Superheroes and the Dumb Down Concept

It was just one more weekend; but more importantly one more maddeningly frustrating date with a Superhero movie. Batman vs. Superman promised so much and yet it failed so miserably. And today as I was reading about heroes, I realized the importance they have in our lives.

One of the basic tenets of any story ever told in the world starts with a hero. And as the world around us become complex, we realize that heroes are rarely without flaws. Yet we struggle to find one who is incorruptible; who is steadfast and the one who will ultimately do the right thing. The question always remains what ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean to people who face off each other.

Superman is perhaps the best example of a superhero who can do no wrong and Batman is one who like us is full of self doubts, limitations and is above all, very very human. Superman therefore has always been a superhero who follows a straight path to glory and often martyrdom. Batman is a vigilante. Superman follows the law as only he can agree to follow laws set by others; Batman rarely has few such moral qualms. His is a more dangerous territory; that of an outcast whose sense of justice might not be something you can agree with.

When these two superheroes face off, you expect a moral dilemma; a cinematic masterpiece which shows how the world and its twisted truths pull apart both men who claim to be on the side of right. And what you are left behind with is a lot of CG and mind numbing action sequences.

It could have been a great treatise on the internal conflict of ones blessed (or cursed) with abilities to impact the lives of those around and yet that never forms the centre point of the narrative. Even movies like Eye in the Sky with a predictable end could showcase the conflicts that pull morals apart.

I think I feel more betrayed by the fact that this came after the outstanding Batman franchise reboot by Nolan. There was always a concern about Synder helming this but then Man of Steel again had to make do with the strait-laced characterization of Superman. And there was little that Marvel’s Civil War could do to fare any better. They typically have the most straight forward storyline you can ever imagine. But then, hope remained, solely because of Captain America. But then you make superhero movies to dumb down your audiences, rather than to question and to debate. And the final dumbing down happened with X Men Apocalypse.

Comic Book lovers know about the concept of alternate universes. I wished after the 3 movies that these universes had not collided. But more importantly I feel we need to demand for better cinema, if for nothing else but for the love of cinema.

Rage

Sometimes I feel we have forgotten to be angry. We have forgotten what it is to seethe in uncontrollable rage. We accept and move on. We let it be, for we fear retribution. The only time we allow our anger to come out is when we are in a crowd. The anonymity gives us courage. Our true animal instinct from our hunter gatherer days comes to the fore and we often engage in mindless violence as the anger bubbling beneath our calm visage comes forth.

I for one have never shied away from smiling even when I wanted to shout the heavens down. Anger never solved problems, I kept telling myself. Yet there are days when I want to be angry. I want to feel the burst of adrenalin that rushes forth as anger is released. But all I feel is cold fury; somewhere deep deep down.

That’s when I wonder if others have felt this rage. And I find my answer in art. I find it in Robert De Niro in Raging Bull, in Marln Brando when he walks ‘On the Waterfront’, in the Bengali literature of the tumultuous seventies. I find it in my peace loving elder colleague’s quiet admiration of Amitabh Bachhan of the early Eighties. I find it in Caravaggio’s angry strokes. Every time a society is angry, art creates an outlet for its rage.

I turned to Bollywood late into the night, angry with nothing in particular and I found my old DVD of Ghatak. Rage has never been so well depicted in Hindi Cinema. The movie is the depiction of a society bursting at its seams, frothing in its mouth and waiting for the change it desperately wants.

Since then, India prospered, moved forward and our movies changed, some say evolved. And raw anger was no longer what you wanted to see in your movies.

And slowly, as I said, I realized that we have forgotten to be angry anymore.

Hum Indiawale

My choice for movies swings more than the Swinging Sixties. And from being a snob to being someone who is indiscriminate in his choice of movies, I do it all. And as I grow older I realize, movies serve two major purposes for me. First, it’s art. It tugs at your heartstrings, makes you think, sometimes even forces you to come to terms with your own demons. But secondly, and definitely more importantly, it’s entertainment. It allows you to leave behind all your problems, your logic too and then forget all your worries for 3 hours (yes our movies are often 3 hours long) because in the end the hero always wins.

                  

There was a phase in my life when I looked down upon these movies, making comments about how this is not true cinema but as years have gone by; I have realized there’s a space and reason in this world for everything; even movies which will not survive in our memories beyond their opening weekend.

This year three movies were released who shared only one thing in common - the first letter of their name – H. The first was Highway. It was one of India’s most mature road movies and showcased the talent powerhouse that is Alia Bhat. You walked out of the movie, wowed by her performance, with a lump in your throat and then kept thinking about the breathtaking shots of the road that cross crossed across India. It left bare the hypocrisies of our society and left us stealing our glances from our own reflections in the mirror.

The second was Haider - Cinema at perhaps its best, but a Hamlet retelling at best an average attempt. A story retold in the midst of pain, suffering and agony. It reminded us why we missed Tabu so much. As an actress, she gave one of the most memorable performances of Indian cinema. But more importantly Haider taught us the importance of democracy and why we must always strive to fight for it. Whether you agree with the film or not, you have to feel proud that you are allowed to make movies which do not follow popular opinion. It dares to tell the other side of the story. And whether you accept its version of reality or not, you have to accept that you need to hear that story as well. But more importantly, Haider made a very important point by perhaps a quirk of fate. Released on 2^nd of October, Haider was able to do what Hamlet could not. In perhaps the most telling scene of the movie, Haider remembers Gandhi’s greatest lesson to mankind – “An eye for an eye will make the world go blind”. For this one reason, Haider could have been made only in India.

 The last and perhaps the most representative of our cinema was Happy New Year. A musical blockbuster, it had exactly the same kind of drama that we want in our movies. A SRK potboiler, it perhaps made no sense, had little logic and yet it kept us laughing, singing and cheering till the end. Because while seeing the movie, we all knew our hero could not fail. The world would stand up to acknowledge him and he would go back home with the girl, with the diamonds and with our hearts. And we did not mind that he kept repeating his own dialogues.

We Indians, how much ever we want to love our Ritwik Ghatak, we end up falling in love with Uttam Kumar.

Bro-mance and Other Stories

So on a late Friday evening, when physically younger souls were doing a modernized version of a folk dance done in Punjab (without any rhyme or rhythm) to the tunes of Trance in the various watering holes of the city, we near the water storage tank of Mumbai were having a serious family debate on whether it bordered on uncontrolled lunacy or evolved geekiness to want to walk out of the comfort of your four and three quarters of a square meter of home at mid-day to go and watch Star Trek.  Yes the discussion lasted all through the night.

Finally, puppy eyes and a few sighs as always did the trick and we trudged along to watch the greatest Bro-mance of 2013- Star Trek, Into Darkness. In what is perhaps the most convoluted storyline in recent times, (beaten only by Gippi, which we shall come to later) Zachary Quinto stole the show. These days Sci-Fi movies have decided to dumb themselves down to the levels of elementary school, so that all of us who might have spent years in the wilderness of wiki trying to cross reference the mythology of various universes, would completely be flabbergasted. For example, the screenplay of Iron Man 3 would read like, Iron Man likes gadgets, Iron Man no likes bad guys, Iron Man wants to fight, Iron Man fights, we will see Iron Man 4 soon. Well, I am being unfair on Iron Man, it was a great visual treat, especially when the suits become voice activated and Sir Ben proves his greatness in a five minute sequence.

 Anyway coming back to Star Trek, it sees the return of Khan, (clearly Sherlock needs to do something while planning his return in Season 3) which my ‘Always SRK is awesome’ movie partner asks nudging me with her elbow – “Should the K be from the epiglottis, like Kkkhan?” If looks could kill, I would be next door neighbour to Sanju Baba or the Malayali pacer. And then suddenly, the entire awesomeness of Khan goes for a toss, when he is no longer the primary antagonist. But what he did was kindle the fire of Bro-Mance, which Uhura will always find hard to blow away.

In order to recover from the epic-ness of Star Trek’s visual awesomeness, and because the sun was still scorching hot outside we went into Epic, being the only couple in the movie and raising the average age of the audience by 5. But Epic was interestingly nice. Beyonce does not add much, but ultimately it delivers what it wants to deliver; which unfortunately is quite a lot. The greatness of a movie is not its multiplicity of plots but rather the depth of its central theme. But then, the kids laughed, we had our shwarma roles and cheered the Leafmen as they fought the bugs.

In other reviews, which I have delayed unnecessarily, Gippi was bereft of everything that made Udaan a great movie. And yet it had everything that one could hope for. Seeing Gippi, I realized rarely does anyone understand the complexities of a school election. In fact, come to think of it, the best portrayal of school tensions and elections is still Neev, the defining serial on DD in the late eighties. Divya Dutta was brilliant as usual as a single mother without resorting to the exaggeration of her pains that Hindi movies often fall prey to, but somewhere Gippi lacked the heart, while having the right intentions.

Ek Thi Dayan, was surprisingly a great movie –one of the best supernatural thrillers I have seen in recent times. Emraan Hashmi continues to surprise with his choice of movies and Konkona is a delight to watch as you wonder who she is portraying. In fact for horror movies in Bollywood things have been going good. Raaz 3, Aatma, 3G, quite a few of them hit the theatres and had interesting storylines to boast. Often though, how things connected back to the central theme, left us asking for some sense of sanity, but then as long as you get scared enough, why bother?

The biggest disappointment was however Bombay Talkies. 4 stories, each different, perhaps individually a great idea, fell flat when they were supposed to celebrate Indian Cinema. The closest was the adaptation of the Satyajit Ray Short Story and despite Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s great performance; it never could capture the human emotion that Ray’s story portrayed.

It’s good to be back watching movies and writing about them :)

Of Inspiration, Inspiring and Inspired

Of late my wall on Facebook has been flooded with criticism about Barfi being a movie where images, events and scenes have been copied from multiple sources. And like most things in India where we spend hours on pointless debates, the media has gone crazy discussing it, especially after it became India’s nomination for the Oscars. The debate over Barfi is unwarranted according to my view. If anyone is to be blamed it’s the selection procedure for the Oscars. If a 4 hour long cricket match can be sent to Oscars, even Barfi can. No one takes Bollywood seriously anyway beyond its immense monetary clout. With Ray, our last magician passed away leaving behind a void which till date is waiting for someone to fill up.

Barfi was a great movie. I really believe it. Everyone who saw it came out of the cinema feeling nice about the world around them. Once they looked at the news feed; that’s when opinions started to change. As a friend of mine commented, we rarely watch great cinema, we rarely listen to great music and therefore (I added) if someone does watch and uses them as an inspiration, what can be said.

The line between outright copying and inspired work is extremely thin. According to Jungian Archetypes every story in the world follows one of 15 root stories or archetypes. Simply speaking, every love story where the star struck lovers die in the end because their families never accepted their love is a story of Romeo and Juliet retold.

Whether the director should have acknowledged his sources is a matter of little debate. Yes, he should have. Should the timelines of the story be a little clearer? Yes, they should have been. Should the story be more real? Of course not.

Priyanka Chopra grows into her role and I believe in the second half delivers a performance better than anyone else. RK is brilliant and the newcomer doesn’t disappoint. All in all, it’s a movie tribute to some of the nicest works of world cinema.

Coming however to inspiration, no one can be a better subject than Woody Allen. His Love Story with Europe continues and this time he takes us to Rome with a collage of multiple story lines which have no connection whatsoever. As a Woody Allen fan am I disappointed? Of course I am. He is slowly inching away from the depth of human psyche that he loves to portray but then his every story is original and after a long time truly funny.

The subtleties of Allen are evident everywhere. I wish I could be like him. Having achieved what he would have set out for in the beginning of his career, he is now having fun. I wish I can get that license as I grow old. I wish I can one day make a marketing mix I want to make, without bothering about approvals, investments and internal selling.

I wish one day The Andy Warhol of the day calls me up asking me if he could paint my own Absolut Warhol!!!

The third part is about inspiring movies. When you watch a movie like Moonrise Kingdom or Hope Springs, you realize that some people in this world are still trying to make different movies. And there are some who know how to grace with age. If you have not seen Moonrise Kingdom, it’s highly recommended just for the sheer storytelling. It might also be considered over the top depiction of a disturbed love story.

Maybe as my first grey hairs come on, I must learn the same.

Fast Food Movie Reviews

As I wrote the review for Ek Tha Tiger I realized that it has been a long time since I have reviewed any movies and suddenly as I checked the list of movies I decided to write about, for good reasons or bad, lots of names popped up. So instead of a long drawn discussion on each of them, here’s a McMovie Review, if I can call it so.

Let’s start with Ferrari Ki Saawari. You probably have missed it. It apparently did not do well but then few good movies do. Watch it to understand how middle class India survives on dreams and hopes, how honesty is relative, how honesty and integrity generates goodwill and respect from almost every quarter of life, how a father tries to get a Ferrari for a marriage procession so that his son can go to his cricket training. Sharmaan Joshi excels in his act and probably would do good to stay away from the senseless comedies he makes at times.

Shanghai was one of the scariest movies I have seen in recent times. Rarely does a movie come which so blatantly portrays the reality of the realty sector in India and the nexus between developers and politicians and the entire debate between development and displacement. If you can get over the fact that Bumbada and Kalki kissed, you will be amazed at Emraan hasmi’s portrayal of the common man caught between the wars for land.

Kahaani was a fascinating movie to watch. Beautifully directed it brought to life the city of Calcutta which was as important a protagonist to the movie as Vidya Balan herself. Intriguing, taut and helped with a power packed performance by Vidya Balan it saw its climax against the backdrop of Durga Puja in Calcutta. And what could be more apt than the Female Power of Shakti triumphing over evil with a movie where Bollywood finally breaks its glass ceiling. Balan is our Fourth Khan!

I should not waste my time with Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows but more and more I watch the franchise I realize this is something I can rarely digest. The histrionics of Holmes gets crazier and then you wonder if Robert Downey Jr. would be better off playing Tony Stark.

Brave was the new Disney Pixar offering for Summer. And while it had the brilliance of technology and a new Disney Princess, it lacked the heart of Pixar. The storyline had one single twist and you knew what was coming your way. I loved Merida, the latest addition to Disney princess but like everything in our times, she was the most obstinate little thing I have ever come across. I pity for her mom and absolutely love my sister for the way she has to handle my niece.

Iron Lady was one of the best bio pics I have seen recently. Meryl Streep brought to life Margaret Thatcher as accurately as possible. We lived with her through the unrest in Britain, through her struggles in the party, through the challenges in her own family life, through Falklands crisis. But it meant something more to an Indian. Her daughter travels in a black cab without security, her son works in South Africa without any political ambition. This is a country which has a dynastic monarchy. I wondered when we will learn to let go of our political dynasties.

And finally it was time for Hugo. Martin Scorcese gets better with age and in his latest film, he pays tribute to the man who gave us the magic of movies. In an unique way, the life of Georges Melies comes to our screens and we bow our heads to creativity, to craziness, to those few people who sacrifice themselves for following their hearts. Beautifully directed and scored, Hugo remains one of those movies which tell the story not just of a man, but of an age.

Why I Feel Let Down by Mr. Nolan

By now I would think everyone who has been crazy about the Dark Knight trilogy must have seen the movie so it’s a safe time to put my comments in for all who cares to listen or read. In a line – The Dark Knight Rises disappoints. For the entire running time, I never stirred in my seat; I was hooked by the spectacle on the screen but I never felt the tension that had built up while I watched batman take on Ras Al Ghul or the Joker. And that’s where lies the failure of the Man who gave us Memento, Inception and in my opinion the greatest villain in the movie world – Joker.

Both the earlier Batman stories were more than just stories – it had all started with Ras telling Batman that he had to become a legend. And for the two movies he became just that – an apparition – a dark knight who was ready to take the fall. He battled not the events; for the events could have been taken on by any superhero (or even the earlier Bats); what he battled were ideologies – the contrived, unforgiving justice of Ras or the crazy chaos personified by the Joker.

And that’s where the movies were different from the Boy Toys. The Batmobile never became the centrepiece, neither did the spectacular chase sequence halfway through Dark Knight; what remained with the audience hours after they had left the theatres was a primal fear – of evil, of lawlessness; of retribution at some strange justice for none of us have our souls clean.

Against this backdrop, came the story of The Dark Knight, more promising than ever before; with Bane taking up the mantel against Batman – the only one in the graphic novels to have broken Batman’s back and rendered him helpless (you can almost see a recreation of the comic book page in the movie.) You had Cat Woman – about whom we have had endless fights discussing whether she’s good, bad or grey and whether she feels for the Bat. You had scenes reminiscent of Bastille and the anarchy that follows a revolution and a fascinating trailer showing a football field getting devastated and yet what we have is a predictable Good vs. Bad movie which could have been directed by anyone with an eye for special effects.

And that’s where I feel let down by Mr. Nolan. Anyone else directing this movie would have been showered with applause and then promptly forgotten till the next ironman movie came along but here was a director who had forced us to think about the nature of the evil, about choices, about justice and all that he gave us was a movie where we see a faint hint of a Robin coming in for a possible future movie, a Batman retiring and making the fight with Bane a personal one.

To be honest the hero in the movie perhaps is Commissioner Gordon; trusting his instincts, doing his job, facing a bigger threat than he can handle; giving new heroes their chance to stand up for something that they believe in and never losing hope even till the last moment because he knows whatever be the outcome, he has to fight on for the right reasons.

Maybe that’s what the ultimate truth is – superheroes exist on the silver screen. In life what matters is never giving up on what you believe in.

How Movies Are Made

Having had some rare free time on my hands, I used it last weekend to catch up on the Hindi Movies I had missed. And as I was about to write about them I realized that there was a classic masterpiece that I had forgotten to tell you about. I had watched it in Manila and it opened my eyes to the possibilities of human imagination!

This is how the story started – 2 teams were called into the office of the Big Boss (BB) of a movie studio around Jan this year

BB – Guys, I have seen your proposals for the rest of the year. Great news! We love them both and we will make them both. Just ensure that you don’t experiment too much.

And so our two teams went and made the most awesome film they could think of copying at will from the best in the genres they had chosen. They both felt that they had the blockbuster of the year. They had the right mix of tragedy, drama, action, suspense and a sprinkling of romance.

It was July and they came again to BB’s room to show him the storyboards, shaking hands with each other, being very courteous, a bit anxious and hoping that BB loves their script a bit more than the other. The sort of corporate ego battles you typically would expect.

But BB seemed to be preoccupied. And whatever you do, never walk into your boss’ room when he or she is preoccupied.

BB – Guys before we start, I need to tell you that I have just discovered that Banjo has moved to Singapore.

Team 1 and Team 2 – (Groans) – Come on. You must be joking!

BB (nodding his head sadly) – Yeah! We are really worried. Our South Asia movie ticket sales will take a huge hit form August onwards. So we have decided to make some budget cuts. We will make just one movie.

Team 1 and Team 2 – Oh No! We worked so hard. Can’t we just ask his boss to keep him back in India?

BB – I know how you guys feel. But don’t feel bad. Let’s do something. Let’s combine both your scripts!

Team 1 – Are you crazy? Ours is a western. Market research shows that after True Grit, people want to watch westerns again. We have guns, babes getting captured and rescued and we will sell lots of cowboy hats!

Team 2 – Are you insane? We have made the foolproof alien invasion movie. Lots of gadgets, babes getting captured and rescued and we will surpass transformers. We have copied the Ben 10 watch and added a laser pointer to it!

BB – Guys, Guys... Let’s not panic. I know Banjo leaving Mumbai is a shock to us all. My friend in Imax Wadala just called and said they are planning to shut down, but trust me we will survive.

Team 1 and Team 2 (in unison) – HOW!!!

BB – Let’s look for common themes. Oh wow. Look! You both have babes getting captured and rescued. Here is the idea....

Let the aliens capture the babe and let the cowboy rescue her! We will manage the rest of the story as we go forward.

And Cowboys and Aliens were born. And I decided to watch it.

True Story!

The Face Off

My family has been the traditional Bengali Middle Class family, unassuming, modest, loving their Rabindranath, giving their children the best they can, sacrificing their own comforts but insisting that they know their poetry. Didi and I have been brought up in a fashion that makes both of us extremely connected to our roots. But also it made us rebellious. That I guess is in the Bong gene. We always debate the status quo (and some say we just debate). 

Didi revolted and she was the first who embraced Sukanta Bhattacharya as an alternative to Rabindranath. But she was the stud. She straddled both the worlds beautifully. Somewhere though, my path went completely tangential. Amongst my entire extended family, I would be placed in the bottom tertile when it comes to knowing Rabindranath. Sometime in my second semester at Pilani I faced the Big Bang of my musical sojourn. Different sounds, beats, rhythms, lyrics, cultures, folk, rock, pop everything erupted in my mind and somewhere around then a gentleman called Anjan Dutta made some of his most memorable music influenced highly by the jazz masters and Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger.

When he had come into the Bengali music scenario, the choice of the elite was still Suman Chattopadhyay with “Tomake Chai” and “Gaanwala”. The masses (and us in school) were being wooed by Nachiketa. Everyone had fallen in love with Nilanaja. Bengali “Jeebonmukhi” songs were at its crescendo in the mid nineties to early 2000s. Anjan Dutta had a very niche following and his first album was one of his lesser memorable ones.

Anjan Dutta’s music slowly became a part of who I was, led by his album “Asamay”. His songs reminded me of my home in North Calcutta, his words always brought back the city I had left behind within the four walls of my tiny hostel room. And then I would play the song “Janla” and look out of my window losing myself. And I somehow kept myself away from Rabindranath.

I belonged to an age which represented an exodus of Bongs from Cal – for studies, for work, for a life in a city which slowly had brought itself to a state of flickering hope and for me Rabindranath became very distant. I read him like I read a Charles Dickens. I loved Dickens but I always believed he was talking of a time beyond mine.

This time in Calcutta, it was time for a face off. There was Noukadubi, which you might have seen in Hindi as Kashmakash and ‘Ranjana ami aar asbona’. Rabindranath and Rituporno against Anjan Dutta. A new Calcutta, vibrant, arrogant and finally a lot more experimental.

Noukadubi was classic Rabindranath. If you had the misfortune of not reading it earlier, you would be on the edge of your seats trying to figure out what happens next. And the story – such a bold story on human emotions can perhaps be written only by someone like him at such an age – in a flippant note he’s the only one who can take on Rajnikanth. There is not a single season in a year, not a single moment in a day and not a single human emotion in a lifetime which Rabindranath has not touched with his prose, his poetry and his music. And Raima Sen finally proved that she is worthy of the legendary inheritance that she carries with her.

Ranjana on the other hand was what I had expected it to be. Well I did not expect to see a topless Anjan Dutta for around 70% of the movie, but that aside, it was autobiographical and an honest effort in being so.

But it also posed to me many important questions – what is our relationship with our protégé? Do we have any right to control their lives? Do we rejoice in their success but want them to be forever indebted to us? Do we want to get into their deepest, darkest secrets but insulate our own from them? Do we stifle them? Do we cry when they leave? Do we want to live forever through them? Can we ever be friends again?

Ranjana is not a masterpiece. It is a sketch by an extremely talented man who at times brings himself down to play to the galleries. The naming of the film is perhaps the best example. Noukadubi on the other hand is a gem. But Ranjana is more important to me as it makes me sit face to face with myself in all its rawness which the complex intricacies of human interactions in Noukadubi can not. And Porno Mitra has the capabilities of being a fantastic actress. If only she keeps her head over her shoulders.

Anyway, the verdict rests with the people who will go to watch the movies. But to me, it was the same kind of face off I once used to encounter in the corner room in Budh Front Wing. And after listening to Shesher Kobita, I would feel an emptiness and put Priyobondhu on.

The Best Spy Movie Ever

Cars has been one of my favourite animation movies of all times. It was not the best animation movie made by Disney but it was classic Disney from start to the finish. It had honour, honesty, the hero dithering and finally the triumph of good intentions over evil and the confirmation of the belief that good guys do not necessarily finish last. The one scene that keeps playing before my eyes even today is the one where Lightning McQueen forfeits his race so that the retiring legend completes his last. This was what respect and integrity was all about, as taught in early childhood and to a guy grasping for answers in a foreign land, it left an indelible impression.

Cars II was a completely different story – an out and out spy thriller with unbelievable car chases, an evil conglomerate, friendship, trust and home coming. In fact in terms of storyline, I would keep it even higher than a Casino Royale. And I know here the purists will shriek in fright and cross their hearts but that’s what it is. The scriptwriters have been both smart and cheeky, marrying images of our very own neighbourhood cars to that of the spy stories of the cold war era.

The other important thing about the movie was that it was about Mater all the way. He is the real hero and has the larger screen presence. Imagine if in a Munnabhai movie, Circuit gets the meatier role. Perhaps that’s what animation lets you do. The bumbling tow truck comes of his own in the movie and uses his honest innocence and at times idiocy to save the world, the Queen of England and of course McQueen.

What I love best about this sequel is that after a long long time comes an animation movie where the storyline is not a slave of its past success. The characters are the same but that’s just about it. There’s finally an alternate world of cars out there who are living out lives of their own and the movies being made out of their lives are all unique and distinct.

The favourite scene? Well the foodie in me can’t forget Mater and his confusion with wasabi. Well, many great men, women and cars in the past have confused it with pistachio ice-creams.

Only in the wonderland of Disney can Maters become Heroes. And that’s why whatever happens with the world of Animation the world over (even happenings like Mars Needs Moms) I still return to Disney to convince myself that you do not ever need to choose between morality and integrity.

Keep Moving Forward. That’s what Disney magic is all about. (Ok that was from Meet the Robinsons)

The Stories Men Tell

It has been long since I have written about the movies I have watched. Honestly speaking there has been not a single one that I have watched and gone “Wow!!! I must recommend them to my friends.” But then I have never judged movies. Every one has a story to tell.

Take for example, Limitless. A man becomes super intelligent by having a pill which can destroy him in the long run like all drugs. While the change he was undergoing was brilliantly documented, the plot went haywire; people were killing each other and suddenly we knew that the protagonist will one day become the President of the US of A.

X Men First Class with all its promise, failed to deliver, at least for a X Men loyalist like me. Everywhere people are going gaga over Erik and Charles and the subtlety of their relationship and how one becomes Magneto and the other Professor X. But I found both the actors wanting. Perhaps it was also because of the script which had gems like, “you need to find the point between rage and serenity.” We were guffawing at the theatre. All super hero movies must speak about the journey towards understanding their inner powers. X Men First Class lacked it. The storyline is a standard one. The evil Sebastian Shaw had killed Magneto’s mother when he was young at a concentration camp and he was searching for revenge. Charles wanted to get the mutants together and work for the greater good and the Cuban Missile crisis was caused by Sebastian Shaw. As V put it, the only saving grace was Hugh Jackman’s guest appearance.

Shaitan was a movie which as S put it, tried to be “edgy for the sake of being edgy.” It could have been a great psychological thriller but it failed to be. The worst part was that you could not connect to the movie as something that’s happening around you. Of course, the stories came straight out of a Mumbai Mirror front page but then you never feel connected to them. The reason why the movie failed to excite me was that it was brilliant in parts and the parts were disjointed. The brilliance however was in the picturisation of the song “Khoya Khoya Chand”. Worth a watch just for the song.

The Pirate returned with Penelope Cruz and the franchisee-ing of everything under the sun is just getting plain irritating. It’s just like refusing to launch any new Brand because that will cost a lot. A certain creative bankruptcy is evident everywhere in the movie industry today. The story was similar, the acting saved only by Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz spoke through her lines and one could sense that the stories now had fallen into a set pattern.

The Panda was back too. In all his awesomeness and like last time showed the humans what it meant to be a Dragon Warrior, what it meant to take up one’s responsibility with pride, what it meant to face inner demons and the outer ones. But I think the one who stole the show here was the villain. Brilliant portrayal of how anyone can become evil. The movie just made me realize, how feeble we were when standing up against our inner evil. While watching Kung Fu Panda II, I wondered if 3D was worth it at all. It just doesn’t give me any extra joy, the glasses are bad across theatres in India and after the movies my eyes always cry for some rest.

And finally there was Stanley ka Dabba. Maybe the storyline was not the perfect, but it takes a great lot of talent to direct so many kids in all their naturalness. I think the greatest gift for me while watching the movie was to go back to my school days and remember how important the tiffin box was to all of us. It was when the first bonds of loyalty were created and the innocence of our hearts blossomed unfettered.

With a flurry of movies not meeting my expectations, I wait for Cars II and the last Harry Potter adventure. And I wait for someone to give me Cinema Paradiso once again to watch. Landmark and Crossword disappoint me with their collection. But I know the movies find me, for I never act snooty and choose between them.

Till then I can watch Ready, again and again :)

Legends and Oaths

The Gangetic plains were known since ancient times as the land of legends. And long long time ago there lived a noble prince. One day, he took two terrible oaths, unheard of in all Aryavat. History calls him Bhishma. His stories inspired his clan and the whole of India became oath takers. And all went well till one day Dharam Paji said, “kutte kamine main tera khun pi jaoonga” but did not go ahead and drink the blood at all. We lost our moral high ground.

But a few years after that, a boy was born. His parents named him like a nice Bengali boy should be named, but Fate had decided otherwise. He was soon called Banjo. This is his story, rather the story of his oath.

Banjo loved watching movies. He also felt a close connection to Bollywood and more so to Johnny Lever, the first to travel to the path of light from the soap lines. But then the world in his times worshipped the Khans. Dejected, he decided to watch all movies and write “chote chote, chote chote” reviews about them. In all his innocence one day he wanted to watch a movie about snakes and brain tumour and a woman and a foolish police officer. And people told him, “Banjo, you want to watch porn? What’s wrong with you?” Some even advised, “there are some websites, you know. You might want….”

That’s when the soul of Pitahmaha Bhisma spoke in his ears and Banjo promised, “I shall not write a review till I write the review of Hissss and a few more ssss” and it took him a trip outside Mumbai to finally watch it. And he kept his promise.

First of all, we have been unkind to the movie. It’s an amateurish movie but definitely I have watched worse ones. Let’s say it’s an Anaconda meets Species trying to emulate Nagin. Now that’s the biggest challenge. Nagin has always been Sridevi and probably a little bit of Reena Roy and a collection of not so great supporting cast did not help the cause of the movie. Irfaan Khan was wasted, at times the snake resembled a dinosaur. Ms. Sherawat did not have a dialogue through the movie and that really helped her. If only the screenplay made a little more sense and had intelligent dialogues, it would at least have been perfectly watchable.

Jootha Hi Sahi was an honest effort gone haywire. The story had an interesting plot but once you try to make a story all too predictable, it loses its charms. Also it does not make sense if you let go of the well timed comedy that made Jaane Tu so endearing. You understand why John needs to start his love story with a lie but then the events and the situations seem very strained and set up. He lies, plays a dual role for the girl he loves, Madhavan comes and rants and raves for no apparent reason, there is a Japanese guy who keeps on proclaiming his love for a Pakistani girl, there is the customary gay story but none of them make any sense.

Golmaal 3 on the other hand delivers only what it promises. There is a complete lack of sense, everyone is an orphan, Mithun comes and does a cameo and I once again sigh at the brilliant actor who won 2 national awards.

Break Ke Baad is a movie that you can watch once but never twice. In fact, what happens after Break Ke Baad is completely confusing. The concept makes sense. After 10 years, you just might feel the itch and decide to see how things might work out if you take a break. And the story is convincing. It also shows the usual problems if a relationship becomes one sided or if distance and time zones come between two people, all very realistically. But why they came back to each other after Break ke Baad, is something which many intelligent friends of mine failed to understand. Leave me alone, as I said, I watch every movie and find them convincing.

Khelen Hum Jee Jaan Se was the biggest disappointment so far, maybe because I expected so much out of it. Ashutosh Gowarikar must take a leaf out of RGV. If a movie is becoming too long just make it in two parts :) It was an honest attempt to showcase a forgotten chapter of Indian Freedom Struggle. Abhishek with his restrained acting negated some of his horrifying hollers in Raavaan. Deepika and Vishakha Singh were a delight to watch. But the movie was slow and it missed the chance of being one more Valkyrie. Also it did not help that I was watching the movie with two of my oldest friends. Here are some of the gems I heard during the movie,

“Arre, this part about love story was not in our text book”

“He should have made a movie about Khudiram. Would have been short.”

“I am sure he did not make so many blunders in real life like Abhishek Bachhan is doing.”

“Arre, the kids are being sent to Andamans. What have they seen in life? He at least married once”

“Don’t cry yet. I am sure someone else will die soon.”

But the point is that a tighter script perhaps would have made a better movie, instead of giving us the sense of watching a very well made documentary. But I highly recommend it just for seeing how a bunch of young actors bloomed under the direction of a great director. As slowly the realization of the futility of their endeavour began to sink in, the young revolutionaries’ faces spoke of their dejection.

Aakrosh was one of the most powerful movies of recent times. Brilliant casting of Akshaye Khanna and Ajay Devgan ensured that Priyadarshan’s foray out of family comedies was successful. It might not have been a box office rage but it definitely was a story well told. I guess when you make movies on topics that media has already made a movie out of, it loses its sheen. Honour killings came in the mind space of the nation for a few months and then vanished again. As they say in the movie, “Let India win one match and the public forgets.”

But the movie to definitely not miss was the first instalment of Hari Puttar. The muggles who went to watch the movie thought it was boring and slow and that there was little or no magic. But for those Pottermaniacs amongst us this was a treat. True to the book, Deathly Hallows Part I was a perfect set up for the brilliant Part II we all are eagerly waiting for. But this Harry Potter is not for your little niece. Like you, Harry too has grown up. And that’s what makes it more real. We all grew up with him and we like to see the boy wizard finally fulfil his destiny.

The oath is fulfilled and Banjo is back. Bhishma rests once again in peace.