Godzilla (2014)

This article is intended for people who have seen Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla.

The "Transformers" franchise created a space for Robots vs Robots movies and "Pacific Rim" attempted something similar for the Robots vs Monsters sub-genre. With Gareth Edwards' fantastic "Godzilla", we are back to where we started: Monsters fighting Monsters; the resulting film is majestic and awe inspiring.

Carrie (2013)

One of the biggest issues with Kimberley Peirce's film adaptation of Stephen King's "Carrie" is that it appears to be assuming that everyone watching the film has read the book or watched Brian De Palma's 1976 film. Right from the opening scene where Julianne Moore's Margaret is seen writhing in pain, oblivious to the fact that she is in labour, the film comes across as too eager to get to the parts which are now considered iconic. Often, when a major character is to be introduced, the camera slows down and some character off screen utters their full name loud and clear. Carry White. Sue Snell. Tommy Ross. Chris Hargensen. Yeah. That's the quality of writing you can expect from this film.

Captain Phillips (2013)

I haven't got much to say about Paul Greengrass' "Captain Phillips". It's a capable, well-made movie documenting a recent, much publicized real-life incident, featuring a great Tom Hanks performance. The film is supposed to be about the dynamics of the relationship between Hank's Captain Richard Phillips and the chief Somali pirate. I enjoyed it alright, but this film is memorable for a different reason altogether. This was my first press screening and I was visibly thrilled, even distracted, by the fact that there was no interval break and that they served coffee.

Captain Phillips tries to give a perspective to the now assuaged problem of Maritime Piracy in the East African waters. As a kid, I remember hearing about Somalia's poverty and seeing pictures of malnourished toddlers. Over the years, this connection got weakened and a direct product of that poverty took the center stage. So much so that, in my head, I solely began to associate Somalia with piracy. What started as an act to scare away foreign trawlers illegally fishing in their waters went out of control when fishermen started to realize they would make more money with one hit than they could ever in their entire life otherwise. 

The pirates continue to delude themselves that they are still just fisherman, not realizing that there's no going back anymore. The fisherman in them is drowned in the depth and all that remains is a skinny pirate with an automatic. Phillips' moment of realization where he thinks out aloud about what these people have become underlines this element.

I honestly don't know if I want to call attention to this but I have to admit I didn't find "Captain Phillips" all that tense. Using Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" as reference, another film which involved Navy Seals in a pivotal scene, this film felt like a foot massage. I knew Richard Phillips got out of this harrowing experience to tell the world his story and make a lot of money the same way I knew Bin Laden was getting shot at the end of "Zero Dark..". Knowing the outcome is not that big an issue because tension doesn't necessarily stem out of the unpredictable. But I was never once convinced that Tom Hanks' Captain Phillips was in danger. This always felt a little too safe.

I am able to recall most scenes from the film but nothing truly stands out like the moment where a shell-shocked Phillips is brought in for medical examination. With that one scene, Hanks sealed a nomination for himself at the next year's Academy Awards. I don't have any major qualms with the film, but I am not mighty impressed either. All I can say is it might have worked for me on another day. I don't know. I am just glad I have one less post in my Draft.

Gravity (2013)

In Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity", George Clooney plays Mission Commander Matt Kowalski, a NASA veteran on his final mission. Similar to his Ryan Bingham in "Up in the Air", Kowalski has a certain figure in his mind that he wishes to achieve. Instead of flier miles, though, Kowalski is attempting to dethrone astronaut Anatoly by clocking more space walk hours. Everyone in the mission command loves him and it's not hard to see why. He is a man who lives to collect more fascinating life experiences. An optimist for whom every insurmountable hurdle is just another opportunity to be able to tell a great story later. So even when he is muttering something as ominous as, "I have a bad feeling about this mission.", you cannot help but be floored by his charm.

Further down the likability spectrum, we have our protagonist Dr. Ryan Stone. She is the kind of person kids in the neighborhood would describe as the lonely cat lady who likes to be left alone. Guys at A24 made a poster with the tag line "She needed her space", which is funny, but not untrue at all. She carries so much emotional baggage that it keeps pulling her down. 

With these two out there in space, and a catastrophe that feels more real and urgent than it should, "Gravity" takes us on a visceral, dizzying and truly epic, one-of-a-kind journey. 

The amazing thing about "Gravity" is how effortless Cuaron makes it look. Being able to hide sophistication in plain sight is the sign of a true craftsman. Form always follows function here and the range of mind-boggling techniques put to use to achieve a stellar vision never come at the expense of storytelling. Borrowing from what Kris Tapley had to say about the film, "Gravity" is deceptively simple. No matter how simple the story looks, thematically, the film is as complex as you want it to be. It's lush. It's about a mother learning to let go and find a reason to live again. It's about the sound of a barking dog or the cry of a baby that makes us realize how utterly lovely life is. "Gravity" is so beautiful I am getting a bit teary-eyed just writing about it. 

"Gravity" did one thing right where I felt "Life of Pi" went terribly wrong. The only people who talk to themselves when they are alone are the scheming bhabhis on Indian Television soaps. It annoyed me to no end that a master visual storyteller like Ang Lee relied so heavily on dialogues. Every time Suraj Sharma's Pi said something, I tuned out. The older Pi (played by Irrfan Khan) is the primary narrator, but the younger Pi often took over the responsibility. Gravity doesn't have Stone narrate it. It thrives on silences as much as a mainstream movie can allow itself to (I hear Chandor's "All is Lost" has no dialogues at all.) Bullock carries the film on her shoulders and sells you those lonely moments in those long, unbroken shots like a true veteran. She says the right things and she says them right. On two occasions, the film uses a Nordic man named Aningaaq and Clooney himself to get around the issue of solitude and convey certain ideas vocally. Like someone joked on Twitter, Clooney is Richard Parker in that scene. 

Sprinkled with metaphors of all weights and sizes, Gravity is a lot more than spectacular visuals. But more importantly, it gives us a hero who floods us deep admiration. In the film's final shots, Sandra Bullock became my favoritest actress. That says something about how powerful the Gravity experience is.

The Smurfs 2 (2013)

Where do I begin? It goes without saying that The Smurfs 2 was made keeping in mind a particular target audience.. a demographic to which I fortunately do not belong anymore. My reactions ranged from fighting to keep my eyes open to cringing at all the syrupy sweetness. There have been many cutesy films with sugar overdose, but what makes them bearable is that there's something in them for adults too. The Smurfs 2, on the other hand, is relentlessly childish. 

If I am being honest here, I must let this be known that my six year old self probably would have enjoyed this movie. Heck, he had a great time watching Dunston Checks In and Baby's Day Out. Why I am skeptical about recommending this movie to kids of today is because they have been audience to works far more better than this film.

I have not seen Smurfs in any medium before today and I know close to nothing about the mythology. My beef is not with the characters, but with this particular film that I had the misfortune of sitting through. The sense of wonder which I believe is a must in every film targeted at kids is conspicuously amiss. The lines are inundated with puns which you might find funny if you are six. 

Because God forbid Hollywood made a movie for kids without a message in it, The Smurfs 2 has a thing going about relationship between a child and his/her stepfather. Not to sound too cynical, but this sort of superficial window dressing is not likely to make any impact whatsoever. 

The Smurfs 2 is to the kids what the Transformers movie is to us adults- we are better off without them. Let's nip it in the bud and save our children from more Smurfs sequels.  

Pacific Rim (2013)

Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is big, dumb and a lot of fun if you do not mind the predictability and cheesiness. Right within the first few seconds, you see a giant Kaiju monster crush the Golden Gate bridge as if it were a 9 year old's science project. What must be noted is how irreverently the film handles a scene which is legitimately a money shot in most other blockbuster movies. It makes it clear that things are about to go big, and that we better buckle up. 

The one most amazing aspect of Pacific Rim is how this is not a battle between Magnited States of America and some supernatural threat. Look at all the apocalyptic movies since the beginning of time and almost every film's story takes place within a short span. Aliens arrive in Manhattan on Monday; are vanquished by Wednesday and life soon goes back to normalcy until the sequel hits two Summers later. The problems, however spectacular they may be, vanish just as quick as they appear. Most comic book film-adaptations are known offenders. Pacific Rim's victory lies in the fact that it has created a world which feels lived in. This is the film which leapfrogs over a couple of possible prequels- where each could have been filled with stories of valour, pain and defeat - to land in the present. By creating a vivid past and picking the story up a little over a decade later, the stakes are kicked to insurmountable levels. Humanity is staring at an imminent end, and, for once, you can feel it to an extent.

I watched this film with my cousin who just might be the smartest person in my extended family. After the first few minutes where the film established the history, he turned to me and said this to my awestruck face: "Don't tell me you like it till now." I couldn't believe someone could not like that. So in the interval, he still remained unimpressed and told me his problems were mostly concerning the film's science. His argument was that he had seen the same mechanised humans concept in a zillion cartoons. True, I had a faint memory of watching something similar when I was a child, but the fact remains Pacific Rim is an original story. I still think the problem was that he was taking the film way too seriously. It's not fair to ask questions like, "Why can't they remotely control the Jaegers when they have invented technologies which let them combine two people's brains?" The only answer I can think of is that that wouldn't be half as cool as this. 

I was a huge fan of the film up until the point where Kaijus were considered to be just some giant beasts which had accidentally found a way to Earth. Them being intelligent species also made complete sense. But turning what appeared to be just an incidental work of nature into yet another massive scam came across as completely unnecessary. The creatures scheming to take over the planet, something about terraforming and dinosaurs.. that stuff just didn't bode well with me. I know we all agree that the film is intentionally being dumb here. All I ask for is why is it necessary for everything to have a reason? 

After living under constant Kaiju threat with a doomsday clock looming over, the people have learnt to come to terms with the impending disaster. While there is a lot of opportunity to milk great drama from the world, the film concentrates only on cancelling the apocalypse. Although an underground market for Kaiju byproducts in a neon-lit future Hong Kong makes sense, the entire subplot involving the scientist channelling his inner JJ Abrams ends up becoming the film's weakest link. It appears out of place and fails at delivering the comedic relief it was required to provide. The science starts getting fuzzy and we eventually find ourselves surrounded with absurd theories mentioned previously. 

I like the idea of liking Idris Elba's Stacker Pentecost or Rinko Kikuchi's Mako Mori, these people with instantly legendary names. The idea of two blonde Russian pilots, three Chinese triplets, a Father-Son team.. a part of me understands how they are "cool". But the characters didn't make the impact I was hoping they would. I don't think I have to say I was let down by the Independence Day meets The Avengers climax. I probably would have loved the final act if I cared a bit more for the people inside the Jaegers. I guess I just stopped drifting.

While there's no shortage of spectacle in the film's duration, the one scene that remains most memorable involves a little girl running away from a Kaiju in the deserted ruins of Tokyo. Watching the child look at her knight in shining armor appear on the horizon is a sight to behold. Pacific Rim deserves to be watched for plucking the word 'epic' from the ubiquitous and giving it back most of its lost sheen. Pacific Rim deserves to be watched for filling one with so much awe that it becomes painful to criticize certain aspects of it. Pacific Rim is unbridled joy. 

P.S. I don't think I can ever forgive Warner Bros. for dubbing Mako Mori's Japanese lines into English.

The Iceman (2013)

Richie Kuklinski's life is absolutely riveting if you read through the first few paragraphs of his wikipedia page. But Ariel Vromen's The Iceman, based on his life is, well, rather insipid. The one aspect that sets it apart from other films about contract killers is that the protagonist's family is completely unaware of his misdeeds. There could be a few more movies which match the description for all I know. Sadly this one facet is hardly critical or unique enough to warrant our attention for two hours.

On the first date with his wife-to-be, Richie tells her that he draws cartoons for Disney. He may or may not be telling the truth. We don't know yet. The enchantment on the girl's face, who is giddy with excitement, is palpable. A few weeks later, Richie is seen playing snooker with a few men. One of them disrespects his future wife, he swallows his anger and decides it's not worth it. A few minutes later, he slits the throat of that person in a dark alley. So we have a family-man slash psycho-killer on our hands. 

Richie is an awful man who will kill anyone who is not a woman or a child. Anyone. When you read about him, you get a better idea just how abominable his actions were. He admitted to killing a large number of bums in New York to perfect his skill. That's plain horrific. But the film tries to humanize him a little too much. Soon enough, his conduct oddly doesn't shock us anymore. As he goes about killing major characters, you don't feel a thing. You don't have anyone to hold on to in this tale. Richie is simply too crazy to care for and you can forget about sympathy for his family. They are either stupid or really stupid for not asking where all the money was coming from. With no one to root for, this cold story fills us up with apathy.

Shannon gets to add another role to his growing collection of deranged characters. His performances in Revolutionary Road and Take Shelter have made him a personal favorite. Yet this particular, brooding performance lacks charisma. You are neither infatuated nor repelled by him. This was still an era of the great New York crime families and the film does throw a few popular American mafia names at us. But there's nothing larger than life about it.  Richie captures your imagination when you read about how he used to freeze his victims to disguise the time of death, but the impact the film manages to make is always subdued.

The Iceman also stars Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, James Franco, David Schwimmer and Chris Evans. Despite the kind of talent this project has attracted, the film hardly does any justice to the material at hand. The film cries out loud for some glamour, for some Scorsese. I wish the late James Gandolfini had got to portray Richard Kuklinski. He would have been perfect the role. Instead we have this dull and uninspired take on the life of a truly fascinating contract killer.

World War Z (2013)

As I walked out of the theater, unimpressed, I heard a few people around me likening World War Z to the Resident Evil movies. A part of me immediately wanted to defend the film, but then I realised big names don't necessarily warrant leniency. Calling World War Z just another zombie movie is a high compliment. Based on a bestselling book which claimed to be 'An Oral History of the Zombie War', and which I am sure it was, this film is so ordinary that, besides certain big set pieces (which still do not justify the absurd production budget), there is nothing in the movie which pushes the envelope of the Zombie genre. Sure, the movie never promised us 'An Oral History', but then why else would they adapt that book if the intention was to make just another zombie movie? If the idea was to make a series of films, then they shouldn't have hired Marc "where-did-all-the-money-go" Forster to make the first one.

There are many kinds of outbreak movies. Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, at its core, dealt with the fascinating phenomenon of a virus outbreak in today's interconnected world inevitably leading to a pandemic. Then there are post-apocalyptic materials like The Walking Dead where the people have resigned to their new fate and learning to live again. WWZ tries to marry the globe-trotting element of the former with the sudden-coming-to-terms-with-the-dystopia of the latter. Here, our protagonist is at the center of the action and is expected to find a cure. As the action shifts from Philadelphia to South Korea to Israel to Cardiff, WWZ attempts to give us something which we never missed in the first place- magnificent Zombie action. In truth, maybe we haven't seen a zombie spectacle like this; if putting a zillion CGI'd zombies in a frame is epic, then WWZ  indeed is. But besides the 'zombie pyramid', the movie is not particularly inventive at it- not even as much as Warm Bodies.

A character tells Brad Pitt, a former UN employee, that Mother Nature is the greatest serial killer ever; like all serial killers, a part of her wants to get caught. There's a part of World War Z which, deliberately or otherwise, puts its cards on the table a little too soon and outs its secret. It is not entirely predictable, but once a scene gets established, it oddly becomes obvious to tell how things would eventually pan out. Instead of filling you with dread at the thought of the oncoming catastrophe, it braces you for impact, so to speak. In capable hands, certains scenes in this film could have whipped up unbelievable amount of tension. For example, there's one Argo-esque sequence involving a plane on the runway and chasing zombies which is shockingly tame.

World War Z doesn't take a moment's time to look back and think at what has happened to humanity. It mentions in the passing that entire cities were brought down to their knees and zombified, but it is very cold while doing so. I was bothered by how quickly the film took an Us and Them attitude towards undead. Entire cities are bombed and we feel nothing. I don't have the heart to call World War Z a bad film. It is adequately entertaining but there's less of everything. While the restraint in the climax, à la Skyfall, is commendable, the aforementioned predictability seeps in yet again hampering the tension.

After Earth (2013)

Shyamalan is not new to making movies about parent-child relationship. I have seen two other films of his - The Sixth Sense and Signs - and both had a strong family component. But sitting through After Earth, there's always this inescapable feeling about how superficial the family drama was. This is a particularly big problem because the film doesn't have much else going for it. Without a strong story or even some high concept set pieces worth talking about, the film crumbles. 

Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) witnesses the death of his sister as a child and has been scarred ever since. The sole purpose of his life is to fill his father's over-sized shoes and make him proud. The only problem is that his father Cypher Raige (Will Smith) is a celebrated Military General who is absolutely fearless. Not fearless in Taylor Swift terms, but the kind of fearless that could be used as an excuse for his minimal vocabulary of expressions. After the Father-Son duo crash-land and get marooned on Earth, Kitai is required to seek a transmitter which is their only hope for survival. On this supposedly epic journey, Kitai must fight the demons - both personal and the kind that senses fear and tears one apart - to eventually become the Karate Kid. 

The science (Scientology?) in this sci-fi is specifically vague and unimaginative. Set a thousand years in the future where humans have left Earth behind and colonized some distant planet, the mythology in After Earth is severely under-wrought. Sporting some bland whale-shaped spacecrafts with bamboo interiors and awful looking seat-belts, the sense of wonder so essential to sci-fi is clearly missing. It may or may not be an esoteric Scientology propaganda movie, but it definitely is one lazy, lifeless piece of work. After Earth looks and feels like a Smiths star vehicle under which Shyamalan unceremoniously got caught. 

Apparently, every species on Earth has evolved to kill Humans. Through the film, we learn that that might not entirely be true. We see instances of intelligence and compassion displayed by animals, but this sub-plot is never completely explored. I hope the idea isn't to address these issues in the sequels. Wait, who am I kidding.. did you see how much money this film made in its first week? LOL.

It is like watching the Scientology version of The Karate Kid. Danger is real, but watching this movie is a choice. 

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

I remember watching Star Trek on the first weekend of its release and forgetting most of it by the second weekend. I liked the movie quite a lot and IMDb tells me my 18 year old self gave it a rating of 9 -- something which happens very rarely these days. I never even got around to giving it a second viewing. Four years later, keeping alive the new Hollywood fad of using the word 'Dark' in a film's title, J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness beams into Indian screens an entire week before its American release.

One of the nicest things about Into Darkness is how there aren't any bad guys per se. The ones who are are either covering up for their past mistakes or are driven by love. For most parts, I even found myself rooting for Cumberbatch's Khan, who is more an ally and less an adversary. My non-Trekkie self, oblivious to Khan's reputation, wished for things to forever remain peaceful; which might explain why I felt Khan's evil turn forced and sudden. The film itself had to rely on Spock Prime to spell it out to us why Khan mustn't be trusted and why he's the "Supervillain" of this film. That's just lazy, man. All the Sherlock fans out there weren't given enough reasons to snap their allegiance to Benny.

While throwing a character in harm's way at every available opportunity, the film almost never builds enough tension to put us in a spot. Even as we look at Spock and Kirk stuck in places where death is certain, we are seldom convinced that it has the guts/balls to bang in the last nail. How can they expect us to fear for their lives when everyone knows that you simply do not kill off a leading male character in the second instalment of a trilogy? I'm just kidding. It wasn't as bad as I might be indicating but I wish it was more tense. You just roll your eyes and move on.

Help me understand this: if the purpose of Enterprise is to go where no man has gone before, how will they do that if they keep getting called back to Earth? Should we be concerned by how this new series has spent so much time on Earth? At a time when Abrams is jumping ship to helm the new Star Wars movie, I find it a bit weird that the third installment of this apparent trilogy will have all the characters at their personal best. The long gestating five year mission appears to have finally cleared all checks and the prospect of reaching out to the unknown worlds and civilizations excites me very much. I just learnt that the film is filled with esoteric references to older Trek works which fans are likely to devour. Or loath. One can never tell. 

Delving deeper into the Kirk-Spock bromance, Into Darkness has Kirk maturing from a cocky hotshot Captain to someone feeling unsure whether he's cut out for the job and Spock trying to stop being uptight about protocols, learning to go with the gut-feeling and developing an instinct to leap without looking. Their clearly etched out arcs progress neatly, but no matter how much it tries, the emotions only run skin deep on almost all the occasions. Set within a very small span of time, the film does just about enough to develop Uhura and Spock's relationship, while hinting at a possible romantic interest for Kirk in the future. Also, the film isn't even half as intellectually simulating as its immediate predecessor, which at least had a subplot going on about alternate timelines. While its 'not-so-intelligent' plot doesn't hurt it much, I wish it had packed something to work my brain more.

A word on the presentation- I loved the 3D in Into Darkness. I am starting to believe it all comes down to where one watches a film, but the technology was put to a good effect yielding a surprisingly unobtrusive and passably immersive results. If you are still not convinced, let me assure you that the dark glasses will protect your eyes from Abrams' lens flares. Into Darkness isn't as dark as it tries to convince us of but helped by Cumberbatch's performance and gratuitous amount of action, it offers adequate Summer entertainment. 

Django Unchained (2012)

Continuing what he started with Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino's latest handles broad universal themes like equality and justice. Liberty. Vengeance. In his deft hands, they come out alive and fill you with furious anger. Instead of turning it into a horrific Black vs. White battle, Tarantino intelligently balances things out by giving each side a friend who naturally belongs to the opposite side. So you have a White guy named Dr. King (geddit?) helping Django and a two-faced Black man named Stephen working for Monsieur Candie.  

It's a Good vs. Evil conflict and Good prevails. It does its best to offer solace, and is absolutely cathartic and empowering. 

I think we all can agree that Django is Tarantino's first proper love story. There are bits in Jackie Brown and Kill Bill, but Django's search for his wife drives this film forward. I don't think I felt as much for his loss as I would have liked to or I am capable of. Indian CBFC removed the critical rape scene (I am not entirely sure since I only read it in the screenplay) and didn't let us witness the true magnitude of cruelty. But despite CBFC's interruption, Kerry Washington's Bromhilda should have been used even better. The present version is exactly like that German fairytale Shultz tells Django about.  

One thing I found very curious was how Django kept changing his attire. Starting as a bare-chested slave throwing off his blanket and picking up the dead Speck brothers' jacket; next becoming Dr. Shultz's valet wearing a suit similar to Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy; suiting up for winter in a Green jacket and finally pulling off the Candie-suit better than Candie himself. I haven't planned on digging deep, but that's so much like Tarantino himself- blurring the lines between homages and plagiarism, the fastest gun in the West, a natural born killer. 

Due to his Morricone-fueled soundtracks, many of his films have had the Western feel. His ever-inventive Mexican standoff is another such element. But Django is his first true Western. The guns are slower but the men controlling the trigger are anything but. From 1940s Germany, he has jumped 80 years back in time and I am curious to see if he'll go back further. The Native American struggle perhaps? I doubt he is making a trilogy here. 

Django is a very different kind of Tarantino movie. He continues to rely on eye-catching visual indicators but this film isn't divided into chapters. The grand, five-act structure is very conventional for a Tarantino movie. It heavily bears all his directorial stamps but still feels like he has deliberately tried to do things different this time. My issue with the film is its false climax. Though I am sure I will eat it up on subsequent viewings, there were times when I did feel the length. At one point, after the death of a few major characters, the film doesn't tie things up and instead continues for a lot longer. 

Is it still necessary to talk about great soundtracks in Tarantino's films? Yes it is! Anachronistic soundtrack FTW! Hiphop has never sounded better in a movie. The 'Freedom' sequence is equally marvelous. The performances are great and all the characters get to ooze and drip with obligatory coolness. One can only marvel at Tarantino's ability of finding humor in some of the most inane or gravely serious things. I mean who else could call a slave habitat, the Candieland? Foxx's "I count two guns nigga!" deserves to be placed next to Wallach's "When you have to shoot.. Shoot! Don't talk!". It's moments like these that make me sad I don't know how to whistle. 

Coming to the controversy, many notable personalities like Spike Lee voiced their opinion against the film's depiction of Plantation slavery terming it 'disrespectful'. As I was watching the movie, Bala's Paradesi crossed my mind. These are two totally different films out to achieve different results. But when a Django-like treatment is drawing flak, why not hold Paradesi equally responsible? At least Django is escapist cinema which gives its audience a blissful release. If we are going to talk about blood money, isn't Paradesi simply cutting open closed wounds and making a show out of it? I understand that's a skewed argument; I just don't see how anyone could be offended watching Django.

Django Unchained is great fun. 

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

Like everyone, I do not expect greatness from every film I see; especially not from a Summer movie releasing in early March. I try to look at a movie by keeping in mind who it is playing for and see if it at least manages to do what it set out for. With all due respect to kids, Jack the Giant Slayer is a movie for undemanding kids. We get a good two dozen films like Jack.. every year and they somehow manage to make obscene amounts of money. In my view, these kind of films are the chalta hai fares which are dumped on us despite the makers' understanding that they are of substandard quality; where one-dimensional characters are chalta hai, as long as there is enough visual spectacle acting as a pillow to smother our senses. I almost wrote 'I expected something better from someone like Bryan Singer', but that would have been more appropriate during the release of Superman. That ship has sailed. 

It is time for movies like Jack.. to up the ante. They will soon become a dying breed if they continue to peddle out such mediocrity. We are in the golden era of television; shows like Game of Thrones are many times more spectacular than many of these films put together, and feature immensely superior writing. It is almost embarrassing to pay and knowingly watch something like Jack..  when a better way of spending time is only a few clicks away.

The guy sitting next to me was having his first 3D experience and was understandably excited. I too get curious every time an auteur attempts a movie with an extra dimension, but I would still prefer my movie the usual way. I'm afraid the word 'usual' may not mean the same anymore. See Life of Pi was gorgeous but it would have been so even in 2D. Sitting through these mega-budget Computer Generated orgy has become such a chore that even the occasional good ones are ruined. Unfortunately, I think we have reached a point where bitching about the futility of 3D is no longer in vogue. I would go out of my way to watch a 2D version but every cinema house around has changed allegiance. Enough of my troubles.

Jack the Giant Slayer does manage to get a couple of things right. Nicholas Hoult is pretty likable and Eleanor Tomlinson will have your attention. But the writing lacks the wit and humor necessary to keep one hooked. At times, it becomes so unengaging that you wouldn't mind if everyone just died and the lights came on. Like I said in the previous paragraph, the chalta hai apathy creeps in ever so often and Singer goes all Valkyrie on us. I have always believed that Fantasy should use CGI as a tool and not as a handicap; this movie thinks otherwise. 

At a time when everyone is re-imagining children's fairy tales for adults- filled with sex, profanity, violence and anachronistic soundtrack- there's this quality about Jack that makes it want to remains true to its roots. It is both a commendable exercise and something worth criticizing. It is a film for kids and I think it lacks the magic ingredient to keep the adults invested. 

The music is noticeably uninspiring. Maybe its the source material itself which is to blame here. A princess with an itch for adventure, a poor peasant boy with a heart of gold, an ignorant King, a scheming minister, giant creatures ugly enough to let us know we are supposed to hate them.. Jack the Giant Killer has it all. It is as silly as you'd expect a film titled "Jack the Giant Killer" to be. If you are still interested, remember to take the kids along. They'll probably have fun cause they don't know better. Sorry, kids. Oz: The Great and Powerful releases next week and it wouldn't make a difference which one you choose to go to. They are all just the same. Others can happily skip this without thinking twice. 

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook, true to its name, is sort of a dreamy manual to help get one's life back on track. It uses all the known elements which we tend to associate with romantic comedies. From Football, dance competitions, to using  festivals to denote passage of time, it knows it belongs in the rom-com territory and isn't ashamed of it. By the end, it elevates itself to much more, while adamantly sticking to the genre's aesthetics.

Bradley Cooper's Patrick belongs to the world where the concept of lying hasn't been invented. Forget white lies, he is incapable of uttering niceties. And his flaws make him flesh out into a very real person. What makes him worthy of being rooted for is his undying positivity to get out of the mess he finds himself in and restart a life with his wife.

Tiffany's arrival makes the film more interesting. When mutual friends Ronny and Veronica decide to set these two broken, vulnerable people up in the hope that they could feed off each other, Russell puts the viewer in Patrick's place by holding back with certain parts of the story and investing in coincidences. Is Tiffany for real or a figment of Patrick's wild imagination? How does he keep running into her? And what are the odds of her being an equally broken person?

The film is handling an icky subject of mental illness and you don't see any of those scenes which milk the sentiment. We are not provided with any directives and we come to root for our leads on our own accord. One of the interesting aspects of the movie is how it hints at Pat Sr.'s own struggles with mental problems but doesn't go the distance to shed more light on the topic. It gives you a hint that Patrick's problems may have deep hereditary roots and it was going to burst out in open one way or the other.

There are cliches and then there are comforting cliches. Silver Linings gives us exactly what we want to see. It didn't inspire me as much as it did a few others, but it was always, you know, nice. In Patrick's words, the world is a pretty messed up place as it is and we don't need another sad Hemingway ending.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

While The Hurt Locker periodically offered potent doses of thrills, Zero Dark Thirty brings out the frustrating and hard ways of gathering intelligence and constantly hitting dead ends. The film follows breadcrumbs, sparsely sprinkled across the length of the breadth. The trails are so thin, there are times when the story appears to be going nowhere. It's a densely written work with a lot of facts and names. We all know how things end. The important task for Bigelow was to keep us invested in the process and sustain our interest till the very end. I must say she has managed to do exactly that.

I must confess I was most excited about the final scene. Honestly, I was a bit curious to know how the leads appeared but I didn't care much for them next to the actual raid. That was a historical moment. It's like recreating the Kennedy assassination. We've all read about it and seen animated representations on CNN but the picture never came clearly to our head. The fact that they are selling it as "the greatest manhunt in history" itself underlines the importance of the subject. The film sears you with boundless thrill as two choppers stealthily fly low over a dark and sleepy Pakistan. In that moment, I had this photograph appear in my head; the one that was splashed on newspapers across the world; the one with Obama, Clinton, Biden and other top staffs attentively watching a television screen showing live-feed from the cameras on the Navy Seal Team's head gear. How much this one event meant to them, not just politically, and to the world in general was what that made watching the climax all the more special.

During the raid sequence, the film sticks to minimal action and known facts. I remember reading that one of the two Navy SEAL choppers crash landed inside the Abbottabad complex. It was just a piece of information whose gravity didn't get to me. But watching the dramatized version made me realize how absurdly wrong things went. Zero Dark Thirty is an action film but unlike any other. In the film's most important juncture, Chris Pratt's character whispers 'Osama' in a fake accent hoping to lure his prize out. I hope it was intended to be funny, because it was hilarious. Just because the trick worked for him once before, him trying the same once again turned the moment into something so funny that every last bit of tension was diffused. Even the most important bullet in the film is fired without any dramatic build-up and OBL lays dead before you know it.

It is not a cheery movie. In its closing moments, it doesn't fill us with optimism and leaves our veins pumping with patriotism. The film actually continues with the "The rush of battle... for war is a drug." theme previously explored in detail in The Hurt Locker. Here is a person who was recruited to CIA straight out of high-school, is not an easy person to work with, has no real friends and has a career solely defined by this one single mission. She cannot afford to fail. And the inevitable sense of loss that washes over her at the end is palpable. She's the superhero who lost her nemesis and couldn't help but shed a tear. Once the weight gets lifted from her shoulders and she comes face to face with the sudden closure, the magnitude of the emotions bears her down. 

William Goldenberg, who also worked on Argo, has co-edited this film and the pacing is very good. Boasting a stunning ensemble cast, Zero Dark Thirty is a very well crafted film. It may not break my top 10, but I am glad I caught this on the big screen.

Mama (2013)

Mama is my first horror film on the big screen, discounting Pizza and the awful Charulatha. At the cost of sounding boastful, I must say horror movies don't easily scare me. I even criticized Pizza for falling flat when it came to scares, scares which largely worked on most of the people I discussed the film with. Despite knowing how well films of this genre open at American box-office, I was unsure if they were actually effective when, in spite of the great sound, one is surrounded by hordes of people. My Mama experience has left me with mixed thoughts.

Because watching the trailer beforehand marginally diminished the film's impact, I will refrain from going into the story and try to be vaguer than I usually am. After being rescued from the cabin in the woods, the girls take a long time to get used to civilization. The older one is closer to society, but the little one appears to have been scarred beyond recovery. Their uncle Jaime Lannister and his girlfriend, played by a delicious looking Goth Jessica Chastain, devote their time to rebuild the girls' life.

Mama has a decent story and is a generally well made horror film which avoids the genre's cliches. It doesn't go for cheap thrills and never ceases to be interesting. It is also supported by strong crafts. Yet, ultimately, it doesn't deliver on the scares even as much as I would have liked it to. So, again, like with Pizza, I think I should be recommending this film nevertheless.

The back-story about this particular person who the kids refer to as 'Mama' presents itself to the many lead characters in the form of dreams (nightmares, actually). It makes sense that characters take their time before realizing that they are in a horror movie where weird things can happen. But everything is pretty apparent to the viewers who know what they have got their selves into. So once the revelations stop being revelatory, it is up to them to go all out on the scares. I honestly don't know how films belonging to this genre work. I am just telling you what could have made this far more interesting for me.

On more than one occasion, we are made to believe everything we witness in a static frame is normal, and then, by the introduction of newer information, we suddenly understand that things are not okay. It is of the more interesting devices the film uses, and to great effect. Sometimes, the joke is on us; rest of the times on Chastain, who happens to be our only connection to this story where strange things can happen.

In our movies, we don't like to see good people get hurt. From the little horror I am accustomed with, I understand the world works in such a way that people get hurt/die when they are not particularly affable or are a little too curious. This rule holds true in Mama, where generally everyone is good in their own way and make their own share of sacrifices to look after the girls' betterment. But in order to have some sort of catharsis, we have a circumstantial antagonist in the form of the girls' grandmother who is out to secure their custody from their uncle. So even though she's not a bad person, people were very pleased to see her come in harm's way because she is placed relatively low on the goodness scale.

I saw it in a theater which boasted fancy Dolby Atmos sound system and I am still not convinced these films work better on the big screen. I think Mama is definitely a film worth checking out. I leave it up to you to decide how you want to watch this film. 

Lincoln (2012)

In the film's opening scene, a black soldier comes up to Lincoln and respectfully asks for equality for his race. He hopes: "in a few years perhaps they (White people) can abide the idea of Negro lieutenants and captains. In fifty years, maybe a Negro colonel. In a hundred years - the vote." He couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams that in a little more than 150, America would have a Black President. Lincoln's cultural and historical significance is astonishing. It makes sense why the release date was played around with, so it won't be used as a vehicle by either parties to gain political mileage during the recent Presidential elections. And Lincoln was a Republican.    

It is not often that a film makes you respect a character who you knew almost nothing about. I would liken my experience to watching Devar Magan, where I couldn't keep my clasped hands from going up with reverence during the final scene. Lincoln is like that. You don't see the grey sides to him, but do we really have to see some negative traits when, chances are, they never prominently existed? 

An interesting attribute to Lincoln is that he has a story for every argument or discussion. This is not a movie about Lincoln's childhood or about his losing the many elections before finally becoming the president. He has seen the horrors of war and the underbelly of Washington politics. He has even lost his son to one, making him all the more protective towards his youngest. The man has lead a full life now. His stories are such good companion pieces to the point he is trying to drive home. There's even a funny scene where one character shouts out in bewilderment as Lincoln begins to tell another one of his stories.  

There were some complaints about the film's length and that kept me from watching it at home. But surprisingly, the pacing is excellent. The dialogues are so well written that your attention never wanders. Opening with the presidential inauguration, the film immediately jumps into Lincoln's plans to table the 13th amendment in the house of Representatives. He may be the most loved person in every room he's in, but his first term was completely shrouded by the devastating Civil War. This one historic piece of legislation could be his legacy. Like this year's Argo, the film leads to a nerve-wracking high, where despite knowing the outcome, you hang on to every last syllable, with your heart beating like crazy. 

Lincoln is an important movie. It focuses on only a few months of his life but it still is the Gandhi of this decade. It needed to exist so the world could know what a great man he was. I think we can trust Kushner for depicting the events with sufficient accuracy. Like many of Spielberg's previous films, the victory is balanced with a sense of loss. Enough blood has been spilled. The fact that this bill wouldn't have passed for a long time if not for Lincoln gives the whole aspect an extra gravitas. This is a wholesome movie. That the movie delves deep on Lincoln's relationship with this wife Mary Todd was itself a nice touch and makes for some truly marvelous scenes.  

Daniel Day-Lewis gives a performance to last for eternity. From the slight slouch to the voice, he nails it on all points. His imposing stature could make anyone go weak in the knees as he lovingly places his hand on someone's shoulders or refers to them by their first name. He *is* Abe Lincoln. He is supported by an excellent cast, one of the best ever assembled. I don't recall seeing so many known faces in a movie before. Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, John Hawkes, Jackie Earle Haley, Tim Blake Nelson,  Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Michael Stuhlbarg, Lukas Haas, Dane DeHaan, David Costabile and Adam Driver. Phew. I simply had to write that down.

Kaminski, Williams and Kahn.. they all deliver. This is a great movie. Damn. It really is. Lincoln is the most fun you'll have in a history class. It is enlightening and wildly entertaining for such a wordy movie.  

2012: Documentaries

I have seen more documentaries in 2012 than I have all my life. The thing about docs is that they have a 100 percent record of working on me. I have never not liked a documentary. I had problems with 'Winnebago Man', but it is still a film worth watching. The subject matter is usually so compelling that I don't bother about the film-making chops involved. Oh wait. I couldn't sit through Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams. But still.

I decided to watch all the documentaries which made the Academy longlist and then a few more important ones which weren't shown any love. I will try to write a bit about each film; for now I'll simply list them all in the order of liking.

WATCHED:

1. Searching for Sugar Man
2. West of Memphis
3. This is Not a Film
4. The Imposter
5. Queen of Versailles
6. The Invisible War
7. 5 Broken Cameras
8. Supermen of Malegaon
9. Side by Side
10. Bad 25
11. Bully
12. Shut Up and Play the Hits

TO WATCH:

1. Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
2. Detropia
3. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
4. Marley
5. Room 237
6. The Gatekeepers
7. Stories We Tell
8. How to Survive a Plague
9. The Waiting Room
10. Chasing Ice
11. Ethel
12. The House I Live In
13. Jiro Dreams of Sushi
14. Samsara
15. Love, Marilyn
16. Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present
17. Brooklyn Castle

SUGGESTED BY @auteurmark

1. Conteurs D'Images
2. The Island President
3. Indie Game: The Movie
4. The Swell Season
5. Girl Model
6. Craiglist Joe

The Impossible (2012)

The Impossible is a fictionalized account of a family trapped in a foreign land midst one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. The Bennetts appear to be a largely functional family who are flying out to spend the last week of 2004 in Thailand. The film opens with a very ominous tone, constantly suggesting an impending catastrophe. Be it the turbulence on the flight or the prominent presence of a Joseph Conrad novel or the Jaws-style angle, looking on at the idyllic resort from a buoy sitting deep in the sea, the signs are everywhere. It gives all the vibes of a disaster movie and even delivers on that count with the spectacularly staged Tsunami sequence. Only, what follows is a knock-out emotional punch, while rarely overstepping and entering the schmaltzy terrain. 

Post Tsunami, the film concentrates on the survival of Naomi Watts' Maria and her son Lucas (Tom Holland), completely leaving the fate of the rest of the family hanging in balance. Continuing the grim mood it began with, the film made my insides queasy with some horrific visuals. It never ignored a chance to make us flinch by dwelling on Maria's wounds. When we finally do get to see Henry, the reveal, which clearly appears to have been constructed to elicit a surprise, fails to leave the desired effect, as we consume it just as any other piece of information. Soon after his arrival, the film slipped into a family drama territory.

It's a film with a big, beating heart. It tugs at your heartstrings at every given opportunity and often succeeds. Unlike Hotel Rwanda, which had me bawling on the floor as the chorus part of Million Voices started playing, I was relatively restrained here. I still found myself wiping a tear or two at no less than 5 occasions; that's a remarkable feat. 

The Impossible carefully chooses to offer a small sense of victory in the face of a mammoth loss. Like Schindler's List, there's nothing much to celebrate when you look at the bigger picture. There's a bit of manipulation in this regard, and I didn't find myself caring for most of the other people out in search for their families. But one particular scene worked brilliantly, coming at a point when the movie had basically come to screeching halt, as young Lucas went around asking names of missing family members to the survivors. It's moments like these that makes movies reaffirm your faith in humanity. 

If this film was not based on true incidents, I surely would have scoffed at the ludicrous coincidences in the story. But since the film so visibly wears its defense around its neck with a title such as that, I will rest my case right here. 

The entire Tsunami sequence was done really well. I had little idea how very fatal the debris could turn in the circumstance. Recreating the scenes we all witnessed on our television, the visual effects worked incredibly. In the end, as if attempting to provide the audience with enough bang for their buck, the film re-uses its money shot, this time to little effect. 

Though the film only attempts to focus on this one family's true story of survival, it essentially ignores the fate of the countless natives. Even when it turns its attention to others, the others are always white people. There's something about this bias that's very, very disturbing. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Beginning with a stunning prologue establishing the central conflict, much like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit promises too much but delivers less.

Frodo was an inquisitive young man who grew up listening to his uncle's adventure stories. All it took was a little prod to get him going on his journey. Bilbo, though, has grown overly fond of his Mother's china and the comfort of his home. The arrival of Gandalf was probably the best thing that ever happened to him. I understand his need to take some time to make up his mind but eating up close to an 45 minutes of runtime is a little too much. 

One of the biggest problems with the movie is its lack of enough new, memorable characters. The film received loudest cheers when Serkis' Gollum appeared. The weight of taking the story forward fell on Martin Freeman's Bilbo, who did whatever he could to give us someone to champion. Since he got no help from his dwarf friends, the effects were not entirely satisfactory. I had read how the dwarves lacked personality and that is very true. The ones I remember right now are Thorin, Kili, the one who wore a Russian fur cap and the sagely old dwarf. The others are largely forgettable.   There are some six who I don't remember seeing even after looking at their character posters. And what's the deal with Radagast the Grey? I seriously don't know what happened there. His entire part contributed to further bloat the movie.

There's this scene in a cave between Bilbo and Gollum where he comes to possess the Ring dropped by the latter. Ultimately, after a fantastically staged riddle session, Bilbo is faced with the dilemma of whether to spare Gollum's life or not. In that instant, I couldn't help but look at the bigger picture. About how that particular scene goes on to play such a critical role in history of middle earth, forever altering the course of lives of so many. In a surprisingly touching moment, with a close up on Gollum's faces, Bilbo's decision to spare him echoed Gandalf words: "Courage is not about knowing when to take a life... but when to spare one!” I don't think I will ever find myself even remotely in a position where I'd need that bit of wisdom, but its these lines about compassion, friendship and other qualities that made those three films so damn special. 

I was very late to catching up with the Lord of the Rings movies, but even when I did, I had not seen anything like it. I still haven't seen anything like it. Structure-wise, The Hobbit appears to be similar to them. It's hard to look at this movie and not compare it with those earlier ones. It has its share of big action set pieces in the final act but still gives the impression that it is working on a much smaller scale. Like it is playing out to those little kids in the Shire Bilbo tells his stories to, and easily scares with a sudden "puff!". We have already witnessed battles of indescribable magnitude. This feels like a severely watered-down version of middle earth. But after lifting the weight of its unarguably superior sequels off its chest, The Hobbit is an adequately entertaining adventure film.

On the whole, The Hobbit is definitely a bloated entry which could have benefited from Del Toro's vision. It doesn't move any mountains (pun honestly unintended), but injects tiny doses of nostalgia at regular intervals. I am hardly dying to see the next two entries, and to be honest, I wasn't very high on watching this film even before the not-so-impressed reviews started appearing. The Hobbit is a very good Narnia movie. I had fun. 

Life of Pi (2012)

Life of Pi is hardly the emotional tour de force it was made out to be. At the end of it, I was more puzzled by its bluntness in delivering the "message". The film's religious undertones, or in this case, not-so-under tones, had me wishing it were a little more subtle. There are too many in-your-face moments. No, the 3D is fine. I'm referring to conversations where subtlety is dispensed in favor of obviousness. For instance, there's this deeply thought provoking moment which had me thinking how differently we react to the deaths of an Orangutan and that of a fish, which got ruined with Pi saying,"Thank you Vishnu for coming to us in the form of this fish." 

In the house of faith, I live on the second floor in the room of doubt. I totally understand the necessity of having something to unconditionally believe in. Religion is a very good concept when looked upon as a way of life more than anything else. But it is imperative for followers to not be a sponge and absorb every last bit of nonsense. Talking about faith in a higher authority is never easy and trying to put the various faiths into a context and giving each its own share of space and reverence is some task. I am not able to make up my mind as to whether the film is philosophically ambitious or pretending to be one, hiding behind the skirt of dazzling pictures. 

More than anything, Life of Pi reminded me of Tim Burton's fantastic Big Fish. Pi is a fantasy film which asks you to believe. Not just believe it within the framework of a movie, but believe miracles can happen in the world we belong in. For me, the question is not whether I choose to believe. My problem is Pi bites more than it can chew. The things which happen over the course of 227 days may be hard to believe. But, if I say I do, what does it amount to? Does dressing a gritty cut-throat story in fantasy make it all the more believable? Is reality harder to digest? The concept of religion itself  wouldn't exist were it more rationalized? We need the fantasy. We want the enigma. We pretend we want to know the answers, but we are only too happy to live the puzzle. Maybe we can't handle the truth. Maybe I have no idea what I am talking about. 

I have always had trouble watching Indian actors in Hollywood films. They have this language handicap which I expect them to overcome in order to impress me. That happens very occasionally, and only in few select scenes when it does. Suraj Sharma, who plays Pi Patel, is uneven and there were moments where I wished Lee had dealt in silences. But full marks for his physical acting. I cannot imagine how tiring the whole task was. Irrfan Khan is good as the older Pi. I often saw shades of Irrfan in Suraj; or it could have been the other way round, I am not sure. The film's best performance, though, is given by a computer generated Tiger

A fellow reviewer had noted how it doesn't take one to believe in God to admire Life of Pi and how belief in Cinema would alone suffice.Well, the film sure is a towering achievement bringing to life a vision so unique. But the "message" may not be to everyone's liking. You can try to ignore it but it is present everywhere you look. The life lessons Pi gets as a kid from his Mother and Father, his subsequent loss of innocence come to play a role in his ordeal, but his journey of a lifetime felt too convenient. If I try to keep myself content with the tale of undying human spirit conquering all odds, I still have a better option in Cast Away to turn to. I never really felt compelled to root for Pi. Nothing soared anywhere inside me when his feet touched solid ground. Nothing really changed. A copy of Life of Pi will be a value addition to your bluray collection, giving your Avatar copy some much needed rest. That's all there is to it.