Anyone know a good, English-friendly site for Indian box office? It would probably be a tricky sort of thing, since India has at least three or four movie industries based on language and region and international releases maybe account for more than they do in China, but I do get kind of curious about how (a)typical what hangs around Cambridge is compared to what's popular where it comes from.
I can look up how Dead to Rights did readily enough (although the site for Chinese box office has gotten slow!), although it does make me wonder how manipulated audiences and those numbers are; it's way ahead of other summer releases but it's as far from a fun movie as you'll see, though it may be in the "government/orgranizations heartily recommends this patriotic epic and maybe organizes outings or buys out theaters so tickets are free" category. But that's kind of paranoia about China as much as anything, I suppose, me kind of applying something I've heard about to the data because it explains the popularity of a thing I'm sort of lukewarm on.
At any rate, both of these did well enough to get a second week in and around Boston, and you could certainly do worse if you want to see a big movie during the August doldrums.
War 2
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 16 August 2025 in AMC Boston Common #11 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)
Where to stream the first to catch up (Prime Video link), or order the Indian DVD at Amazon
Even when the interval is completely edited out of an Indian movie for US release - you don't even see the word appear on screen before a fade-out/fade-in these days - there's often no missing how much these movies are built around the cliffhanger. That can be a lot of fun when it's a fun twist that makes it feel like you're getting a movie and its clever sequel at the same time, although for War 2, it's more a case of one half being stronger as it tries to be that, leaving enough action to be fun but not quite great.
It opens with the first film's hero, Kabir Dhaliwal (Hrithik Roshan) singlehandedly taking out an entire yakuza family in Japan, though he's no longer working for Indian intelligence but as a freelance assassin. It's actually kind of both - Colonel Sunil Luthra (Ashutosh Rana) has recruited him to go deep undercover in the hopes of his being recruited by the Kali cartel, a loose confederation of criminal and terrorist organizations surrounding India, with Indian businessman Gautam Gulati (K.C. Shankar) looking to use the organization to secretly control the country. He succeeds, but at terrible cost, leading Vikrant Kaul (Anil Kapoor), the new head of JOCR, to assemble a task force including Luthra's daughter Kavya (Kiara Advani), a hero in the air force, and top special-ops agent Vikram (N.T. Rama Rao Jr. aka "NTR") to track him down, even as Kali plans an operation that could plunge the whole region into chaos.
I do believe that I outright cackled at the increasingly deranged action of the first half just enough to forgive a pretty leaden second half. The opening segment is kind of a mess - it's full of characters who are described as very important but vanish right after the action sequence they are in is done, for instance - but the sheer glee the filmmakers show in immediately escalating after the last sequence and portraying its super-agents as downright superheroic keeps the energy up even as the story starts to emerge. The second part, meanwhile, starts with a flashback that must run a full half hour desperately trying to create a tragic shared backstory for Kabir and Vikram, and later serves up another that is such an obligatory romantic number that it undercuts its intention by being nowhere near as passionate and entertaning as the song featuring Kabir & Vikram. You could probably cut a whole ton of that out, just focusing on the threat to the country, and have a good action movie without the attempts to make the mission personal bogging things down.
As such, it's a messy movie in the opposite way of the first War, which was ridiculous but in audacious ways in how it was always trying to top the last twist. That one was darn near incoherent by the end, but rose to a crescendo. This feels like the sort of movie where they've pre-vizzed the action scenes before the script was done and then struggled to connect them. Maybe that's why it seemed so front-loaded - that's where the good, nutty action fit story-wise, leaving relatively drab material for the finale.
Still, the good action is a lot of fun, betraying only a passing concern for actual physics, but kinetic and leaning into being larger than life. The bit with the wrecking ball, for instance, has a delightfully hilarious cartoon logic, and it's maybe only the second-most ridiculous thing in that set piece; there's also a quality runaway train sequence (although I do seem to recall something similar in one of the Tiger movies). There are bits where the characters supposedly being secret agents working in the shadows makes the bits of Bollywood musical that still cling to these movies even funnier, because they're really riding the line between "there's a song playing and everyone is stopping to dance" at times.
I still kind of dig Roshan in this role, especially when he gets to do grizzled cockiness rather than having to flail at melodrama, especially in contrast to NRT's battering ram, which is very fun in this context even if I might quickly grow impatient with this character as a lead should the filmmakers fork him off into another corner of the YRF Spy Universe. I kind of wish Kiara Advani had more to do even after they've worked to give her a shared backstory; she's kind of hanging around until they need a pilot. Anil Kapoor's Vikrant Kaul, meanwhile, is one eyepatch away from being Indian Nick Fury, which amused me greatly.
War 2 is a very silly movie, and it's at its best when that's what it's going for instead of grasping for tragedy and emotion.
Nanjing Zhao Xiang Guan (Dead to Rights)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 17 August 2025 in AMC Causeway Street #3 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)
Dead to Rights is one of those movies that is a huge hit in China - $380M+ box office during a summer where few have reached half that - in a way that makes one pause. It's impressively mounted and fairly well made, and between the description and English-language title it has been given, it sounds like a nifty thriller . In actuality, it is a dour film about the horrors visited upon the audience's great-grandparents, and is that really what folks want to see more than anything else when they go to the movies right now, or has attendance been boosted/inflated, as had been known to happen with these patriotic historical films?
In this case, it begins as Nanjing falls to Japan in 1937, and postman Su Liuchang (Liu Haoran) is attempting to flee, as the Japanese are slaughtering them, as their uniforms and mailbags look military enough to their eyes. He flees into a photo studio, only to quickly be confronted by Wang Guanghai (Wang Chan-Jun), who is working as a translator to earn exit passes for himself, his wife, and his son, in this case, for army photographer Hideo Ito (Daichi Harashima), who can shoot but doesn't know how to develop film. Neither does Su, but the actual proprietor Jin Chengzong (Xiao Wang) is hiding under the floorboards with his wife and daughter Wanyi (Yang Enyou). Jin will teach Su (going by the alias A-Tong) the craft if he hides them, but it gets harder - looking to protect his mistress, actress Lin Yuxiu (Gao Ye), Guanghai install her in the photoshop as A-Tong's wife, and she has smuggled wounded soldier Song Cunyi (Zhou You) in via her luggage. It's a lot to keep hidden, and the fact that the photos Ito brings them to develop often contain atrocities, and are they any less complicit than Guanghai for developing them?
There's some irony to wondering if people really want to see this, as one can see; the film is, at times, about its characters being very torn between the feeling that developing photographs of what would later be called The Rape of Nanjing makes them collaborators in these horrors and ultimately realizing that this might be the only way of exposing these atrocities. It's strong medicine, but the generation that experienced this first-hand is almost completely gone, and if you want to reinforce its memory, you've got to make something scarring but compelling enough that people want to see it. A Chinese Schindler's List of sorts, where the horrors are just short of overwhelming, but there's just enough heroism underneath to prevent a message that fighting evil is ultimately pointless.
Is this that movie? I'm not sure. Writer/director Shen Ao has seen the power of the central dilemma but not necessarily made it what drives the movie. The characters talk about it on occasion, but it doesn't really become what they're doing on screen until it's time to reveal how something was accomplished at the end, by which time they've kept the thriller elements off the screen so much that it's barely even partially the sort of movie where one is looking for how the sleight of hand is pulled off. It's almost entirely about how the people of Nanjing have been sadistically murdered by the Japanese by that point, whether they are in the midst of heroics, actively or passively collaborating, or just being in the wrong place at that point in history. It's not a story happening against that background; the background is the story, and the heroes must be utterly steadfast while the corruption of those who are less can't quite become interesting enough to take the center.
Shen does it well enough, as filmmakers who are not particularly subtle or subversive go. Dead to Rights one of those war movies that is relentlessly gray and desaturated, right up until the moment a Japanese soldier wishes they had color film to capture the gore and a river soon runs red with blood for some of the only real color in the film. He puts together a few good scenes and does okay pushing how terrible things can be without getting walkouts (I imagine his crew is well-practiced at staging military action with clearly-depicted violence and martyrdom from the sheer number of war films China produces). He's good with his cast, and they contribute performances that wouldn't be out of place in a movie intending to more thoroughly explore various parts of its story: Liu Haoran is an amiable lead and has enough chemistry with Gao Ye's Lin Yuxiu that you could probably build a good movie around the pair getting to know each other rather than skipping to the highlights; Wang Chuan-jun gives Guanghai enough sweaty desperation to be interesting in a movie that isn't going to moderate its contempt for traitors even while occasionally giving lip service to where the line is. Daichi Harashimo does very nice work showing Ito mature into something more willingly monstrous.
For better or worse, Shen doesn't appear to be a guy who tries to get cute or ironic trying to find nuance or poke at the party line, which works better here than in previous film, No More Bets (that one abandoned flawed but interesting protagonists for an extended lecture). Still, he can occasionally go above and beyond, as when the characters briefly stop to solemnly say slogans or when the film ends on the most extreme "cringe does not pay and justice was done" epilogue a film can have. It's not exactly wrong, but the film is not built in a way to allow its heroes to feel any regret or discomfort for what they had to do in awful circumstances, and one can see that.
Ultimately, Dead to Rights is two hours of solemn misery and while I probably wouldn't have this story be anything else, I might like it to be more.
Showing posts with label Bollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bollywood. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Thugs of Hindostan
Silly thought I had upon seeing the ads for this - isn't "thug" a word that we're supposed to kind of move away from, especially when talking about South Asian people, as not quite a slur but for having arisen from a sensationalist racist stereotype? I thought I'd read that somewhere. A shame if so, because it's a nicely harsh four-letter word can't help but come out with contempt; it's also how I remember a former co-worker's Irish accent, in that the word almost sounded like "tug" when he said it.
Oddly, when people use it in this movie, it's very much in the modern generically-violent-robber sense, to the point where I think Firangi calls other people "thugs" even though he's the one who joins a caravan with the express purpose of selling them out, although I didn't take the best notes there. Interesting that this was actually a part of the movie, as the Thuggee cult got fairly distorted from those supposed origins as Brits and Americans needed exotic villains. Despite what some places seem to be claiming, it doesn't seem to be any sort of adaptation of Confessions of a Thug.
In completely unrelated discussion, I wish Apple Cinemas would become a place with a kitchen or just the means to heat up a pizza or something. Three hour movies starting at 6:30 mean no real supper options means making a meal of nachos.
Thugs of Hindostan
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 November 2018 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge/Fresh Pond #1 (first-run, DCP)
It's about ten minutes into Thugs of Hindostan before someone is swinging on a rope for the first time, and let me level with you People swinging through the air on a rope to escape danger or enter a fray is a large part of what I want from a swashbuckling adventure, along with swordfights, cannons, and sneering villains. This movie has all that along with a few musical numbers and actual mustache twirling, and while it sometimes strains under the pressure of including all of that, it's still a pretty good time.
In 1795, almost the entire Indian subcontinent had fallen under the control of the British East India Tea Company, represented by John Clive (Lloyd Owen), and he had his eyes on the last remaining free kingdom. King Mirza Sikander Baig (Ronit Roy) prepared to fight back, but Clive gets the drop on him, with only pre-teen Princess Zafira escaping with legendary warrior Khudabaksh (Amitabh Bachchan). Eleven years later, Clive has total control, though Khudabaksh (aka "Azaad") and Zafira (Fatima Sana Shaikh) lead a persistent rebellion. Clive recruits informat Firangi (Aamir Khan) to find his hidden base after Firangi crashes a whites-only performance of the dancer Suraiyya (Katrina Kaif), and with the help of his old friend - hard-drinking mystic Shanichar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), Firangi soon manages to find himself on a merchant ship that Azaad attacks. Can he become a hero like Azaad and Zafira, or will his mercenary nature prevail?
As much as people generally like the idea of pirate stories as swashbuckling period adventures, audiences have often been apt to look at them as cheesy or embarrassing when it comes time to buy a ticket, so filmmakers feel the need to cram all they can in to what they probably figure is the only one they'll ever get to make. Writer/director Vijay Krishna Acharya, who previously made the hit Dhoom 3, is guilty of that - not only is there so much swinging on ropes, but characters are forced to walk the plank and the post-intermission half of the movie is working overtime to cram every possible permutation of the basic story in. The budget doesn't quite stretch - though the production built some nice sets on land including the ships, they don't appear to be seaworthy, and animating water and boats in daylight is harder than it looks, before you even get to the fire.
Full review at EFC.
Oddly, when people use it in this movie, it's very much in the modern generically-violent-robber sense, to the point where I think Firangi calls other people "thugs" even though he's the one who joins a caravan with the express purpose of selling them out, although I didn't take the best notes there. Interesting that this was actually a part of the movie, as the Thuggee cult got fairly distorted from those supposed origins as Brits and Americans needed exotic villains. Despite what some places seem to be claiming, it doesn't seem to be any sort of adaptation of Confessions of a Thug.
In completely unrelated discussion, I wish Apple Cinemas would become a place with a kitchen or just the means to heat up a pizza or something. Three hour movies starting at 6:30 mean no real supper options means making a meal of nachos.
Thugs of Hindostan
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 November 2018 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge/Fresh Pond #1 (first-run, DCP)
It's about ten minutes into Thugs of Hindostan before someone is swinging on a rope for the first time, and let me level with you People swinging through the air on a rope to escape danger or enter a fray is a large part of what I want from a swashbuckling adventure, along with swordfights, cannons, and sneering villains. This movie has all that along with a few musical numbers and actual mustache twirling, and while it sometimes strains under the pressure of including all of that, it's still a pretty good time.
In 1795, almost the entire Indian subcontinent had fallen under the control of the British East India Tea Company, represented by John Clive (Lloyd Owen), and he had his eyes on the last remaining free kingdom. King Mirza Sikander Baig (Ronit Roy) prepared to fight back, but Clive gets the drop on him, with only pre-teen Princess Zafira escaping with legendary warrior Khudabaksh (Amitabh Bachchan). Eleven years later, Clive has total control, though Khudabaksh (aka "Azaad") and Zafira (Fatima Sana Shaikh) lead a persistent rebellion. Clive recruits informat Firangi (Aamir Khan) to find his hidden base after Firangi crashes a whites-only performance of the dancer Suraiyya (Katrina Kaif), and with the help of his old friend - hard-drinking mystic Shanichar (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), Firangi soon manages to find himself on a merchant ship that Azaad attacks. Can he become a hero like Azaad and Zafira, or will his mercenary nature prevail?
As much as people generally like the idea of pirate stories as swashbuckling period adventures, audiences have often been apt to look at them as cheesy or embarrassing when it comes time to buy a ticket, so filmmakers feel the need to cram all they can in to what they probably figure is the only one they'll ever get to make. Writer/director Vijay Krishna Acharya, who previously made the hit Dhoom 3, is guilty of that - not only is there so much swinging on ropes, but characters are forced to walk the plank and the post-intermission half of the movie is working overtime to cram every possible permutation of the basic story in. The budget doesn't quite stretch - though the production built some nice sets on land including the ships, they don't appear to be seaworthy, and animating water and boats in daylight is harder than it looks, before you even get to the fire.
Full review at EFC.
Monday, June 18, 2018
Race 3
I kind of guessed that Race 3 wouldn't be very good, but I expected it to be a little more fun than it was. Instead, it felt like it was going through the motions most of the time, content to splash a good-looking cast across the screen but just have them play generic crime-movie types who morph into other generic crime-movie types when some secret is revealed. I do wonder if I did this to myself, though, by going to the least-expensive 3D show I could find, which meant I wound up in there alone. I don't know if an audience would have pointed me at things in this movie that were actually good but which I'd missed, but I think I might have discovered a little more fun.
One thing I can recommend is the 3D work, which is actually pretty impressive for a conversion. I've got a sneaking suspicion that all the Indian names you see in the 3D conversation credits of other movies saving their best work for the home team.
Race 3
* * (out of four)
Seen 17 June 2018 in AMC Boston Common #5 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
If one's filmgoing tastes stretch far enough for Indian action-adventure and Race 3 is playing at the local multiplex - and it's more likely than usual; the big Eid release is getting more screens than Bollywood films typically get in the U.S., including some in 3D - the number in the title should not deter you; it's not connected to the two previous movies and even the returning actors are playing different characters. No, give it a pass because it's not very good, a prime example of how a movie can have a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.
It revolves around Shamsher Singh (Anil Kapoor), a weapons manufacturer chased out of the Indian town of Handia to the island of Al Safia twenty-five years ago. His family serves as his inner circle and most ferocious enforcers: Stepson Sikander (Salman Khan), who has recently spent time in Beijing; daughter Sanjana (Daisy Shah), a martial-arts expert; her twin brother Suraj (Saqib Saleem), a fast-car-loving hothead; and Sikander's bodyguard Yash (Bobby Deol), practically part of the family. The favoritism Shamsher shows Sikander has the twins plotting against their step-brother, who has recently met the charming Jessica Gomes (Jacqueline Fernandez) on a trip to Beijing. And while Rana Singha (Freddy Daruwala) is their fiercest competitor, Shamsher has his eye on a hard drive full of blackmail material in a Cambodian bank vault that could give him the leverage he needs to return home.
There's a good action/adventure movie or two to be found in there, but Race 3 has as bad a case of Bollywood bloat as I've ever seen. It's the sort of movie that tells you Sanjana knows three kinds of martial arts and that her brother loves driving fast cars in an efficient briefing at the start and then doesn't have them get into a fight or a chase for the two whole hours. In the meantime, the record labels which pay for these movies need to get their numbers on the soundtrack, even though that means little really happens before intermission - the musical numbers are either stalling scenes of them hanging around nightclubs but not actually advancing things, or very familiar romance montages. Given how the opening of the film is a major bit of tell-don't-show, it's a lot of running in place despite a couple early action scenes.
Full review on EFC
One thing I can recommend is the 3D work, which is actually pretty impressive for a conversion. I've got a sneaking suspicion that all the Indian names you see in the 3D conversation credits of other movies saving their best work for the home team.
Race 3
* * (out of four)
Seen 17 June 2018 in AMC Boston Common #5 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
If one's filmgoing tastes stretch far enough for Indian action-adventure and Race 3 is playing at the local multiplex - and it's more likely than usual; the big Eid release is getting more screens than Bollywood films typically get in the U.S., including some in 3D - the number in the title should not deter you; it's not connected to the two previous movies and even the returning actors are playing different characters. No, give it a pass because it's not very good, a prime example of how a movie can have a little bit of everything and not enough of anything.
It revolves around Shamsher Singh (Anil Kapoor), a weapons manufacturer chased out of the Indian town of Handia to the island of Al Safia twenty-five years ago. His family serves as his inner circle and most ferocious enforcers: Stepson Sikander (Salman Khan), who has recently spent time in Beijing; daughter Sanjana (Daisy Shah), a martial-arts expert; her twin brother Suraj (Saqib Saleem), a fast-car-loving hothead; and Sikander's bodyguard Yash (Bobby Deol), practically part of the family. The favoritism Shamsher shows Sikander has the twins plotting against their step-brother, who has recently met the charming Jessica Gomes (Jacqueline Fernandez) on a trip to Beijing. And while Rana Singha (Freddy Daruwala) is their fiercest competitor, Shamsher has his eye on a hard drive full of blackmail material in a Cambodian bank vault that could give him the leverage he needs to return home.
There's a good action/adventure movie or two to be found in there, but Race 3 has as bad a case of Bollywood bloat as I've ever seen. It's the sort of movie that tells you Sanjana knows three kinds of martial arts and that her brother loves driving fast cars in an efficient briefing at the start and then doesn't have them get into a fight or a chase for the two whole hours. In the meantime, the record labels which pay for these movies need to get their numbers on the soundtrack, even though that means little really happens before intermission - the musical numbers are either stalling scenes of them hanging around nightclubs but not actually advancing things, or very familiar romance montages. Given how the opening of the film is a major bit of tell-don't-show, it's a lot of running in place despite a couple early action scenes.
Full review on EFC
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Padmaavat
It's been a while since I've seen a Bollywood film, but a new movie from the director and stars of Ram-Leela, in 3D to boot? Sign me the heck right up, even if it does actually come out on a weekend where I'm going to New York for a draining Hong Kong movie marathon. But, I'm actually feeling pretty alert Sunday morning, so I figure I'll go down to Fenway, see the 12:05pm show at matinee prices, and maybe catch something else in the afternoon.
Sold out. All day. Which, admittedly, would be a bit more impressive if theaters like Fenway still packed 100+ people in and 164-minute movie didn't mean blocking the theater out for four hours per showtime, but, still, that's a lot of seats sold for a subtitled movie at 3D ticket prices that's got some controversy attached to it. Good for you, I said, and then went a little further down the Green Line and saw Phantom Thread in 70mm, figuring an all-film weekend was kind of virtuous anyway. I opted to try again Monday, even sucking up the $1.50 service charge on Fandango rather than chance getting there and finding it sold out again.
Some other folks weren't quite so lucky on that; I had seat B6 and the person sitting in seat B7 next to me asked if I'd mind switching with her cousin, since seats B8-11 had sold to a group between her buying her ticket and her cousin buying hers (kind of the only thing that I really dislike about assigned seating; it requires a little more organization when going to the movies could always be loosely planned before). Said cousin's seat was in the front row and a bit off-center, and in retrospect I suppose I could have said, hey, why don't you sit up there, since there was an empty set, but they didn't know the others hadn't been sold and the middle-aged white guy with that response wouldn't have been a good look. Besides, they're recliners and I like sitting close more than most people.
It wasn't ideal, although I kind of suspect that if it were a 4K DCP, it would have been better (presuming this was shot at greater-than-2K resolution, which I would hope was the case if they were targeting giant screens). It mostly looked pretty good, although some of the later scenes showed one of the weaknesses of the polarized 3D that is the industry standard these days, in that really bright white lights - like, say, fires and torches - seem like they'll just blast their way through the polarization, resulting in blurry blobs in the middle distance rather than these fires having distinct depths. It is, however, a pretty neat 3D movie for those of us that like 3D - so many of the relatively few musicals that have used that format traditionally just create a stage space, but the director is moving the camera here, getting the audience into those dance scenes in a way I don't think I've really seen before. I suspect The Great Gatsby had a similar energy, but it's not quite the same.
SPOILERS!
I'm a lot less comfortable with the actual content of the film; I danced around it a bit in the EFC review, again kind of not wanting to be the outsider scolding someone else's culture, though I must admit that I found a lot of the ways the culture influenced the story somewhat unsatisfying: Though it is built in such a way that Alauddin wants far more than just to glance Padmavati, it still treats seeing another man's woman (especially the king's) as a crime, and while the film speaks of her as having a sharp military mind, those looking for the story to lead toward her taking sharp action will likely be disappointed, though some of that is because of another woman taking her own initiative. Still, it's tough for the end not to leave an uncomfortable taste in my mouth; if it is a victory for Padmavati (as would be implied for describing it as a defeat for Alauddin), it is pyrrhic at best.
In some ways, that makes what writer/director Sanjay Leela Bhansali accomplishes in the moment more impressive - that scene feels stirring and heroic even though everything about it seems horrifying to me when I give it a moment's thought. I don't know that I necessarily like being impressed that way.
!SRELIOPS
Padmaavat
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 29 January 2018 in Regal Fenway #9 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
Padmaavat is the first Imax 3D film from India, or so I've read, which seems like kind of a late arrival to the party, although I don't know how many other epics of this sort have been made on such a scale in Bollywood lately. It is, if nothing else, a feast for the eyes, with expansive desert landscapes, beautiful palace sets, and some dance numbers that suggest that the rest of us really haven't been using this technology properly. Whether it's enough more than great-looking to be worth a trip in spots where it won't necessarily be getting the big, deluxe presentation is a trickier question.
Based upon an epic poem that a disclaimer at the start carefully notes is "regarded as fictional", the film opens in 13th-Century Afghanistan, where Khilji warrior Alauddin (Ranveer Singh) has brought Sultan Jalaluddin (Raza Murad) and his daughter Mehrunissa (Aditi Rao Hydari) an ostrich when asked for a feather, an obviously cynical courtship that has the obvious aim of Alauddin becoming Sultan of Delhi himself. Meanwhile, the king of Mewar, Maharawal Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor) has come to Singhal to obtain some of its legendary pearls only to be shot in a hunting accident by Princess Padmavati (Deepika Padukone). They fall in love, and soon Padmavati returns to the fortress city of Chittor as queen. Her beauty enraptures even the royal guru Raghav Chetan, who winds up banished and vowing revenge - which he plots to achieve by convincing Alauddin that with the lovely Padmavati at his side, he could rule not just India but the world.
It's a shame that for all the epic, mythic scale of this story, it winds up being kind of a bore. It's not necessarily dull or listless - there's always something happening, and the movie seldom gets distracted or pads time with side quests - but crucial turning points are often as much a reflection of formalities as motivated decisions, declarations of honor and tradition as much as individual cunning. Like a western biblical epic, the film is often built around the statement of and adherence to virtues that while seldom presented in a sanctimonious way, can sound a bit like rote recitations at times. Padmavati's story can often come off as passive in a way that can't exactly be worked around without making this another story entirely, especially considering how active the title character is at the start, when she is her own princess rather than someone else's queen.
Full review at EFC
Sold out. All day. Which, admittedly, would be a bit more impressive if theaters like Fenway still packed 100+ people in and 164-minute movie didn't mean blocking the theater out for four hours per showtime, but, still, that's a lot of seats sold for a subtitled movie at 3D ticket prices that's got some controversy attached to it. Good for you, I said, and then went a little further down the Green Line and saw Phantom Thread in 70mm, figuring an all-film weekend was kind of virtuous anyway. I opted to try again Monday, even sucking up the $1.50 service charge on Fandango rather than chance getting there and finding it sold out again.
Some other folks weren't quite so lucky on that; I had seat B6 and the person sitting in seat B7 next to me asked if I'd mind switching with her cousin, since seats B8-11 had sold to a group between her buying her ticket and her cousin buying hers (kind of the only thing that I really dislike about assigned seating; it requires a little more organization when going to the movies could always be loosely planned before). Said cousin's seat was in the front row and a bit off-center, and in retrospect I suppose I could have said, hey, why don't you sit up there, since there was an empty set, but they didn't know the others hadn't been sold and the middle-aged white guy with that response wouldn't have been a good look. Besides, they're recliners and I like sitting close more than most people.
It wasn't ideal, although I kind of suspect that if it were a 4K DCP, it would have been better (presuming this was shot at greater-than-2K resolution, which I would hope was the case if they were targeting giant screens). It mostly looked pretty good, although some of the later scenes showed one of the weaknesses of the polarized 3D that is the industry standard these days, in that really bright white lights - like, say, fires and torches - seem like they'll just blast their way through the polarization, resulting in blurry blobs in the middle distance rather than these fires having distinct depths. It is, however, a pretty neat 3D movie for those of us that like 3D - so many of the relatively few musicals that have used that format traditionally just create a stage space, but the director is moving the camera here, getting the audience into those dance scenes in a way I don't think I've really seen before. I suspect The Great Gatsby had a similar energy, but it's not quite the same.
SPOILERS!
I'm a lot less comfortable with the actual content of the film; I danced around it a bit in the EFC review, again kind of not wanting to be the outsider scolding someone else's culture, though I must admit that I found a lot of the ways the culture influenced the story somewhat unsatisfying: Though it is built in such a way that Alauddin wants far more than just to glance Padmavati, it still treats seeing another man's woman (especially the king's) as a crime, and while the film speaks of her as having a sharp military mind, those looking for the story to lead toward her taking sharp action will likely be disappointed, though some of that is because of another woman taking her own initiative. Still, it's tough for the end not to leave an uncomfortable taste in my mouth; if it is a victory for Padmavati (as would be implied for describing it as a defeat for Alauddin), it is pyrrhic at best.
In some ways, that makes what writer/director Sanjay Leela Bhansali accomplishes in the moment more impressive - that scene feels stirring and heroic even though everything about it seems horrifying to me when I give it a moment's thought. I don't know that I necessarily like being impressed that way.
!SRELIOPS
Padmaavat
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen on 29 January 2018 in Regal Fenway #9 (first-run, RealD 3D DCP)
Padmaavat is the first Imax 3D film from India, or so I've read, which seems like kind of a late arrival to the party, although I don't know how many other epics of this sort have been made on such a scale in Bollywood lately. It is, if nothing else, a feast for the eyes, with expansive desert landscapes, beautiful palace sets, and some dance numbers that suggest that the rest of us really haven't been using this technology properly. Whether it's enough more than great-looking to be worth a trip in spots where it won't necessarily be getting the big, deluxe presentation is a trickier question.
Based upon an epic poem that a disclaimer at the start carefully notes is "regarded as fictional", the film opens in 13th-Century Afghanistan, where Khilji warrior Alauddin (Ranveer Singh) has brought Sultan Jalaluddin (Raza Murad) and his daughter Mehrunissa (Aditi Rao Hydari) an ostrich when asked for a feather, an obviously cynical courtship that has the obvious aim of Alauddin becoming Sultan of Delhi himself. Meanwhile, the king of Mewar, Maharawal Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor) has come to Singhal to obtain some of its legendary pearls only to be shot in a hunting accident by Princess Padmavati (Deepika Padukone). They fall in love, and soon Padmavati returns to the fortress city of Chittor as queen. Her beauty enraptures even the royal guru Raghav Chetan, who winds up banished and vowing revenge - which he plots to achieve by convincing Alauddin that with the lovely Padmavati at his side, he could rule not just India but the world.
It's a shame that for all the epic, mythic scale of this story, it winds up being kind of a bore. It's not necessarily dull or listless - there's always something happening, and the movie seldom gets distracted or pads time with side quests - but crucial turning points are often as much a reflection of formalities as motivated decisions, declarations of honor and tradition as much as individual cunning. Like a western biblical epic, the film is often built around the statement of and adherence to virtues that while seldom presented in a sanctimonious way, can sound a bit like rote recitations at times. Padmavati's story can often come off as passive in a way that can't exactly be worked around without making this another story entirely, especially considering how active the title character is at the start, when she is her own princess rather than someone else's queen.
Full review at EFC
Thursday, September 01, 2016
Festival-Adjacent: Don't Breathe and A Flying Jatt
It's starting to feel like I'm never going to finish the Fantasia Festival reviews between work, house-hunting and packing stuff up to get things across town, especially since other new releases that the other folks at EFC don't write up keep coming out.
These two are a kind of interesting weekend for me as I had to schedule them around Chinatown's Films at the Gate on the one hand, and on the other were easy connections to Fantasia: Don't Breathe was actually one of the closing films (I went for On the Silver Globe both out of curiosity and because my pass didn't cover the big studio release), and I was kind of impressed with star Tiger Shroff as a screen fighter, enough to make me certain to make time for the Indian superhero comedy, even though it was only playing six days at odd times.
While watching Don't Breathe, I found myself thinking that it was kind of an interesting coincidence that I was seeing a movie with one of the year's worst movie dogs the day after one with one of the best, and it made me wonder whether getting a dog to act cute or nasty is more difficult. I suspect working with an angry-seeming dog is more nerve-wracking, but what do the trainers have to do differently?
Anyway, Don't Breathe is a lot of fun. A Flying Jatt isn't quite so much, but I kind of wish it had hung around longer so that the curious might have a chance to check it out.
Don't Breathe
* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 August 2016 in AMC Boston Common #17 (first-run, DCP)
The interesting, if not always good, thing about Don't Breathe, it's that it's just creative enough that it doesn't need to push the envelope with gore in order to make an impression on the audience, but for the sake of surprise still escalates, just in a different direction. It is, by and large, what you'd call successful in its aim, twisting something familiar into a movie that comes by its jumps fairly and often, even if a bitter may disapprove of how it gets there.
Though in real life, Detroit is on something of an upswing, there are still areas where the one occupied house is surrounded by abandoned units. Those houses are being burgled by three young people - Alex (Dylan Minnette), who swipes the alarm codes from his dad's security company; Rocky (Jane Levy), the best friend on whom he has an obvious crush; and Money (Daniel Zovatto), Rocky's boyfriend - trying to amass enough cash to set themselves up in sunny California. Alex is careful, making sure that their crimes don't rise to the legal threshold of a felony, but Money has found the proverbial Big Score, a blind widower (Stephen Lang) with no neighbors who likely has a lot of cash from a wrongful-death settlement in the house. That the house is locked down so tight indicates that the money is almost certainly there - but also that its owner is more formidable than he seems.
Aside from a brief flash-forward at the start, director Fede Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues take a little bit of time getting the crew to the house, and that set-up is a bit more frustrating than it needs to be. There's an opener where we see how they usually rob a place, and is not a bad example of establishing characters and relationships through action, but after that, we're either given too much or too little: We see Rocky with the cute little sister and useless mother (with am equally unemployed boyfriend), and it almost creates too much sympathy, especially with Alex being played a little too nice - we see how he swipes his father's codes but it seems like the film could use something that plays up either how he's betraying his family to impress people who don't actually like him that much or that he's not as sweet as he seems. If the group had arrived at the house with some sort of strong internal conflict, a palpable desperation, or even a starker amorality, then maybe the filmmakers still have to push an envelope to position them as the protagonists compared to the villainous homeowner (just read practically any comments section to see how many people will shrug off people getting killed if they've committed any sort of offense), maybe that plot device feels a little less trivialized in an attempt to get the audience pulling in the right direction.
Full review on EFC.
A Flying Jatt
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 28 August 2016 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
A Flying Jatt doesn't have the same sort of scale or budget as an American superhero movie, but in part because of that, the film plays as a charming throwback to the origins of the genre. It's often silly and is not particularly worried about being seen as kid-oriented, things that sometimes seem to terrify both the film and comic divisions of Marvel and DC. It gives good and evil appropriate powers and costumes and lets them fight it out, and it's surprising how many superhero stories miss that basic appeal.
This one opens with the villain, Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon), who is very upset that the transport costs from his polluting chemical plant are so high, apparently because the plot of land they need to build a bridge across the lake is occupied by a tree which has a sacred symbol occurring naturally in its bark, but the owner - Bebe Dhillon (Amrita Singh) - not only refuses to sell, but is downright abusive, especially after a few drinks, needing to be held back by her sons Rohit (Gaurav Pandey) and Aman (Tiger Shroff). Though the latter is a martial-arts teacher at the local school, few really feel he takes after his late father, known as "The Flying Jatt" for being the first Sikh to learn kung fu at Shaolin Temple. But when Aman fights Malhotra's gigantic Australian hired gun Raka (Nathan Jones) at the tree, he comes away with the abilities of a superhero - although things like his crippling fear of heights may hold him back.
The thing where Aman spends a lot of time flying about a meter from the ground is one of the more quietly funny bits of a film that runs long enough to be a great many things, as many Bollywood movies do, and that sort of silliness is an area where it excels. The montage of terrible potential costumes is a bit of a bore (future filmmakers should consider retiring this obligatory sequence unless they have a really clever take on it), but the slapstick and secret-identity hijinks that ensue tend to be fairly entertaining.
Full review on EFC.
These two are a kind of interesting weekend for me as I had to schedule them around Chinatown's Films at the Gate on the one hand, and on the other were easy connections to Fantasia: Don't Breathe was actually one of the closing films (I went for On the Silver Globe both out of curiosity and because my pass didn't cover the big studio release), and I was kind of impressed with star Tiger Shroff as a screen fighter, enough to make me certain to make time for the Indian superhero comedy, even though it was only playing six days at odd times.
While watching Don't Breathe, I found myself thinking that it was kind of an interesting coincidence that I was seeing a movie with one of the year's worst movie dogs the day after one with one of the best, and it made me wonder whether getting a dog to act cute or nasty is more difficult. I suspect working with an angry-seeming dog is more nerve-wracking, but what do the trainers have to do differently?
Anyway, Don't Breathe is a lot of fun. A Flying Jatt isn't quite so much, but I kind of wish it had hung around longer so that the curious might have a chance to check it out.
Don't Breathe
* * * (out of four)
Seen 27 August 2016 in AMC Boston Common #17 (first-run, DCP)
The interesting, if not always good, thing about Don't Breathe, it's that it's just creative enough that it doesn't need to push the envelope with gore in order to make an impression on the audience, but for the sake of surprise still escalates, just in a different direction. It is, by and large, what you'd call successful in its aim, twisting something familiar into a movie that comes by its jumps fairly and often, even if a bitter may disapprove of how it gets there.
Though in real life, Detroit is on something of an upswing, there are still areas where the one occupied house is surrounded by abandoned units. Those houses are being burgled by three young people - Alex (Dylan Minnette), who swipes the alarm codes from his dad's security company; Rocky (Jane Levy), the best friend on whom he has an obvious crush; and Money (Daniel Zovatto), Rocky's boyfriend - trying to amass enough cash to set themselves up in sunny California. Alex is careful, making sure that their crimes don't rise to the legal threshold of a felony, but Money has found the proverbial Big Score, a blind widower (Stephen Lang) with no neighbors who likely has a lot of cash from a wrongful-death settlement in the house. That the house is locked down so tight indicates that the money is almost certainly there - but also that its owner is more formidable than he seems.
Aside from a brief flash-forward at the start, director Fede Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues take a little bit of time getting the crew to the house, and that set-up is a bit more frustrating than it needs to be. There's an opener where we see how they usually rob a place, and is not a bad example of establishing characters and relationships through action, but after that, we're either given too much or too little: We see Rocky with the cute little sister and useless mother (with am equally unemployed boyfriend), and it almost creates too much sympathy, especially with Alex being played a little too nice - we see how he swipes his father's codes but it seems like the film could use something that plays up either how he's betraying his family to impress people who don't actually like him that much or that he's not as sweet as he seems. If the group had arrived at the house with some sort of strong internal conflict, a palpable desperation, or even a starker amorality, then maybe the filmmakers still have to push an envelope to position them as the protagonists compared to the villainous homeowner (just read practically any comments section to see how many people will shrug off people getting killed if they've committed any sort of offense), maybe that plot device feels a little less trivialized in an attempt to get the audience pulling in the right direction.
Full review on EFC.
A Flying Jatt
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 28 August 2016 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
A Flying Jatt doesn't have the same sort of scale or budget as an American superhero movie, but in part because of that, the film plays as a charming throwback to the origins of the genre. It's often silly and is not particularly worried about being seen as kid-oriented, things that sometimes seem to terrify both the film and comic divisions of Marvel and DC. It gives good and evil appropriate powers and costumes and lets them fight it out, and it's surprising how many superhero stories miss that basic appeal.
This one opens with the villain, Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon), who is very upset that the transport costs from his polluting chemical plant are so high, apparently because the plot of land they need to build a bridge across the lake is occupied by a tree which has a sacred symbol occurring naturally in its bark, but the owner - Bebe Dhillon (Amrita Singh) - not only refuses to sell, but is downright abusive, especially after a few drinks, needing to be held back by her sons Rohit (Gaurav Pandey) and Aman (Tiger Shroff). Though the latter is a martial-arts teacher at the local school, few really feel he takes after his late father, known as "The Flying Jatt" for being the first Sikh to learn kung fu at Shaolin Temple. But when Aman fights Malhotra's gigantic Australian hired gun Raka (Nathan Jones) at the tree, he comes away with the abilities of a superhero - although things like his crippling fear of heights may hold him back.
The thing where Aman spends a lot of time flying about a meter from the ground is one of the more quietly funny bits of a film that runs long enough to be a great many things, as many Bollywood movies do, and that sort of silliness is an area where it excels. The montage of terrible potential costumes is a bit of a bore (future filmmakers should consider retiring this obligatory sequence unless they have a really clever take on it), but the slapstick and secret-identity hijinks that ensue tend to be fairly entertaining.
Full review on EFC.
Sunday, July 24, 2016
The Fantasia Daily 2016.06 (19 July 2016): The Throne, The Lure, and Baaghi
So, I think I'm going to retire the idea of daily run-down of what I saw, at least for this year; the environment just isn't conducive to it and I feel like I've been short-changing things. From here on out, I'll (mostly) just go in order and it takes as long as it takes.
At any rate, Tuesday the 19th was a pretty quiet day; it was one where you more or less course your theater early and went with it, and I went with Hall (good luck getting me to remember "SGWU" when I'm not cutting and pasting) because people both here and at BUFF seemed to be really excited by it. Not exactly a bad decision, but it's not going to be listed as a favorite when all is said and done, though it will be a "thing you should probably see".
On the other hand, it did offer up perhaps the best "can't make it, but here's a video" introduction in some time, as Agnieszka Smoczynska chatted happily about how they didn't have musicals or horror movies in Poland when she was growing up so making her own was a real treat while her children ran around in the background, waving and trying to get on camera.
Sado (The Throne)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016, DCP)
There is a line in The Throne about how royal families are unique in that one must think of one's children as enemies far sooner than one would like. That's probably true in other circumstances as well, but it's far from the essential tragedy of this (South Korea's submission for consideration as "Best Foreign Language Film" at the last Academy Awards), where the Crown Prince's greatest weakness may be that he is incapable of being that sort of enemy.
The frame of the film takes place over the course of a week, starting as a furious Crown Prince (Yoo Ah-in) marches toward the palace of his father, King Yeongjo (Song Kang-ho), sword in hand. Recognizing the potential for disaster - by law, a traitor's punishment also falls upon his son- the prince's wife Hyegyeong Hong (Moon Geun-young) alerts Royal Consort Yi (Jeon Hye-jin), the prince's birth mother, in hopes that quick action may save her own son, the "Grand Heir". The prince is caught, stripped of his rank, and locked in a box to die, giving everyone in the royal family the better part of a week to ponder how it got to this point.
The filmmakers throw a lot of specifics about the various complicated relationships and power centers in the Joseon Dynasty, and while it is undoubtedly interesting and important in terms of why certain things happen the way they do, none is more central than the fact that the Crown Prince is an artist at heart. He wants to do little more than read, write, and paint since about the age of ten, and the King simply cannot comprehend that his son is not like him; he grew from a boy who truly loved studying practical things to a man who took to politics naturally, and that his son hasn't just doesn't make sense to him. It is, despite the stakes, a story that a great many people should have no trouble connecting to.
Full review on EFC.
Córki dancingu (The Lure)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Polish Genre Cinema, DCP)
The Lure includes what is thus far one of my favorite moments of the festival, when a mermaid who is starting to follow the story of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid fairly closely rolls her eyes at her sister's worries about where that leads, saying it's "just a superstition". The movie's at its best when it's able to be as untethered from expectations as something described as a Polish period horror musical should be; it's less exciting when it opts to follow the template.
It starts by happily mashing up mermaid and siren mythology, with sisters Zwota (Michalina Olszanska) and Srebrna (Marta Mazurek) rising up out of the Vistula River, singing to the musicians practicing on shore that they would never eat them, even as the song entrances the men. Fortunately, their singer Krysia (Kinga Preis) snaps them out of it, and soon Zwota (subtitled "Golden") and Srebrna ("Silver") have been added to their band - these mermaids can manifest legs apparently at will, although getting wet brings the tail back - and are bringing a lot of new fans to the kind of scuzzy nightclub where they play, and whlie Zwota saw Warsaw as just a nice stop to maybe eat a few lowlifes on the way to America, Srebrna is developing a huge crush on bass player Mietek (Jakub Gierszal), despite his not being sure about a relationship with some who isn't, well, human, and how dangerous all-around the legends say it is for a mermaid to fall for a man.
There haven't been a lot of movies quite like The Lure; the closest thing that comes to mind is The Phantom of the Paradise, another garish fantasy placing a classic story in a nightclub with a catchy beat to hold it together. The filmmakers infuse it with a thrilling energy, because even if 1980s Poland is not exactly prosperous and performing at this club involves stripping as much as singing, there's still the chance to reinvent oneself, make music, and do whatever you enjoy. The songs can be funny and passionate, and director Agnieszka Smoczynska stages them as bona fide musical numbers happening right there out in the open and in the characters' heads at the same time. Even when the story is looking for a direction early on, it's exciting; anything can happen both in a movie and in a young woman's life.
Full review on EFC.
"Never Tear Us Apart"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Action!, DCP)
The makers of "Never Tear Us Apart", in their introduction, mentioned that this was a sort of calling card with the intent of making a feature version, which goes along with a conversation I overheard about another short while waiting in line, saying that a short is basically your first act. That's something I disagree with, at least as far as good shorts go. This one, for instance, works because it fits perfectly into five or six minutes, and really doesn't much need to be expanded to fifteen times that size.
At the size it is, it's a lot of fun - a couple of guys (Matt Keyes & Alex Weiner) are kind of out in the middle of nowhere, looking to connect with someone, while a couple of older backwoods types (James Rae & Leigh Ann Taylor) are butchering and cooking the last poor slob to find their house (Mark Anthony Krupa). The young guys arrive at that doorstep, there's a chase, some blood, and... Well, there's a great sting, the sort that's good enough that it's what I take away from the movie despite a bit of gore that is really terrific for this sort of short and some action that makes up for some kind of wobbly performances.
It is, I suppose, also a good place to start another high-concept gore-comedy, but I'm not sure the exploration could outdo the initial surprise. Maybe we'll see.
Baaghi
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Action!, DCP)
With any luck, Baaghi will eventually look like the movies Jackie Chan did when he was at the same point in his career as present-day Tiger Shroff: Not very good overall, made from fill-in-the-blanks scripts, filled with people who can't really act, and perhaps best forgotten if not for the fact that, from the very start, this guy could fight when the camera was on. You could cut one heck of an action-oriented trailer for this one, even if there is a fair amount of other filler.
It introduces us to the villain first. Raghav (Sudheer Babu) apparently makes enough money operating underground fight clubs out of Bangkok - around the world that when he kidnaps Sia Khurana (Shraddha Kapoor) after his minions found the object of his obsession - not hard, as she's taken over as the star of a movie her father (Sunil Grover) is shooting - no police force or diplomat is willing to take him on. And so, her father hires Sia's ex-boyfriend Ronny (Shroff), who trained as a martial artist under Raghav's father (Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj), though Raghav was the stronger student.
It's a pretty darn simple story, so it's a bit frustrating that writer Sanjeev Dutta and director Sabbir Khan feel the need to stretch it out to 133 minutes, including a plot about getting the mute son of a friend an operation that will allow him to speak that is basically forgotten by the end, and a lot of back-and-forth to explain why they can spend a whole bunch of the first half having Ronny and Sia meet excessively cute and still have him giggly act like he's only rescuing her for the money. It's a messy amount of flashbacks piled on as well; building it like that means that by the time the movie gets to the intermission (or where it would be, since North American venues usually play these straight through), it seems like a lot less has happened than actually has. Instead of feeling like we've seen the full arc of the characters' story, it feels like it took an hour to go from Ronny being hired to go to Bangkok and Ronny going to Bangkok.
Full review on EFC.
At any rate, Tuesday the 19th was a pretty quiet day; it was one where you more or less course your theater early and went with it, and I went with Hall (good luck getting me to remember "SGWU" when I'm not cutting and pasting) because people both here and at BUFF seemed to be really excited by it. Not exactly a bad decision, but it's not going to be listed as a favorite when all is said and done, though it will be a "thing you should probably see".
On the other hand, it did offer up perhaps the best "can't make it, but here's a video" introduction in some time, as Agnieszka Smoczynska chatted happily about how they didn't have musicals or horror movies in Poland when she was growing up so making her own was a real treat while her children ran around in the background, waving and trying to get on camera.
Sado (The Throne)
* * * (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016, DCP)
There is a line in The Throne about how royal families are unique in that one must think of one's children as enemies far sooner than one would like. That's probably true in other circumstances as well, but it's far from the essential tragedy of this (South Korea's submission for consideration as "Best Foreign Language Film" at the last Academy Awards), where the Crown Prince's greatest weakness may be that he is incapable of being that sort of enemy.
The frame of the film takes place over the course of a week, starting as a furious Crown Prince (Yoo Ah-in) marches toward the palace of his father, King Yeongjo (Song Kang-ho), sword in hand. Recognizing the potential for disaster - by law, a traitor's punishment also falls upon his son- the prince's wife Hyegyeong Hong (Moon Geun-young) alerts Royal Consort Yi (Jeon Hye-jin), the prince's birth mother, in hopes that quick action may save her own son, the "Grand Heir". The prince is caught, stripped of his rank, and locked in a box to die, giving everyone in the royal family the better part of a week to ponder how it got to this point.
The filmmakers throw a lot of specifics about the various complicated relationships and power centers in the Joseon Dynasty, and while it is undoubtedly interesting and important in terms of why certain things happen the way they do, none is more central than the fact that the Crown Prince is an artist at heart. He wants to do little more than read, write, and paint since about the age of ten, and the King simply cannot comprehend that his son is not like him; he grew from a boy who truly loved studying practical things to a man who took to politics naturally, and that his son hasn't just doesn't make sense to him. It is, despite the stakes, a story that a great many people should have no trouble connecting to.
Full review on EFC.
Córki dancingu (The Lure)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Polish Genre Cinema, DCP)
The Lure includes what is thus far one of my favorite moments of the festival, when a mermaid who is starting to follow the story of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid fairly closely rolls her eyes at her sister's worries about where that leads, saying it's "just a superstition". The movie's at its best when it's able to be as untethered from expectations as something described as a Polish period horror musical should be; it's less exciting when it opts to follow the template.
It starts by happily mashing up mermaid and siren mythology, with sisters Zwota (Michalina Olszanska) and Srebrna (Marta Mazurek) rising up out of the Vistula River, singing to the musicians practicing on shore that they would never eat them, even as the song entrances the men. Fortunately, their singer Krysia (Kinga Preis) snaps them out of it, and soon Zwota (subtitled "Golden") and Srebrna ("Silver") have been added to their band - these mermaids can manifest legs apparently at will, although getting wet brings the tail back - and are bringing a lot of new fans to the kind of scuzzy nightclub where they play, and whlie Zwota saw Warsaw as just a nice stop to maybe eat a few lowlifes on the way to America, Srebrna is developing a huge crush on bass player Mietek (Jakub Gierszal), despite his not being sure about a relationship with some who isn't, well, human, and how dangerous all-around the legends say it is for a mermaid to fall for a man.
There haven't been a lot of movies quite like The Lure; the closest thing that comes to mind is The Phantom of the Paradise, another garish fantasy placing a classic story in a nightclub with a catchy beat to hold it together. The filmmakers infuse it with a thrilling energy, because even if 1980s Poland is not exactly prosperous and performing at this club involves stripping as much as singing, there's still the chance to reinvent oneself, make music, and do whatever you enjoy. The songs can be funny and passionate, and director Agnieszka Smoczynska stages them as bona fide musical numbers happening right there out in the open and in the characters' heads at the same time. Even when the story is looking for a direction early on, it's exciting; anything can happen both in a movie and in a young woman's life.
Full review on EFC.
"Never Tear Us Apart"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Action!, DCP)
The makers of "Never Tear Us Apart", in their introduction, mentioned that this was a sort of calling card with the intent of making a feature version, which goes along with a conversation I overheard about another short while waiting in line, saying that a short is basically your first act. That's something I disagree with, at least as far as good shorts go. This one, for instance, works because it fits perfectly into five or six minutes, and really doesn't much need to be expanded to fifteen times that size.
At the size it is, it's a lot of fun - a couple of guys (Matt Keyes & Alex Weiner) are kind of out in the middle of nowhere, looking to connect with someone, while a couple of older backwoods types (James Rae & Leigh Ann Taylor) are butchering and cooking the last poor slob to find their house (Mark Anthony Krupa). The young guys arrive at that doorstep, there's a chase, some blood, and... Well, there's a great sting, the sort that's good enough that it's what I take away from the movie despite a bit of gore that is really terrific for this sort of short and some action that makes up for some kind of wobbly performances.
It is, I suppose, also a good place to start another high-concept gore-comedy, but I'm not sure the exploration could outdo the initial surprise. Maybe we'll see.
Baaghi
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 19 July 2016 in the SGWU Alumni Auditorium (Fantasia 2016: Action!, DCP)
With any luck, Baaghi will eventually look like the movies Jackie Chan did when he was at the same point in his career as present-day Tiger Shroff: Not very good overall, made from fill-in-the-blanks scripts, filled with people who can't really act, and perhaps best forgotten if not for the fact that, from the very start, this guy could fight when the camera was on. You could cut one heck of an action-oriented trailer for this one, even if there is a fair amount of other filler.
It introduces us to the villain first. Raghav (Sudheer Babu) apparently makes enough money operating underground fight clubs out of Bangkok - around the world that when he kidnaps Sia Khurana (Shraddha Kapoor) after his minions found the object of his obsession - not hard, as she's taken over as the star of a movie her father (Sunil Grover) is shooting - no police force or diplomat is willing to take him on. And so, her father hires Sia's ex-boyfriend Ronny (Shroff), who trained as a martial artist under Raghav's father (Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj), though Raghav was the stronger student.
It's a pretty darn simple story, so it's a bit frustrating that writer Sanjeev Dutta and director Sabbir Khan feel the need to stretch it out to 133 minutes, including a plot about getting the mute son of a friend an operation that will allow him to speak that is basically forgotten by the end, and a lot of back-and-forth to explain why they can spend a whole bunch of the first half having Ronny and Sia meet excessively cute and still have him giggly act like he's only rescuing her for the money. It's a messy amount of flashbacks piled on as well; building it like that means that by the time the movie gets to the intermission (or where it would be, since North American venues usually play these straight through), it seems like a lot less has happened than actually has. Instead of feeling like we've seen the full arc of the characters' story, it feels like it took an hour to go from Ronny being hired to go to Bangkok and Ronny going to Bangkok.
Full review on EFC.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Kapoor and Sons
I want exactly seeing blockbusters while I was in Texas, and was often seeing my movies outside the 7pm-to-8pm hour that is sort of the prime start time, but it was still kind of stunning just how big the audience was for this compared to the other films I saw there. I was quite possibly alone for both Creative Control and Summer Camp - I think one or two people may have sneaked in behind me during the previews - and there was maybe one other group of three people behind ours at Eye in the Sky. For this one, though? Rear section will-populated when I got there with ten minutes or so to spare, and I wound up being bumped from my customary spot just right of Center in the last row of the front section because a family of six or seven wanted to sit together. I really should stop being surprised when movies that don't go through the mainstream American news and publicity channels (or the more genre-centric ones I tend to frequent).
I was glad, because audience reaction is a big part of why is better to see films in the theaters, and toss one was having a good time. Although I must admit, I did find one reaction curious.
SPOILERS!
A large chunk of the audience gasped when Sunita opened up Rahul's computer and saw photographs of her son and her boyfriend, though it didn't seem like it was exactly a big surprise to me. Part of it was that the guy seemed indifferent to Tia's interest despite her being crazy pretty and a lot of fun to be around besides. But part, I think, was just because I'm used to American movies of this type, where one member of a large family being gay is almost a given. Plus, there were some pretty strong signals - the girlfriend with the androgynous nickname ("Nicky") that nobody had ever seen, the choice for Sunita to phrase a question "what sort of person is this?", and a moment when Rahul tells Arjun there's something he hasn't told anyone. Pretty clear foreshadowing, right?
Maybe not in this context, though. I think I mentioned two or three Indian movies so that I couldn't recall any definitively gay characters in them even though there certainly were some flamboyant enough that I wondered if that's what the filmmakers were going for. It was still kind of weak representation - we never get a good look at Rahul's boyfriend, and the film never finds a moment for even Arjun to say that there's nothing wrong with him being gay. I've heard that parts of India can be fairly tough places for this, so maybe filmmakers are trying to go slowly on this count.
!SRELIOPS
Enjoyable enough movie, at least, though I'm glad to finally be landing back in Boston as I write this and heading back up the Red Line to catch the trail end of BUFF over the weekend.
Kapoor and Sons
* * * (out of four)
Seen 24 March 2016 in AMC Stonebriar #4 (first-run, DCP)
Like a lot of movies where the filmmakers want to both celebrate family and build a story about what kind of stresses it can place on people, Kapoor and Sons can swing from one to the other fast enough to make a viewer wonder just what sort of weird compartmentalization these people are capable of. Thankfully, they pull this off better than most, and manage to make one where the last act melodrama is fairly well-earned, even if it does spend a lot of time in zany comedy getting there.
For a while, "Kapoor and Grandsons" seems like it may be a more appropriate title, as it is the hospitalization of Amarjeet "Dadu" Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor) a week or so shy of his 90th birthday that brings his expatriate grandkids home. Rahul (Fawad Khan) is a successful author living in London, while Arjun (Sidharth Malhotra) is in New Jersey, currently bartending (he never sticks with anything very long) and polishing his first novel. After returning home, they both find their way to the house of the beautiful and funny Tia Mallik (Alia Bhatt) - Arjun for a party and Rahul looking to buy a place for an artists' retreat - and she seems to take a shine to both. Despite some issues between the pair in the past, they're mostly glad to see each other and Dadu, although it's clear that the tensions that exist between parents Harsh (Rajat Kapoor) and Sunita (Ratna Pathak) have, if anything, intensified since they last visited.
Dadu initially seems like one of the more tired stock comedy characters - the wacky old guy who swears and acts inappropriate to young women and otherwise horrifies his straight-laced family, but director Shakun Batra and co-writer Ayesha DeVitre see this coming from the very first scene and have his family show that he's always been like this, and he's been at his latest hobby of "rehearsing his death" for weeks. Dadu being this sort of rascal is never meant to shock, so his jokes at least have to be sort of good, if not groundbreaking. Rishi Kapoor does will by the character; he's got the requisite sense of innocent mischief and a nice way of delivering the punchline of a gag by implying that maturity is something he has rather grown out of, though it's not that far a pivot to being a sweet old man.
Full review on EFC.
I was glad, because audience reaction is a big part of why is better to see films in the theaters, and toss one was having a good time. Although I must admit, I did find one reaction curious.
SPOILERS!
A large chunk of the audience gasped when Sunita opened up Rahul's computer and saw photographs of her son and her boyfriend, though it didn't seem like it was exactly a big surprise to me. Part of it was that the guy seemed indifferent to Tia's interest despite her being crazy pretty and a lot of fun to be around besides. But part, I think, was just because I'm used to American movies of this type, where one member of a large family being gay is almost a given. Plus, there were some pretty strong signals - the girlfriend with the androgynous nickname ("Nicky") that nobody had ever seen, the choice for Sunita to phrase a question "what sort of person is this?", and a moment when Rahul tells Arjun there's something he hasn't told anyone. Pretty clear foreshadowing, right?
Maybe not in this context, though. I think I mentioned two or three Indian movies so that I couldn't recall any definitively gay characters in them even though there certainly were some flamboyant enough that I wondered if that's what the filmmakers were going for. It was still kind of weak representation - we never get a good look at Rahul's boyfriend, and the film never finds a moment for even Arjun to say that there's nothing wrong with him being gay. I've heard that parts of India can be fairly tough places for this, so maybe filmmakers are trying to go slowly on this count.
!SRELIOPS
Enjoyable enough movie, at least, though I'm glad to finally be landing back in Boston as I write this and heading back up the Red Line to catch the trail end of BUFF over the weekend.
Kapoor and Sons
* * * (out of four)
Seen 24 March 2016 in AMC Stonebriar #4 (first-run, DCP)
Like a lot of movies where the filmmakers want to both celebrate family and build a story about what kind of stresses it can place on people, Kapoor and Sons can swing from one to the other fast enough to make a viewer wonder just what sort of weird compartmentalization these people are capable of. Thankfully, they pull this off better than most, and manage to make one where the last act melodrama is fairly well-earned, even if it does spend a lot of time in zany comedy getting there.
For a while, "Kapoor and Grandsons" seems like it may be a more appropriate title, as it is the hospitalization of Amarjeet "Dadu" Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor) a week or so shy of his 90th birthday that brings his expatriate grandkids home. Rahul (Fawad Khan) is a successful author living in London, while Arjun (Sidharth Malhotra) is in New Jersey, currently bartending (he never sticks with anything very long) and polishing his first novel. After returning home, they both find their way to the house of the beautiful and funny Tia Mallik (Alia Bhatt) - Arjun for a party and Rahul looking to buy a place for an artists' retreat - and she seems to take a shine to both. Despite some issues between the pair in the past, they're mostly glad to see each other and Dadu, although it's clear that the tensions that exist between parents Harsh (Rajat Kapoor) and Sunita (Ratna Pathak) have, if anything, intensified since they last visited.
Dadu initially seems like one of the more tired stock comedy characters - the wacky old guy who swears and acts inappropriate to young women and otherwise horrifies his straight-laced family, but director Shakun Batra and co-writer Ayesha DeVitre see this coming from the very first scene and have his family show that he's always been like this, and he's been at his latest hobby of "rehearsing his death" for weeks. Dadu being this sort of rascal is never meant to shock, so his jokes at least have to be sort of good, if not groundbreaking. Rishi Kapoor does will by the character; he's got the requisite sense of innocent mischief and a nice way of delivering the punchline of a gag by implying that maturity is something he has rather grown out of, though it's not that far a pivot to being a sweet old man.
Full review on EFC.
Sunday, March 06, 2016
Jai Gangaajal
I mentioned in the review that I was kind of surprised that this movie wasn't getting a little more notice considering star Priyanka Chopra's current high profile in the USA (and how the producers of the movie have said things along the lines about how it was a trial run or audition for Quantico, sort of easing her into the role of the tough cop), but wondered if maybe that sort of thing worked against her: It doesn't necessarily matter how much Chopra in a sexy dress makes someone's eyes pop out of their head at the Oscars or on Quantico (or the ads for it), the American audience just isn't going to be drawn to her in a subtitled movie, and it's probably not even worth the effort for the theaters showing said movie to make the attempt to reach for the crossover audience. We, as a group, can be shallow.
And, heck, I wonder if her doing so much American stuff gets her out of the eye of the Indian audience, as Apple only has it for a few shows at odd times. Which is fair; I'm pretty sure that it was me and an older Indian gentleman for me at the early show.
I did think of a couple of the Indian guys at work while watching it, though for a reason they'd probably find odd. One is at least second-generation, if not more, and was something close to offended to be told that the most popular sport in India is not cricket, or even soccer, but field hockey, a game played almost exclusively by high-school girls in America. It was a whole thing for at least the rest of the day.
So, I found myself laughing a bit more than I should have when a character was beaten half to death in this movie because the assailant did not use a baseball bat the way they might anywhere else - even in parts of the world where they don't really play baseball, goons seem to find the things, to the point where I wonder if sporting-goods stores report buyers to the police because why else would hey want it? - but with a field hockey stick. But, hey, it was just me and that other guy, who was in the last row 30 feet behind me, so nobody saw it.
Oh, and one more thing: About three of the listings for Indian movies this week had the word "goons" in the official description, which amused me because it's kind of a funny word in America, used less when you mean to indicate a real threat. It just now occurred to me that the word we're more likely to use here, "thug", might be kind of off-limits in India, even if the Thugee cult is pretty much a Western invention.
Jai Gangaajal
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 5 Match 2016 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
I'm not sure how much of a coincidence it is that Priyanka Chopra's most recent Bollywood film is getting is global release on a weekend when she has a fairly high profile in the United States - she was part of the Oscar ceremonies last week and her American TV show returns to the air this weekend - but it probably doesn't hurt. Those venturing to whatever theater in their city shows Indian films as a result may find themselves a bit disappointed; Jai Gangaajal is a middle-of-the-road cop movie that has the occasional spark but could probably do with a little bit less going on over a little less time.
It starts in a reasonably promising fashion, with Bhola Nath "BN" Singh (Prakash Jha) starting a new day in a house far too nice for an honest Bankipur cop to afford and going to work to find out what MLA Babloo Pandey (Manav Kaul) needs done, pointedly making sure he had nothing to do with the hunt for a lackey wanted for kidnapping and rape. Babloo, at the moment, needs BN to help out his brother Pabloo (Ninad Kamat), currently strong-arming poor villagers and a public market off their land to make way for a power plant. BN's boss sees what's going on and decides to shake things up by resigning everybody away from their corruption centers, but a political ally of Babloo's, Minister Ramakant Chaudhari (Kiran Karmarkar) intervenes, replacing the troublesome captain with Abha Mathur (Chopra), on her first superintendent posting and whose family had received a favor or two. This does not, however, translate into her attacking her job with anything short of complete diligence.
Jai Gangaajal is described in some places as being a sequel to filmmaker Prakash Jha's 2003 film Gangaajal, but it's more a variation on the theme - both feature young superintendents given a corrupt unit and gangsters with relations in politics, but there do not appear to be any characters shared between the two. There are probably a fair number of parallels, though, because the story is fairly standard stuff, with the expected moments of intimidation, the guys at the top getting nervous more because the timing is bad than any belief that the honest cops can touch them, the expected crises of conscience. Jha spends a fair chunk of time on the set-up, making sure a fair number of names and faces are familiar before dropping Abha in the middle of it, but not creating anything really new.
Full review on EFC.
And, heck, I wonder if her doing so much American stuff gets her out of the eye of the Indian audience, as Apple only has it for a few shows at odd times. Which is fair; I'm pretty sure that it was me and an older Indian gentleman for me at the early show.
I did think of a couple of the Indian guys at work while watching it, though for a reason they'd probably find odd. One is at least second-generation, if not more, and was something close to offended to be told that the most popular sport in India is not cricket, or even soccer, but field hockey, a game played almost exclusively by high-school girls in America. It was a whole thing for at least the rest of the day.
So, I found myself laughing a bit more than I should have when a character was beaten half to death in this movie because the assailant did not use a baseball bat the way they might anywhere else - even in parts of the world where they don't really play baseball, goons seem to find the things, to the point where I wonder if sporting-goods stores report buyers to the police because why else would hey want it? - but with a field hockey stick. But, hey, it was just me and that other guy, who was in the last row 30 feet behind me, so nobody saw it.
Oh, and one more thing: About three of the listings for Indian movies this week had the word "goons" in the official description, which amused me because it's kind of a funny word in America, used less when you mean to indicate a real threat. It just now occurred to me that the word we're more likely to use here, "thug", might be kind of off-limits in India, even if the Thugee cult is pretty much a Western invention.
Jai Gangaajal
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 5 Match 2016 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
I'm not sure how much of a coincidence it is that Priyanka Chopra's most recent Bollywood film is getting is global release on a weekend when she has a fairly high profile in the United States - she was part of the Oscar ceremonies last week and her American TV show returns to the air this weekend - but it probably doesn't hurt. Those venturing to whatever theater in their city shows Indian films as a result may find themselves a bit disappointed; Jai Gangaajal is a middle-of-the-road cop movie that has the occasional spark but could probably do with a little bit less going on over a little less time.
It starts in a reasonably promising fashion, with Bhola Nath "BN" Singh (Prakash Jha) starting a new day in a house far too nice for an honest Bankipur cop to afford and going to work to find out what MLA Babloo Pandey (Manav Kaul) needs done, pointedly making sure he had nothing to do with the hunt for a lackey wanted for kidnapping and rape. Babloo, at the moment, needs BN to help out his brother Pabloo (Ninad Kamat), currently strong-arming poor villagers and a public market off their land to make way for a power plant. BN's boss sees what's going on and decides to shake things up by resigning everybody away from their corruption centers, but a political ally of Babloo's, Minister Ramakant Chaudhari (Kiran Karmarkar) intervenes, replacing the troublesome captain with Abha Mathur (Chopra), on her first superintendent posting and whose family had received a favor or two. This does not, however, translate into her attacking her job with anything short of complete diligence.
Jai Gangaajal is described in some places as being a sequel to filmmaker Prakash Jha's 2003 film Gangaajal, but it's more a variation on the theme - both feature young superintendents given a corrupt unit and gangsters with relations in politics, but there do not appear to be any characters shared between the two. There are probably a fair number of parallels, though, because the story is fairly standard stuff, with the expected moments of intimidation, the guys at the top getting nervous more because the timing is bad than any belief that the honest cops can touch them, the expected crises of conscience. Jha spends a fair chunk of time on the set-up, making sure a fair number of names and faces are familiar before dropping Abha in the middle of it, but not creating anything really new.
Full review on EFC.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Bajirao Mastani
Pleasant surprise: $4.75 Tuesday at Apple Fresh Pond also applies to some Indian movies; considering how pricey they're been at other times, I wasn't expecting that at all, and it probably played into me spending a bit more at the concession stand. Given that this is what cheap Tuesday is for, well-done!
Fun thing about that concession stand: While most places that have pizza at the concession stand have some personal-sized version of one of the frozen brands at the supermarket, Apple appeared to be selling slices from Ma Magoo's at the other end of the shopping plaza, at least from the box that was sitting on top of the warming cabinet. I cannot endorse this practice enough - aside from this being pretty good pizza, who doesn't like local businesses supporting each other like this?
It being cheap night meant the screening was packed, and it didn't particularly seem like Priyanka Chopra was drawing new American fans. Craziest thing - a group that came in after me basically sat around me, even passing popcorn and soda over my lap without even an "excuse me" or some other acknowledgment of my presence. Fortunately, it didn't happen mid-film, although the guy two seats down was checking his phone a lot, often enough in sync with the musical numbers that I wondered if he was downloading individual songs from the soundtrack. Some others (behind me) were taking shots of the screen as numbers started. I get that, but, hey, they've got the internet for that, folks.
(Probably wouldn't have happened if the movie was presented in 3D, which seems like a possibility; the action scenes seemed to imply it as did a few other shots.)
Anyway, not a great movie, although I'm mildly curious to see the other big Bollywood opener from the 18th, Dilwale, in part because I read an article about how the two were kind of reversed in how they opened in India versus other markets, making me wonder if maybe the other would appeal more to foreigners as well as emigrants as was implied.
Bajirao Mastani
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 29 December 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #3 (first-run, DCP)
I guess it's an improvement that somewhere during the second half of Bajirao Mastani I backed off thinking of it as being a historical romance where nearly everybody is a terrible person, instead considering it one where people are simply selfish, occasionally stumbling into righteousness by accident. It's at least impressively mounted, so even if the love story leaves a bit of a bitter taste in one's mouth, there's certainly enough spectacle to make up for some of that.
As the film starts, Bajirao Ballal (Ranveer Singh) is appointed the new Peshwa (prime minister) of the Marathi Empire based upon his prowess in battle, wit, and political acumen, though it is not an entirely popular choice. In the middle of a mission of conquest, a warrior demands to speak with him; it turns out to be Mastani (Deepika Padukone), the daughter of Raja Chhatrasaal (Benjamin Gilani), whose city is under attack. He diverts to fight that battle, and love soon grows between Bajirao and Mastani. He gives her his dagger, unaware that in her culture a girl is married by accepting such a gift. She, then, follows him to his new palace, Shanivaar Wada, where she is not exactly welcomed with open arms by Bajirao's mother Radhabai (Tanvi Azmi) - or his first wife Kashibai (Priyanka Chopra), and that's before they learn that Mastani's mother is Muslim.
I'm going to guess that if I were steeped more in Indian culture and traditions, the conflicts in this film would have a little more resonance for me, but with that not the case, it sure seems like the romance that the film wants us to root for is yet another preening jackass who wants to have a second lover without considering the effect it has on his existing family and a woman who is fairly ruthless about staking her own claim. The irony, then, is that even if one is inclined to disapprove of their rapidly-established but at least genuine love, the people opposing it are far more horrible. The only truly sympathetic character is Kashi, and her role in this story is frustratingly familiar - to be hurt, told that she is still important to Bajirao despite evidence to the contrary, and to try to make it work because, really, what other options does a woman in her position have?
Full review on EFC.
Fun thing about that concession stand: While most places that have pizza at the concession stand have some personal-sized version of one of the frozen brands at the supermarket, Apple appeared to be selling slices from Ma Magoo's at the other end of the shopping plaza, at least from the box that was sitting on top of the warming cabinet. I cannot endorse this practice enough - aside from this being pretty good pizza, who doesn't like local businesses supporting each other like this?
It being cheap night meant the screening was packed, and it didn't particularly seem like Priyanka Chopra was drawing new American fans. Craziest thing - a group that came in after me basically sat around me, even passing popcorn and soda over my lap without even an "excuse me" or some other acknowledgment of my presence. Fortunately, it didn't happen mid-film, although the guy two seats down was checking his phone a lot, often enough in sync with the musical numbers that I wondered if he was downloading individual songs from the soundtrack. Some others (behind me) were taking shots of the screen as numbers started. I get that, but, hey, they've got the internet for that, folks.
(Probably wouldn't have happened if the movie was presented in 3D, which seems like a possibility; the action scenes seemed to imply it as did a few other shots.)
Anyway, not a great movie, although I'm mildly curious to see the other big Bollywood opener from the 18th, Dilwale, in part because I read an article about how the two were kind of reversed in how they opened in India versus other markets, making me wonder if maybe the other would appeal more to foreigners as well as emigrants as was implied.
Bajirao Mastani
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 29 December 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #3 (first-run, DCP)
I guess it's an improvement that somewhere during the second half of Bajirao Mastani I backed off thinking of it as being a historical romance where nearly everybody is a terrible person, instead considering it one where people are simply selfish, occasionally stumbling into righteousness by accident. It's at least impressively mounted, so even if the love story leaves a bit of a bitter taste in one's mouth, there's certainly enough spectacle to make up for some of that.
As the film starts, Bajirao Ballal (Ranveer Singh) is appointed the new Peshwa (prime minister) of the Marathi Empire based upon his prowess in battle, wit, and political acumen, though it is not an entirely popular choice. In the middle of a mission of conquest, a warrior demands to speak with him; it turns out to be Mastani (Deepika Padukone), the daughter of Raja Chhatrasaal (Benjamin Gilani), whose city is under attack. He diverts to fight that battle, and love soon grows between Bajirao and Mastani. He gives her his dagger, unaware that in her culture a girl is married by accepting such a gift. She, then, follows him to his new palace, Shanivaar Wada, where she is not exactly welcomed with open arms by Bajirao's mother Radhabai (Tanvi Azmi) - or his first wife Kashibai (Priyanka Chopra), and that's before they learn that Mastani's mother is Muslim.
I'm going to guess that if I were steeped more in Indian culture and traditions, the conflicts in this film would have a little more resonance for me, but with that not the case, it sure seems like the romance that the film wants us to root for is yet another preening jackass who wants to have a second lover without considering the effect it has on his existing family and a woman who is fairly ruthless about staking her own claim. The irony, then, is that even if one is inclined to disapprove of their rapidly-established but at least genuine love, the people opposing it are far more horrible. The only truly sympathetic character is Kashi, and her role in this story is frustratingly familiar - to be hurt, told that she is still important to Bajirao despite evidence to the contrary, and to try to make it work because, really, what other options does a woman in her position have?
Full review on EFC.
Wednesday, December 09, 2015
Tamasha
A couple weeks after the Fantasia Festival, I was talking with another attendee who was a little bummed out about having missed the Bollywood film (which he shouldn't have been, because it was Singham Returns and thus not good), and I said I don't really love seeing Bollywood stuff there because it's kind of people gawking at the weird thing and laughing at it, and I kind of don't like being that kind of fan.
I kind of still am, though - as much as I go to these movies at Apple Fresh Pond hoping for a bit more of an authentic experience, I hope I'm not just gawking at that, too. I mean, I do repeat the story of the crazy audience for Endhirian fairly often, but I hope I'm coming across as admiring and not patronizing, and I tend to go to these movies to see something different as opposed to a sideshow.
That said... I was surprised while watching it how much I was enjoying Tamasha in the way I enjoyed other movies, noting the way the director put it together and did new things rather than primarily seeing it as this oddity to be experienced. It's still kind of that, because I don't see enough of these movies for them to even be a sort of normal for me, but "interesting" and "unusual" are different if often overlapping things.
Anyway, I was glad I caught this one for reasons beyond being a fan of its female lead and noting that the English bits of her dialogue seem to get a little better in each film, enough that I'll wonder if Deepika Padukone will make the same attempts at Hollywood stardom that Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra have (although, kudos to Chopra for trying to do it via television, which is a pretty big commitment for someone who is already a star in her home market; I'm genuinely curious whether anybody will try and get fans of Quantico to check out Bajiro Mastani next week). It's a pretty good movie, and also a reminder that there actually are some big rooms in the Fresh Pond cinema, even if the ones upstairs are more deep than wide.
Tamasha
* * * (out of four)
Seen 6 December 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
It had been a while since I last saw a big Bollywood romantic comedy with singing, dancing, and a little bit of everything, and after seeing Tamasha... Well, it's still been a while since I've seen that sort of movie. I'm not disappointed, because this one uses its post-intermission redirection to go somewhere interesting, and it banks a fair amount of delight before that.
The first place it goes, sort of, is Corsica, where a Hindu tourist (Deepika Padukone) has lost the bag with her wallet and passport and is having trouble finding anybody who speaks English, let alone Hindi, to help her out. Fortunately, there is another tourist nearby who can help, and just as they are are about to introduce themselves to each other, he (Ranbir Kapoor) stops, pointing out that if they do that, it will lead to the same boring conversations they could have back home, and introduces himself as Don, international outlaw. She likes this and calls herself Mona Darling, representative of the criminal kingpin he came to Corsica to meet. They spend a week role-playing and having adventures, until "Mona's" replacement passport arrives. They will, of course, meet again in Delhi, but will Tara Maheshwari feel the same way about Ved Sahni, product manager for a communications technology company?
Like many Indian movies, Tamasha splits fairly easily into two parts,and the first half in this case supplies the fuel for the second. It doesn't take place entirely in Corsica, but the time spent there is a sheer delight. Writer/director Imtiaz Ali recognizes that he's presenting the audience with a fairly kooky scenario, and has the good sense to squeeze every bit of fun from it that he can without pushing it to the point where the audience has any reason to get over practical questions. The beautiful scenery - where it only rains to refresh or give a couple a reason to huddle close under cover - combines with the film's most traditional musical number and even a bit of off-color humor to create an ideal and seductive fantasy world; that some pretty mild jokes are bleeped on the soundtrack or starred-out in the subtitles might even be deliberate rather than the work of a timid censor bureau, a chance for "Don" and "Mona" to act differently than they would at home without incurring any sort of penalty. It's very much the light romantic comedy one might expect, and carries that off very well.
Full review on EFC.
I kind of still am, though - as much as I go to these movies at Apple Fresh Pond hoping for a bit more of an authentic experience, I hope I'm not just gawking at that, too. I mean, I do repeat the story of the crazy audience for Endhirian fairly often, but I hope I'm coming across as admiring and not patronizing, and I tend to go to these movies to see something different as opposed to a sideshow.
That said... I was surprised while watching it how much I was enjoying Tamasha in the way I enjoyed other movies, noting the way the director put it together and did new things rather than primarily seeing it as this oddity to be experienced. It's still kind of that, because I don't see enough of these movies for them to even be a sort of normal for me, but "interesting" and "unusual" are different if often overlapping things.
Anyway, I was glad I caught this one for reasons beyond being a fan of its female lead and noting that the English bits of her dialogue seem to get a little better in each film, enough that I'll wonder if Deepika Padukone will make the same attempts at Hollywood stardom that Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra have (although, kudos to Chopra for trying to do it via television, which is a pretty big commitment for someone who is already a star in her home market; I'm genuinely curious whether anybody will try and get fans of Quantico to check out Bajiro Mastani next week). It's a pretty good movie, and also a reminder that there actually are some big rooms in the Fresh Pond cinema, even if the ones upstairs are more deep than wide.
Tamasha
* * * (out of four)
Seen 6 December 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #1 (first-run, DCP)
It had been a while since I last saw a big Bollywood romantic comedy with singing, dancing, and a little bit of everything, and after seeing Tamasha... Well, it's still been a while since I've seen that sort of movie. I'm not disappointed, because this one uses its post-intermission redirection to go somewhere interesting, and it banks a fair amount of delight before that.
The first place it goes, sort of, is Corsica, where a Hindu tourist (Deepika Padukone) has lost the bag with her wallet and passport and is having trouble finding anybody who speaks English, let alone Hindi, to help her out. Fortunately, there is another tourist nearby who can help, and just as they are are about to introduce themselves to each other, he (Ranbir Kapoor) stops, pointing out that if they do that, it will lead to the same boring conversations they could have back home, and introduces himself as Don, international outlaw. She likes this and calls herself Mona Darling, representative of the criminal kingpin he came to Corsica to meet. They spend a week role-playing and having adventures, until "Mona's" replacement passport arrives. They will, of course, meet again in Delhi, but will Tara Maheshwari feel the same way about Ved Sahni, product manager for a communications technology company?
Like many Indian movies, Tamasha splits fairly easily into two parts,and the first half in this case supplies the fuel for the second. It doesn't take place entirely in Corsica, but the time spent there is a sheer delight. Writer/director Imtiaz Ali recognizes that he's presenting the audience with a fairly kooky scenario, and has the good sense to squeeze every bit of fun from it that he can without pushing it to the point where the audience has any reason to get over practical questions. The beautiful scenery - where it only rains to refresh or give a couple a reason to huddle close under cover - combines with the film's most traditional musical number and even a bit of off-color humor to create an ideal and seductive fantasy world; that some pretty mild jokes are bleeped on the soundtrack or starred-out in the subtitles might even be deliberate rather than the work of a timid censor bureau, a chance for "Don" and "Mona" to act differently than they would at home without incurring any sort of penalty. It's very much the light romantic comedy one might expect, and carries that off very well.
Full review on EFC.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Piku
Yes, this thing where I occasionally watch Bollywood movies has reached the point where, upon seeing a trailer for this before Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!, I recognized the entire main cast and said yes, I like them, I'm in.
Piku
* * (out of four)
Seen 20 May 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #5 (first-run, DCP)
Even if you're not a real fan of Indian film but just sort of generally aware of it (and maybe not even that), the cast of Piku should make you take note: Amitabh Bachchan is an institution who has been popular for decades and patriarch of a major acting family, Deepika Padukone is one of the country's most popular leading ladies, and Irrfan Khan is in tremendous demand in both Bollywood and Hollywood. And, yet, despite what seems like it should be a fun premise, the film is a real bore because this great cast is given nothing to do.
Piku Banerjee (Padukone) is an intimidating, pushy woman working at a Delhi design firm, and she comes by it honestly - her 70-year-old father Bhaskor (Bachchan) is just as disagreeable, and in fact his hypochondria is the only thing that can really push her around. When a brush with mortality makes him decide to take a trip back to the family home in Kolkata, they decide (for various reasons) to take a cab those 1,500 kilometers, but both have browbeat the local drivers so badly that it falls to the taxi company's owner, Rana Choudhury (Irrfan).
The cast probably did not sign on to Piku because of the creative, never-before-seen story, but that's okay; this is the sort of set-up that a great cast and crew can make sing. The trouble is, writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar seem not to realize that they've got a road trip movie on their hands; it takes a thoroughly unreasonable forty-five minutes for the characters to get into into the taxi for a trip that takes a mere half-hour of screen time before another forty-five minutes in Kolkata. The intermission is placed right in the middle of that time on the road with one of the least exciting cliffhangers ever. You can argue that this doesn't have to be a road trip movie, but it should be; the road is where things can happen because everybody is in close quarters and out of their comfort zone, as well as being a natural way to communicate characters in transition.
Full review on EFC.
Piku
* * (out of four)
Seen 20 May 2015 in Apple Cinemas Cambridge #5 (first-run, DCP)
Even if you're not a real fan of Indian film but just sort of generally aware of it (and maybe not even that), the cast of Piku should make you take note: Amitabh Bachchan is an institution who has been popular for decades and patriarch of a major acting family, Deepika Padukone is one of the country's most popular leading ladies, and Irrfan Khan is in tremendous demand in both Bollywood and Hollywood. And, yet, despite what seems like it should be a fun premise, the film is a real bore because this great cast is given nothing to do.
Piku Banerjee (Padukone) is an intimidating, pushy woman working at a Delhi design firm, and she comes by it honestly - her 70-year-old father Bhaskor (Bachchan) is just as disagreeable, and in fact his hypochondria is the only thing that can really push her around. When a brush with mortality makes him decide to take a trip back to the family home in Kolkata, they decide (for various reasons) to take a cab those 1,500 kilometers, but both have browbeat the local drivers so badly that it falls to the taxi company's owner, Rana Choudhury (Irrfan).
The cast probably did not sign on to Piku because of the creative, never-before-seen story, but that's okay; this is the sort of set-up that a great cast and crew can make sing. The trouble is, writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar seem not to realize that they've got a road trip movie on their hands; it takes a thoroughly unreasonable forty-five minutes for the characters to get into into the taxi for a trip that takes a mere half-hour of screen time before another forty-five minutes in Kolkata. The intermission is placed right in the middle of that time on the road with one of the least exciting cliffhangers ever. You can argue that this doesn't have to be a road trip movie, but it should be; the road is where things can happen because everybody is in close quarters and out of their comfort zone, as well as being a natural way to communicate characters in transition.
Full review on EFC.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Tevar
Reason not to pay particular attention to star ratings: This is probably not as good a movie (in some ways) as Taken 3, but it didn't make me as angry as that one did. Maybe being colorful and having catchy songs helps more than you'd think.
Tevar
* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 January 2015 in Regal Fenway #7 (first-run, DCP)
There is a lot of bloat in Tevar, a 157-minute Bollywood "thriller" that could be remade as a direct-to-video action flick roughly half that length without particularly suffering for the revision. It's all well and good to have different paces and styles of movie out there, but a film that takes this much time should do something with it.
It starts by introducing Granshyam "Pintu" Shukla (Arjun Kapoor), a nominal student in Agra with little interest in anything but the kabaddi team, and he has to make a parkour-style run across town to not totally miss his game. His laziness doesn't keep him out of fights, though, much to the chagrin of his policeman father (Raj Babbar). Meanwhile, in Mathura, hugely corrupt Home Minister Mahender Singh (Rajesh Sharma) has instructed his "strongman" brother Gaherder (Manoj Bajpayee) to threaten troublesome reporter Manesh Mishra, only for him to become smitten with Mishra's younger sister Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha). She refuses, and when Gaherder does not take the news well, her family decides to expedite her travels to America. Gaherder catches up to her at the bus station, but Pintu also happens to be there, taking exception to seeing a woman get roughed up.
That's a fairly basic setup, which is fine; no need to reinvent the wheel in what is both a tried-and-true premise for this sort of thriller and the fourth remake of a 2003 Telugu-language film. But because it's so familiar, there really is no reason for it to take practically until the intermission for Pintu and Radhika to actually meet and start running. Sure, some time is killed with musical numbers that look fairly nice, even if they do go on a long time for the single points they make, but that only helps so much when the filmmakers are just loading up on side characters who will have no effect on the outcome. The first half of Tevar, as a result, doesn't necessarily feel long as one is watching it; but seeing how far it hasn't gotten is dispiriting.
Full review at EFC.
Tevar
* ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 January 2015 in Regal Fenway #7 (first-run, DCP)
There is a lot of bloat in Tevar, a 157-minute Bollywood "thriller" that could be remade as a direct-to-video action flick roughly half that length without particularly suffering for the revision. It's all well and good to have different paces and styles of movie out there, but a film that takes this much time should do something with it.
It starts by introducing Granshyam "Pintu" Shukla (Arjun Kapoor), a nominal student in Agra with little interest in anything but the kabaddi team, and he has to make a parkour-style run across town to not totally miss his game. His laziness doesn't keep him out of fights, though, much to the chagrin of his policeman father (Raj Babbar). Meanwhile, in Mathura, hugely corrupt Home Minister Mahender Singh (Rajesh Sharma) has instructed his "strongman" brother Gaherder (Manoj Bajpayee) to threaten troublesome reporter Manesh Mishra, only for him to become smitten with Mishra's younger sister Radhika (Sonakshi Sinha). She refuses, and when Gaherder does not take the news well, her family decides to expedite her travels to America. Gaherder catches up to her at the bus station, but Pintu also happens to be there, taking exception to seeing a woman get roughed up.
That's a fairly basic setup, which is fine; no need to reinvent the wheel in what is both a tried-and-true premise for this sort of thriller and the fourth remake of a 2003 Telugu-language film. But because it's so familiar, there really is no reason for it to take practically until the intermission for Pintu and Radhika to actually meet and start running. Sure, some time is killed with musical numbers that look fairly nice, even if they do go on a long time for the single points they make, but that only helps so much when the filmmakers are just loading up on side characters who will have no effect on the outcome. The first half of Tevar, as a result, doesn't necessarily feel long as one is watching it; but seeing how far it hasn't gotten is dispiriting.
Full review at EFC.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
This That Week In Tickets: 3 November 2014 - 9 November 2014
Sometimes the page looks like slow and steady but contains double features. Sometimes it's about pacing yourself, sometimes it's about taking advantage of your location.
On Monday, for instance, I must have either been working from home or out of work really early in order to get to Before I Go to Sleep at a 6:45pm show, but I think I probably wanted to do grocery shopping or the like afterward, so I went for a relatively early one. Pretty firmly in the "I've seen worse" category, and not one that leaves a lasting impression.
Tuesday night, I made a bit of a last-minute change; I think I was planning to see Nightcrawler, but went with Roar: Tigers of the Sundarbans instead. Sometimes, you are just in the mood to see people mauled by tigers.
Friday, I did an on the way home from work double feature - the Capitol is on my bus route, so that's where I caught Big Hero 6, and had a good time with it. After that, it was a quick bus ride to Apple Cinemas near Alewife, where I caught The Lookalike, which could have been better.
Saturday got spent at the Somerville Theatre, where they were playing Interstellar on the big screen (unfortunately, that room is in demand, but they're still playing it in 35mm). Ian mentioned that it was done on film as much as possible, without even a digital intermediate, and looks that good.
After that, it was a fairly quick turnaround for St. Vincent, a generally likable little movie with a nice cast, including Bill Murray doing more to play a character than usual. Because I saw that at 7:15pm, MoviePass's 24-hour rule meant I headed out to Assembly Row for a slightly later screening of Nightcrawler than was at the local theaters. Not complaining about the comfy seats, even if it is more time on the T than usual.
Before I Go to Sleep
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2014 in AMC Boston Common #9 (first-run, DCP)
The fun part of Before I Go to Sleep, I think, is watching Mark Strong be the concerned and most likely legit doctor and Colin Firth be the guy who is pretty clearly up to no good, which is fun against-type casting, even if neither they not Nicole Kidman (as a woman who wakes up each morning with no memory of the past dozen or so years) really have much interesting to do. Kidman's thing of basically playing a woman in her twenties who wakes up to find she's settled down and aged (if better than many) is a neat idea, but Kidman plays her as too vacant to really be interesting.
On top of the performances just being okay but lacking the details that make characters actually interesting, it's just very difficult to build interesting momentum with stories built around resetting to zero on a regular basis. All too often, the writers seem to be spending so much time and effort on clever mechanisms that they lack much else, and once the obvious turns off events happen, the result is often more frustration than suspense.
It makes for a movie about regularly forgetting everything that is itself rather forgettable, and I'm going to guess that this isn't what the people making it had in mind.
Big Hero 6
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2014 in Arlington Capitol #5 (first-run, RealD DCP)
Marvel wasn't testing to see whether it could achieve superhero saturation on its own this year - they have very little control over when Fox or Sony will release something based the Marvel properties that those studios have the rights to - but it's not surprising that the closest thing to an acknowledgment that Big Hero 6 first appeared in a comic is a Stan Lee cameo. There are other reasons, likely including keeping the question of diversity from getting ugly (it's one of the more enjoyably diverse casts you'll see, but it got there by making an all-Japanese team more white, although that team was built on a lot of stereotypes...).
Happily, though, what they ended up with is a lot of fun. From the first shots of illicit robot fighting to the whimsical hybrid world of San Fransokyo, it's a colorful environment packed with nifty optimistic-future details, one that looks great in 3D. It's got a lot of orphaning going on - not only are Hiro Hamada's parents lost when the movie starts, but he soon losses his older brother Tadashi and a mentor to boot - but it takes this situation much more seriously than many movies, for kids and otherwise, do; it's not something that primarily means that the hero must solve things on his or her own but has become extra-plucky and capable because he/she has had extra responsibilities. It's something that Hiro struggles with, and the emotional core of the movie. It's not quite so heavy as to get in the way of a lot of funny and exciting bits, though, because this is a good light adventure.
And, wow, did the kids around me love Baymax. A robotic nurse built by Hiro's brother who becomes the boy's best friend, Baymax is a great creation, an unapologetic cartoon who is an endless source of gentle humor - impressive, because gentle physical comedy is hard to pull off - and even those of us prone to bristle a bit at treating a machine with clever software as a person can see the 'bot as an ongoing expression of Tadashi's love and concern. That's pretty clever.
It's kind of amusing that this movie came out the same weekend as Interstellar, if only because it seems extremely unlikely that two movies with this climax (guy and robot sidekick dive into a singularity to retrieve something from a pocket universe) would be playing at the same time. I also hope my niece(s) watch and dig it, because I think at least one would love Honey Lemon - she's a superhero who loves both science and total girly-girl accoutrements without it seeming like any sort of contradiction! - and is love to get her that sort of thing for Christmas rather than just more Frozen stuff.
St. Vincent
* * * (out of four)
Seen 8 November 2014 in Somerville Theatre #2 (first-run, DCP)
Here's a question to ponder a bit: How much of the highly-enjoyable later stages of Bill Murray's career has been built on the discovery that he has previously-unsuspected acting chops and how much has been based upon casting him in place where he can make the most out of a dry delivery and somewhat befuddled or arch characterization? I don't mean this as an "emperor has no clothes" statement, but it's worth noting that his title character in St. Vincent demands more outside his usual persona than usual, and it's not hard to see the stretching that Murray has to do.
That doesn't hurt the movie much; even if you can see Murray acting more clearly than usual - in large part because he's a guy who historically hasn't varied his accent much trying a new one on - he's still a bunch of fun to watch, an entertaining curmudgeon who plays well off the entire cast. That cast is packed with actors doing nice work - a toned-down Melissa McCarthy, an offbeat Naomi Watts, Chris O'Down stealing every scene he's in as a teacher at the Catholic school attended by Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), the kid Vincent winds up babysitting during the afternoon. It's generally funny stuff, good-natured and with just enough abrasiveness to prevent it from being saccharine.
At least, for a while. It eventually reaches exactly the ending you'd expect, and that's maybe a little bit of a disappointment considering how enjoyably prickly things had been up until then, but I'm not one to argue against sincerity.
Nightcrawler
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 9 November 2014 in AMC Assembly Row #7 (first-run, DCP)
Given how long it took Los Angeles Plays Itself to get any sort of official release, it's a shame that it didn't get updated, but even in that case, Nightcrawler came out just late enough to not be included. Nightcrawlers like Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Bloom are not a phenomenon exclusive to that city, but it does seem to be their natural environment. Writer/director Dan Gilroy gets this, spinning an unlikely but dark and thrilling story.
It rests on the back of Gyllenhaal, who plays Bloom as something approaching thoroughly crazed - he blinks maybe twice during the movie, has a towering ego, and a naked sociopathy that is honestly stunning to behold. It's the sort of thing that can be kind of wearing, but somehow Gyllenhaal and Gilroy are able to draw us in more than they push us away. This isn't really a fascinating character, but an oddly magnetic one, and he manages to make the rest of the cast look almost sympathetic even if they'd be monsters in other movies. Especially Rene Russo's sharklike news director (we do not see enough of her these days)
There are also a couple of great sequences in the picture, one of which leads directly to the other. The first may be far from the usual "action" piece, but it's tremendously suspenseful, especially as it immediately forms the spine of a mocking, satirical scene soon after. That's pretty near the exact right tone for the movie - exciting, but also fairly relentless in mocking how exciting an audience might find what goes on.
On Monday, for instance, I must have either been working from home or out of work really early in order to get to Before I Go to Sleep at a 6:45pm show, but I think I probably wanted to do grocery shopping or the like afterward, so I went for a relatively early one. Pretty firmly in the "I've seen worse" category, and not one that leaves a lasting impression.
Tuesday night, I made a bit of a last-minute change; I think I was planning to see Nightcrawler, but went with Roar: Tigers of the Sundarbans instead. Sometimes, you are just in the mood to see people mauled by tigers.
Friday, I did an on the way home from work double feature - the Capitol is on my bus route, so that's where I caught Big Hero 6, and had a good time with it. After that, it was a quick bus ride to Apple Cinemas near Alewife, where I caught The Lookalike, which could have been better.
Saturday got spent at the Somerville Theatre, where they were playing Interstellar on the big screen (unfortunately, that room is in demand, but they're still playing it in 35mm). Ian mentioned that it was done on film as much as possible, without even a digital intermediate, and looks that good.
After that, it was a fairly quick turnaround for St. Vincent, a generally likable little movie with a nice cast, including Bill Murray doing more to play a character than usual. Because I saw that at 7:15pm, MoviePass's 24-hour rule meant I headed out to Assembly Row for a slightly later screening of Nightcrawler than was at the local theaters. Not complaining about the comfy seats, even if it is more time on the T than usual.
Before I Go to Sleep
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 3 November 2014 in AMC Boston Common #9 (first-run, DCP)
The fun part of Before I Go to Sleep, I think, is watching Mark Strong be the concerned and most likely legit doctor and Colin Firth be the guy who is pretty clearly up to no good, which is fun against-type casting, even if neither they not Nicole Kidman (as a woman who wakes up each morning with no memory of the past dozen or so years) really have much interesting to do. Kidman's thing of basically playing a woman in her twenties who wakes up to find she's settled down and aged (if better than many) is a neat idea, but Kidman plays her as too vacant to really be interesting.
On top of the performances just being okay but lacking the details that make characters actually interesting, it's just very difficult to build interesting momentum with stories built around resetting to zero on a regular basis. All too often, the writers seem to be spending so much time and effort on clever mechanisms that they lack much else, and once the obvious turns off events happen, the result is often more frustration than suspense.
It makes for a movie about regularly forgetting everything that is itself rather forgettable, and I'm going to guess that this isn't what the people making it had in mind.
Big Hero 6
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2014 in Arlington Capitol #5 (first-run, RealD DCP)
Marvel wasn't testing to see whether it could achieve superhero saturation on its own this year - they have very little control over when Fox or Sony will release something based the Marvel properties that those studios have the rights to - but it's not surprising that the closest thing to an acknowledgment that Big Hero 6 first appeared in a comic is a Stan Lee cameo. There are other reasons, likely including keeping the question of diversity from getting ugly (it's one of the more enjoyably diverse casts you'll see, but it got there by making an all-Japanese team more white, although that team was built on a lot of stereotypes...).
Happily, though, what they ended up with is a lot of fun. From the first shots of illicit robot fighting to the whimsical hybrid world of San Fransokyo, it's a colorful environment packed with nifty optimistic-future details, one that looks great in 3D. It's got a lot of orphaning going on - not only are Hiro Hamada's parents lost when the movie starts, but he soon losses his older brother Tadashi and a mentor to boot - but it takes this situation much more seriously than many movies, for kids and otherwise, do; it's not something that primarily means that the hero must solve things on his or her own but has become extra-plucky and capable because he/she has had extra responsibilities. It's something that Hiro struggles with, and the emotional core of the movie. It's not quite so heavy as to get in the way of a lot of funny and exciting bits, though, because this is a good light adventure.
And, wow, did the kids around me love Baymax. A robotic nurse built by Hiro's brother who becomes the boy's best friend, Baymax is a great creation, an unapologetic cartoon who is an endless source of gentle humor - impressive, because gentle physical comedy is hard to pull off - and even those of us prone to bristle a bit at treating a machine with clever software as a person can see the 'bot as an ongoing expression of Tadashi's love and concern. That's pretty clever.
It's kind of amusing that this movie came out the same weekend as Interstellar, if only because it seems extremely unlikely that two movies with this climax (guy and robot sidekick dive into a singularity to retrieve something from a pocket universe) would be playing at the same time. I also hope my niece(s) watch and dig it, because I think at least one would love Honey Lemon - she's a superhero who loves both science and total girly-girl accoutrements without it seeming like any sort of contradiction! - and is love to get her that sort of thing for Christmas rather than just more Frozen stuff.
St. Vincent
* * * (out of four)
Seen 8 November 2014 in Somerville Theatre #2 (first-run, DCP)
Here's a question to ponder a bit: How much of the highly-enjoyable later stages of Bill Murray's career has been built on the discovery that he has previously-unsuspected acting chops and how much has been based upon casting him in place where he can make the most out of a dry delivery and somewhat befuddled or arch characterization? I don't mean this as an "emperor has no clothes" statement, but it's worth noting that his title character in St. Vincent demands more outside his usual persona than usual, and it's not hard to see the stretching that Murray has to do.
That doesn't hurt the movie much; even if you can see Murray acting more clearly than usual - in large part because he's a guy who historically hasn't varied his accent much trying a new one on - he's still a bunch of fun to watch, an entertaining curmudgeon who plays well off the entire cast. That cast is packed with actors doing nice work - a toned-down Melissa McCarthy, an offbeat Naomi Watts, Chris O'Down stealing every scene he's in as a teacher at the Catholic school attended by Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher), the kid Vincent winds up babysitting during the afternoon. It's generally funny stuff, good-natured and with just enough abrasiveness to prevent it from being saccharine.
At least, for a while. It eventually reaches exactly the ending you'd expect, and that's maybe a little bit of a disappointment considering how enjoyably prickly things had been up until then, but I'm not one to argue against sincerity.
Nightcrawler
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 9 November 2014 in AMC Assembly Row #7 (first-run, DCP)
Given how long it took Los Angeles Plays Itself to get any sort of official release, it's a shame that it didn't get updated, but even in that case, Nightcrawler came out just late enough to not be included. Nightcrawlers like Jake Gyllenhaal's Louis Bloom are not a phenomenon exclusive to that city, but it does seem to be their natural environment. Writer/director Dan Gilroy gets this, spinning an unlikely but dark and thrilling story.
It rests on the back of Gyllenhaal, who plays Bloom as something approaching thoroughly crazed - he blinks maybe twice during the movie, has a towering ego, and a naked sociopathy that is honestly stunning to behold. It's the sort of thing that can be kind of wearing, but somehow Gyllenhaal and Gilroy are able to draw us in more than they push us away. This isn't really a fascinating character, but an oddly magnetic one, and he manages to make the rest of the cast look almost sympathetic even if they'd be monsters in other movies. Especially Rene Russo's sharklike news director (we do not see enough of her these days)
There are also a couple of great sequences in the picture, one of which leads directly to the other. The first may be far from the usual "action" piece, but it's tremendously suspenseful, especially as it immediately forms the spine of a mocking, satirical scene soon after. That's pretty near the exact right tone for the movie - exciting, but also fairly relentless in mocking how exciting an audience might find what goes on.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Happy New Year
Do other American moviegoers do the thing where you see someone you like in a foreign movie and immediately start wondering how good his or her English is, and if he or she will be coming to Hollywood soon? It's selfish and petty and I've been doing it with Deepika Padukone for the last couple years. That said, I'm also kind of enjoying being the only person I know who knows about her, and I kind of fear that Finding Fanny might indicate that some of her charisma might be lost doing something outside of her native language(s).
That said: She's awesome.
I was kind of surprised that they had a full 15-minute preview block ahead of Happy New Year, what with it being three hours long and all. As usual, the Indian movie previews are weird - big declarations of the producers but not really acknowledging the stars at all. Full animation on the studio and production company logos, compared to US previews which generally get a couple seconds as a still during previews. And, hey, wasn't Dr. Cabbie supposed to come out a month ago? Did it only come out in Canada but not have its US/India release yet? Are they waiting for Adrienne Palicki to get a higher profile with John Wick and Agents of SHIELD? And, man, what was that absolutely bizarre preview for something in the Tamil language? It's the strangest thing I've seen on a movie screen in months and I hope like heck there are English subtitles, because I have no idea what's going on with it.
Happy New Year
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 October 2014 in Regal Fenway #4 (first-run, DCP)
If you've read my reviews of Bollywood movies over the past couple of years, you'll find a couple of patterns: Just because I enjoy them as a change of pace from the usual Hollywood fare doesn't necessarily mean that I don't get extremely frustrated with their shortcomings, and I really like Deepika Padukone. Happy New Year does not exactly deviate from that - she's the best part of a heist movie that gets fairly seriously lost over the course of its three hours.
The mastermind is Chandramohan "Charlie" Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan), who has his eyes on a Christmas Eve caper in Dubai that will get him revenge on Charan Grover (Jacki Shroff), the man who framed Charlie's father Manohar for theft and built a lucrative security business on Sharma Senior's inventions. He puts together a team of well-motivated accomplices: Temhton "Tammy" Irani (Boman Irani), a safecracker with a tendency for fits; Jagmohan "Jag" Prakash (Sonu Sood), a demolitions expert deaf in one ear; Rohan Singh (Vivaan Shah), Jag's hacker nephew; and Nandu Bhide (Abishek Bachchan), a dead ringer for Charan's son Vikky. There's just one catch: The plan involves posing as Team India in the World Dance Championships, and Rohan's hacking the audience vote will only get them so far. Thus, they bring in Mohini Joshi (Deepika Padukone), a bar dancer, to lead their "troupe" without knowing what's really going on.
There are some fairly improbable bits in Charlie's plan, but that's not really the half of the movie that makes Happy New Year feel kind of off. The dance competition portion of the movie is relatively slow to develop in the first half, enough so that the audience can't quite invest in it as "real", but it winds up enough in the foreground that the guys' lack of ability makes for some eye-rolling. Writer/director Farah Khan gets a couple of good laughs out of "Team Diamond" cheating their way into the world championships, but once you do that, it's more than a bit disingenuous to try and stir patriotic feelings in the audience by having them root for Team India, no matter how catching "Indiawaale" may be as a song.
Full review at EFC.
That said: She's awesome.
I was kind of surprised that they had a full 15-minute preview block ahead of Happy New Year, what with it being three hours long and all. As usual, the Indian movie previews are weird - big declarations of the producers but not really acknowledging the stars at all. Full animation on the studio and production company logos, compared to US previews which generally get a couple seconds as a still during previews. And, hey, wasn't Dr. Cabbie supposed to come out a month ago? Did it only come out in Canada but not have its US/India release yet? Are they waiting for Adrienne Palicki to get a higher profile with John Wick and Agents of SHIELD? And, man, what was that absolutely bizarre preview for something in the Tamil language? It's the strangest thing I've seen on a movie screen in months and I hope like heck there are English subtitles, because I have no idea what's going on with it.
Happy New Year
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 25 October 2014 in Regal Fenway #4 (first-run, DCP)
If you've read my reviews of Bollywood movies over the past couple of years, you'll find a couple of patterns: Just because I enjoy them as a change of pace from the usual Hollywood fare doesn't necessarily mean that I don't get extremely frustrated with their shortcomings, and I really like Deepika Padukone. Happy New Year does not exactly deviate from that - she's the best part of a heist movie that gets fairly seriously lost over the course of its three hours.
The mastermind is Chandramohan "Charlie" Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan), who has his eyes on a Christmas Eve caper in Dubai that will get him revenge on Charan Grover (Jacki Shroff), the man who framed Charlie's father Manohar for theft and built a lucrative security business on Sharma Senior's inventions. He puts together a team of well-motivated accomplices: Temhton "Tammy" Irani (Boman Irani), a safecracker with a tendency for fits; Jagmohan "Jag" Prakash (Sonu Sood), a demolitions expert deaf in one ear; Rohan Singh (Vivaan Shah), Jag's hacker nephew; and Nandu Bhide (Abishek Bachchan), a dead ringer for Charan's son Vikky. There's just one catch: The plan involves posing as Team India in the World Dance Championships, and Rohan's hacking the audience vote will only get them so far. Thus, they bring in Mohini Joshi (Deepika Padukone), a bar dancer, to lead their "troupe" without knowing what's really going on.
There are some fairly improbable bits in Charlie's plan, but that's not really the half of the movie that makes Happy New Year feel kind of off. The dance competition portion of the movie is relatively slow to develop in the first half, enough so that the audience can't quite invest in it as "real", but it winds up enough in the foreground that the guys' lack of ability makes for some eye-rolling. Writer/director Farah Khan gets a couple of good laughs out of "Team Diamond" cheating their way into the world championships, but once you do that, it's more than a bit disingenuous to try and stir patriotic feelings in the audience by having them root for Team India, no matter how catching "Indiawaale" may be as a song.
Full review at EFC.
Monday, September 08, 2014
This Week In Tickets: 1 September 2014 - 7 September 2014
Why, yes, that ticket was in my pants when I did the laundry.
Weirdly busy week at work, with a burst of stuff that needs to get done at the end of the day, pushing my exit from work late enough that I couldn't catch what I was planning on. Kind of frustrating, but it's what gets me paid, and I got out early enough to see Cantinflas on Thursday. Interesting timing, the same time of year as Instructions not Included last year. Same kind of accessible bilingual release, and entertaining enough.
Friday night was baseball night, and I'd like to dress it up as a microcosm of the Red Sox season, except that they won, eveni f it did take a disaster inning on the part of Blue Jays reliever Casey Janssen. It is still rather satisfying to witness a walk-off win when everybody else has bailed, though.
After that, I spent much of the weekend sitting on the deck, working on getting Fantasia reviews done while listening either to baseball or the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. For evening shows, I caught Mary Kom on Saturday and Innocence on Sunday, finding both flawed, but still fairly interesting.
Weirdly busy week at work, with a burst of stuff that needs to get done at the end of the day, pushing my exit from work late enough that I couldn't catch what I was planning on. Kind of frustrating, but it's what gets me paid, and I got out early enough to see Cantinflas on Thursday. Interesting timing, the same time of year as Instructions not Included last year. Same kind of accessible bilingual release, and entertaining enough.
Friday night was baseball night, and I'd like to dress it up as a microcosm of the Red Sox season, except that they won, eveni f it did take a disaster inning on the part of Blue Jays reliever Casey Janssen. It is still rather satisfying to witness a walk-off win when everybody else has bailed, though.
After that, I spent much of the weekend sitting on the deck, working on getting Fantasia reviews done while listening either to baseball or the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack. For evening shows, I caught Mary Kom on Saturday and Innocence on Sunday, finding both flawed, but still fairly interesting.
Monday, September 01, 2014
Raja Natwarlal
If you asked me what the biggest eventual side effect of having MoviePass would be when I first signed up, "seeing a couple Bollywood movies a month" probably would not have been on my top ten list. I don't think Fenway was even getting them occasionally then, though, and they were tough to find on Fresh Pond's schedule under previous ownership. Still, as much as I try to see all kinds of movies, I never saw this becoming a habit.
Of course, not only going when it's something that would be more in my wheelhouse - sci-fi/superhero/martial arts type things - means I'm seeing a few more conventional (by masala standards) movies. This one, for example, has a lot of The Sting in its DNA, and although it's not as though The Sting is unique, this version doesn't seem to have the Indian equivalent of Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the starring roles or George Roy Hill's precise execution. It's a reminder that quite often, the thing you think is cooler than the standard Hollywood that you're used to - whether it be Bollywood, independent film, foreign film, etc. - is often the result of how you (or the folks curating/booking such things) select what you see.
Raja Natwarlal
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 August 2014 in Regal Fenway #6 (first-run, DCP)
If you're inclined to see Indian movies as "a Bollywood take on X", then Raja Natwarlal is starting in a pretty good place, because "a Bollywood take on The Sting" sounds like a lot of fun. Of course, The Sting doesn't exactly have a monopoly on this basic storyline, and this is still a serviceable enough take.
Raja (Emraan Hashmi) and Raghav (Deepak Tijori) are small time con artists, though Raghav is a family man and fairly responsible with the money he "earns". Raja, though, runs through it quickly at the dance hall where his girlfriend Zia (Humaima Malik) performs, and that's why when he hears about a big score, he convinces Raghav to join him. It turns out that you don't steal that kind of money from just anyone, and when Raghav is killed, Raja flees Mumbai to seek out "Victor Singh Khan" (Paresh Rawal) - real name Yogi - in Dharamshala to help him plan a con that will get him revenge on the man responsible: Varda Yadav (Kay Kay Menon), a cricket-obsessed expatriate in South Africa who built his fortune on swindling the poor.
Con-game movies are tricky beasts - they require heroes who are diabolically clever liars but not, from a certain point of view, bad people, and villains monstrous enough that the audience wants to see them get taken for a ride, but not so capable that they can't be conned (although not so blind that it's hard to see why they deserve to be targets). And, of course, it's traditional to try and con the audience as well, so anybody watching these movies now pays close attention to just what is not being show, and for whom the characters might be putting on a show. Raja Natwarlal does all right by this; when the inevitable flashbacks-with-blanks-filled-in happen at the end, it seems fairly reasonable and fairly satisfying, story-wise.
Full review at EFC
Of course, not only going when it's something that would be more in my wheelhouse - sci-fi/superhero/martial arts type things - means I'm seeing a few more conventional (by masala standards) movies. This one, for example, has a lot of The Sting in its DNA, and although it's not as though The Sting is unique, this version doesn't seem to have the Indian equivalent of Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the starring roles or George Roy Hill's precise execution. It's a reminder that quite often, the thing you think is cooler than the standard Hollywood that you're used to - whether it be Bollywood, independent film, foreign film, etc. - is often the result of how you (or the folks curating/booking such things) select what you see.
Raja Natwarlal
* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 August 2014 in Regal Fenway #6 (first-run, DCP)
If you're inclined to see Indian movies as "a Bollywood take on X", then Raja Natwarlal is starting in a pretty good place, because "a Bollywood take on The Sting" sounds like a lot of fun. Of course, The Sting doesn't exactly have a monopoly on this basic storyline, and this is still a serviceable enough take.
Raja (Emraan Hashmi) and Raghav (Deepak Tijori) are small time con artists, though Raghav is a family man and fairly responsible with the money he "earns". Raja, though, runs through it quickly at the dance hall where his girlfriend Zia (Humaima Malik) performs, and that's why when he hears about a big score, he convinces Raghav to join him. It turns out that you don't steal that kind of money from just anyone, and when Raghav is killed, Raja flees Mumbai to seek out "Victor Singh Khan" (Paresh Rawal) - real name Yogi - in Dharamshala to help him plan a con that will get him revenge on the man responsible: Varda Yadav (Kay Kay Menon), a cricket-obsessed expatriate in South Africa who built his fortune on swindling the poor.
Con-game movies are tricky beasts - they require heroes who are diabolically clever liars but not, from a certain point of view, bad people, and villains monstrous enough that the audience wants to see them get taken for a ride, but not so capable that they can't be conned (although not so blind that it's hard to see why they deserve to be targets). And, of course, it's traditional to try and con the audience as well, so anybody watching these movies now pays close attention to just what is not being show, and for whom the characters might be putting on a show. Raja Natwarlal does all right by this; when the inevitable flashbacks-with-blanks-filled-in happen at the end, it seems fairly reasonable and fairly satisfying, story-wise.
Full review at EFC
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