(Movie) Gran Torino directed by Clint Eastwood

You really have to wonder where these movies come from. Who would have thought that the cult western hero, the ‘Dirty Harry’, would turn out to be one of the most exciting directors who could churn out one masterpiece after another…

Gran Torino is supposed to be the last film that he would star in himself. So while you are watching it, take a good eyeful of the legend as he delivers a flawless performance…

Like his other movies, this movie too has its share of unlikely heroes. Heroes who are not heroes because they can shoot from the hip, but heroes because they rise a notch above the normal humdrum when needed…

Eastwood plays Walt Kowalski, a widowed Korean war veteran who is  bitter about almost everything – especially his family, clergy, his neighbours…and is also a cynical racist…

But life, as in all Eastwood’s movies, makes sure that nothing remains the same and no one remains how they seem to be…

Pretty soon, his life changes as the next-door girl befriends him, whose brother had previously tried to steal Walt’s ‘Gran Torino’ as part of a gang initiation. He also slowly develops a fond relationship with the brother…

But life is never perfect, especially when everything seems to be going so well…The gang which had tried to initiate the brother, with its ego bruised now, begins to wreck the lives of Walt’s new found friends…

And how does Walt, the erstwhile legend of the wild west, counter this gang? You would be surprised. And that is where you are witness to the genius that is Eastwood…

In time, the climax would probably become of the most memorable scenes in the history of cinema…you realize that you have been holding your breath as Walt stands before the gang till the climax…

One thing about the movie that would not strike the viewer before seeing it and having heard the story is the humour. Walter has the dry cynical humour that you can absolutely associate with him. His grrr is absolutely outstanding. There is humour in so many of the scenes but they never jar with the theme or the core of the movie. This humour is surely one of the things that makes this movie stand-out. It brings flesh and character to Walt. In fact, without the humour, the character would seem phoney…

And a review of this movie cannot finish without reviewing the way Eastwood looks in the movie. The wizened, cynical, gritty, tough guy who can take on street gangs but has private demons – this character was tailor made for Eastwood. He is a man whom you would turn for advice and surprisingly for his age, for brute strength. He has the look of a guy who has been toughened by what he has experienced in life and who battles his memories in private…and this look and his guttural voice is what carries the whole movie on its shoulder…the movie is made with one man in mind…

Watch this movie for well, everything…from the dialogues, the plot, the characters, the ending and yes, especially Eastwood…

A movie that would stay with you for a long time…and so will the song at the end of the movie…

And you would wonder…Slumdog won the Oscar over this???

Labels: america, Crime, drama, movies

posted by Protik Basu @ 11:51 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Dear Wendy directed by Thomas Vinterberg

 Well, this is one of the quirkiest movie I have seen in a long time…Even after watching it, you are still now sure what to make of it. So much so, you cant even decide whether it was a damn bad movie or it was a damn brilliant movie!!!

You are drawn into the world of the Dandies, a teenager group in a a small town that seems to consist of a single block (in a mock replica of a old western towns) who create a secret society in which the romance of the guns blossom. They are self-proclaimed losers who find secret strength from carrying guns (most of which are old-fashioned including a 19th century gun and a gun used in Al Alamein). They create a code where the guns are supposed to carried but not used (except in their hideout). And they all dress up in old fashioned clothes like flowing coats and top hats (hence the name Dandies)…

And Wendy – that's the name of the gun that started it all. The group names every gun in either masculine or feminine. And Wendy is the gun that the group leader owns and to which he devotes the narrative…

The plot seems silly but look a little longer, it seems intriguing…Sometimes it seems like some graphic novel turned movie. There is a sense of timelessness. There is also a sense of lack of purpose and yet a sense of urgency and importance.

When the killing starts, it almost seems surreal…and the part was the best of all…how it all turns macabre and unreal at the same time. You seem unnaturally glued to the scenes as they unfold…

This is a movie that everyone wont like…You got to stay with it without being ‘wierded’ out by it and then even after persistence, it wont make too much sense…don't worry…just soak in the story and you would feel that you have seen something quite different!!!

Labels: america, movies, weapons

posted by Protik Basu @ 8:43 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Igby Goes Down directed by Burr Steers

If ever you wanted to see Holden Caufield on the screen, this movie is it…

Some purists feel horrified at the fact that someone has taken the classic and turned into a modern story. I, however, feel that art must renew itself periodically, otherwise it atrophies. Especially when the portrayal is as beautiful and sensitive as this one…

Igby (Keiran Culkin) inhabits a world where he sees hypocrisy and duplicity everywhere. He is close to his father who now lives in a mental asylum and he hates everything else…Its a world that is coming of age but is already repelled by what he sees is the result of coming of age…

The story follows Igby as he stumbles from one relation to another, all the while keeping his humour and sarcasm up while he is getting scarred…and his sarcasm really makes you go splits most of the times!!!

The movie is populated by memorable characters, from his elder  brother Ollie (Ryan Phillippe), a manipulative smooth talker, Mimi (Susan Sarandon), their mother who is a complex book all by herself, Rachel (Amanda Peet), the vulnerable mistress of his godfather D.H. Banes (Jeff Goldblum), who in turn is the classical alpha-male and Sookie Sapperstein (Claire Danes), the hippie love interest, who in a fit of conformity betrays Igby.

The acting by Culkin, however, to me, is nothing short of a masterpiece. It is his character and his acting that holds the fibre of the story together. He is someone who is sensitive and highly vulnerable but who hides it all behind a mask of sarcasm and callousness. The times when his vulnerability comes forth makes for some of the most memorable moments in the movie. His leave-taking was one of the most poignant parts of the movie, especially the scene with his father…

A quirky, sensitive movie about people who are branded outsiders, by themselves and by others. As I said, Holden Caulfield in modern day New York…

Watch this and you would take away memorable characters, great acting and a wonderful bittersweet feeling…

Labels: america, book adaptation, comedy, movies, rebel, satire

posted by Protik Basu @ 12:09 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Seven Pounds directed by Gabriel Muccino

This movie had come highly recommended from a friend, who told me that this was a movie that would affect me for days…

Sadly, by the middle of the movie, I was stifling yawns.

Its one of the movies that aims only for the heart while trying its hardest to bypass the mind. It puts forward scenes which would try to make you feel bittersweet and make you realize the pain and the anguish and the sacrifice of the characters.

I found it all pretty phoney…

A man looking for redemption becomes a self-styled messiah and a judge of ‘good vs. bad people’, searching for people whom he can help by either giving up his house or giving his organs. Specious and self-serving charity, if you ask me.

Not only do I have a problem with the character deciding to commit suicide and upping the melodrama instead of trying to redeem himself by living his rest of his life in doing what he wants to do, I also have a problem of him acting God – in deciding whom should be saved and who should be not. Will Smith as Moses…

I mean why should he get involved with someone whom he can help only by dying himself is beyond me. She falls in love with him and he does too. And then he dies so she may live. Why? So that he is remembered? Selfish wont you say? Phoney script and completely opposite to the character portrayal that is sought to be brought out.

If he really wanted to help, why cant he do so anonymously? What is it except selfishness and a vague sense of megalomania?

The only reason you can see this movie is due to acting of Smith, which is muted and introverted while still powerful. Its not his fault really that the script itself is faulty. Rosario Dawson also packs a powerhouse role. The rest are fringe characters anyway. Woody Harrelson is wasted…

In the end, its only a weepy tearjerker aiming for those who want an empty headed cry on a gloomy Sunday. Bah!

Labels: love, movies, romance, sacrifice, sentimental

posted by Protik Basu @ 9:36 AM 0 Comments

(Movie) The Illusionist directed by Neil Burger

Take the acting genius of Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and the beauty of Jessica Biel and a villain played by Rufus Sewell, put it in turn of the century Vienna, throw in some great cinematography and make it a story of mystery, intrigue and love and yes lots  and lots of magic and what do you have?

A sublime watching experience, that's what you get…

Eisenheim (Norton), son of a cabinetmaker leaves home to go around the world after his budding romance with Duchess Teschen (Biel) is thwarted, but not after he meets a travelling magician with whom he is fascinated.

He comes back many years later and he performs magic which seems almost paranormal in nature. He performs magic that no-one has ever seen before and rapidly becomes the talk of the town, attracting the attention of the crown prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) who is at this time engaged to Teschen (planned marriage for political reasons).

Eisenheim and Teschen meet on a show and embark on an affair but this time they plan to disappear properly. They weave a plan that has magic and mystery in huge dollops. The crown prince is the way though…

The acting is superb all around. Giamatti is superb in his role as the chief inspector in the pay of the crown prince and yet someone who has a conscience and a thirst for knowledge of magic. He is also the narrator of the movie and the person who finally unravels the whole mystery. Norton is simply sublime in his role as the enigmatic and the intense magician. The variety of roles he can do is simply breathtaking…

The cinematography and the music score deserve a special mention.  Since the movie is a period piece, the ambience both visual and  auditory is vital. This movie has a wonderful synthesis of both.

Its a complete immersive experience – both from the visual point of view and from the story point of view. The performances at the show are very gripping and very intense, especially the ones at the latter part, which border on necromancy.

This is a movie that can be seen again and again and which will be enjoyed everytime…

By the way, you will see some similarity with the movie “Prestige”, since both are period pieces and have elements of mystery…but both are different and both classics in their own right…

Labels: book adaptation, magical, movies, mystery, period peice, thriller

posted by Protik Basu @ 7:44 PM 0 Comments

(Book) The Gods Themselves written by Isaac Asimov

This is a multiple award winning novel by Asimov which deals with the the concept of parallel universe. That theme and the title was what attracted me to this. The title comes from a quotation by Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805): "Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens." ("Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.")

Its a story of how para-men (as earth began to call people from parallel universe) contacted men in order to construct an electron pump, a source of endless energy which is such an obvious boon that detractors are ostracised and any discussion on the possible side-effects are bowdlerized. As with other Asimov stories, this deals with the human nature and how technology affects us all…

The story moves in three parts with the middle part dealing with the para-universe and its inhabitants. This middle part is a feat in itself with Asimov constructing a whole other universe populated with beings we can barely relate to in the beginning. The first and third part deal with the known universe, the last part taking place on moon…

Compared to other Asimov stories, this one left me a little cold, especially the last part, which seemed a little contrived and hurried. The ‘solution’ to the problem did not seem as elegant as it is in his other stories. And the middle part was not exciting, though interesting. The pace that is there in his other stories seemed missing. The characters are also forgettable, which is something that is constant in his other books…

Having said that, the theme is engaging and the writing is very Asimov…enough reason for a read…

Labels: Books, science-fiction

posted by Protik Basu @ 2:24 PM 0 Comments

(Book) Shakespeare written by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is the official Mr Know-it-all. And here he comes up with a book on Shakespeare, a man who generates as much controversy about himself as he does praise for his work…

Now, a book that tries to bring the Bard forward as a historical figure would suffer from a serious problem – the book cant be more than a few pages long!!! There is almost no authentic historical records of the man, save for a few fragmentary information – court records and such…

What the book does well is in bringing both humour and historical background to the theme. Bryson has a catchy style of writing and that helps the subject along as there is not much material to put flesh on the characters of the era.

We are introduced to the world that Shakespeare inhabited – a world of growing English imperialism, the golden age of Elizabeth and the golden age of English theatre but a world where life expectancy hovered around the mid-thirties, where plague was the scrouge that was all too common and the world in general was a place where you would sooner die of starvation than of any wars, which were all too frequent as well…

As Bryson notes wryly, the greatest achievement of Shakespeare was not that he wrote his plays but that he survived at all!!!

Great men are as much a product of their talents as much as they are of their times, usually even more so…Shakespeare born a hundred years earlier or later would have in all probability died an unknown death – previously due to lack of any avenues to show his talents, later due to the closure of all theatres owing a wave of fundamentalism (Puritanism). Shakespeare was indeed lucky…

In more ways than one, as we see. Many of the works of his contemporaries are now lost, men who were considered at par or greater in talent than Shakespeare in his time. His work was preserved by the diligent efforts of two men to whom history owes profound thanks.

We are taken on a tour of Shakespeares life, from his childhood to adulthood to his death. The problem is that much of its conjecture and not hard facts. Record keeping was a science that developed after the Bard’s days. We dont know how he really looked like (there are conflicting portraits), we dont know how he spent his days, what his likes and dislikes were, whom he really married, what his relationships were, his influence in his works, his views on the things around him – nothing to put a shape to him. We dont really even know in what orders his plays were written!!! We do know however that Shakespeare and his friends were terrific plagiarists!!!

With all that handicaps, its a wonder that Bryson is able to hold our attention for so long. Except for a brief part of the book, near the end part where the book drags under the weight of excessive details, the book is interesting. You get a feel of the world that produced the ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Julius Caesar’ and you get an idea what kind of a man Shakespeare might have been…

‘Romeo and Juliet’ was dismissed as too melodramatic in its time by some critics. History is kind to those whose work survive!!! Bryson also devotes time to talk about some of the fanatical researchers, thanks to whom we know what little we know of the Bard.

As for the controversies, Bryson is a believer and hence a defender of the faith. So dont expect an objective argument. That comes at the very end of the book and is not the central theme, so Bryson is obviously confident that the man existed in all his glory.

So, if you are not looking to get the meat of the controversy, and just looking to have a good tale told to you, a tale that reads like a historical mystery, then go for this book.

Its an enjoyable read…Bryson scores again!!!

Labels: Books, drama, England, historical, play, Shakespeare, theatre

posted by Protik Basu @ 1:11 PM 0 Comments

(Movie) Fateless (Sorstalanság) directed by Lajos Koltai

A Holocaust movie based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same title by the Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész, who wrote the screenplay…

Before I started this, I felt that I have had enough of Holocaust movies . For anyone who has been fed on Hollywood fare for a long time, a natural impulse is to compare any concentration camp movie to Schlinder’s List, which, as I have realized in time to be melodramatic and a one-sided portrayal (Hollywood would make us feel that only Jews died in the camps). The overdoing of the topic has unfortunately given license to Israelites to claim the mantle of victims – so that they can do to Palestinians what Hitler did to them.

But a few minutes into the movie, you realize that it is different. It has a quietness to it, almost an indifference to it, as if you are watching it from a distance. There are no gunshots, hectic action or any bravado. It populated by people who don't really know what's going to happen next, who feel that nothing terrible can really happen, believing in their own luck and following the herd – something that is all too human and completely real. The father is called for labour camp and is given a farewell dinner. No one can really fathom where he is going, beyond a vague notion of dread.

This is a movie that is almost a quiet reflection of how people behave during times of unimaginable horror – survival by any means for those who are caught in hell and denial by those on the outside.

For me, the most beautiful part of the movie is the last quarter, when our protagonist comes back to his homeland, a home that has changed and not only due to the bombed out buildings. The movie before this is about how different people try to survive – some by ruthlessly practical, some by having a dream (like walking on the streets he has left behind), some by turning to religion and some by compromising. Morality and ethics, construct of a peaceful society ceases to exist in the face of extermination at any moment. In the midst, flashes of humanity sometimes sparks, if only for a few moments…

The last part brings to mind the last part of “All quiet on the western front”. A person who has suffered something that is beyond understanding, realizes that outsiders can be curious, be in denial or be sympathetic, all without ever understanding. The outsider expects explanations in normal day-to-day terms, which the insider is incapable and ultimately unwilling to provide.

György realizes that he has to come to terms with it himself and has to try to find a ‘future’, as he is advised by all those who keep saying that its ‘all over now’. Everyone wants him (and by reflection themselves) to forget what has happened and look ahead. The fate of the victims and survivors…

What you take away from this movie is the feeling that there is no point in pointing fingers at those who ran the camps. We are betrayed as much by our own people (the camp overseers, the policemen who rounded up the Jews were all compatriots) as much by the invader. The greatest criminal is the art of forgetting that is perfected once the crisis is over.

The film is shot in beautiful chrome and has some stunning camera-work. There are not as much words spoken as emotions generated by the lights and shadows. You realize that sometimes words are truly insufficient to make the  mind grasp – we are left with only visuals that can penetrate.

A narrative that is a commentary on how we grapple with something we don't understand and which we are then unwilling to remember, unless we mythologize and glorify.

The drowned and the saved sometimes share similar fates…

Labels: biography, book adaptation, historical, Hungary, movies, war, World War

posted by Protik Basu @ 12:11 PM 0 Comments