Gravity

I remember seeing Jurassic Park for the first time. The feeling you get after seeing that brachiosaurus for the first time, in all its grandeur. It’s majesty forcing your jaw muscles to loosen, making you gape at the majestic, beautiful creature. Gravity did that to me in its first scene. In many ways, Gravity is what films were started out for. In the 1910’s, when movies were still a luxury, the script of the movies didn’t really matter. The fact that stuff was moving on screen was what made people happy most of the time.  It was meant to inspire wonder and transport us into another dimension. Gravity does just that. With the marvel of modern technology and sound mixing, it is solid proof of the fact that a simple story, if directed to perfection can still manage to woo audiences worldwide.

The story (for those who haven’t heard it by now), in spoiler free terms, is basically about a crew of people stuck in space after encountering debris. Now, there are some who might argue that the movie stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock but really, it’s just Sandra Bullock. George Clooney is supporting cast, at best. The front runner is clearly Sandra Bullock who has almost definitely booked herself an Oscar nomination. The reason for that is this, the only person, who Cuarón decided to give some background to, was Sandra Bullock’s. George Clooney’s character remained as anonymous as ever. George Clooney, plays what he did in almost every one of his previous films. Fun when it’s required, calm and composed in a situation of distress. I don’t even remember him playing anything different.

The cinematography throughout the movie is jaw dropping. Consider this, if you were watching this on your laptop, and you paused one frame, that frame would serve as a kick-ass wallpaper. The feel of the movie changes drastically from one frame to the next. I discussed this in my post about Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón (the movie’s director) has a way of direction in which disorder comes so suddenly that it leaves a higher impact on the mind. For instance, when the first wave of debris hits them, the transition from ‘order’ to ‘complete chaos’ took roughly 3 seconds (I counted :p). It seemed similar to the changes that happen in an opera. The smooth transition of the ballerina during rapid surges in the notes played. The orchestration of disorder is what makes it so gut-wrenching. The fact that this is all happening in space adds another element of horror to it. Seeing catastrophe of such magnitude over the background of absolute beauty adds another element of horror to it. It’s like the scene from “Silence of the Lambs” when Hannibal Lecter is listening to opera with blood on his face. Beautiful music in an eerie scenario.

The second thing I loved was the sound mixing. The entire dialogue of the movie is in that speakerphone voice. The odd harsh factor adds to the authenticity. But apart from the attention to minute detail shown, the soundtrack is perfectly employed in the movie. There are scenes where there is no sound at all and it adds to the eerie factor of the movie. The whole Idea of “In space, No one can hear you scream.” Propagated by Alien is executed to perfection here. There is a scene in the movie when Sandra Bullock is sitting in a spaceship and she’s shouting. The camera zooms out and as soon as it leaves the ship, there is utter silence. The feeling of hopelessness it creates is immense.

If a person was not completely wowed by the cinematography (I was, slightly, because of my stupid decision to not watch it in IMAX.), there are certain flaws in the movie. None of them take anything away from the movie at all, but could have been touched upon a little. For a person who spent 6 months training for a space flight, Sandra Bullock is slightly “amateurish”. I bet that those guys have a pretty high cutoff for this shit. It’s not like that they wouldn’t drill you for any possible situation. Still, considering that this was her first flight, I’m willing to let that go. The second thing was, the casting of the movie gave something away. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock play exactly the same sort of characters that they have played in every movie. This is not suggesting the fact that they are not good, just that they might have tried to do something different with them. There is a scene in the movie when Clooney comes to save Sandra Bullock and says something like “You might not have noticed how gloriously handsome I was before.” Typical, right? And Sandra Bullock has to play the struggling person learning to cope with a difficult situation who has had terrible past experiences. The exact character from Speed and 90 days. I guess a lesser known cast could have served them better.

Apart from that, the only possible flaw that this movie had was the impression that Chinese products actually work. (You’ll get it if you’ve seen the movie.)  Amazing cinematography, Amazing soundtrack and a visual treat, Gravity, following Life of Pi, is a movie which does not use 3D as a gimmick and leaves you with a feeling of awe and wonderment, the same one generated by previous greats like Jurassic Park and Star Wars.

9.4/10

Children of Men

As many of you might know, the new Science Fiction movie, ‘Gravity’ has been making huge waves in cinema lately, wooing both audiences and critics worldwide. In India, the movie seems to be in IMAX only till now. Now people, I’m not saying that I’m unwilling to pay for a good movie, but an investment of that amount requires insurance, and hence, I saw Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron’s first English masterpiece). Long story short, I’ve booked my tickets for Gravity.

Children of Men is a 2006 science fiction thriller drama that starts off in 2027 Britain. I cannot review this movie without spoilers, there are sonnets that can be written about the last scenes. Interested parties, you have been warned. The movie shows us a future in chaos, where, for a reason which the movie does not choose to explain, women have become infertile and the whole world except Britain is in a state of disarray. (Fat Chance!) So, refugees are flooding England and the British government is now forced to put refugees in camps without proper living conditions. The refugees form a protest group demanding equal rights and recruit the lead character of this movie for a top secret assignment. The assignment being, the safe transportation of a woman, who, miraculously, is pregnant. (These are not spoilers, I’m just giving you the description of the trailer. Shocked? You should be.)

The first thing that attracted me about the movie was the realism of it all. Mostly, with science fiction movies set in the future, directors tend to hype things up a little too much and show us an era of flying cars and holographic messaging and cloning, all of which seem a little far-fetched as compared to actual reality. Consider Blade Runner, a movie which told us, that flying cars, humanoid armies etc. would be a reality by November 2019. It’s 2013, I don’t see that happening in the next few years. The view taken by Alfonso Cuaron is much more realistic, albeit haunting. The dark tinge in the movie adds more to the gloom of the script.

Secondly, the camera work of the movie makes it even more shocking than it already is. The feeling of shock you got after watching the 9/11 attacks for the first time is exactly what you feel here. For instance, there is scene when our lead character is in a car with 2 other women. They’re all driving, playing fun little games on the way. A happy sight, perhaps a message from the director that even within gloom and certain extinction on their hands, humans will find a way to stay happy. Without a warning, a burning car, comes on the road and the mood changes within milliseconds as tons of protesters start chasing their car with bricks in their hands. It happens as quickly as it would happen in real life perhaps and is thus, highly shocking. The movie is filled with scenes like these and although the description may say that the scenes are jump scares, they’re not put in place as a gimmick. Kudos director, for amazing camera work.

Thirdly, there was a scene right at the end of the movie when the government comes to destroy the refugee camps and an all-out war breaks out. The scenes reminded me of Saving Private Ryan a lot. The way the scenes were shot and the realism of the blasts justify the comparison. But where the movie really stood out was when a baby, born after almost 18 years on earth starts to cry and everyone drops their weapons in shock. The lead actor and the mother escape with the baby with stares from everyone in shock and disbelief. As soon as they leave, fighting resumes. I personally think the scene was a larger comment on humanity. There could be tons of interpretations of the scene. Put in a box though, the scene is very, very powerful and should definitely leave an impact on anyone who chooses to see the deeper meaning in movies.

The movie’s ending is ambiguous and the onus of interpretation is left on the viewer. I think anyone’s interpretation of the film will depend on his/her belief in the power of ‘hope’. The movie leaves you with something to think upon for hours on end. In that sense, it is potent.

Perhaps the only gripe I had with the movie was the fact that it left us with too many details to be filled on our own. If one views it as ‘science fiction’, which it claims itself to be, there are plenty of questionable twists in the movie. Easy links whose justification the movie did not choose to provide. I would love to see a director’s cut of the movie where all of those scenes might be included. However, that is a problem with almost every second movie ever made.

Final Verdict: This is a movie which I did not review while watching. Transporting me to another dimension altogether, with gritty realistic direction and camera work, it left me in awe. If this is what Alfonso Cuaron has done with Gravity, it should definitely be a treat to watch.

8.7/10

(It felt a little cheap to make this review light hearted. I think I owed it to this movie.)

Grand Masti

So far my blog has been filled with a host of good to awesome movies. It’s high time that I chose a movie which I did not like. As always, being the stuck-up prick that I am, I had a host of Bollywood flicks to choose from. But there was a movie which stood out much above the rest. It’s towering load of shit, higher than the one created by Twilight and Glee combined, which stunk my entire following week. Grand Masti.

I do not know what I expected going into a movie like this. My friends convinced me to go to this movie. I reminded them of the colossal pile of cow dung this movie would turn out to be. They applied the same argument that men apply when going for an orgy “It’ll be fun if you have company.” In either case, it’s not entirely true. Like the latter, it turned out to be awkward, frustrating and made me crave for alcohol afterwards. I’m not even going to discuss the story because in order to do so, it has to make a sliver of sense.

The movie is a collection of the dirty predictable SMS jokes put in a random order. The jokes are so obvious and uninventive that you can see them coming miles away. I was literally dreading the jokes to hit me. I was praying the whole time “Please, no, not so obvious. AHH! COME ON!! Show some fucking brains, faggots.” (Sigh) On top of that they add the characteristic tabla roll after every joke. It’s so desperate of the directors whenever they do that. It’s like the script writers were saying “Haha, see? That was clever, wasn’t it? Now laugh, motherfucker.” Maybe, just maybe, if they showed any restraint, I would probably have laughed.

It’s pointless to even mention ‘objectification’ in a movie like this. It’s funny how ‘Munni Badnam’ is female objectification whereas a movie which does not even attempt to show females as real people is not. It’s movies like these which degrade Indian movies and take them back by around 50 years, when a man slipping on a banana and hitting his head on cow dung was funny. (In hindsight, that’s probably still funnier than most of the dated double meaning jokes in this movie.)

Final Verdict: This is a movie not meant for any human being with the possession of a well-functioning human brain and perhaps a sliver of respect for women. A good lawyer could probably accuse this movie of Human Rights Violations and get it banned from public viewing. I sincerely hope that happens. It thoroughly deserves the rating I’m about to give it.

0.0/10

Amour

Love. The true meaning of which only Taylor Swift is stupid enough to claim to understand. The theme of this movie is about an old man who is supporting his ailing wife. There have been movies which express the pain and neglect felt by people of Old Age, but none of them portray the sense of self- respect and the courage shown by senior citizens as well as this French movie.

The movie, in short, was as close to perfection as any movie could be. Near perfect direction, amazing acting, heart-wrenching script and an appropriately timed soundtrack make it next to flawless. Reviewing such movies is very hard for any movie reviewer worth his salt. It’s like when a mortal is brought in front of perfection himself and asked to critique it. The only thing we can come up is an odyssey of praise for such great works of cinematic perfection. But still, I will make an attempt.

The movie starts off with a couple of scenes depicting a happy married couple. There is a scene where the man is flirting with his wife after a visit to the opera. The scene was so ‘typically’ French, I had to smile. Two 90 year old people, living in an apartment, all by themselves, visiting operas, without a care in the world about the neglect they face from their children. Just two people enjoying life at its dusk. Since the movie starts off in such fashion, there was almost no more need for any character development. I sympathized with them right away. The scene where the woman has her first stroke is shocking, unsettling, in fact. That is where this movie turns into a gut-wrenching ride into what love demands from a spouse. There is a scene in the trailer where the wife (who is also a piano teacher) is playing the piano and the man, who till now has shown no visual sign of him missing her, is sitting in the corner watching. He suddenly turns off the tape recorder and sighs. The woman on the piano disappears. Silent, short, powerful. It is the subtlety of the movie which makes it such a treat to the observant eye. A quality which seems lost on both Hollywood romcoms and almost 90% of all Bollywood fares.

The movie is predictable, but in a further unsettling kind of way. As in, the feeling when you know what is going to happen, but you dread it so much that you don’t want it to. The slow pace of the film only adds to that dread. This movie could very well be used as a reality check by most modern couples. Just watch the film and ask your boyfriend “Would you be willing to do that for me when I’m old?” and bam, you are single. (You’re welcome, Ladies.) I will concede, the first thing I did after watching the movie was call up my grandparents. It guilt-tripped me so badly that I just had to.

Final Verdict: This movie is next to flawless. A haunting, gut-wrenching experience, it will leave you with a ton of tears at the end and an experience you will never forget. It thoroughly deserves the rating I’m about to give it.

10/10

Moon

As soon as I read the description of this movie on IMDB, I was piqued. A movie about a crew member of mining on the Moon? My mind was racing along the lines of claustrophobia, mental breakdown, insanity and the like. As long as the movie didn’t include any goddamned aliens, it had potential to be classified “Awesome”. Surprisingly, it turned out to be quite different than either one of the scenarios.

One of the first things that struck me about the movie was the gritty realism of it all. Most movies based in space tend to have that over the top grandeur associate with them which works to some extent but we have rarely had a movie which portrays it for what it truly could look like in the future. When multinational corporations start exploiting the moon for minerals and going to the moon becomes a “Placement” issue more than anything. The movie moves at a brisk and comfortable pace. The correct amount, where if it goes a little too fast you’ll have to pause and think too much and if you slow it down it becomes boring and yet, at no point during the movie, do you want to stop it. (That came out wrong.) Anyway Kudos editors, well done. The concept of the movie is something that one cannot possibly guess. Hence, I won’t elaborate on it too much. All that you know is that our lead character has been heading mining operations on the moon for his contract of three years and it’s just about to finish. From then, the movie moves into some very weird and unexpected directions.

I will say this, for a person who’s been alone on a planet for three years with virtually no contact with the outside world and only a robot to keep him company, the lead actor appears sane than a person in his condition should be. I imagine the current users of orkut face a similar problem. My whole theory of mental breakdown fell flat there. Another plus point of the movie was its soundtrack. Created by Clint Mansell who brought us the famous “Requiem for a Dream” theme, the tunes are creepy, haunting and add to the overall lonely feel of the film.

The only gripes I had about the movie were that big and completely unexpected events which happen during the course of the film are underwhelmed. As in, if you were just told that you had been living a dream so far and are actually the king of neverland, your reaction would be little more than LOL, right? The actor here shows very little emotion when being told something extremely life-changing in this story. Like he’s being handed a million dollars and his face just says “Cool, thanks a lot.”

Final Verdict: The underwhelmed reactions and the lack of mental breakdown aside, the movie was next to flawless. An extremely engaging Science Fiction movie with an amazing background score and gritty realism in execution. Moon is a collector’s Item.

8.0/10

The Secret World of Arietty

The secret world of arietty is an adventure film about, well, little people. By that, I don’t mean midgets but actual little people, the size of a pen. I saw this movie in its original Japanese version. I don’t like dubbed versions, it changes the feel of the film entirely. It’s there that ‘Sushi’ will turn into ‘Big Mac’ or ‘Tentacle porn’ will turn into ‘Amateur’. It just lacks authenticity, that’s all I’m saying.

The movie, overall was an average watch. I’ll begin by stating some things that I actually liked about movie. Firstly, the cinematic beauty. Japanese movies generally tend to get this right, but here, as we are viewing things from a miniature being’s perspective, the grandeur attached to everything just escalates to another level. Secondly, the soundtrack. I believe this movie has one of the most invigorating and intoxicating soundtracks in the last decade. It is one of the major saving graces of this otherwise ordinary film.

Now to why the movie is not as awesome as it could have been. Maybe it’s just me, but the formula used by the movie has been used very effectively by plenty of Hollywood movies before it. “Honey, I shrunk the kids”, “Ants” and “Toy Story”. All focused on miniature beings who, for some arbitrary reason, never choose to interact with humans. All of the above mentioned movies were either funnier, more effectively built or more imaginative than this one. The movie was as predictable as it could have been. When the trailer of your movie is the biggest spoiler of all, your movie or your trailer has some serious issues. In hindsight, I think this movie could have been made into a much better and much more impactful short film.

There were a couple of details in the movie which were just unnecessarily added to generate extra audience sympathy. For example, the child who finds out about these creatures is suffering from a terminal disease. I have no f**king Idea why that was necessary. It didn’t have anything to add to the movie and I wouldn’t have cried if he had died halfway.

Finally, the movie did have an adventurous feel to it as a movie of this genre is supposed to have. The whole LOTR, “Us against the world” thing. The soundtrack only makes it more epic. That is where the movie really stood out for me. There was a little bit of subliminal messaging in the movie as well, the whole “Avatar” bullcrap where the writers try to add their little bit about how Humans are the biggest danger of all. Unlike avatar, this aspect of the film was well portrayed here without it taking centrestage.

Final Verdict: An awesome soundtrack, A dated but well treated concept make it worth a one time watch.

6.5/10