"You Don't Mess with the Zohan" (2008) - Movie Review

Awareness of the stereotypes and inside jokes are must for “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” or else the super hero stunts and easy sexual jokes are the only islands of happiness as it had for me. I do not know how much of the jokes I really was lost but the hint of it is a must know factor. Adam Sandler of course is refreshing to not shout, scream and he plays his nice charms innocence side to give this killer commando Zohan the sweetness he needed.

A well built and toned Sandler is a serious strength and super agile human Zohan, a man for whom any attack can be dismantled. The army of Israel depends on him and he delivers. But as someone who has been doing the job of rescue, killing and tackling of terrorist it has become a job of boredom and wants to go for his passion, a hair stylist. After performing his own death under the hands of his nemesis Phantom (John Turturo), he lands in America. He becomes the super hair stylist with a special service of screaming sex to his female customers. So you can judge where the jokes lie.

With a PG-13 rating they manage enough semi nudity not of women but Zohan to raunchy the material on surface level. The film had lots of stunts which in reality was not comic but fun to watch. It was no different as any super hero film might have and as the genre is comedy which will be a known fact while watching, we inflict some humour onto the stunts a bit ourselves. Actually the film appealed more on a regular story telling than a complete comedy. It had smiles but laughs were hard to come by. I liked this sweet guy with sweetness and innocence with lewd acts seemingly casual. That goes a lot to Sandler. He is committed in the character of the Zohan.

Zohan eats hummus for anything and I believe it is comments on the dining choices the Middle Eastern or Israelis have. I cannot know for a fact whether that is the intended comedy out there. I was blank at those and many other scenes. They bring in the issues with Palestine and Israel which I was not sure is the right track for a comedy. Yet it made it clean without any scratches. It did not aid in the comic stand either. Strange that I am so indifferent to the film and I cannot strongly say whether I had a good time or not. It was a lukewarm material with really nice performance from Adam Sandler.

I liked the film and it would have promoted if it had rioting guffaws and a toned down stereotypic pieces. My preference for penning the reviews for the films I watch is the immediate writing of it as soon as it is over. For weird reasons, I do so because I feel that more than the film my retentivity for the thoughts got stay and to do the proper justice to the film itself, it needs to be spitted out as soon as possible. Still there have been films which missed its chances and made it to this space after a while. I am writing the review for this film after six hours and it is kind of tough to think back everything I enjoyed or dragged on. For the most part, Zohan did the job of entertaining me successfully but I hoped it could have been more. It could have been in the class of the comedies Apatow crew has been producing prolifically without any problems at all.

"Lonesome Jim" (2005) - Movie Review

Whoever came up with the name of Casey Affleck for the role of Jim would not have had any other option because if you can think of physically draining you out of impossible dragging dullness with ease, that could be him. Yet he gave unbelievable mature performances in “The Assassination of Jesse James by Coward Robert Ford” and “Gone Baby Gone”. A film which is depressing and disgustingly lazy makes loathe this bum who has given up on life with out even moving a muscle to flinch. Actor Steve Buscemi’s directorial venture meditates the ambience of disappointment and despair that there are multiple instances wherein we are on the verge of giving up on the film.

Jim is back to hometown to stay with his old parents Don (Seymour Cassel) and Sally (Mary Kay Place) not of choice. He is broke. We are befuddled by the intensity of numbness Jim emanates towards his parents and his divorced brother Tim (Kevin Corrigan). These are the people caught up in the scale they have set phenomenally low and just seeing it makes them give up. Jim is no accident from a town like this. Tim has two girls and coaches a basket ball team which is yet to make a basket in the whole season. Sally is the cheery bubbly mother who cannot let her boys grow up. She gets new towels for her filthy son, keeps an empty plate in the table when one is in the hospital and most of all covers her eyes and eats candy amongst the ditches of boredom.

The film begins in a drenched and dull day. When Jim gets out of the home to go for a drink, we see this town. The place is a cross section of mid big town where hopping pubs are all run by owners related to each other or used to work together to became business rivals. If the bar “Riki’s” has people you do not want to face, you have “Riki’s II” and if that is too dead for you, then you can always vouch on “Riki’s III” for some action. Jim finds that in a single mom nurse Anika (Liv Tyler), too beautiful and too mature for the bar, for him and for the town itself. We are surprised by her approach towards this hopeless suicidal person. His energy for hopelessness runs so much that he manages to make his brother attempt to kill himself but of course Tim has had similar “accidents” before says his dad.

A dark and staunched film of a low attitude beyond imagination, “Lonesome Jim” gets us in a level we are not able to confront. Here is a person not shy of shamelessly sitting on a couch to deny answering a phone call all day and bold to say no to work when his family is in shambles and exercises mind yoga of nothingness. It became incredibly uncomfortable watching the film after a while. We get angry at this loser. We want to shook his body off and talk some sense. Do these people exist in this axis of earth? Yes but the real shocker is that whether there is a chance of an Anika in a town like that who falls for this downer? Initially I thought it was impossible and in fact stood out as the only unreal character in the film. Later we evaluate her based on the town. Every time I doubted the possibility of her actions, a spare thought laminated the plausibility.

Anika while initially acquaint Jim because he is beyond hope and mainly she can have the control. His lethargic attitude appeals as a laid back which she very much needs in a hard working labour of being a single mom. Slowly she gets hooked onto this person who is very much aware of the goodness in other people but sits tight and wants to embrace the disappointment life eventually has to give. Questioning this relationship is a male mentality. We (or to be precise I) cannot tolerate that a jerk like Jim does not deserve a beautiful thoughtful girl like Anika. But I guess one can never infer a female’s mind on what they want or what they appreciate. I made myself to think such to realize that Jim offers her the much needed compliment in an honest way unaware of himself. He at one point even asks her that she deserves better and that scene is a slit through a window for a lonely and desperate single mom in a desolated town.

Jim is the condensed exemplified person of every one’s cowardice and pessimism. He wants to be a writer and the only close thing he could come up being that is practice the art of misery as his idols were all. Seeing Jim, I was reminded of the film “Naked” where the protagonist hates the world and accepts that to survive in anyways possible. He hurts people and wanders through the dirt of street. People knowing him still cannot help a magnetic attachment of a vacuum he creates to provide a vacation from their sadness. Jim is a magnified version but not eloquent or stunning as him rather he is too lazy to move, act, cry, emote, stand up, walk, eat and live.

"Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi" (Language - Tamil) (2006) - Movie Review

Director Shankar produced and debutant director Chimbudevan’s “Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi” works terrifically when it does not takes itself serious and fails astronomically when it does in the name of social responsibility. I am not amnesiac about the memories I have on what to expect in a tamil film but there has always been a feeling of unwholesome when a film I watched had many flaws and I forgave lot of it due to the rest of the strong material. I have disowned that forgiving attitude towards any film and thus the unanimous declaration of this film in its entirety on naming it a novel attempt is a cover up for much larger routine. Yet it had the maturity of a comic intelligence in numerous occasions to sidle the ever green classic comedy “Thillu Mullu”.

Knowing that it is a satiric period piece, it had a creative pleasant surprise of funny notes over the screen. Arrow marks pointing the character and mentioning their name, the time of the situation is said as “Aanthai Pilirum Neram” (Time at which Owl’s screech) set high hopes for something original. Then it came shattered down early on with a MGR and Sivaji era story of twins separating. And I did not jump to conclusion and was eagerly expecting a parody of it but there was more happening in the same taste. I was disappointed that a tamil film I am viewing after a considerable time and with rave suggestions and reviews had such a downtrodden path of unfunny routine execution. The saddest part about a comedy is that the predictability of the joke and the worse part is that it is still not funny. Surrounded by it, the film let me down for a near forty five minutes.

Then the real material arrived with thunderous revelation in the innovative stupidity of actor Vadivelu as Pulikesi. The “Jaathi Sandai Maithaanam” (Caste/Religion fights Stadium) and then with “Akka Mala” and “Gupsi”drinks. The cola drinks reign and its insane marketing are the true satiric moments (even though slapping the members who did the commercials is a cruel injustice). At the start of the film, the ruthless and imbecile ruler Pulikesi (And this I believe does not represent the “real” ancient ruler Pulikesi in Chozha Kingdom (Braces and braces to be politically correct)) begins to be a lovable rascal. That is when the film strikes its vantage point. From that till the interval (for people who does not understand this concept, Indian films and especially tamil films have a 15-20 minutes break for the people to stretch, smoke and empty their bladders) it is clear indication of Chimbudevan’s original intention. He perfectly employs that strange innocent stupidity and the façade the character of Vadivelu puts in a manner many viewers of regular tamil movies be surprised.

The serious flaws in the film are the (1) Songs and to call it even songs makes me feel dirty (2) the character of Ukkira Puthiran played again by Vadivelu (3) carrier of the righteousness flag in the name of social messages which most of it is a language chauvinistic and over the top zeal of patriotism. Why the film takes itself into a stand of social righteousness? It is not a mistake having those but how it gets its place in a comedy genre is a skill of rope walking. The marketing of the film and the success of it is the character of Pulikesi on an elevated innocence in his ruthless violence and thus liking him among his wrong doings. Ukkira Puthiran’s character walks and talks like a guy who just had strong concoction of self declared revolutionary philosophies. Why does he still carry the similar tone of that when he disguises as Pulikesi? How much fun it would have been if before he did the exchange studied the Pulikesi and while performing the good deeds and ordinance carry the sense of comedic capability?

Forgiving the flaws and that would be eliminating an hour from the film would definitely make the film radically sound and one of the hysterically funny films of our times in tamil film industry. But that would mean an unfair evaluation from this reviewer’s perspective. I have never laughed so hard for a tamil film in many long years and as equally flinched, stretched and hoped the film to end. The signs of self parody were not absent but were quite evident when one of the characters explains the screenplay’s obviousness of uniting twins in film. When you see something like that, it hurts even more on the succumbing script and direction for the appeal of finance. At the end of the film, the redeemed ruler announces “Patthu Kattalaigal” (Ten Rules) in his land of governance. If the film had one of standing up for its material (which it is in surplus), “Imsai Arasan 23m Pulikesi” would have been my all time comedy film joining the list of “Thillu Mullu”, “Avvai Shanmugi” (despite Kamal’s core plagiarism of “Mrs. Doubtfire”) and “Panchathanthiram”.

"Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" (Documentary) (2004) - Movie Review

The scale of how much ignorant I am of current affairs, history and people can be gauged by the introduction of new wonderful people I never took the effort to peruse of through films. Howard Zinn a historian, author and an activist is today’s “learn about people you idiot” section of mine. This is a biographic documentary film of his life, works, speeches, interviews and the points and idea of democracy and non-violence. It is more than a film and this write up will be less of a review. It will be thoughts, opinions and disarrayed vision for lucidity by this reviewer.

Passages and sentences are narrated from his book by the voice of Matt Damon. A man brought up in poverty and hard labour through his passion for reading earned Ph. D and became a Professor. He is student’s person and his advocacy of civil disobedience and action through non-violence, movements and discussion against war and for civil rights became instrumental and still is on the lives of young people to look for character not in the irons of weapons but in the stillness of character.

I will let the film dictate the history of this historian and humanitarian. The points jotted down as sentences and strong will about the idea of democracy brings forth lot of discussion. Lately along with the ideology of religion and atheism, patriotism is one another topic I have largely pondered upon. Many of my mail bears the strong quotation by George Jean Nathan which is “Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.” Strip off the sticky substance defined as one’s self esteem; character and duty which would leave the giant mass of dirt spread across boundless and limitless with sky blanketing this game of power and acquisition is nothing but earth. That is a truth which is not said to disgrace or humiliate a country or a person’s withhold of character but to grasp the enormity of the human existence. It is the perfect inconvenient truth.

What is left of us is and will be nothing but memories. And making memories are the sequential and cumulative collection of those into a chapter of life. The tranquility and disturbance, subconscious darkness and attested hatred, sweetness in the hold of child’s grip over one’s hand and the punching fist for immediate vengeance are the contrasting pictures of tone and voice consummating our death. In that how much of the effort it takes in a day to day life of practicing passivity and governs the rights as well? It may be few and people like Zinn are the personalities scooping those as the restless but seasoned lethargic practice onto our faces. History is those memories.

I remember the frustration of my friend Mathi in the people visiting diverse countries particularly to US do not take the pain to peruse some pages of the past or history to be precise. I am going to buy the book “A People’s History of United States” by Zinn for the history in perspective of various people. History has been perceived and delivered as a representation of art of architecture and victories of war, injustice and its revolution but the people who stood on the streets of those cities ruled by power are the maps to the memories of those past.

I might not have the complete education on the character of Zinn or his actions with the sole literacy the film has provided. And the film itself is a soft spoken statement of the man’s life but reading his books are the adjudicators to sculpt the character. But that is not the juice I am reading for and it would be the discussions, debates, anger, frustrations, ideas, speech, rational of the irrational and the irrational of the rational in the egoistic stand of intellectualism.

The immediate outcry or for more aggressive readers, the shouting sarcasm over this reviewer would be that what I am doing for the cause of it. Are these glimmers of immediate reaction which lies flat in the bed and lays there then next morning to be eviscerating in laziness? It would be untruthful to deny those but these are the positive stains accumulating as the stepping stones for the accumulation in myriads of smaller actions and build up into a passing philosophy from one to another. I made a memory through this review and would be doing so for rest of my life.

"The Hurricane" (1999) - Movie Review

You go in a book shop and start to read a book which attracts you. Skipping pages in tens and twenties and finally at the end of it, you read the final thirty pages consecutively which leaves contented for reading a whole book in an unwholesome manner. Seeing Norman Jewinson directed “The Hurricane” is a similar feeling and there are certain powerful pages and the final act is considerably emotional but it is a pass of those and not a wholesome script.

The film discloses that even though it is based on true story of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, it has fictionalized material. Filming a true story has an obligation and an exception. The obligation of not twisting and bending a blatant truth more for the appeal of completion or angelic portrayal of the person and the exception of acid testing the veracity to its highest level. In this tiny region of walk, it is a tough dance to do. It connects the past with the present through the book “The Sixteenth Round” by Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (Denzel Washingon) ending up in the hands of a boy Lesra (Vicellous Reon Shannon) in Toronto, Canada. He has been helped by the three wondrous people Lisa (Deborah Kara Unger), Terry (John Hannah) and Sam (Live Schreiber).

The story from Carter’s child hood is read through the narration of Carter to Lesra and the remaining three as well. Lesra being suffered the tough child hood as Carter identifies the injustice and ordeal went by the man. The book summarizes certain instances of Carter’s life and the process of him being pinned down for murders by a cop named Della Pesca (Dan Hedaya). Whether one existed in that name and whether he continuously slammed down Carter with corruption and pure hatred is a question. After seeing the film, I went and read the chronicles of the events in Wiki and lot of details have been missed out, omitted and skewed. But while seeing the film, I assumed its fictionalization and went along with it. The film’s problem is more than the verisimilitude nature of it.

The actor playing Lesra is not convincing. He is noticeably overjoyed incoherently. But the material plays a part in it. After he reads the book, he writes to Carter, one of the important letters for both Carter and Lesra and the film ignores the complete narration of it. That clouds the reaction of Carter when instantly replying with another letter which again does not carry the emotions. While debilitating it to a melodramatic staged communication would be crude, the true events and the film depend on that relationship, which marks the origin of the third fight for the man.

Similarly, when Carter is sentenced to prison, he is put in solitary confinement by Warden (Al Waxman) for refusing to wear the prison uniform. That is a high point in the film of one man’s fight with himself in constantly questioning, punishing his decision to stand against the authority. His ego is presented in shadows of darkness by Washington. He comes out and meets with Lieutenant Jimmy (Clancy Brown) who shows a welcome kindness to Carter. Their relationship thus forms out of thin air and they become good buddies (And is Clancy Brown redeeming Captain Hadley from “The Shawshank Redemption” through Jimmy? It was strange to see Brown who forever has inscribed as this dangerous Hadley into a much amicable Jimmy in my mind. Weird how much of a good performance can typecast one actor).

To expect a lucid film of exact recreation of the true events is ridiculous but concealing a man’s flaw seems unreasonable. Rubin “Hurricane” Carter had a life spend mostly in jail. Empathy of understanding that is an insult to him but the greatness of the character is the reality of his existence which is a combination of dark and bright tones of him. What did he feel about his prejudice? What did he feel about his previous arrests? What did he feel the hatred he grew upon the people who did injustice to him? Essentially in omitting those crucial feelings, the man in “The Hurricane” becomes a ghostly hero.

"Solaris" (Language - German/Russian) (1972) - Movie Review

My apologies to Mathi, apart from being a disappointed friend he is also an ardent fan of Tarkovsky’s films and bear the following lines. I was terribly bored and disappointed once again by another film from the director. This time it is the adapted science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, “Solaris”. The poetic photography of the obscurity of abstractness satiates the visual pleasure but rolling up into an experience of art and philosophy would be a long stretch in agreement with me. There are methods of each director which is in perfect synthesizing moments which the fans of them appreciate. That is the reason I love the direction of Paul Thomas Anderson and not so much of the Coen brothers and none at all of Andrei Tarkovsky.

While in theater, I am sure many might at least once would have went through the ordeal of holding up a full bladder in a suffering which does not kill you but rip the comfortableness from the countless nerve in your body when an amazing film is on the go and in the fear of missing a single shot, we continue with the pain. “Solaris” retains the pain with an expectation and hope of a single shot around the corner turning into a futile patience of blunt screen. I may be cursed by the fans of Tarkovsky and this film naming me ignorant and imperceptive to the cached strata of meaning of this work but I did not see any significance other than a spectacularly photographed shot of void and monotone in series of frames.

Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is a psychologist spending his penultimate day of leaving to the mysterious planet/space/object Solaris at his father’s house. In a short film depicting the hearing of another astronaut Burton (Vladislav Dvorzhetsky) long time ago is shown and we are educated on the hallucinogenic capability of this alien land. Burton warns and wants the possibility of exploration than termination for which Kelvin is been sent for evaluation. Kelvin reaches the place with no one to welcome and is appalled to see the station in shambles and pieces.

He learns that his colleague Dr. Gibarian (Sos Sargsyan) has died mysteriously and the other two resident scientists Dr. Snaut (Jüri Järvet) and Dr. Sartorius (Anatoli Solonitsyn) behave rudely but advices to see the weird phenomenon as a common occurrence. Perplexed he watches the tape left by Gibarian and then in the middle of his sleep sees a calm and serene faced woman, his wife Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk). Apart from the freaky fright of her in the space station, the fear is that she died ten years ago committing suicide. Kris lures her into a rocket to kill her only to find her again recreated. He understands the phenomenon the scientists were mentioning. The person resembling his wife is a manifestation of his thoughts only that it is real in flesh and blood. It is understood that she is a product of the “ocean” or the alien through the minds of Kelvin.

Kelvin knowing that falls for her but here is what the temptation of a beautiful film popped up in me. Hari or the alien or “guest” resembling her begins to fall for Kelvin and fastidiously learns to be human. But then again by the time you reach this, the film has spent a considerable hour and half which felt like three hours. And it kept on rambling in the indulgence and tickles hope and slaps with bare solid hand on my face.

Abstraction is a beauty. The idea of the concealed and partially exposed material is a thought to be dug upon by connoisseurs of the film. And as Michael Haneke’s “Cache” this is a form of presentation which I am afraid will I ever be able to appreciate or sit through. Quite sad that after many films of Tarkovsky I am unmoved even to a tiniest bit of emotional attachment or appreciation. I began to doubt the skills of the presentation and the fan and critics base his films have engulfed. Is it something of this sort is labeled a classic and masterpiece because of peer pressure? I immediately took back for this judgment on other people who genuinely love this film. While all the films have its audience, this one has been the definition of being a true film lover for many people. My love for movies is no less but the streak of Tarkovsky’s film failing to reach out to me continues.

"Incident at Oglala" (Documentary) (1991) - Movie Review

I have often wondered on the term of criminals in war. The clear ground in a society has enough dubious doubts to offer on a day to day criminal case and in the middle ground of fire exchange authorized by a country heads to bat out the hell out of each other, is there a reach for justice out there? The shoot out resulting in the deaths of two FBI agents in June 26th 1975 in “Incident at Ogalala” was not an official declared war but at that moment with Pine Ridge Reservation pinnacle for the high deaths due to violence, it was a war to protect each other.

Narrated by Robert Redford, Michael Apted directs towards that day of losses where the FBI agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams came in to the Jumping Bull location chasing a pick up truck driven by their suspect, a man named Jimmy Eagle. Not alone Jimmy Eagle was not in the car but in the vicinity and the mystery person in it became their object of attention. The thing blew up because the ambience among the Native American community in the region was lethal. With the internal tension and people camping up nearby and no awareness of who started the shooting, suddenly that place became a war zone. The people nearby living in the culture of being hunted down wanted to protect their loved ones. Bullets rained and ended up with the FBI agents and a Native American dead. The film details on the situation which led to it and the trials of this tragic event.

Apted has a rare use for narrator Robert Redford who places facts than the emotion. In documentaries emotions run high among the people involved in flesh and blood with an incident or a cause either in complete truth or in the opposite of it. Perceptions differ and the director in the middle of putting the pieces in front of us has an obligation of placing all the facts possible. In a documentary, end is mostly a confused state of the viewer what to believe in. Some times it is loud and clear as “An Inconvenient Truth” and some times riddles you out as “The Corporation”. Here things went wrong and it was not followed by a right but a series of vengeance, politics and emotions leading to a very high possibility of a man wrongly in prison for life convicted of two murders. His name is Leonard Peltier.

The ring of violence which built up before the shoot out and after the shoot out is a chronicle of the government negating the rights, will and goodness of the Native American people. They had a leader, Richard Wilson, Tribal Council Chairman, a corrupt one who not only routed the Federal money for welfare into his wellbeing but formed squads to terrorize the traditional clan amongst the community. The rivalry never dealt became the outcome into an air of fear and hatred. The American Indian Movement (AIM) came to protect the traditional people. The word protect takes a very big significance as to defense. This was civil war and the day of June 26th 1975 it forced them to use their power in fear and guard when the lives of FBI agents were taken along with their fellow man.

The film knows what it believes and it does not force us to believe that. It has interviews of the then FBI heads, the US Attorneys, one of the jury member, witnesses, defense attorneys, the Native American people and we are left with a situation dealt bad and have the property of doubt carrying it over for so long. Redemption seems to be an option when power, ego and hatred reigns all through these times. Near the end of the film we see a possibility of an unknown confessing individual who did the killing and we see the opinions shed by Peltier and others. Peltiers says he knows who it is and will not reveal it. This is not a Michael Moore moment but a true genuine person who has already past half of life sentence and aware of his possible demise before his release in the year of 2035.

The FBI agents were executed in close range than shot by distant rifles. What happened that day would only be told in papers and over screens and the people having it in memory. But the incident is not alone a tragedy of the lives lost but an origin of a tremor for the injustice being done to the Native American community. The law enforcers and protectors have the toughest job any one could possibly imagine and more than the rules applied to a normal citizen, they are bound to be more stringent than necessary. It is a double standard set for a purpose which would in any case cannot and will not allow that shade of doubt to pass on their philosophy of guarding the law. Basically good and fair law officers cannot afford even a stumble because the very next moment their every step is doubted and justice never gets served. In the case of this incident, the matter of the guilty or not guilty was major regardless the existing sourness of the government and the community got wider and inapproachable due to this severe crusade of vengeance over fairness. The result is the doubt over justice itself.

"Blink" (1994) - Movie Review

“Blink” is the serial killer thriller which came around the 90s and can safely be assumed that the genre has been written so often as to solve the murder and see the killer in the supporting characters. But directed by Michael Apted this is a film which works for major part of it surviving by a script smartly written with a supporting cast utilizing it in the myriads of opportunities given to them. The almost part of its success is how these films end, as if the only way to end is putting the traumatic struggling character in the game of a familiar situation (as in this case will be the central character’s strongest, operating in dark) and conquer the fears. But it is a terrific film and I liked it. I would have liked to write I loved it.

Emma (Madeleine Stowe) made blind by her mother gets a donor after twenty years. She gets her vision and it is not the spectacular five second blurry to lucid sight but a partial amoebic two dimensional view. Apted has worked very hard to make this a visual a mix of staying high sober. In the mean time a killer is on the loose and Emma happens to accidentally wake up middle of the night and may have got a sight of him. She goes to the cops and meets Detective Hallstrom (Aidan Quinn) who at the starting scene of the film strips naked drunk to get an attention from the then blind Emma playing violin with her band. The cops hear and for once it makes complete sense on them backing off on this suspicious occurrence by a person who is learning to see. Added to that she has hallucinations and delayed correlation. This adds to the riddle.

But this is about Emma more than the killer. She has not seen her face or her friends and her only definition of beauty is in her music. Appearance does not make sense and her scale of reference for it needs to be learned or need to give a definition on it. It is a strange feeling and Apted plays with the psychological imbalance in this new world of vision. She struggles to identify the reality. Stowe’s Emma is tomboyish who has been on her own, in control and mainly institutionalized to darkness. This is a drastic change and more than guidance it becomes a hindrance in creating the doubt which never found its place in the blackness. She is puzzled and dissipates her confidence. And she for a small part blames herself for the new eyes as she could have been more alert and saved her neighbour a floor above.

The film toys with these feelings and then inserts the clues as a slice of cheese while Emma has this sexual tension with Halstrom. Halstrom at first is a mechanical and clinical detective over his victims. When he analyzes his first victim, he mercilessly jokes talking to her and if that would have been left out there, the chance of seeing this character have a better side would have been obsolete. But watch what his colleague Ridgely (James Remar) has to say and that completes the scene. He acknowledges our reaction towards this insensitive cop but the expression on it says that his friend has sensible side and asks us to wait for it. The scenes with his colleague and his lieutenant (Bruce A. Young) especially are on the edge, funny and smirk and tell that writing is everything in this screenplay.

The electricity in between Quinn and Stowe is sensual and seductive. And when there is a spark to develop into an erotic experience, Halstrom stops and unbelievably it is real and makes complete sense of his action. It does not last long as Stowe’s character says that it is matter of time before he surrenders. A cop falling for key witness is not unusual but the attitude of these two individuals who are the replica of each other is bound to happen. Emma has always been in control of her relationship with men while Halstrom is some one who knows when some one does that over him. And the situation circling them to fall for each other is customary detail but true to their character. Quinn and Stowe see eye to eye and have the control their character carry on.

“Blink” is an ordinary thriller with classic writing and an unavoidable ending to put us off. It is as if there was no choice than to succumb to the acts of the film making seasoned forever in this genre. I felt that this is the only ending they would have met with and forgive them for it. But I got thinking, the whole film is a regular fair of events in a thriller and they managed to make it crisp and clean and it made me rethink the position of mine towards the ending. It could have been done a lot better for their capability. Regardless, Apted and writer Dana Stevens work around fastidious details on the character and move away the focus from the killer to the characters. It is simply beautiful to see that happening and it is saddening when they slip off a bit over the end.

"Deliver Us from Evil" (Documentary) (2006) - Movie Review

When I watch a film which talks for/against/about/around religion I hesitate to pen the words. It is in hesitation of being offensive or taking a more subjective stands on this reviewer’s belief in the topic. The cessation in the flow of sentences does occur in the diurnal writing of any film but the magnitude of this cult, sect, followers of this thing called as religion is immeasurable and the human psychological inhabitance, acceptance and offense is far fetched than the least of one would be able to comprehend in his/her term of life. “Deliver Us from Evil” is not about religion but about governance which delegates it and how it has failed and failed again in administrating it through deception, negligence and victimization.

A priest in his term of being one, Oliver O’Grady in the varied places of various churches sexually abused hundreds of children. But the passing days of that memory and an injustice which happened to them being aided in the concealment of the people, institution and in turn their belief is an equally incomparable pain to the victims. The soft spoken and a man in complete control of his senses and action during the interview, Oliver O’Grady tells us how much of an instant attraction he was among many Catholic families. He says he needs closure in so many sweet terms and his hold towards reality and his actions are articulated with an openness and acceptance in the interviews that the sanity of him comes to question in the lucidity of his crimes and opinions. At the end of the film, we learn him as an ardent follower of religion which he considerably negated when he was exploiting the children under the same roof he shamelessly resided for shelter, comfort, care, respect and belief.

It is a dictation from him who has served his seven years sentence in an US prison and currently is in Ireland free to roam. The film originates taking him as the one case study of a much wider and bigger problem the organization of Catholic administration faces and its dealing of it. It tells how the victims were preyed by the confidence he gained as a representative of a much revered doctrine the parents wanted their children to grow up with. The film’s director Amy Berg takes on the bigger picture pretty well from the start. The origination of such event if would have been dealt in the correct manner would have stopped potential victims been not encountered with his person. Instead the head clergies of Bishops orchestrated a scandalous settlement of relocating the trouble than to solve it. He is jumped from places to places when accusations emerged eventually bursting into the final conviction of him to be sentenced for seven years.

Seeing him objectively as a person taking much strain to not bring the image of the victims, it is a disorder which should have been taken care of by him as a person seeking personal help but a person whose urges take precedence over a well being of an innocent and bare to even speak up child is an expectation in perils. This is a failure of an administration over which a much number of people have their hopes, life, character and belief upon. Is this a greater good the powers of it is shielding the infamy so that to appeal to the existing and an attraction to the fresher people on this religion? It is an act of saving one’s own life and the collective representation of it is in the administration.

In this documentary we see a seeker and a fighter for truth Father Tom Doyle who tries to condone and appeal to the system which he is bound to. There is a doubt of not hearing the other side of this chronicles of the concealment from the people of the Vatican itself only to learn later that no one wanted to provide an interview. Even the victims are stopped in submitting or an approach to meet the pope for their grievance.

The religious view of the film is considerably lesser than the inhuman nature of the powerful people in practicing it. It is not an anti-religion film even though one of the victims and another of victim’s father have lost the faith, but it is as some one might take a magnifying glass over a government betraying its people takes on a similar establishment. But this one is a betrayal of unfathomable magnitude in content. It is a betrayal of a belief nurtured right from as a child and how it fails every time when there is no reasonable account or evidence for solving the problem than to hide it under the rugs. There is a statement from a victim about the religion stating that the deviation of it long ago in eons would have taken place by humans which has basically removed the principles and goodness it was built upon.

"Dark City" (1998) - Movie Classics

Protagonist waking up in a badly lit rest room with no memory. Reading that line is an aversion some can generate over a clichéd movie and no doubt I began watching “Dark City” with that notion, a film highly praised by critic Roger Ebert which terribly failed in terms of box office collection. It as it staged is about a young man named John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awaking from an unclear memory been plotted by bald headed clan of creature/people and of course is the object of a frame up of being a serial killer, the city much is hunting for.

And if that premise appears monotonous, do not believe it, for it may be a fragment of a memory. Confused? You should be. Want answers? You will not be provided straight forward. Reason is not the idea of cheating or looking down on the audience rather it is to give the first hand experience of the city which reflects a comic book caricatured characters and redundant as such to tell, dark. Directing and writing the story, Alex Proyas is a daring film maker to theme almost every scene with darkness. We stumble for explanation among those unexplained gutters, dimmed street lights and terraces of emptiness.

There is a voice over which explains much of the suspense, as wiki says. Despite that I found thrown back by the suspense but quite true what wiki says some people mute the few minutes because it would be the ultimate thrill and shock without listening it. Regardless, the pay off is either way an inventive shock and a revelation one would be made to seriously think about the species of our uniqueness. It is a spark to discuss about the greatest mysteries of our operation, development, destroying capability and the foundation of caring and hating each other under the realm of complex psychological phenomena. Books does not get exhausted in investigating one brain cell at a time while films grow up in grasses every year to possibly give a replica of the emotional ambiguity and give a sense of confide and confidence in us. Yet we are in the living block of constant surprises, confusion and depression with occasional joy of living. What are we? We define powers beyond our imagination as a representational symbol, then in the quest of wanting more out of it, we zest on it and be consumed by it. We are indeed capable of everything and we are puzzled by the existence of other planetary living things and how it will alter the life of ours. We have a lot to explore in ourselves. This paragraph is the out come of the plethora of concepts and existence “Dark City” teases to.

Does it mean that it is a technical mumbo jumbo of “The Matrix Reloaded” final intellectual gibberish of abysmal explanation? Going back to how the film builds upon the character and keeps us in the hide and then as the screenplay unveils, everything blows up and the big picture is unfathomable yet clear as sparkling water. The city which represents the current world of our living can be an ethereal dot in a lost memory. I would love to discuss the plot of the film and invoke a conversation which would go beyond as a film. It is the riddle of thoughts as a kid one might dwell upon the science classes and the spiritual classes. I would want any one to see the film with an idea of science fiction but also give in to the noir styled version of the murder mystery the film takes us. As it is the key to the plot in turn the behaviour and the existence of these super powered beings that stop the clock and the city to reprogram it for their experiment.

The production is collective creation of a comic book styled, futuristic, classic, nostalgic, and irritatingly dark presentation with a story conjoined into it keeping us on our toes. The film depends on the performance of Rufus Sewell, Keifer Sutherland as Dr. Schreber, William Hurt as the doubtful Inspector Bumstead and Jennifer Connelly as John’s wife Emma. I only remember Richard O’ Brien from the game of a different kind “The Crystal Maze”, one of the inventive puzzle shows (a game show of a kind) but here as one of the “beings”, he is more than terrorizing. He is a mix of a scary but curious being. He is suspicious but not immediately scary. That makes most of the characters to acknowledge his/its presence as that of a human being.

“Dark City” indeed is a science fiction which should have accumulated far better recognition than it has gained later. It is the rare kind of film which in its story and execution accomplishes excellence in the aesthetic sense of its material, a plot to make us occupied and constantly question the reality of the scene and a pay off which is not a prop but a deep revelation combining the possibility of everything, yet being human under the act of superior power.

"The Mask" (1994) - Movie Review

“The Mask” holds a special place in my heart. It is a time capsule for the love of the Hollywood fun time my native’s people thrived for. The complex Mappillai Vinayagar and Manicka Vinayagar are the theatres which were the only ones who strangely stressed and were adamant in viewing English films in a tamil film crazy town. Still the love for those block busters traveled long distance from the city of Los Angeles to the down south city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, India. The opening of “Independence Day”, “Jurassic Park”, “Titanic” and even a conversational drama “Platoon” drew the audience in the similar level as it would for a mega hit tamil film.

More than Jim Carrey doing the impossibly funny elastic clown, it was Cameroon Diaz as Tina Carlyle entering the Edge City bank and swirling her hair half drenched in rain which is the defining moment of glamour in my teen years. It is the sexiest introduction one would have missed from the 40s films and since I have not seen anything at that period of time, it was the single most sensual magnetism Diaz gave. Mentioning of 40s films, this film has props, car, colours and buildings resembling something been ripped from those times. The Coco Bongo Club, the Landfill Park, the flamboyant display to energize the rods and cons gives a sense of watching an old movie with new digital charismas.

And talking about digital effects, this might the origin of implementing the use of the technology for all the right reason one could think of. With Carrey’s twisty mannerisms and elongated facial flexibility, the effects belonged to its element. And the effects department had the tough job of putting the make up on Carrey’s green faced goofy man but should not block his comfort level in expressions through the tough leathery surface. Hence they came up with a thin and flimsy material to embody the face of him such that his expressions accentuated spectacularly with it.

For people who are not aware of the film, it is a fun ride I would strongly recommend to be watched. Of course it is not a classic drama but a classic in genre of digital effect and writing in tandem for a pitch perfect film of goofiness, silliness, production design and comic timing of Carrey in his talents taking every step in the Mask. These are the cadre of films which in the name of block buster cloud goes unnoticed of its real art work and the success of it in the genre it competed. Watching it now, while the plot contrives to the predictability, it is the performance, digital magic and the sets which uses that plot to progress it in the correct blend of entertainment.

It has the dialogues fast and silly, timing of physicality and the props and boy how they use it. The classic moment of Carrey’s mask running a parody on him and the old movie hits, the writings on the props (“Squeeze me gently” on the small air horn to blare out the hell of an irate car driver) and the inventive choreography of stunts and dance. The one liner delivered with an audacious display of confidence in his character and the funniness of it, Carrey is the only one who could have ever pulled this one. Knowing the lines he is going to say, I anticipated more and he never does get boring. (“Smokin it”, “P,A, R,T…. Y? Cos I gotta”, “Somebody stop me” and my brother’s favourite “I think he wants to communicate”).

Carrey after his “Ace Venture” got a great break in “The Mask” making it big in the film world and mainly proving that his crazy physical comedy has more layers than people would brush off. And Diaz went on to take more serious roles and kind of escaped the glamour role she would have been typecast forever. Director Chuck Russell in the documentaries of the making explains how the film got its origins from the comic book. In the book it is extremely graphic with horror and fun served together. It is intriguing story to learn about the process of something from another plate of entertainment jumped across shape shifting into a comedy. It tells a lot about the tremendous zeal of effort and passion one takes on making films which many might simply discard and disgrace with couple of words judging on the silliness of the jokes.

“The Mask” is the funniest film I ever seen purely on the whimsicality of an omnipotent character. While the actual laughs and excitement comes from the Carrey’s Green Man “The Mask”, the pulsing encouragement to root for this personality comes from the nice guy Ipkiss in the unforgiving world of Edge City. People purposefully or subconsciously prey on these personalities and many of us show certain aspects of nicety which is visible in him. This brought him and his night friend closer to ourselves and makes us have fun and cheer at the same time.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (2008) - Movie Review

Harrison Ford joins the gang of oldies of Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone, hooding up for their third or fourth venture but this one is unique among those fair. It has a genre created which is revisited by the men, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. First time was magnificent, second sucked, third rejuvenated and now the fourth, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull”. Ford in his elegance and sincerity is the old Indy and lined up are numerous talents with Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Shia LaBeouf and the lady from the “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, Karen Allen reprising the role of Marion Ravenwood. Jim Broadbent does a guest role of Dean Charles Stanforth.

We waste no time to see Indy bruised and dusted among the barren lands of Nevada to be forcefully finding a box in the warehouse of US secrecies. The year is 1957 with cold war and the villains are Russians under the leadership of Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). Yada Yada Yada, fights and stunts, Indy betrayed by his mate Mac (Ray Winstone), whips, jumps, drives, crashes and survives a nuclear blast. The box of course has the omnipotent power of domination or it should lead to the destiny.

Do not you get the feeling what is going to happen to a character or know the relation of them to each other by mere look of them in the first shot? We get a lot of it and Spielberg does not hide it or even attempts to be a surprise that is going to pull your rugs off. He knows that we know but Indy is about the adventure, wit, sets and reviving nostalgic moments. Add some young blood in the form of Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) to get a parboiled entertainment. We think a lot. May be Ford is old, may be the Franchise has started too late, may be the kid is not up to the challenge, and may be we have seen it all. Crawling through these maybe’s the journey goes to South America and there we meet every one. And that’s it; we are transported into the world of Indy and now with group of compatriots. It is wild, fast, chaotic and of all fun.

The doubts are imminent at the start. Because we are in the clouds of high expectations and the reality is something else. Hence we take some time and we understand what it used to be and what we were given. The movie in the meantime shares similar perspective and finds its groove on. After that there is no stopping with old fears and relations along with new adventures and rivals are the ride one would normally anticipate. The CGI and the stunts in the second half are spectacular, pure brilliance in the sets and execution. And man I have been so impressed with Karen Allen in the first film that she is absolutely amazing in this. She has and brings the much needed feminine energy which was missing the past two installments. She is the character which belongs to this franchise, always.

Let’s face it, there is a wall to face and say “this is the end” as Jim Morrison said and travel back for some long story. And in the Indy franchise, it is the path walked several times with uncountable and unimaginable stunts and surprises. We watched as Kings and Queens coronated not once or twice but thrice by sitting at the top and looking at the center ground of all the games and gargantuan remains and antiques of this franchise. Spielberg and his team invite us one more time and while they do not try for matching the magic of the first one brings back those memories of Jones being Jones retracing his old steps with new people.

The endurance in character Ford brings still topples us. He is an old chap under the Fedora but with the stubbornness and charm he always had. We can see him struggle running but never does his sincerity wobbles. He is able to polish the old character with the scratches and scathes not as laceration in the hero but giving us the pleasure of viewing an antique worth a lot.

For the plot, I merely paid attention. It has cool stuffs and the geeks in Lucas and Spielberg emerge as saying may be, the past is the future and we just have not put down that ego of the advanced technological era beside to see that. “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull” is not the question of living up to the expectation of the viewers but is the viewer ready to bend the expectation on how the film takes on them. The franchise is an amusement park. They have new rides but the place pretty much remains unchanged. It is still lot of fun, if we visit it once in a while.

"Bad Education" (Language - Spanish/Latin) (2004) - Movie Review

Pedro Almodóvar’s “Bad Education” is a modern film noir with a passion for a colour and flamboyance with eroticism, murder mystery and sexual abuse. The mystery movies have a potent fall of getting in to the reasoning for the murder or crime and thereby the part which deals with the emotions becomes a restless portion to move on with the film. But “Bad Education” does not begin with the notion of a mystery plot (despite the noir toned titles).

Enrique (Fele Martínez) is a film director in perusal of strange but strong imageries of tragedy in newspaper. He gets a visit from his school friend Ignacio (Gael García Bernal) in the zest of pursuing his acting career through Enrique. He says he has stopped writing but have a story written couple of years ago. He also informs that one half is inspired from their childhood experience.

Enrique reads the story titled “The Visit” and inside it has the story of transsexual Zahar (played again by Gael García Bernal), who really is Ignacio. In developing circumstances Zahar gives a visit to their literature teacher, Father Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho) and hands a story telling that his brother Ignacio wrote it and blackmails him. That story tells the child hood of Ignacio (Nacho Pérez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro). The screenplay within a film and in that screenplay is a story shuffles on further challenging us to remember the characters but is not a boasting from Pedro. It is homage and acts the noir part planned on into it.

Most of the story is narrated by some one else. And one part is a film being made by it. Pedro wants to deceive us on having a suspicion on what to believe. But believing the stories is the only way to put the film together. On the other hand the emotional turmoil is different. The multiple portrayal of Ignacio resonates that. And how rich are the colours that it is the image the character of Enrique the passionate director pictures about the horrific weird deaths he reads in the paper. And the shots of agile movements are silhouetted with the elegance of bright colour over a sunny day.

Pedro makes us to grasp the child sex abuse and the murder in such a light tone. There is no question about the sympathy in the child being threatened and blackmailed from a teacher and a religious priest but when the real murder is revealed and the story amounting to that is told, we are in a state of indifference. The film is poetry of indifference and it slips through the narrow gaps of film noir, eroticism and emotional imbalance by the society on being harsh on these men.

Bernal is the star in the film enacting three or more characters. He is comfortable and convincing in each role and we forget the real him at the end of it. The screenplay is the collage of various parts of a person’s life shaped by the injustice and cruelty in childhood spiraling into multiple paths with the person and the surrounding people. Pedro’s “Talk to her” talks about men finding friendship through the women they love. This film circles in the intermingling homoeroticism and emotional crisis of men.

More than the non-acceptance and phobic pressure of the system, the internal problems causes rifts among them. Everything stems from the pedophilic priest and its ill effect on a child’s growth. But that is a layer below the main plot of these different men observing and using each other to get what they want. The result though is untrusting relationship with a love postponed to be only destroyed before its conception.

Pedro’s film “Volver” and this one has the chemistry of similar film narration. It has a casualness to handle the gravest act into a simple element but has the calamity of its gravity and emotion intact. In “Talk to Her” it had the same but its characters cannot be taken as that light hearted and casual. Here though the men in the film are all a victim some how or other at various points in the film. The film is interesting, grasping and flamboyant. “Bad Education” is a clever murder mystery with subject matters of sexual abuse, mystical identities and the passion for writing screenplay.

"No Smoking" (Language - Hindi) (2007) - Movie Review

“No Smoking” is the epitome of an ambitious kid’s project with the self proclaimed cinematic intellectualism and the result of a suppressed ego vomited out. It is a mess because it is from the depths of a creative mind aspiring to recreate the glory days of those immense film watching. The passing period of a film geek witnessing the greatness in this art and swallowing that concoction of brilliance, chaos and aesthetics from those artists of genius. It grows inside and writes pages and pages of scripting obvious homage and unintended plagiarism. Usually it evaporates when it is played back in the memories stating the relentless scale one imposes on himself/herself but for a person like Anurag Kashyap with a stupendous “Black Friday” in his achievement list, he has succumbed to that dangerous fantasy. We see a horrible film.

One cannot avoid the comparison between “Revolver” a same pile of fiasco from the stylish cult director Guy Ritchie because in the frames of John Abraham as K wandering in filthy slums and blue tinted glasses circling the ring of smoke with shades in darkness comes out Tarantino, Ritchie and Fincher. I empathize with Kashyap because the psychosis of those illusions is bungled in this reviewer’s mind too. I can believe those illusions are most of the occasions comes as a powerful script but the seeds of those beginning tale of film addiction realizing that he/she has found the keys to unlock the mystic creativity in complex, somber and disjointed classics remains forever. The trick is to assemble them and provide his/her taste of treatment. Kashyap in the midst of emulating the style forgets that.

We see vast snow plain with a bath tub in the middle of nowhere and soldiers of different country (most probably Russians) and K wakes up among those to a phone ring in a confined place. That is clue number one for dream sequence. Second the place is unfamiliar. Wooden walls and an open glass with a feeling of watching a big LCD screen is clue number two. Then Kashyap’s indulgence comes in the form of thoughts coming off as cartoon bubbles. That is clue number three. K with unresponsive soldiers through a hole from a door and bullet to be fired near him drives K to break the glass using a chair and desperately sprints to the bath tub. A soldier shoots and he falls to grab the cigarette pack lying. If some one cannot figure out that it is a dream, then his fingers can be cut off as the film characters go through for relapsing in quitting smoking.

This is K, a narcissistic and egoistic chain smoking alpha male. K has mouthful with cigarettes filling them up tirelessly. Now talking with a cigarette on their mouth might give a swindling picture of sleek and style but it is not. And adding to that one cannot enjoy the cigarette in that fashion. Trust me. K’s wife Anjali (Ayisha Takia) has issues with that and K treats her like dirt. Clearly more than smoking it is the attitude of K which is ruining their marriage. Circle of events, Anjali leaves K and K agrees to go to a mysterious “ashram” or “laboratory” or simply rehabilitation center. This is not regular soothing modern age music in ambience center we fathom of. In the deep dense slums with dirty walls adding the ambiguity of the reality resides a guruji (Paresh Rawal) explaining the game or rules of the process of quitting.

Arriving to that takes great strains to sit through and it is labyrinth of stupidity and unmerciful web of unknown rituals Kashyap takes us along. It is quite obvious from the expressionless face of Abraham that he has no idea what he is doing in this maze. Paresh Rawal is the dubious looking philosopher explaining the concept of soul and body. If that would have taken place in a spicy Bollywood film, it would have been appropriate because that is something I will avoid but Kashyap deceived in making me sit through this.

Attempting to explain the plot to any one and mainly yourself is an exercise I do not wish to perform. Most of the times a viewer seeing a confused film sometimes meaning nothing and everything are enjoyed for the journey, the endless possibilities of the interpretation. The journey in “No Smoking” is excruciating mundane masqueraded rubbish. All these harshness is the pain to endure it but I with full heart understand what Kashyap did because the dancing devils of fantasy resides in me too.

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989) - Movie Review

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” is funnier, sensible and heartier than the failed second venture of “doom”. It has the classical James Bond, Sean Connery coming up with a surprising wit, humour and a much needed naked naive ness to counteract the virile son of his, Indiana Jones played again with much faithfulness by Harrison Ford. With adventures matching near to the ingenuity of its origin, it is a smart and deals Indy as a kid missing his father.

With a short but thrilling train full of circus animals and prop materials opens the young Indy (River Phoenix) crusading his sworn sincerity in protecting the artifacts which some of the wealthy money seekers trying to loot. The history of his terrible fear for snakes and the whip which saved him from being eaten from a lion takes us closer to this adventure hero. Back to the present for Indy movies, which is 1938 one year after the “Ark of Covenant” was dug out; Indy gets back what he lost as a young boy.

Now is the time to grip your chairs as we crawl through rats, ride along a motor bike, fly a zeppelin and in a midway jump on a plane, chased and shot by a plane while riding a car, hunted by a giant bomb spitting tank, gallop over a horse and escape near death booby traps along with Indy. And I forgot the boat scene saving his woman, Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody). The action scenes are not long rather leaves us begging for more only to be fed a bunch more. We breathe up only to end the credits with gasping horses taking towards the sunset.

The film rather being a quest for the search of Holy Grail becomes a buddy action comedy with Connery and Ford plainly reacting to each other’s natural dialogues. Connery gives a round about turn of Bond in Dr. Henry Jones and he twists the wit and sarcasm from a condescending Bond to an over enthusiastic and childish father of Indy. He has lost his son’s approval and attention due to obsession with burying himself in cryptically coded clues, pictures and everything towards the faith of finding the Grail. He is a medieval literature professor and his expression of his son pulling off near death escapes astonishes him. Yet he collects himself up with a quirky comment to complete it. That is the trump card in their chemistry.

The locations are vast and the set designs take its shiny brown colour from the desert sands which washed the screens in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. The funny thing about Indy is that he has witnessed the super natural forces in the previous two films and yet he still cannot comprehend the fact of its existence when some one tells a fable of old stories. His teaching of follow the facts is not abided since he cannot disobey his ego. In the little breathing time for conversation among father and son, Ford and Connery are in their roles not taking the pass on the reasoning of plain entertainment. The thing is many do not realize that those tiny scenes and itty bitty information between them comprises the reactive instincts among each other and appreciate the humour better.

It is a successful film both as the faithful trail follower of its franchise and advancing its characters and contents. And this time around, Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) gets a better light on this clan of zealous grown up kids. They have most of their life given to this madness of finding the buried, hidden and stolen antiquities. But the madness is the only escape out from the mediocre regular life. The measure of their existence is in this sport of grabbing the materials left behind by the ancient histories and stories from the religious books and fables.

Having completed the trilogy, the fourth one can be an easy guess on its unbelievable feat of adventures. But a fan has to understand that the mere adventures and extravagant stunt alone does not make this franchise pick up and whip the bag of crisp film making. Many should remember that second installment too had the magnificent sets and non-stop action but it crawled in its content.

A character closely attached to Indy who knows more than we do is the key to a better film. In “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, since we were not much aware of this hero, it was a great fun to see the adventure alone and in this film, Sean Connery holds the character key of Indy. Second had none (I do not consider the sidekick Shorty) and the good news is that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull” has Shia LaBeouf who in my opinion can be a good sidekick and mainly is the return of the original lady of Indy, Marion played by Karen Allen. I just have to wait and see whether it works coming Thursday (May 22nd 2008).

"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) - Movie Review

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones an archaeological macho savvy falls off the sky with an accidental adventurer female singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and a Chinese boy Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) in the middle of Northern India. The film is a prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and it is lengthy, tires you and crashes sense in very many scenes which were one of strong hold in the first installment.

The villagers are deserted and the fields die causing food to be scarce in the village they reach on. Indy is believed to be sent by Lord Siva himself to rescue them for which he got to enter Pankot palace and retrieve the Shiva Linga stones along with slaved childrens of the villagers. And I do not think the members in the palace of those times were connoisseurs of snakes, bugs and monkey brains. The faint memories of that disgusting scenes still reside somewhere in me and seeing it again brought the film down in terms of shallow research of such possible existence.

Whether it shows India in bad light? I felt it glorified the superstition which would still have its foot in not well known small villages in current days. There are barely moments to see Indy speak as he constantly is fighting to survive from gunshots, heart ripping hands of Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), being bathed with creepy tons of insects, underground rail chases and what not. Action scenes run this film which is what would have been the expectation for this second work of Stephen Spielberg. Yet, it dragged on a little more in every stunt that it should actually had. It disinterested the point of those crucial escapes and despite the awareness of Indy is going to come out fine, the fraction of second thoughts that he might not is the thrill run. And the stupid boyish grin is missing a lot from Ford.

This time the travel plan for numerous countries is cut off and concentrates only in India. All the gallant features are not of India but shot in Sri Lanka. The rivalry taunting of Jones on Scott has chuckles in sparse and the side kick Shorty contends with Willie for who is more annoying. Given that the film is darker (literally) and filled with doom (again literally), it is a horror factor which too has flimsy base of stories. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” had adventurous interesting nugget information all along the journey while this one opens the dam of it well before to may even grasp some. And what happened to Indy’s ingenuity on unraveling certain mystical puzzles? The old trick of being mesmerized by a human blood potion and been getting out of it by lighting Indy on fire! It is a decline of great deal in content and logic per se.

This is the film in the trilogy which I do not remember seeing it completely as a kid. I thought may be it is too horrific in certain scenes and may be quite addressing the adult audience. It is true that some scenes are disgusting and scary for a kid but the second part is not true though. Ford and Capshaw are more animated than they should and supply surplus cheesiness slipping to grip the story. I guess the accidental involvement of the Capshaw character removed the authenticity of Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood.

But it is an action film doing exactly what it opens up the scene with. From start till finish, it is a charade of stunts choreographed complexly among the sets of vivid imagination. It is racy with an outcome well within our realms of understanding. The action scenes awestruck us but does not hold the suspense. May be I demanded more out of this venture but with high possibilities for seeing Indy become Indy in a prequel, I would have liked some more back story which tells a little more about this funny, daring and sometimes foolish adventurer.

It did swamp itself with ridiculous amount of money in the opening which would follow its third brother in its franchise and may very well for the fourth one. The exploration of one character in a film expected to provide dubious stunts in plausible mode is a futile one but that happening in the second installment is way too short of an effort to succumb. Let me see whether refreshing the third one has something in this rugged historian.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (2008) - Movie Review

“The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is a much much better film than its predecessor. It digs deeper and has layers of plots along with varied type of characters. The Pevensies in this version believe in their characters and give a matured performance. The disappointment in the first one did not overshadow this well made film having a spectrum of avenues to be dealt in its third venture in future.

The Pevensies Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) are called on by the horn from the world of Narnia, by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes). The reason is that he is chased by his uncle Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) and they are the Telmarines, a long time enemies of the Narnians.The Narnians now live in low profile. Telmarines believe that Narnians are extinct. And this is due to the invasion of Telmarines over them in the past fourteen hundred years with the Pevensies and Aslan (voice of Liam Neeson) leaving them. The Pevensies along with Prince Caspian got to fight Miraz to win his empire back and also to strike a peaceful existence between Telmarines and Narnians.

It all resembled similar as the first one with the target set on the “evil” King Miraz and now the return of these four kids to go through the whole nine boring yards of assemble, prepare and destroy him did not hold a good promise. Gladly the film takes much of the struggles the kids have accumulated in the past one year finding it hard to survive in the human world of London in the film. They have been adults in Narnia before they accidentally returned and Peter desperately wants to grow and he misses the respect, action and command of being a King in Narnia. Edmund a snob in first has accepted the fact trusting and loving his siblings. Susan is traveling towards being a young girl while Lucy is still the very same kid believing in her instincts and imagination as she was before. All these personalities take form and they understand it along this struggle for uniting to fight for the people in the land.

There are mistakes made and lives are lost. The prime character of Caspian adds to this young blood being fast and hasty adding to the already pumping testosterones of Peter. He has seen the only land of Telmarines but his tutor Doctor Cornelius (Vincent Grass) educated him on the far world been destroyed with the stories of super natural powers and prophecies. The story also tells about the reach for new land and the people making a difference in the perceptions and maturity to a boy.

This time, Narnians does not comprise of Aslan and couple of badgers but more comic, delightful and much developed characters. It has the Reepicheep (voice of Eddie Izzard) a courageous comical mouse and constantly gets annoyed of people think of him less. Izzard in his minimal scenes makes us to take this mouse seriously as it wants to simultaneously providing the laughs. But it takes Peter Dinklage’s Trumpkin, a dwarf exhausted by the constant hiding and is grumpy about the leaders abandoning the soil of home to something extra. Dinklage and Liam Neeson performing the characters tells how much good actors can make a simple prop persona for plot into something real and sensational.

The graphics are ample and the stunts are spectacularly choreographed. It has more wide sense of the creatures and people in the arena. More importantly there is a strategy and a plan. The fight for kingdom this time has layered reasons. The fight for freedom and the hindrance of a peace much long should have been achieved is discussed. The Narnians themselves had and gets into a difference of approach and opinions in the governance of their land. This takes the attention off the usual predictability into characters lured for opportunity. It tells the temptation on the young men to make a deal with the devil not realizing the consequences. Mainly this film takes its contents quite seriously than the previous.

Andrew Adamson directed both the films and it is astonishing to note such a vast difference. The film has a fresh outlook on the complexity of the world it has created. And he has treated the characters with respect and does not plainly brand them as evil. There is a desire for a throne and as a family man, Miraz wants to secure his place and relish his generation further. And the enmity and judgments of Telmarines and Narnians are still to be seen in the next film. I told in the review of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” that “It is a formulaic fantasy film which I generally stay away from and hope the sequel proves me wrong.” Adamson sure did prove me wrong.

"Young@Heart" (2008) - Movie Review

Practicing for a stage performance is a fun filled adventure with dips in morale, ducking some egos and daring candidness, at least mine was like that during the recitations of that process towards one goal of standing on the stage to get the audience entertained in college days but will it be the same at the age of 92? Yes it does is what we see in Eileen Hall one of the singers in the chorus band jump starting the film in a stage performance. This is a band from Massachusetts calling and meaning it in every word, “Young@Heart”.

The documentary follows this band formed by a tough but encouraging manager Bob Cilman. The average age of the band members is 80 as the narration informs and the energy level does not reflect that. They cheer through their turtle step and shout with their heart’s content. Singing songs from “Coldplay” and “Sonic Youth”, they do not like some but are up for the challenge of adopting it as their own song. In a diminishing voice stumbling for timing and tune, it is aged for perfection in soul and thumping joy.

In a film with tragic elements expected out of their health conditions at their age, it does not commit the brutality of using those as exploitation into melodramatic. Documentary makers in the zeal of enumerating their subject strongly go for thrusting it and forget the purity of the reality the medium aids them to do. Director Stephen Walker attends each rehearsal and compresses the grueling hours of practice in five to ten minutes. Behind those are laborious frustrating moments of getting it right in bare vision, voice and hear which are grasped in those snippets of scenes in the film. Bob is the symbol of that strenuous process of singing it like it is meant to be.

It is inspiring immediately to see these old stallions galloping slowly with pain and passion but seeing it in news and an hour forty seven minutes documentary shift far end of the scales in engaging the audience. Hence the goal which is set for these people to drive upon becomes the drive for the film too. Despite that the band has been performing for long time, the journey to the destination this time involves new songs in countable weeks for a show. Most of the prominent singers in the group are conservative music listeners, liking more of opera and classical soothers. And they got to hear rock, pop and what not and regardless they like it or not, need to by heart with heart to it, be in the rhythm and moderate to make it their song.

Bob Cilman is tough and some might interpret him being a jerk on these poor people on the edge of their life. I saw the reality in it. He is not being a jerk but a person knowing his people and giving them the equal consideration they would expect. He pushes them a little bit every time and heartily and honestly appreciates and irritates. And every one though not happy when he is upset deals it like they should. They come back with better performance and dedicate their best.

Many of them have already toured the lips of death with loved ones preparing their loss but through will of miracle stand tall for a little bit more to be warriors against boredom. But some of the performers do pass away during the preparation and while it is tragic, the tone of the band stands the same. In mourning they perform and perform well to respect the demised. We move on as they do respecting them.

It is a film of true emotion and happy ending in a literal way. The power of documentary to give a shortened version of their hard work does not squeeze off it but flourishes on it. Some of the songs I have heard casually and some I have not and the film acclimatizes us with those in rehearsals.

They have a performance for prisoners before the main show. We see the prisoners smile and delve in their thoughts in silence when “Forever Young” is dedicated to one of their friend and performer whose death they come to know an hour before their performance. And in the main show, an auditorium full of crowd is moved to tears when another dedication is given by his duet partner to do a solo of “Fix You” by Coldplay. It is moving and we mourn for the lost ones but we admire them in that melancholy.

“Young@Heart” is a drive, a kick starter to get up and do something and whips us to not dare blame it on age or any other factors. It is a hope for the people laid down by the any factor at all. And director Stephen Walker has a faithful job of putting it together with music videos with fun and comedy, interviews with members on life and death. We in that get to know how to be stubborn passionate person to keep doing what we enjoy. We see them winking death to dare stop them from doing it.

"Redacted" (2007) - Movie Review

“Redacted” may be a film which really does not want us to see it again. Many had a consumption of a vague idea of the horrors happening in the midst of a war but amongst the angst and patience being burnt out in a dry land of death surrounding them, a soldier has the wary situation of everybody holding a ticket to death. The group of US soldiers in “Redacted” has been psychologically injured and become non-reactive walking heads and if that is troubled, there are seriously sick young men taking a just in their sociopath acts of rape and killing.

Brian De Palma’s film shows what the war would call the “collateral damages”. It is filmed as a series of compilation from multiple sources on the part of Samarra in Iraq. It is based upon a true incident with fictionalized characters (Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi is the 14 year old Iraqi girl was the victim the film is based upon.) and can be counted their behaviour as the psychological imbalance of a soldier out there. It states the deadlock situation in the war with consistent guarding of a check point constantly wary of insurgents as they put it.

Most of the US soldiers do not speak or understand Arabic and a narration from an Iraqi lady informs that half the Iraqis are illiterate, meaning the signs and boards asking to slow down and stop the car through the checkpoint are futile for half the people. The soldiers wait daily looking at the kids playing soccer, seeing the routine they are missing in their life. What they also see is that the routine can be a transformation or a plan to attack them anytime. The suspicion, frustration and the passive agitation in due time becomes the seed to monster some one they are not.

But not all the soldiers lose their senses. There is the soldier Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney) who gets threatened at gun point by his fellow soldier Flake (Patrick Corooll) to stay away from his and his buddy Rush’s (Daniel Stewart Sherman) business of rape and butchering of innocent Iraqi civilians. The film is essentially comprised of the video diary of soldier Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz), a youth hoping to get a film school admission in making a film of his experiences in war.

“Redacted” is a social statement by Palma to be known of the brutalities and the effect it has caused. It does show couple of soldiers in very bad light but it is an incident to be informed about. His is not blaming President Bush for the insane and cruel act of these men but the situation they have been put into wherein it can be considerably ignored and wipe off their remorse in the name of war.

Palma does not want to make a visual spectacle of an emotionally charged swinging door on a soldier’s mind in the regular score of patriotism and duties. He wanted it to be raw and a truth simultaneously making it not blurry or not shaky as it would have been taken using a handy cam. It is edited with the content retrieved from a handy cam with clear picture along with security camera styled footages and internet video postings. It has given the feeling of documented truth it portrays.

Amongst one conversation with a friend, the discussion of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings popped up. He said that it was war and what can one expect and it would have been US if it was not Japan. Preemptive striking has turned everything into an air of suspicion into direct hell hole. How the concept has creep into our systems of ignoring or taken for granted on the human lives is too confronting to even think about. The ancient history of open war strategy has migrated into clandestine and deceptive method of attack has screwed up the minds. Not that the old wars did not have those but the game of waiting and the boring frustrating chores of the war players have grown unimaginably. It burns the senses of any one for such a long time devoid of simple necessities.

There is on the face statement from a woman in a video posting format about the thought of American lives been glorified more than the others. Palma’s film faced obvious controversies on the name of patriotism. And the film gives a near to truth chilling documentation of the reality out there. No one is a hero and it is a place of hatred from both the sides. And it eventually has become a tense zone not for the purpose they have been to. With guns surrounded and communication barely happening with heat, irritation and frustration, it is just a matter of time either side goes through the regularity to avenge on each other. This is the side of US which would never get a wide public picture. Palma has given it.