2010 (1984) has always been an unfairly maligned film. Sure, it pales in comparison to the perfect 2001: A Space Odyssey but, as a standalone film, 2010 is not without merits. Despite the overall unevenness of its plot, it’s immaculately paced and stunning to look at. For a film that used a combination of practical effects and CGI (shot on 65mm film as opposed to the 35mm film used for live-action shots), the editing seems almost seamless. Maybe it’s because I watched this movie after years and that too, on Blu-Ray but there are shots in this film that took my breath away. Case in point, this shot of the Leonov approaching the Jovian atmosphere.

There are also a couple of beautiful shots reminiscent of 2001.

If there was ever an underrated sci-fi classic, this is it.

Super 8 is a film about filmmaking, childhood crushes, friendship, coming of age, fathers and sons, secrets, grief and loss. It’s also about a huge alien monster.

I’ve tried to stay away from big movies this year after constantly feeling like being ripped off every time I watched something at the theatre. I can’t recall anything recent that offered a genuine spectacle or invoked a sense of wonder like the movies I grew up watching.

Super 8 is a throwback to the kind of stories Spielberg and Joe Dante did in the 80s about children who stumbled on elaborate conspiracies and managed to maintain a sense of objectivity that most, if not all adults seemed to sorely lack. The movie works because J. J. Abrams employs a narrative structure that, if you think about it, is essentially just the three-act structure done really well. He teases you with bits and pieces of information and does the full reveal only once he thinks you’re ready (I admit, it’s impossible to not feel a little cheated once you get to the end but the trip’s worth it). That’s the kind of filmmaking I miss; most movies try so hard to keep your attention and essentially just bombard you with bloated visuals and those annoying quick cuts. What happened to the foreplay?

Sadly, a lot of people I know don’t seem to want to know what Super 8 is about and that’s just sad. But if you do decide to go and watch this big little film, don’t read anything about it. Go in cold and it’ll be worth it because Super 8 has both spectacle and heart.

Inception was everything I hoped it’d be.  It was sufficiently complex (though nowhere near as complicated as Primer or even, Memento) and despite the 148 minute running time, very very engaging.

(Spoilers)

Then again, like all great films, Inception has its flaws and it’s not just the false narrative or the plot holes. Christopher Nolan has a set of rules for his world – rules that are essential in moving the plot forward; call it cinematic license, but it does feel like Nolan gets away with a little too much. I might be nitpicking but that’s what happens when you go in with great expectations.

Critics who’ve compared it to 2001: ASO or Blade Runner are only kidding themselves. Inception is more than just another great science fiction film – it’s about mathematics and engineering. The narrative is so tightly constructed that when scenes flit across the three (or four) ‘dream levels’, you cannot help but marvel at the genius behind it especially since time is supposed to be relative in all levels. A couple of years ago, the brother suggested I read Douglas R. Hofstadter’s wonderful book, Godel, Escher, Bach and after Inception, I find myself comparing the two. The film’s production design is certainly inspired by M.C. Escher’s art and some of the themes have been explored in other films. In fact, for a much more accurate interpretation of lucid dreams and more specifically, the concept of limbo, I’d recommend Richard Linklater’s underrated Waking Life.

Despite my reservations, I loved Inception. I find it oddly comforting that amidst all the crap that finds its way into cinemas, we can still count on someone to deliver a truly original blockbuster that you don’t have to switch your brain off for. And yes, I’ll be watching it again.

9/10

I stand here naked before you. Judge me, you bitch.

I can see how John Krasinski’s debut feature can come across as shallow and pretentious to some. It’s ambitious and slightly uneven but it’s also one of the most honest interpretations of the male psyche I’ve seen in a long time. The thing about cinema is that while it can convey emotions, it’s also severely limited by the director’s aesthetic. And that’s why this film works; because technically, it’s a lot like Before Sunset or even, Tape. Frames are sparse and apart from the characters, little else fills the screen.

Julianne Nicholson’s character, reeling from a breakup, decides to study the effect of the feminist movement on men, or so she says. She sets up interviews with various men and they open up about relationships, women and sex. Do men really know what today’s women want? The film is funny, repulsive and mostly, insightful. A friend of mine referred to it as ‘Vagina Monologues for Men – Penis Monologues’, which when you think about it, is quite accurate. One scene that really stood out was that of a college professor reflecting on 21 years of being married. After an awkward pause, he muses, “Is it shallow? Does it sound shallow? Or do you think the truth behind this kind of thing will always sound kind of shallow? Everybody’s real reasons?”

Granted, the film is an exercise in vanity and it does have an inherently convoluted logic but I loved it and intend on seeking out and reading more of David Wallace Foster‘s works.

PS: Ben Gibbard, from Death Cab for Cutie appears in the film.

“The loss of religious faith is a slow and fragile process, like the raising of continents,” writes Darwin to his wife. That one line from the film resonates greatly with my personal philosophy and  is perhaps one of the few reasons I enjoyed this rather ponderous study of Darwin’s struggle with faith and evidence.

The more I think about the film, the more glaring the flaws seem. The film seems conflicted about what caused Darwin’s inability to complete his treatise, On the Origin of Species – the death of his daughter or his accommodationist views on Christianity.

Creationists have long argued, albeit with no documented evidence that Darwin recanted on his death bed. Creation, based on the book, Annie’s Box by Randal Keynes dispels the myth and portrays Darwin as a man with strong convictions even if he occasionally questioned them.

Face it, Avatar was never really going to live up to the hype.

Granted, James Cameron’s return to screen is every bit a visual spectacle as they say; Pandora is unlike anything we’ve ever been subjected to especially in 3D. The environments are lush and Pandora’s inhabitants are stunningly rendered. Visually, the film is brilliant and deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Sadly, the script is overwrought with cliches bordering on heavy handedness. It would’ve been enough if it were simply an allegory for civilizations and their misplaced sense of entitlement. Turns out, it’s also about the environment. Thankfully, the last 40 minutes made up for all the preachiness.

It’s interesting that Cameron never strays from the basics – there’s the three-act narrative, James Horner’s pounding orchestral score and a voice-over. For all the technical wizardry involved, Avatar is a very conventional film and a very good one at that.

Brilliant article by Salman Rushide on what makes a good literary adaptation. 

What are the things we think of as essential in our lives? The answers could be: our children, a daily walk in the park, a good stiff drink, the reading of books, a job, a vacation, a baseball team, a cigarette, or love. And yet life has a way of making us rethink. Our children move away from home, we move away from our favourite park, the doctor forbids us to drink or smoke, we lose our eyesight, we get fired, there’s no time or money to take a vacation, our baseball team sucks, our heart is broken. At such times our picture of the world hangs crookedly on the wall. Then, if we can manage it, we adapt. And what this shows us is that essence is something deeper than any of that, it’s the thing that gets us through. 

…

But those who do not know who they are, are doomed too: individuals who sacrifice themselves for the sake of pleasing others, comedians who stop telling jokes because they find themselves in a humourless world, serious people who start trying to tell jokes because they fear being thought humourless, people in a new situation, a new relationship, a new university, who act against their natures because they think that’s the way to make things easy for themselves.

Whole societies can lose their way through a process of bad adaptation. Striving to save themselves, they can oppress others. Hoping to defend themselves, they can damage the very liberties they believed to be under attack. Claiming to defend freedom, they can make themselves and others less free. Or, seeking to calm the violent hotheads in their midst, societies can try to appease them, and so give the violent hotheads the notion that their violence and hotheadedness is effective. 

[Tip of the hat to The Mute Oracle and Kalafudra]

Wonderful little video/track by Oren Lavie. 

Tip of the hat to The Mute Oracle.

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;  Where but to think is to be full of sorrow.

I remember reading Philip Roth’s Everyman a couple of years ago and then Garcia Marquez’s Memories of My Melancholy Whores more recently; both of which tell rather morbidly, the stories of old men who after living lives of  regret and philandering are faced with their imminent mortality and unfulfilled desires. Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino draws strong parallels to these stories. Walt Kowalski, however, shuts his emotions in and redeems himself in the strangest and, for a film with so much profanity and tongue-in-cheek political incorrectness,  most gut wrenching of ways.

Eastwood plays a tired and lonely version of Dirty Harry or even, Blondie, who finds himself as an antique from a bygone era in drastically different times. Like most scowling old people, Walt Kowalski is an irate old man who feels the world truly went under after the 60s. He invariably ends up helping a young Hmong immigrant find his bearings in a gang infested neighbourhood. Unlike the terrible Seven Pounds, Gran Torino lets us empathize with a character who learns how to finally let go of life. I do realize suicide is an ethically sketchy subject, but rarely has a film tackled it with such grace. 

And that final scene where Tao drives off in the Grand Torino – such catharsis.

8.5/10

PS: Oh yeah, spoilers.

The concept of destiny irks me; that way, I buy into Dostoevsky’s morbid world view. But Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Millions) has intricately woven magic realism into a modern day fable about survival and love; a film set at the center of India’s commercial hub.

Reaction to this film has been intriguing. Critics seem to be spellbound by the rather straightforward screenplay. The film would have never worked weren’t it for Danny Boyle (and his Indian counterpart, Loveleen Tandan). For one, Boyle infuses the proceedings with an overdose of realism; so much that you can almost smell what goes on. On the other hand, he romanticizes the aspirations of the protagonist. Jamal Malik, cares more for his long-lost sweetheart than the 2 Crore (20 Million in the film) Rupees at stake.

Remarkably, the use of HD (SI-2K Mini Digital Cinema Camera) gives a vibrancy and immediacy to the otherwise appalling backdrop. Boyle employs the frantic pace that he used so well in Trainspotting and achieves a structure that few Indian filmmakers have been capable of. Danny Boyle, much like Richard Linklater belongs to a rare breed of filmmakers – those capable of telling a story both empathetically as well as intellectually.

There is so much to say about the film- the characters, the score, some brilliant sequences; but I shall refrain at the risk of coming across as vapid and dense. To the discerning viewer, there are plenty of flaws but the audience at a limited screening I watched this film with burst into applause towards the end. The film is life-affirming without being overly sentimental, escapist without being ridiculous and most importantly, bloody entertaining. Reminded me why I love cinema so much.

9/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1010048/