"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.

"The Spirit" (2008) - Movie Review

“The Spirit” is a glossy waste. It as its protagonist Spirit (Gabriel Macht) dresses neat and tidy but creates unwanted mess. It operates on the premise that cool costumes, shady poses and voluptuous women would make a good film. Obviously if it relies on it alone the fun in making never would carry it across the screen. Written and directed by comic writer Frank Miller with his earlier “Sin City” and my favourite “300”, “The Spirit” has no soul in it.

In “Sin City” my only complaint was the relentless blood bath but the rest was something unique and eclectic in its source. “300” fit perfectly. As much seriousness it bore on the muscular and chiseled bodied warriors screaming and blood thirsty, it was fun. In “The Spirit” it is all dead. The lead man’s only interesting and edgy quality being a womanizer. He wanders the roof tops to jump on the baddies especially his nemesis Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson). Apparently his body can withstand wounds like Claire in “Heroes” series. Add law and justice to it to get a superhero for this fictional Central City.

Many times Spirit talks to the audience (with great mesmerizing voice of Macht) reminiscing his child hood sweet heart days and giving clues of his law abiding job of being cop in his previous life. We discover his ability on the questions he goes unanswered from a woman of “What are you?”. Octopus holds the keys to those and the obsession to get that drives the Spirit. He has the old man Commissioner Dolan (Dan Lauria) to advise him on his stupidity while also depending on his saving capabilities with of course tons of collateral damage. Then the ever loving repair doctor of his body, Ellen (Sarah Poulson) as with rest of the city girls to be crazily attracted to this man.

Let us get over with the style. We have seen it well and it has worked incredibly from the same man. It standing alone away from the script is a visual to crave for. It is an eye candy to simply glare at it and spend time amazed. Sadly it is not the single element to judge the film. When Samuel L. Jackson showed up, I thought it would be one hell of a ride with his loose mouthed snap comments and the fluctuating addictive commanding voice of his to oomph the film. But it is a successive show of his dismal attempt in doing that, badly.

What is the deal with the costumes of Octopus? While his sidekick Floss (Scarlett Johansson) understandably suits those, it goes from bizarre to unexplainable symbolism in each shots. If the megalomaniacal attitude of Hitler and the Samurai costume (if I am not wrong) to denote the death is what it is, this is not the place for it. It deviates, distracts and becomes painfully boasting of its intellectual stand. And the multiple cloned henchmen of Octopus played by Louis Bambardi is another sad story to waste a page, but I am not going to.

“The Spirit” has been marketed well and that might add for its box office accumulation but why am I talking about it. Box office is a business which throws the content out of the door instantaneously. While in the review of “Sin City” I would have blasted a bit more than necessary, it is truly a great work in path breaking film presentation. It had a peculiar chord which sat well despite my unlike towards it. “The Spirit” is an overrated and over marketed undeserving production failing in all avenues except the graphics which of course has become a regular fair.

The over the top acting is deliberate and that does not help. In the immediate ten minutes three characters emerge from dirty water for style in men while sexiness for women. The characters have life sucked out of them to become plainly exist in paper which they were in the original Will Eisner comic series. I have not read it but I am damn sure they were good and had characters breathing life without being cool alone.

"Valkyrie" (2008) - Movie Review

A fiery discussion came up with a friend of mine past week regarding actor Tom Cruise’s acting. He said that the actor is a sell out, I defended Cruise. True that he does not portray a great actor’s capabilities of sticking to the skin of the character. True that he cannot be hailed as an example of great skills but one thing is certain that the man works hard and bends over backward to show his liking on films. Here he becomes a German Military Officer Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a major key player in the assassination plot against Adolf Hitler called as 20th July plot.

Directed by Bryan Singer, a man knowing the pulse on how to move a screenplay swift and effective, “Valkyrie” works as a great thriller. It maneuvers as a natural flow of water in a beautiful stream of rocks and pebbles deceiving at many times on doubting the plot or the effectiveness of the filming itself. As the promos for the films came by, I had terrible trouble on digesting the fact of Cruise with a great American accented English saying “Operation Valkyrie is in effect”. But as the film begins transcending from German narration to English, it set right in. It respected the authenticity but wanted to take control of the material in its own terms.

Now I would not go ahead and stamp itself as this “true story” as no one might have known the actual scenarios which is the trouble the filming takes on generally on true stories. As with any of these films, the glasses of molding and morphing takes its toll to give a fictionalized version of it. But so much did happen that the plot was indeed planned and executed almost successfully. The story manipulates on our knowing that the assassination was a failure. Hence we look for the points where it would screw up rather than the tension of whether it would succeed.

The movie is an entertainer and no one should doubt that. It relentlessly drives the screen in closed doors with short sentences to execute the plan. The plan with considerations and the charisma of Cruise to believe in him completely. As to every one’s concern Cruise gives Cruise behind an eye patch. Yet the major factor for the film to be crucially winning over us is the screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. They have completely eliminated the fact of bringing the unnecessary dose of melodrama Hollywood inserts into a story for movements than sappiness.

The plot is astounding for the man to put on the mask of machination against the universally declared representation of evil in Hitler here played by David Bamber. The very first question in fact I had is whether killing him is the ultimate solution for the cruelty as such? Or in better terms does cutting the top command is going to immediately relieve the charm put on the rest of the chain? And in the very first secretive meeting Stauffenberg is invited he asks it. Citing that as his reasons for doubts he comes up with the plan of emergency situation army movement in reserve named as “Operation Valkyrie”.

And in this are the team of people placed at key positions to pull the trigger to make the puzzle of the plot work. A man inside, a man by side and a leader in hesitation and like this are numerous small but influential factors playing roles in this screenplay. And every time the plan is set in motion, we are on high alert for its screw ups. In the last moment they steal it away from us.

The tragedy of the true story is known but the fact that Singer and his team worked it out perfectly beckons appreciation for its genre. It does not blink away from the central axis of its story setting straight and clean in its execution. With good actors such as Bill Nighy and who else to play the sleazy personality as a man of opportunity General Friedrich Fromm by Tom Wilkinson, the supporting cast of Eddie Izzard, Terence Stamp, Jamie Parker and Christian Berkel do their timing precisely. “Valkyrie” does the best what thriller films does, which is to proclaim as one in all honesty. It does not masquerade as something else and for any true film that is the essential part.

"Rachel Getting Married" (2008) - Movie Review

The family of bride side in “Rachel Getting Married” would be instantly decided as the exemplified family members epitomizing neurotic chaos. If there is a thought going on while watching to step out of the screen and place yourself in the most recent family get together of an event such as marriage, then every one of us in one form or other have seen similar chaos in their own family. This is “Rachel Getting Married”, the most thoroughly honest documentary styled film directed by Jonathan Demme with a powerful script by Jenny Lumet.

Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) is visited by the sobering addict sister Kym (Anne Hathaway) for the Indian themed wedding. A similar themed story propped up last year with Noah Baumbach directing “Margot at the Wedding”. In a parallel way the sisters love and hate each other to death. The environment though is considerably different with more colourful and merry Rachel than in dull and dreary Margot’s sister in Baumbach’s film. Here Kym is the outcast, attention seeking, adamant and unbearably childish sister of Rachel. She is loud and up the face of Rachel and every other who comes by. She wants to be the maid of honour but not to be thrown as a mercy chip, yet takes it with an unexplainable right. She believes that to be the holding rope of sisterhood between her and Rachel. Put a mix of an over affectionate and too much caring father (Bill Irwin) and an estranged mother (Debra Winger), you get a sour and putrid recipe for a family. But that is not all in a family, isn't it? The other side is not the facade rather their best times and characteristic. “Rachel Getting Married” never attains that in unison from all the members of the family but in spots and patches they do it to compliment each other.

Kym has been the centre of madness in her rebellious teenage years. Been a junkie and as a junkie owing ton of people money and annoyance to be atoned and the mistake which costed a life, we see her taking a time out from the Rehab centre. She is invited by the ever loving father who has forgiven and forgotten the things she did. He is in the aggressive mode of turning things around for her with a fierce force of overabundant love. Kym wants it when she needs to be in the womb of care and attention while sees it as her being wrapped on as a mummy when the feeling to be cared erodes away. Rachel on the other hand is happy in things going as planned and freaks out when hell breaks loose in the underlying thorn speeches by Kym. She has lost the hope in her and she could not stand the sight of her day being sucked in by the mess and cry Kym is making and signaling their dad to embrace. As love is shared and dispersed, the fairness is measured and calculated by each of them. It is a tangle of pain and ridiculousness.

Director Jonathan Demme follows the characters around with the shaky camera but stands still when the emotions are in place. Each of them are in their terms of being there in the wedding with their part to play. The old subtle enmity in people taking places left by the others and the return of the ex or in this case sister to be found distanced by her family pushes to her craziness a little more than usual. Among these personal wars comes and goes are the friends and relatives in their celebration of the love in marriage while leaving the room when the family breaks down.

I almost forgot to mention the husband to be Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe) slipping from the scene when his fiancé's family begins to throw blames, pain and disgrace at each other. He comes by when the storm recedes and picks up the pieces in a cue to us saying “I am marrying only the girl and not the family”.

What a performance does Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt and Bill Irwin provides. How do they stand each other and smile at the edge in the end? Is there a point to confide, confess and continue leaving the past behind? Is that a longest stretch of possibility in a family? In deep respect to the marital and social system generated, the solution never arrives and in an effort to find ends only in a unstoppable reaction. Most of the times it is the settling nature of the relationship itself. Sometimes solving is not the solution rather to let it go and in another round may be let it go with a word or two.

There is a music being played on by the guests which turns into a soothing and annoying effect based on how interrupting and accompanying it becomes for a scene. When Kym shouts asking when they would take a break, we wish they do. Family members are nuts and that includes every one. The past of Kym might not be regular affair for many but the affection been let down and driving into this teenage childishness would be an expected drama. In this the immediate incision of characters females becomes the prime suspect which they are but we men sometimes need that jolt to react a bit. It is a beautiful film about the wild randomness of sorrow, pain, love and marriage.

"I've Loved You So Long" (Language - French) (2008) - Movie Review

I talk lot about judgments and prejudice in my reviews and it is a day to day affair in life and thus in films too. In a rationale to see things fairly is it a possibility to discard the instincts we have developed for a person, in fear of bad things happening? The fear which circumspect us in those event on seeing the person as the potential candidate for the worse things as an eventuality, we avoid, snub, doubt and ride the guilt after ward and comfort us on the practicality of life. Philippe Claudel directed “I’ve Loved You So Long” introduces a person most would be afraid and in fact be disgusted to have around on the actions claimed to have done by them in the past. That is Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas).

Her sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) joyous and expectant receives her from the airport. Juliette drops a formal smile and gives a cheek for a speck of kiss from Lea. Juliette is cold and distant from every one understandably once we learn from the later point in the film that she is out of prison after 15 years. Her parents have disowned her, husband divorced and the only sane touch to the reality she has is Lea. Lea grew up along with her big sister looking and idolizing her. Despite the stain of crime which is the worst, Lea loves her sister and gives her hope. In her haunting question of why her sister did the horrendous act, she pushes the day inch by inch hoping to close nearer to Juliette of knowing it.

Juliette, placid and taciturn clearly does not like to be around amongst a crowd. She enters the family of Lea with her two adopted sweet little daughters. Lea’s husband Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) not liking a bit of Juliette’s stay showing in his way of discontent now and then with pauses and frowns on his kids. What is the crime Juliette did to be sent to prison is brought out in one of her interviews for a job. She killed her own son. That is it and we crown our justice and conclusions towards her. She does not pity herself and she does not hate every one. She has plainly given up on the life she knew.

She meets men, two of them. One is her reporting officer (Frédéric Pierrot) drawn in his own world of perplexity, sorrow and misery behind his little desk fancying his chance of visiting a lake he is ambitious of swimming. They relate well. Other is a more eclectic admirer of art, literature and emotions, Michel (Laurent Grévill). Michel is a colleague of Lea in the university she works. Both men look Juliette as a lady not to be considered a cheap shot for their lost youth but a beckoning of a woman been and want to be loved and not vocal in telling it. Juliette has this tiny eruptions signifying her bottled up emotions lost forever. Those sprouting small angers remind her of the crime.

French films I have seen makes wonders on taking a subject of gloom and purely shower it up with positivity. In those positivity they do not hide the reality. It has the artistry to pick the correct moments in everyone’s life. They grasp those moments tightly and wound it with the the pragmatic happiness. But they do not compromise the sorrow of it. It is mellow and poetic. It is a bittersweet as life we lead. In the complexity of understanding it, we are surely wondering what makes this mix of misery and height of joy in waves of lessons. Some times the waves of despair lasts longer and goes on forever but we fear joy more than the sadness as its nature of being short lived. Here it is an approach of seeing those in balance but in life it is not.

Kristin Scott Thomas does Juliette one of the toughest role to carry on. In the knowledge of films projecting this out of prison personalities to be obviously socially incapable of being surrounded with people with insinuating questions, Thomas gradually develops Juliette taking it in step by step and giving into the atmosphere of family. She is not trusted by Lea’s husband but later he suggests her for babysitting their kids. And Lea as an angel of hope loves her sister despite everything. She dances around the subject of prison and the awkwardness. She thinks of guarding her sister from those moments and to sidle those away to remind the deadly times. Yet it cannot be erased and in reality Lea wants to guard herself from the incapability of handling and being in that situation.

“I’ve Loved You So Long” is a chain of clinging periods of the glassed ornaments of numb sadness in a person. She in her withheld of pain and anger gives into the world she forgot. In the process sees her as this lady of nicety and deserving happiness. And the people interacting with her are truly the best people in their best times. Will it be a easy ride in real life? It would not be but that marks how much the film shells us from it and pins the niceties of it. We as the happiness know the short living capability but that is what makes it to beckon for more even if it is full of sorrow and hurt.

"Seven Pounds" (2008) - Movie Review

At the end “Seven Pounds” you might very well be crying because director Gabriele Muccino desperately tries it and you sympathize him. The film’s protagonist Bill Thomas (Will Smith) rides with guilt, so much of it. He stares at the mirror several times and do not start with staring at the empty places. He has done some thing really really bad because his meticulous acts of kindness begs so in the current cruel world. It is a polished sappy tear jerker providing a solution which makes us hardly to empathize with Bill.

As with the screenplay works in recent days the story starts revealing an eventual possibility and traces back the roots of it which has brought where it is. Out here Bill calls the emergency service declaring that he is the victim of a suicide. Keeping the good works of Smith with the director previously in “The Pursuit of the Happyness” , I began to grasp as the loved ones of the suicide persons being the real victim. How presumptuous of me to think so. Anyways, in the cryptic scenes of who Bill is and what he is doing, we meet his beneficiaries here and there. But the beautiful Rosario Dawson as Emily Posa become the love chemistry of this sad soul.

What it poses as a soul searching turns out to be a guilt journey to unimaginable level. The picturesque applied in Muccino’s previous film is followed here too which gives the film the suave feel but it only emerges more deceptive than necessary. In the flashes of memory we learn that Bill used to be a well off person or it is self evident from the beach house he owns. He harasses a blind telemarketer Ezra (Woody Harrelson) over the phone to test his “goodness” and deserving of his kindness, enters as a stranger guardian to mother of two afraid of her boyfriend, Connie Tepos (Elpidia Carillo) and a little bit more than a help to Emily Posa. All of them are in the depth of sorrow and trouble but too proud to ask for help as Bill puts it to Holly (Judyann Elder) to find one of his candidates.

By not revealing the tragedy of Bill’s previous life, the sympathy relied on us to feel becomes ambiguous. While the chemistry between Smith and Dawson works in favour of their characters, the immediacy in which Dawson’s Emily falls for Smith’s Thomas is unconvincing. She is dying and he comes to her life posing as this IRS office worker to provide a friendly and creepy stalker in her sleeps and wakes. But women are complex and the mystery generally draws them in or at least the films projects it so. The conversation they have are made up in every possible sense meaning to stick in the screenplay sheet than on the screen.

When the time is running out and the time is known, the conditions stopping us in breaking free vanishes. The tomorrow disappears and the bounding factors go out the door. We seek for comfort and do things what we feel without a thought. And in Emily it might be so but Ben already flooded with complexity and pain hardly seem the candidate for it. He does good things, no actually he does great things. His friend Dan (Barry Pepper) knows what he is up to and he is being shut off too. Revealing not much, I feel that the fatal mistake of Ben could have been redeemed in much many more ways than toying with the lives of others. At the end I thought the good deeds of Bill in the attempt of making us feel as selfless becomes more emotionally quenching his thirst in his final act.

The film in its richness of colour and polishing structure had hopes at the start. Then it branches as a sappy love story. Slowly it creeps on the pain and the controlling aspect of Ben in the relentless good nature of him. It pinches and asks us to see the stretches of effort and ordeal he goes through for getting his candidates above and beyond any human would do and go for. If we are not moved by that it slaps to further witness sappiness in developing this love story between Emily and Ben. If still a muscle did not beat up a little, Muccino grabs us with our clothes shaking hard and stares straight with a self righteous attitude questioning our senses of feeling anything at all for not empathizing with his protagonist. I felt a slow motion of never ending artificial manipulative drama.

"Nothing Like the Holidays" (2008) - Movie Review

Festival get together are filled with unsettling awkwardness and unique happiness identifiable only with their respective families. The tensions of whether this particular topic will emerge to put the concerned people in the spot light with a public show of their private characteristics runs around when these reunions happen. You cannot avoid as in the coming eventuality of meeting them up would further give materials for the confrontation and the enjoyment for the holidays does not necessarily have that in the people. Then why do we have the event of reminding ourselves of how unsatisfied and angry at each other? Amongst those are the true love when the time comes by for the right help. Rest of the time you might hate them to their guts but the perfect timing of a soft words and kind look in the time of a situation cannot be poured out to any one and happens easily in that time with the family members. That makes the craziness worth it. But truth be told with a side note that this might not be a general case when it comes to extended family.

The subtleties vary from culture to culture. Sometimes it gets submerged for the settlement of being classy and suave or it gets bombastic and loud. The Puerto Rican family in “Nothing Like the Holidays” tend to fall in the latter. They do not dust the expectation being disappointed under the carpet. Like Mauricio (John Leguizamo) and his American wife Sarah (Debra Messing) being directly asked numerous times of why they are delaying for their baby by Mauricio’s mother Anna (Elizabeth Peña). Anna’s husband Edy (Alfred Molina) have three kids Mauricio a successful yuppie kid living in New York, Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez) a soldier returning from Iraq and Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) a struggling aspiring actress from Los Angeles. They all come for the Christmas holidays to their parents living in Chicago. And the drama happens.

The culture is a main part in the dynamics of this family. Edy has a store business and deeply expects this holidays to be a memorable one. Anna is fed up with Edy cheating behind her back answering suspicious phone calls. Jesse has the guilt of being escaped from the death his friend succumbed to. Vanessa is struggling for years when the house hold has an idea of her glamorous life style and then there is loud mouthed family friend Johnny (Luis Guzmán) and a young wild kid working at the store Ozzy (Jay Hernandez). Every body has problems and every one of them is addressed. Is it exhausting and methodical? Yes but a family life is as such and it got to be like that. I liked how the culture plays a role in running the house. Outside in different city, they would be living a life different from this with different behavioural aspects. That instinct being the kid you were growing up comes back in a flash as soon as you step into the house of yours.

It is a colloquial film. Colloquial in its representation of the people from Puerto Rico and easily reminding how it translates in our family of brothers and sisters. Director Alfredo De Villa while does not give something new also does not repeat the formula. The place of Chicago is not expressed but in their reminiscence of the old days giving hints how they like the place.

There is a flagrance in the drama of this film. Even the most crucial breakdown of a family moment is with a taste for colours. The movie breaks out greatly at the first dinner table as a family along with friends. In an opportune to toast comes the declaration of Anna to leave Edy and watch how each of them react to it. Mauricio is terribly affected while Jesse and Roxanna seem to accept them as grown up independent people making their decisions.

Seeing “Nothing Like the Holidays” tells that the problems in a family never changes. It revolves around lost love, missed attention, secrets, favourite kid, cooking and things falling apart shaking the concept of the family itself. Most of the time it resolves down in the films as the end comes by. In previous history of this genre, the ending ties the knot perfectly and in recent times the story tellers have embraced the fact of life being a lot different and broken. And then the third version came in with an acceptance of the worst situation and the real concept of moving on as a simple sign of cinematic ending but also a taste of reality. “Nothing Like the Holidays” follows that trend. It is a pleasant film with not so much extraordinary aspects. The truth is it does not tries to be and that makes it a likable watch.

"The Edge" (1997) - Movie Review

Despite having evolved from cave people, the guards of the luxury in the circumstances we live in has made the nature look in a stature of greatness in fear and respect and more than that is the incapacity to survive in it in today’s weak immunity in us both physically and mentally. Put into the isolation and as they say the real characters come out. The test of the woods in the presence of an unforeseen culture for the city boys was dealt in the creepy cold “Deliverance” and in David Mamet’s script it is something else. It has the factor of Mamet’s writing with people constantly challenging the doubts on the other characters even in desperate situations.

For a photo shoot arrives billionaire and fact fanatic Charles (Anthony Hopkins) with his model wife Mickey (Elle Macpherson) and the photographer Bob (Alec Baldwin) with his crew to the wilderness. Charles has an extreme capability of knowing everything. He is a walking fact book absorbing the words and letters of the books he peruses. Charles at his step on old age looks his beautiful wife Mickey and Bob work with each other. He believes with certainty that something more than photo shoot is happening in between them or may be it is his early symptoms of going senile. Typical Mamet’s work in action with characters doubting each other and showing different colours of them as the story proceeds.

Charles is a strong man in his mannerisms of terse speech and handling any situation at his leisure of coolness. Take for example the surprise party they pull off for him with a fright of a dummy bear, where he gets panicky and in a split second shaves it off and fits back in to the mode of his casualness without any one even noticing it. He gets a lovely gift from his wife and also a pocket knife from Bob. The film sets up this tension between these two men and they start off on an impromptu trip to a nearby location for finding Bob’s photo model. With flocks of birds hitting the plane, they crash land in to the water leaving Bob, Charles and Bob’s assistant Steve (Harold Perrinneau) to survive.

Charles as a man of power becomes the man of action in this situation. He knows the facts, theoretical of course but they would take anything at that point. And then the journey for survival begins with the weather, wild and the man eating bear making their death imminent. They walk and walk with Charles keeping them upbeat with his facts. He distracts their pain and agony with sayings and tidbits of information. He says that most people lost in the woods die because of shame. Shame of putting themselves and the others to the misery they got in. He asks to learn from it. No use in repenting which you cannot alter.

There are head of a company grown from the ground up as a white collar job and there are those who scratched the surface and rose up in tiny steps starting from menial work. Charles is the latter. He is humble in his accomplishment, in fact he is little bit ashamed of it. He also thinks of him as a freak to know so many things. And in a particular instant says a truthful thing about his character that he has no imagination. He doubts Bob but changes the mind when he is convinced by the fact of Bob saving his life in one instance. Bob is humoured by the knowledge that Charles suspects him of fooling around with his wife. There is a subtle emotional boxing happening in between these two men. Keeping them alive and in the process having their antennas for sudden behaviour.

Lee Tamahori directs the film in intense wilderness with rigorous physical strain on the actors and I bet would have been tougher for his crew. And the Bart the Bear playing the man eating animal has to be mentioned for giving the terror feel when it appears charging at the people. It is no surprise that Anthony Hopkins is convincing in this billionaire of exquisite knowledge of everything because he is a much human form of Hannibal Lecter. Without ferociousness and calm in his approach in keeping his spirit consistently high, Hopkins as usual does his thing. Alec Baldwin blew me away with his chameleonic nature and constantly asking what to do as he is completely dependent on Charles. Still he knows him too well and senses his anticipation as he have to be for the things he did.

“The Edge” is a play technique Mamet gives under circumstances eliminating the world we know. In the absence of people to impress and be loved and the urge to be some one else and hide, they begin to operate more openly and loosen up especially Charles. Yet even in that remote situation, the mind of one person to another is a guessing game. It never can be sensed when the doubts are the rising element in each other. They get together to save each other but in the back of their mind, there is a constant satellite alert for discrepancy. This nature is what makes us human in best and worst situations.

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (2005) - Movie Review

Many might miss the clever and complexity involved in the “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” which get goes from the minute it opens on. And quite easily it can also be put in the common basket of slick, style and cool film. Its writing eloquence is top notch with a screenplay that would be a work as if David Mamet wrote a Guy Ritchie film. It has the ping pong type conversation and characters popping in wrong place, wrong time. It narrows a margin of comedy and in that it appears to be serious but it actually is not. It plays like a comedy film but has an edge of a thriller and when action comes down, it is fast and sweet with a stress on sweet. It is a fantasy in the shooting and even in its realistic portrayal, they erase the guilt with instant one liner by one liner. And you have Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer swing dancing their roles with fun and flair.

The film is narrated as some one pitching the story for a studio executive only with a self aware cockiness and admittance. The narrator is the protagonist of the film, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a petty thief who gets into the show biz accidentally. For a part he got pulled in, the producer Dabney (Larry Miller) hires his PI “Gay” Perry (Val Kilmer) and yes he is gay. Harry meets his high school secret sweetheart and best friend Harmony (Michelle Monaghan) at the party and the film follows a topsy turvy trip in to the Los Angeles hotels, lakes, bars and left out houses.

Playing like film noir it mocks itself, stops the frame and reverses with the narrator admitting his inability to tell a story straight. In those where it could have been seen as a film trying too hard to be cool, it brings out laughs. Downey Jr.’s Harry is a man of chance rumbling down with the reality but never gets a hold of it. What can you say, he is a writer and he puts his coins where he wants to. Especially the violence is cartoonish and gives a feel of fantasy. We do not get marketed by it but those are like a plot elements which needs to happen so that we can get a noir film. It is filmed like a half baked screenplay and yet it is so well written and the hastiness of the things which unravels are interesting enough that we laugh about it. The best part it is when in the end the story mocks itself. It could have been fatal but it is about that right to make us giggle.

And what about those two, Downey Jr. and Kilmer. They are literally glee inside when they spit out those dialogues of insult and comic. They should have had fun or atleast they make us feel they had tons of it. In a true judgmental manner, Kilmer’s Perry is an embodiment of the Hollywood persona being a consultant for the films of crime, which is like every other movie. He is neatly dressed and appears clean and trim. He does not pose a macho look but bites the words towards Harry as this small time crook stumbling over mud and laughs sitting in the middle of it.

Monaghan joins this two and sizzles with a love - break tug of war with Harry. It is an investigative story of two murders. One involving Harmony’s little sister and Harry in the liking for Harmony declares himself as detective which makes her believe as both grew up going head over heels for crime novels. Apart from the fact of finding who the killer is, they want to suit as the novel characters and get into the action. Do not we all have that cornered stupid fantasy of growing up to be this detective and become that million dollar smile hero? Harry and Harmony have not grown up from that and they clinch this opportunity at every chance.

Shane Black’s screenplay is a great work. It is not alone written with the cliched smartness but a genuine liking for film noir. At the same time, he does not want to lose the reality of it. Hence he combines both and jokes how the noir gives an happy ending or fiction of good and bad clearly separated but reminding that life is not like that. He builds a screenplay inside this film and gets the good works of the performers.

“Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” is also a sad reminding factor that films which becomes a public appeal loses its charm of critical value. It has descended to the fact that great films rarely are acknowledged by the public or more worse is the genre itself. When I say genre, the idea of comedy does not appear to be a serious contender for great films. I have advocated this attitude many times and it happened in me quite subconsciously watching this film. I never cared to mention the creativeness in the screenplay as I begin to treat it as a blockbuster entertainment of newly found charm of cool films. In couple of moments I realized how much the system has got into me. Throw the system away and not alone enjoy the film but think back the work went on with the writing. It will blow your mind.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (2008) - Movie Review

Scott Derickson’s remake of the classic “The Day the Earth Stood Still” behaves as the film’s administrative personnel who does not give a chance for dialogue with Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), Derickson does not provide the same to the script. The theme is fitting for the current times but poorly executed. It never made a deal with what it wanted to say and what would the people expect. Obviously the effects would have been the predominant factor but we as a audience have now in terms with the Hollywood studio production house that anything is possible. And there is no need for a greater proof by amping the X factor in this modern day “The Day the Earth Stood Still”. What missed was how Klaatu who comes as a distant emotional alien in human form come to see the better part of the humans.

Except for the fact that alien space ship arriving with a humanoid Klaatu and his guard Gort, this sparsely goes along with the original. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) is no more a secretary but an astrobiologist. She is one of the film scientists who get their midnight unexpected, unanticipated and classified calls and always followed with the pawn picking them up with answers “I do not have the privilege to say that” or plainly “I do not know”. She has a stubborn and unresponsive step son Jacob (Jaden Smith) replacing Bobby from the original. He does not like Klaatu right from the start and he does not like Helen as she is not her mother and believes to be stuck with him rather than really loving him.

The fear in the people exists and the attack on the unknown is the motto taken by the military in both the films. I know many see Reeves as a bad actor but here he produces Klaatu in a reasonable form for the film. In the original, Michael Rennie played him more closer to human which fitted it and Reeves distances him from those emotions in this film for the script keeping to see him as an alien till the end. He does not form a bond with any one and even with Benson it is a more cold approach in maintaining her at a territory. The screenplay makes him the judge on the human’s unmerciful treatment of the planet. He has concluded from his fellow alien Wu (James Hong) report who has resided here in Earth for seventy years that humans are incorrigible and destructive but at the same time Wu decides to stay as it is his home now and there is an unexplainable other side to the same humans as well. We are emotional in loving and caring in excruciating circumstances but we truly fail to learn from those as the situation changes.

Kathy Bates as Secretary of Defense is the stupid and adamant typical Hollywood US politician. Why cannot there be a sensible politician in the Hollywood block buster who has reasons to behave as the arrogant slimy diplomacy and still maintain the character. And the military in the film are passionate to blow up things. They want to shoot missiles, fly down the space ship and bomb it till smokes engulfs the world and they fire at will till the bullets run out. They do this after being outplayed and the attacks left indestructible space ship, Gort or Klaatu without a speck of dust. Why one of the military general step back and think for a while instead of wasting bullets. I do not feel this is the correct portrayal if you are thriving for reality.

The film has some strong points when it lets the discussion role. As in when Klaatu meets Professor Barhardt (John Cleese) and the consistent attempt of Helen in convincing Klaatu that we humans have the capability to change. When there is wobble in concept of what needs to be said with what nature, then it is a half baked result. Here it is not an “Independence Day” but tries to for soothing the crows seeking those and it also wants to pay the respect to the original. Nothing wrong in mixing those if the quality is good. Instead it is patches of good work in a script full of mad characters and unconvincing change of mind in others.

We are in the age of technology which appears to have no limits. In films there is nothing that cannot be done if the right backing of studio is there in giving the CGI effects of nearly everything. It has developed into an omnipotent tool accessible to the better and the worst of the creative minds. The original leapt the time where it was made into the realm of effects and possibility. It did something that particular generation could not have imagined but at the same time staying honest to the script. Now a day we are not awed by the graphics unless films like “300” comes out with something more. We go inside this film knowing to see the cities being turned into ash and powers of impossibility in the palm of Klaatu’s hands. Hence it is the story which should take precedence and it avoids in giving Klaatu the time to talk to others. While they show the people panic and media drooling for material covering it, there is never a third eye view on the state of it. When the top personnel choose to bombard with attack rather than reason which goes on till the end and if I was Klaatu, I would have no hope of these people changing. Klaatu looks at the relationship of Benson and Jake which starts as placid and grows with hope in the end. This is the other side his fellow alien was talking about. But what Klaatu does not understand is when the situation goes back to normal and when desperation is not there, will we change? The answer is tough as billion different minds work in billion different ways but definitely not a factor for a mind change to an alien in ceasing the attack on us.

"Maria Full of Grace" (Language - Spanish) (2004) - Movie Review

Choosing to live and beginning to appreciate the life ahead with a hope is a wonderful feeling. The moment where you exactly feel why you do what you do and what is that which runs your life and through which runs the others you love is an enlightening thing. It might happen one day and not other but when it happens, you know it. The stroke of that is the same when you watch a film. A film might go uneventful even in its smoothly moving script but that particular stroke makes it ethereal, the frame you craved for. That is the one which makes “Maria Full of Grace” a magical charm in the end.

Joshua Marston directed film follows a young beautiful Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a seventeen year old girl working laboriously in a sweat shop in Columbia making flower bouquets. She has a boy friend Juan (Wilson Guerrero) whom she has lost interest and he has lost in her too. She has a busy house with her sister Diana (Johanna Andrea Mora) a single mother and their dedicated diligent mother. Maria and her mother runs the family. Maria though is frustrated by the life of penniless after sweating so much to give for her unemployed sister. She also learns her pregnancy while feels numb to see Juan asking as something of a said exercise to marry her. Disappointed she breaks up and gets the attention of another young man Franklin (Jhon Alex Toro). Looking for a kick start of her life as I observed, a young girl in a search for excitement signs up stupidly to be a mule for drugs.

The assignment though is not simple but the boss Javier (Jaime Osorio Gomez) makes it sound realistic and as the more marketable. In a tightly packed drugs as a pellet, it needs to be swallowed and then needs to be travelled to New York. She meets an experienced carrier Lucy (Guilied Lopez) who has done it twice and long waits to visit her sister out there but feels ashamed to face her with the job which has brought her to New York. In between there is Maria’s friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) who signs up for it too as she idolizes Maria but with a stern way to express it.

I have to accept that the whole procedure though is stomach churning to do was not something I was able to sympathize. The females every one of them are very clear on the task they are taking and in fact considering every single consequences to be met. Yet there is a drive to do it in the form of money but for Maria it is an aspiration on her way to feel more to life. Moreno as a sparkling teenager acts out Maria with some one so confident about her action in the teenage dumbness and in fact head strong about it. She makes up something and lies right through the teeth when the situation demands it. We do not really like Maria and her choices but come to like the way of her realizing what she wants out of the life.

The other similar effect I had is for Blanca. Blanca has the same attitude as that of Maria which is not surprising as she follows her every where. She does not have the guts to take any decision while blames Maria for her stupidity in her actions. Yenny Paola Vega gets on the nerves of Maria and us. But she understands Maria than any one else in the film. She provides the other half of that rejuvenating energy for Maria’s new born zeal for life in that last scene at the airport. In fact we exactly know what the decision is going to be but the difference is the untold waves of that moment in it. That makes the film worth watching all through the end expecting some sort of miracle is going to jolt this screenplay with a twist.

“Maria Full of Grace” begins as a journey into this character of emptiness and ends with a high note of cinematic beauty and convincing life possibilities. It does not aim in soothing us with the beautiful Maria. It aims in the moment I was talking about. Even after some of the worst days in your regular life, there comes a day, a particular freezing image of your life and a smile spreads across our face. It can be after a long phone talk with a family, a friend or watching something truly transpiring off the screen towards you reminiscing those.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) - Movie Review

I had to see the classic before watching the newly CGI enhanced remake coming this friday to the theatres. Generally the criticism of a film does not fly out of the radar under the posing of excuses in budget deficiency and minimal access to the technology. But the genre of science fiction would seem to have it and that is due to the constant evolution and exponential growth of the technology every minute. Yet that is only an element in the film rather than the whole of it. Hence “The Day the Earth Stood Still” would have its fair share of analysis in every department. I had the film almost make me to put as “Movie Classics” but a little dissatisfaction in the end proved it to be a film of extraordinary significance in the times of film making yet as a film would not deem the status of classics in my list. But please do not take that as a sign of a bad film because it is a must see regardless of its categorization in my dictionary of good, better and best for films.

In a rush of army noticing a large unidentified object flying, the film kicks off with the landing of the UFO directly on to the Washington DC. Supposedly well informed, the UFO of course has to land in the nation’s capital. Two aliens come out, one being a robot Gort played by Lock Martin under those spectacularly designed costumes while the other is an alien humanoid Klaatu (Michael Rennie) who has learned English very well monitoring the radio broadcasts. As the guns are pointed and even after a hopeful message of coming in peace, Klaatu gets shot when he tries to offer a gift. He is transported to the hospital with wounds healing rapidly by some advanced medication he brought along for the journey. He is visited by President’s Secretary Mr. Harley (Frank Conroy) and Klaatu asks for an immediate address to all the nation in the world regarding a warning to the people of Earth.

The first hour is when the film is at its best. With Michael Rennie playing Klaatu in a rare sense of understanding of an alien. He speaks with a superiority and says the things in a tone of confidence and affirmation. He is not arrogant but a nobility and humility an elderly would have. He is perplexed by the stupidity of different nations not coming to meet at one place in the name of cold war and suspicion. He is of course old, aged 78 but looks 38. He informs that the life expectancy is 120 to the doctors treating him. It breaks their heart as they have working throughout their life with next to nothing results in many diseases affecting the lives of the human.

When a situation of imminent danger arrives regardless of what country or classification the people affected will be, suddenly every other thing which concerned them huge a minute before dissolves in the sands of gravity. Klaatu impatient in the politics of international conflicts ventures out on his own by escaping from the hospital. He mingles with a family by renting a room. He befriends a boy Bobby (Billy Gray), son of Helen Benson (Patricia Neal). The sharp quality of being terse and perfect in his speech with neatly dressed and trimmed personality unwarrantedly makes Helen to trust him. Klaatu begins to go around places in DC and wonders who will be right one to talk with the grave situation the Earth has got itself into. Bobby suggests Professor Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe).

In the time of 50s, the film is like “Independence Day” in terms of graphics but not an entertainment blockbuster rather a very serious film on the world after two World Wars. In the attitudes of military, government, nations and people, director Robert Wise with the story by Harry Bates gives each of the cross-section in terms of fear and curiosity. Panic is the mode every one wants to be in. It is unbelievable that even the media at those times wants the same. When Klaatu visits his space ship as a spectator along with Bobby, a TV interviewer asks Klaatu whether he is afraid and Klaatu begins to reason out explaining another point of view and the interviewer cuts short as he knows that is not interesting. Fear is interesting. Panic sells.

The special effects and the costume design of the film made the place where it is in the history of the Hollywood. It has a great shot of UFO landing when people are running. The robot Gort’s metal simulation is an amalgamation of the lifelessness of the machine and the contemporary art not belonging to the era of 50s. And with the famous screechy and disturbing haunting score of Bernard Herrmann, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” would have been a phenomenon when it was released.

The screenplay of Edmund H. North does not reveal nothing much at all about the planet Klaatu comes from. In a very given way it is presumed that aliens are always much more powerful and far more unbelievably advanced than us. I guess some one travelling light years through black holes and asteroids and unknown objects in the space has to be scientifically meteoric in their advancements. When Klaatu being resurrected for unknown time by a device in the space ship after he is been shot Helen asks whether they know to avoid death. Klaatu replies that permanent back to life is only possible by Almighty and that is a cacophony in an almost perfect science fiction film. Apart from the bias I have, it is the out of sync placement in the film. It is bending over backwards to answer that part of that question springing out in the audience and to pacify them of their beliefs. Why not leave it open as they did for the planets and every single details with it? More than philosophical discrepancy it is a cinematic aberrance. Still I would recommend this classic be viewed for the first of its kind and a next to perfect sincerity in its theme.