. It is not the style of tennis rally exchange of words which is prominent in plays based films but sporadic elocution from one to another with the suspicion and subtle reference given more stress than the usual.

“Doubt” has characters speaking meaning one thing and assuming the other person understand the matter of subject clearly even though there is a great region of unsureness in it. What makes “Doubt” a powerful script is when the arguments happen in the closed rooms of Sister Aloysius and her stubbornness not enough for that room. She firmly and in complete conviction that Father Flynn’s reputation is a web of inappropriateness after a hearsay of hazed version of events from Sister James of a student of hers Donald Miller (Joseph Foster II) gets special attention from Father Flynn.

Sister James a naive and cheery little teacher we all would adored to have had in our school days. On normal days she would not have seen the chain of events in Father Flynn calling Miller to rectory and the sadness in the boy later as something to be doubted upon. But Sister Aloysius alerts every one in her dining table of the changes happening in the school by the newly winged Father Flynn not saying his name though. This seeds of suspicion does not take much time to put the pieces together and cause distress and unsettling feeling for Sister James.

Streep and Hoffman are the key characters when the screen lights up. Hoffman as he does his role spectacularly with the slightest body language to the precise movement stands his ground in the accusations by Streep’s character. But as the adamance of Sister Aloysius grows we begin to see a shade of lie. We have been influenced by hr too. The film rumbles us with those vacillating look on him. And purely on evidence basis nothing crops up even Sister Aloysius goes to great stretch in talking with the boy’s mother (Viola Davis) only to hit a wall and learn new things.

What to conclude and what to believe is the doubt the film wants to pose on us. But the uncertainty is not the art out here but a feeling which resides in us so thoroughly which we do not want to witness. In this confrontation we leave the theatre with a restless feeling of not knowing the truth. The truth as we know never exists in its purest form. It exists only the heads of each of us. Anything coming out in the middle of this open area is an attempt for its purity. The doubt hence becomes the truth in a different form and of course varies in the people’s perspective making it unsure of anything. This confusion is a never ending process and haunts us beyond what we could imagine.

I liked the film and the performances especially which it crowns upon. It did not satisfy me as the nature of the film in giving that exact feeling would be a success for it. I do not want a point or message or anything from a film. It is derived from the experience. Sometimes having nothing becomes the theme and some times it is out on the open to observe and dissect. “Doubt” is the one which you are never strong of. Strangely the character of Streep firmly believes in her gut feeling. Amy Adams in Sister James is the confused one as the audience while Hoffman’s character is the ambiguous in exterior but perfectly knows the truth in his heart. Symbolically I appreciate the film and I would suggest any one to watch it. My dissatisfaction in this case becomes the success of the film.

"Yes Man" (2008) - Movie Review

Jim Carrey would hurt himself and embarrass to maximum extent unknown to the human kind to get a laugh. In his earlier film career it fell short and later he matured and embraced the art of careful consideration unlike the lead character role Carl he takes on in “Yes Man”. It is a film we have seen before in “Liar Liar” and “Bruce Almighty” wherein a average joe would do abnormal things. Here he begins to say Yes whenever an opportunity presents itself regardless of its sanity and stupidity. Good news is Carrey makes it work, bad news though is the predictable end you afraid would happen.

It would be futile to summate the film as the title and promos says it all. When we meet the lifeless Carl avoiding phone calls from his friend Peter (Bradley Cooper) and pretty much saying No to every single thing put up on his face, we see a character. The minute he comes out of the seminar of self improvement, Carrey is born. The Carrey we have seen in the previous films I mentioned emerges doing the things he does best. The thing is we like that Carrey and when he clicks, it is good and the casual comedy we would like to relax. In “Yes Man” it is better because of a likable romance with the known stereotypic spontaneous girl Allison (Zooey Deschanel). The trend of the society and cinema has exhausted so many characters that the outcast are becoming common.

Anyways the film is an easy ride. The mindless comedy as that of the block buster mindless action in its churning redundancy of clock work. I would not deny that I had fun in the times when Carrey does his drunk man and the unbelievable cinematic matching talk between him and Deschanel. The nudge I have is how many times we are going to see this? And the final crazy stunt to the opening up of the heart in the films of this kind drains me. Hence despite major amounts of good laughs in the film, as the end neared it is like this open acceptance of the stupidity the screenplay gets into among the audience. That annoyed me.

Sufficient part of the film amidst its predictability had original materials in the form of dialogues and events. The remaining part where the clash between the couple, invite from the ex and the revelation paving to the big stunt ending with a make up note was plainly disgusting. I am sorry director Peyton Reed but the laziness while wrapping the film is unforgivable. Mainly unforgivable because of a certain signs of hope in the initial part of the film.

Coming back to Jim Carrey, the early ages of my Hollywood cinema had him through one of the funniest film of his “The Mask”. He can twist every single muscle in his face and would come up with a cartoon figure which could wither away the stern look from any one. What impressed me more was his later choices in his career. “The Truman Show” and the great “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”. He simply can do character role as equally good as comic role. I want those in the midst of these regular runs of comedies from him. He is good at it.

In the end the real answer for the question of whether to suggest “Yes Man” would be a may be. I am sure the people leaving the cinema hall would have had jolly good time and would also forgive the predictability for the greater good of the comedy. I almost did it but enough is enough. There needs to be a line and there needs to be a limit. The same happens with the romantic comedies and this does not escape from it.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008) - Movie Review

The faces we capture in our minds when we meet some one new would be a house for ugly pictures in any ways. Beautiful, ugly, fat, old, physically disabled, odd, perfect and the description we do in the brains are some times disgusting to ourselves. It is an uncontrollable mind game, a voice inside fighting to think one and the other killing to raise a conscience. What is it in the appearance and the definition of it? How old means and young means to the life of dead times? “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” while says happening in the reality of life is a land of surreal images put together beautifully questioning those in the ages which takes the beauty of appearance and the ugliness of inside.

In the old methods of story telling, a woman in her death bed Daisy (Cate Blanchett) asks her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to read that dusted diary to her. Thus begins the readings from the diary of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) right from his daddy Mr. Button (Jason Flemyng) abandoning him truly afraid of what kind of creature this baby really is at the door step of an old home. The old home is run by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and she takes this weird baby into her home. The baby has the physicality of an 85 year old man and with the doctor declaring very little time left, Queenie takes care of him. Of course there is no trouble him surrounded by old people as he looks like one. And as the years pass he changes growing younger inch by inch to every one’s surprise. This is his journey of understanding life in backwards or so you would think.

The film cleverly disguises many of its practical complication under the shadows of this land accommodating Button conveniently. The land of course is the existing New Orleans Louisiana but the people occurring in the life of Benjamin are far from reality. The differences as much it would exist in the lives of us does not need to get exaggerated more in the film. Director David Fincher uses it to his advantage and this film takes its shape and character from those very people. It uses them as Paul Thomas Anderson does in “Magnolia”. In their non-existence comes the reason for our existence.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has make up and effects to its strengthening screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord adapting from the short story of same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Brad Pitt does a disciplined performance and I am amazed by his film selection. Last year with a calm and complex role of “The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford” and now with this. He has a visible arduous task as an actor wherein he not alone need to grow with the screenplay but also understand and acknowledge the appearance of the exterior this man has to show.

Now the premise should not fool any one on the difficulties of him growing up and the philosophical learnings from it. Rather Button has a rather adventurous and interesting life despite his abnormal growing up. His childhood is among the old people and he hears them grow as a child in minds and body giving up on itself. He is nurtured in a place which is a one stop before kicking the bucket. One point some one says “I am getting old” and he says “There is nothing wrong with the old age”. Here is the man who has completely in terms of his demise well before hitting youth.

The story of Button is a careful execution in the fields of soap operatic romance, a crazy travel for an young man and most of all the people he meets. There is Captain Mike (Jared Harris) as with many of us wonders what he is doing in a tugboat while his real passion lies some where else. But then he is also a drunk sobering to drink again. Then the old man Mr. Daws (Ted Manson) in the home in many instances explaining his seven lightnings hit over him in a very funny manner since we know he survived. Another resident in the home Mrs. Maple (Edith Ivey) recluse but develops a friendship with this old looking young Benjamin and teaches him to play Piano. And how about his first love with Mrs. Abbott (Tilda Swinton). Every one of them along with others and his dad coming back in his life are a mark of the best moments in one’s life.

David Fincher gives a beautiful film. Whether it touches reality or deals the premise in the right sense is a different debate but the film in its completeness as said is a presentation of an epic. It in its surreal nature sweeps us off in the end hardly imaging the old Benjamin in his youth or the younger fit Benjamin in his middle age. We are not able to place him in appearance as an image thinking back of the scenes in the old home. He is a character like any other and in his life he stumbles as any one and has somethings to say. Somethings to say about death, love, tragedy, loss, sex, and life. I thought Fincher had me cornered in the ring and about to give me a knockout punch putting me in the state of wonder all together but he taps a friendly slap and gives a hand. I thought by doing that he lessened the beauty of the film but actually it is a state higher than that. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is one of 2008’s best films.