Saturday, December 29, 2007

Things I Loved in 2007

Scary, Sexy, Smart
Vacancy Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson play a couple trapped in a seedy motel. 70 minutes of terror add up to my favourite film of the year. Also:

Zodiac David Fincher's ambitious and winding journey through decades and cities in pursuit of a killer.

Om Shanti Om
There wont be a more superficial and heedlessly orgiastic exercise in filmmaking to top this until Farah Khan returns to the director's chair. A loving look at the movies and why we love them.

A Mighty Heart Angelina Jolie shows us why she isn't yesterday's news just yet in Michael Winterbottom's remarkable post 9/11 film that's as contemplative and devastating as United 93 was last year.

Ratatouille The pure heart of Pixar and its genius for storytelling scale magnificent heights in this gorgeous rodent tale.

Things I Liked


300, a feat in post-production that looks unlike anything I've seen before
Jab We Met, simply for making Kareena Kapoor tolerable (this must also be a feat in post-production)
Knocked Up, Judd Apatow's fuzzy, wild romp through the pregnancy comedy genre
Chak De India, with Shah Rukh Khan and an electric team on and offscreen
The Bourne Ultimatum, with that Moby song I simply love
Spiderman 3, for not sucking as much as everyone said it did
Taarein Zameen Par, by which means my tear ducts have been hung out to dry
Die Hard 4.0, in which unspeakable dialogue and unbelievable action are spoken and believed
Disturbia, which may not be Rear Window but sure is a lot of fun
Freedom Writers, since Hilary Swank can make any material a pleasure to watch
Music and Lyrics, because it took throwback seriously instead of turning it into camp, adding great music and Drew Barrymore to the mix
28 Weeks Later, which doesn't skip a beat rejuvenating the horrors of its predecessor


And Then There Was This Stuff

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Premonition, Lucky You, Bhool Bhulaiya, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and Ocean's 13.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

MovieWatch: Lost in Space

Khoya Khoya Chand isn't a good movie, but you can tell there's a good movie somewhere inside it.
Soha Ali Khan is luminous in Khoya Khoya Chand, a languid tale of uncertain lovers. In its gloaming, nostalgic, 60s Cinema ambience, she's an unambiguous star the way Vidya Balan was in Parineeta. That movie as a general experience hangs around the perimeters of this one (the sun to its moon, if you will). The comparison, in other words, is unfavorable. Where Pradeep Sarkar made a melodramatic and effective, contemporary period film, Chand is an incoherent, meandering project in which tons of offscreen talent are squandered; poor editing and Shiney Ahuja combine ably to give us the impression we're watching skectches rather than finished product. Ali Khan is a blessing, but this haphazard effort will be forgotten in a fortnight.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Video Throwback: Past-Masters' Weekend

I finally got my grubby paws on a copy of Vertigo. In Hitchcock's tightest and most precise film (perhaps second only to Psycho) James Stewart is a prematurely retired cop pulled back out of exile by a comatose Kim Novak. There's much to be said of this this heady, hypnotic, and yes, vertiginous, thriller that failed spectacularly as an intellectual and commercial exercise back in 58, and prompted the leaner rhythms of the Bates Motel. Don't miss it. I already took too long.

On the same day, I watched Rob Zombie's Halloween, which is an undistinguished and affectionless massacre of John Carpenter's classic. I usually like anything. Give me a slasher film and I'll love it to death, but Zombie's boring and bloody retread, unredeemed by vision or conviction, is a braindead Dead Teenager Movie. I suggest you skip.


MovieWatch: Don't Dance So Close To Me

Madhuri Dixit returns in a tailor-made relaunch vehicle that kind of just hums along at its own mild pitch.


Let's observe that Aaja Nach Le is written by Jaideep Sahni. Like his previous outing Chak De, this is a formula film elevated by intelligence and talent. A keen eye for casting means there's fun to be had in the smaller parts, and Sahni shows continuing skill with handling ensembles. But where Chak De worked around Khan's easy and obvious star-power, Nach Le makes an idol of Dixit. It's still a joy to watch here and there, but comeback fever mires the crucial final act. What should have been the year's most predictable pleasure becomes a disproportionate and clumsy cult procession, and able supporters (Konkona Sen especially) are shuffled back into the second row.

We're glad she's bringing back back, and dancing the bejesus out of it, but maybe sometimes the trick is to let someone else dance with you.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Moviewatch: Jhoom-Gloom-Doom

As accessories go, high production values can assist movies; they've been known to work for this studio before. I was one of the six people impressed by the money pouring out of Ta Ra Rum Pum, and last year one of the three people who actually enjoyed Salaam Namaste. The new Yash-Raj, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, certainly has one of the most serviceable soundtracks in recent movie history. But flash can also annoy; it can serve to bring into focus the strident anti-matter unreeling before your very eyes. For Jhoom, director Shaad Ali brings expensive ideas into the machinery of mainstream product, but fails entirely to support those ideas with meaning. Therefore, Zinta and Bachchan sit around waiting for their high-voltage starpower to somehow manifest itself; it doesnt. Eventually, those less fortunate Deols and Duttas pull more than their share of the load to vastly compensate for the wretched first hour.

Curiously, the movie had on me the effect of a part-time Moulin Rouge, except without the genius that inspired it, and at other times the effect of a retread of, well, various pieces from the house of candy-coated NRIness. An Average Kind of Jhoom.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Moviewatch: Too Many Drops Spoil the Ocean

Julia Roberts is not in Ocean's Thirteen. Could there be a more powerful testament to star power than the total mediocrity inspired by its absence?

The third installment in Steven Soderbergh's hugely popular franchise is one long, lame joke. Smugness is not something I like in a film, and you will not watch a movie more infatuated with itself this summer. The revenge ploy in itself is a puzzle to watch, but its execution is so unbelievable I yawned. Nothing works in this film: not one witty line, not the Valentino suits, not the Vegas cool, not the many many moving parts to the heist. I should have just watched Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. At least Alba knows she's in a dump.

The biggest con-job this movie pulls is on your wallet. Stay Away.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Video Throwback: Bray, Muse

To honour the depressing spirit of the French Open, I went back 40 years to watch a depressing Robert Bresson film about a donkey. Au Hasard Balthazar is in the Criterion Collection, so you know it's going to be one of those movies people yawn through and then gush about, but I was still charmed by this epic-in-miniature about the fortunes of one ass, baptised Balthazar at the start of his life and led in and out of bondage the rest of it. There is cruelty in this film, but there is also love; death, but also life. There is a circus as well. And a glorious ending.

Our favourite donkeys talk too much. Balthazar brays every now and then. Stick with him one afternoon. Recommended.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Moviewatch: Shootout at Zzzz...

Rakhi Sawant has a great cameo in Shootout at Lokhandwala. That she is the lead-in to my bit on the movie should be revealing: this is a sprawling film that needed refinement, not as many B-grade stars as possible. While the trailer led me to expect a sort of Panic Room-with-terrorists, this two-hour excursion is more interested in a history of the Anti-Terror Squad, as headed ironically by Sanjay Dutt. Vivek Oberoi is Maya-aa, an underworld star on the ascendant in a competent Company-hackjob script. Shootout is at its best when it does the old kill-and-spill numbers; it is unwieldy when it tries to give its characters quirks; it is unbearable when Amitabh Bachchan is on the screen, and falls apart completely whenever a song is launched into. Diya Mirza's role needed more writing, Neha Dhupia's needed less, and Amrita Singh returns from her washed-out existence to give the ensemble appreciated street-cred.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Booked.Out: At Least It's Double-Spaced

I went through Mohsin Hamid's new thriller in three hours flat. Since I'm also incredibly slow, it may take you ten minutes.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist arrived last month with fanfare. The prose is clear and solid in this slim volume, and Hamid keeps things moving with breezy assurance. In that ancient 'Ancient Mariner' fashion, a man accosts a lone American in a Lahore cafe. So begins the monologue of Changez, led from Pakistan to New York in search of the Big Dream, and led back home after 9/11.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist seems to have crawled unwillingly late into the loop of news-tickers and op-ed pages. I wasn't refreshed by a new idea or argument. Changez's tone is ambiguously parodic at points, though the unveiling of the American is handled with Hitchcockian patience. Kiran Desai found the book 'relevant' [of course]. She seems to have forgotten her own assertion from a few months back, a dozen words more provocative than all of Hamid's novel. Memo to Mohsin: 'I think the date 9/11 has been given artificial emphasis in the West'. Read, reluctantly.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Aargh...

Is there such a thing as too much value for your money? At World's End, the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, felt just like that to me. It's three hours long, takes you all over the world, and features enough plot to make Iran-Contra look like simple math. Davy Jones? Calypso? The Flying Dutchman? The Chest? the Brethren Court? the Locker? the Green Flash? Does this thing come with a manual? I liked the ol'-reliable monkey, I liked Naomie Harris' mysterious sorceress [her only notes for the performance were probably 'talk weird'], but I remain one of the last few unconverted when it comes to LOVING the series. The humour has always been a little off for me [Keira Knightley especially has a hard time with the funnies], and this, the last in the trilogy [until it becomes the third in a quadrology], seems always to be jerking off to its own comic cool - i.e. Johnny Depp - and visual punch. I may not know how they did it, but not for one second did I believe that I was watching two ships blasting each other to bits while in a maelstrom.

It's Spiderman 1, Pirates 0.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

Video Throwback: Weepy Willy

Never was there a voiceover more extraneous to a movie's emotional infrastructure than the one I was subjected to in The Pursuit of Happyness. Will Smith can act, Thandie Newton can act, and the movie would have remained articulate enough with some editing and without the superfluous commentary track ['This part of my life is called "Running"/"Happiness"/"Being Stupid"']. It's annoying to see a reasonably good movie undone by overkill [Cast Away, anybody?]. That said, there's a star on the rise in Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. And though long is the pursuit, the payoff made it worth the while. Recommended.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Moviewatch

This weekend brings us to the moment of truth. The Pieces are in Place. Hmmm...

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Video Throwback: You Give Love A Bad Dame

The residues from Oscar season are about done, and I just finished with Notes On A Scandal, a kind of pedigree lockerroom drama about one woman's obsessions with another. Judi Dench is the steely Old Teacher; Cate Blanchett plays her unknowing object of intense affection. Its A-grade filmmaking for a traditionally B-grade genre. And it just struck me that both the leads were once up for Oscars doing the same person, another astonishingly powerful woman who knew how to play it in the bedroom.

Video Throwback: A Case for Dr Phil

28 Days Later is the kind of film you think will be about running. Running away.

A rage-inducing virus has gulped down all of England. Not your regular rage virus this though. Because it also makes you want to [violently] pass it on to others. Cillian Murphy [pre-Red Eye and Batman Begins fame] plays a last innocent on the run, with a little help from some equally calm friends. What I was surprised about was how much time writer Alex Garland found for things other than running. What an unflinching, focussed return to instincts! When all else has been blown to bits, 28 Days Later remains scary and eloquent. A cult classic.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Video Throwback: On the Merits of Impotence

I just watched Children of Men. Wow. Alfonso CuarĂ³n [say what you will, he made the best of the Harry Potter movies] directs almost A-grade stars Clive Owen and Julianne Moore in this spellbinding and weird and masterful adaptation of the P.D. James novel. It's the not-too-distant future. Women can't get preggers. Extinction looms large. Anarchy Rules. No, this is not an Armageddon press sheet. Then, in a barn [where else?], a tiny little secret is revealed. It's a paranoid kind of 'Pilgrim's Progress'. If you like life-affirming stories with lots of exploding things you'll love Children of Men.

Video Throwback: Where Rabbit?

After many many many [many] months of hype and 'You havent seen it?!!!' [relax people, its only a movie] I watched The Prestige, and alas, it is only a movie.

You might already know Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale are rival magicians in turn-of-the-century England. Scarlet Johansson achieves the impossible playing the sexy assistant with a few tricks of her own. Michael Caine achieves the impossible playing the unsexy assistant...or something. Piper Perabo is in it too [dispatched woefully early. Am I the only one who enjoyed Slap Her...She's French?] The movie is long and pretty, but did I mention its long? And did I mention the weird-as-hell de-noo-ma, which is one of those infuriating russian-doll type nonendings in which someone may or may not have been killed by someone else, who may be someone else, or not. [hint: it involves a giant xerox machine. I think.]

What a showy waste of good looks [somehow, that's a bad thing].

Monday, May 28, 2007

Moviewatch

So I watched Cheeni Kam and Metro over the past week.

Can I just say what a pleasure it is to watch good actors doing their thing with other good actors.

Konkona Sen Sharma, who I refused to be impressed by in the awful Page 3 and the slow-motion nonwonder that was Omkara, is a comic miracle in Metro. She plays a 30 year old virgin opposite Irfan Khan's loony romantic. Right. Shilpa Shetty and Nafisa Ali are on hand to do that seeming impossible, 'Acting While Beautiful.' Dharmendra is terrible. Kay Kay is suitably foul. And was there ever a potential star with a more cursed name than Shiney Ahuja?

Think Love...Actually except sadder [and happier]. The music is good, too.

Then there's Cheeni Kam. Tabu is probably the greatest actress working in Bombay today, and here she's breezy, sharp, weepy, all by effortless turns. Paresh Rawal is her hapless father careening over the hill. They're both brilliant, and Bachchan, unloved by me, is good too. She is an Indian touristing London. He is the high priest of 'London's finest Indian restaurant'. She sends back what she ordered. He lectures her on taste. You know the drill. Watch it, for no other reason than to observe the agile footwork of not one, not two, but three great and [rightly] respected performers. True, The last twenty minutes made me want to shoot the screenwriter, but the first hundred were an awful lot of fun.