NEWTON

Dragged hubby dear to watch 'Newton' the day before. I usually don't go to movies without knowing the premise of the movie, but in this case I decided to surprise myself!

And did the gamble pay off! I was wondering how they are going to put a spin on the name 'Newton', and it's delightful! Perfect cast. Rajkumar Rao can easily be crowned the king of mininalist expression. Almost deadpan, but in a good way. The other actors Pankaj Tripathi and Anjali Patil are to look out for.

Amit Masurkar must be lauded for getting such controlled performances from the entire cast, especially from Raghubir Yadav whose character had ample scope to go overboard.

It's a very simple story with no frills, a very serious issue manifested in a very light hearted manner. Charming background music!

Of course, like every interesting thing, it has it's little flaws. The story pace lags a little in the middle. And I wish they had handled the valid dilemma of the army a bit more cleverly. And yes, the Achilles heel ... an open-ended end. Doesn't work for me. After giving a movie these many minutes of my life, I like me a good closure! :-) :-)

But then like I said, something that's perfect is boring! And this movie...definitely not boring! Go watch it to promote low-on-budget and high-on-intelligence movies! Newton, I'm rooting for you in the Oscars buddy!

THE MARTIAN

Saw 'The Martian' on Saturday. My reaching-late-for-movies stars continue to shine bright! Must be my karma! I reached at 8.15 pm, well in time for the 8.35 show as per BookMyShow, only to find that it was an 8.05 show. So the distraught me ended up entering the screen 15 minutes late, bugged a couple of neighbouring seat fellas to un’earth’ (get the pun?) the-story-so-far and settled into the movie. It wasn't that difficult to guess what was going on anyways…. I should have spared the poor neighbouring fellas the agony!

It's a through and through feel good movie, but a tad bit too uncomplex. Man gets left behind on Mars, man does not panic at all, man figures out successfully how to fend for himself, man does everything absolutely correctly in the first attempt, man suffers only one mishap in the entire span of whatever number of sols, man does not experience even one storm which was the reason for his being left there in the first place, man succeeds in rejoining his team!

Bit too one-dimensional, not enough layers in the storyline. Since I have not read the book I am not qualified to comment whether that is the inherent character of the storyline of the book or whether the movie is an oversimplified version of the book.

In any case, makes me wonder why Matt Damon was zeroed in as the cast. I personally find his personality very lack luster. What is it with these casting directors and the casting of these space movies in the recent year? First it was Mathew McConaughey and Anna Hathway (seriously??) in Interstellar, now it's Matt Damon. Looks like no one good wants to do these space movies (I can hear the Matt Damon fans already sharpening their claws, ready to come at me). :)

But, once in a while it does feel good to watch a movie that you can sense is going to end positively. Your brain is not in a tizzy trying to follow the contorting storyline and gear up for the shocks to come. Rather it is tranquil enough so you can for once patiently field your 6 year old who keeps on harping that since the popcorn is over she wants to go home.

Finally the West seems to have woken up to the astronomical number (get the pun again??) of Indians in NASA, enough to cast a ‘Vincent Kapoor’ as one of the NASA bigwigs. It does seem fair that Indian names are finally beginning to appear in their storylines.

The ‘moment of the movie’ for me was when the crowds in all countries are waiting with a bated breath for the Mars Expedition crew to rescue the stranded astronaut. At that moment it felt like a tiny drop of the sea of humanity of the Earth has been left behind on Mars, and this sea is waiting for its drop to rejoin it. That moment swept away all my skepticism and I flowed with that feeling of triumph of humanity!

In spite of my skepticism, The Martian is definitely a must watch! The sheer scale of the setup, the detailing, the very notion of human reaching the Mars, are all not to miss! But those in Nagpur have missed the bus already as the movie has left theaters. You might still catch the ‘Ay Bhidu’ version of it though, if you can stomach it!    

NK aka PK

Once upon a time there was a good boy named Raju who used to make clean yet brilliant movies. One day he met a boy named Sajid who used to make, ahmm, not-so-clean movies. They were holding hands and chatting, and Sajid was trying hard to convince Raju, to no avail, that going not-so-clean was the way to go. An alien spaceship happened to pass overhead at that very instant and emitted some bizarre rays. Lo and behold, through his hands Sajid’s language of moviemaking was miraculously downloaded into Raju’s mind! Thus was born PK.  

PK is a movie made by Raju Hirani in a sensibility foreign to him, the result being pretty one-dimensional. It is impossible to fathom Hirani’s insecurity about his own style of moviemaking as a result of which he felt the need to tread into this kind of Sajid-flavoured shallow sensationalist moviemaking.  The movie had the potential to evolve into a brilliant piece of work like his previous movies, but for Raju Hirani’s death wish to make a movie that simply had to have in every frame at least 50% skin show, if not 100% less a transistor.

The story has an obvious dearth of original and credible ideas. And the ones that are there by happenstance have more holes than body. So we have an alien who is exactly same in form and structure as humans, except for the wardrobe malfunction factor, and also conveniently happens to sport a 6 pack (or is it an 8 pack)?  The opening of the story seems to be too conveniently placed in Bruges only to justify Anushka’s so-obviously-trying-to-ape-hollywood-sensibility-short clothes.  And the dancing cars? This attempt at harnessing the contemporary ‘titan fastrackesque’ lingo simply makes you squirm in your seats.  

To add to this mayhem, Hirani needlessly steps into the quagmire of religion, unnecessarily attacking one and defending another. The basic premise of an alien landing on earth and wondering in complete childlike innocence about the strange customs on this ‘gola’ was completely adorable by itself. Hirani should have stuck to this notion without diluting it with inane religious and otherwise subplots.

He absolutely misses the bus that would have taken him to his conceptual destination and instead boards a bus that traverses through many stops but finally goes nowhere. Quite much like the dish Navratan Korma which I do not fancy at all, a mash-up of as many vegetables as you can lay your hands on, neither of which is recognizable or memorable!

  

THE SHIP OF THESEUS

The Ship of Theseus. What can i say? Pitch perfect cast. They live, eat, breath, drink, sleep their respective characters. The characters are sketched out in great detail. Not is there a single jarring note in the way the characters respond to the situations in the narrative. Extremely evocative background score. The cinematography style is kept deliberately raw and it really enhances the flavor of the movie. At many places the narrative is open ended, as it should be. Such themes are short lived if they are shown to have closure. The movie is a treat for the senses, visually as well as auditory. I could go on and on, but then what will be left for you to see?

RINGA RINGA

Ringa Ringa. The viewer walks into the movie wondering about the context of the title. Is the title a ripoff from the song 'Ring Ring Ringa' from the movie that put Bollywood on the Hollywood map - 'Slumdog Millionaire'? Beginning on the note of political scheming, the movie initially dons the garb of a political thriller. As the movie saunters ahead, it transforms into a story seemingly revolving around Siddharth, the character of the honest cop played by Bharat Jadhav. But before you realise, the movie has slipped into a woman centric narrative, centered around Manasi, the character fleshed out very believably by Sonali Kulkarni.            

In the meanwhile your mind keeps on wandering back to the title. Ringa Ringa. Is it a take on the continuous barrage of innane nursery rhymes dished out by the predicably stereotype eccentric henchman of the corrupt politician Rangrao, played by Ajinkya Deo? The story reaches a point where all the twists and turns in the story seem like one-dimensional efforts to unravel the mystery. You have by now given up on the intellectual merit of the story.           

                                                                                                                                                                   Ringa Ringa. The title comes back to perturb you as you still have not deconstructed the idea behind it. The movie, however, comes into its own towards the end. All your satirical responses till now are put to test, and then rest, as the story waltzes to its end with a fairly 'sixth sense'esqe unraveling of the storyline.  The finale is high on the feel good factor, with the just being vindicated and the unjust being punished.  

                                                                                                                                               

Ringa Ringa. At the dusk of the movie it finally dawns on you that the title could be an allusion to all the phone calls that find themselves important milestones in this circuitous narrative.  

                                                

FINDING MARY

The very first thing to hit me as I was watching Mary Kom was that the utter ridiculousness of the situation.  I was largely unaware of the existence and life of Mary Kom till she came into limelight largely due to the movie. A sportsperson so talented and determined gets no air space nor paper space; while any of our cricketers so much as sneeze, it makes headlines. That was the entire point of the movie I guess, which I am in complete tandem with.

The critic in me did rear her head once or twice during the movie. There are a couple of cloyingly melodramatized moments during her fights that are too conveniently timed. The inexperience of the director is evident sporadically, especially in instances like handling the reactions of the German boxer Sasha and her coach. They both are portrayed as absolutely black with no shades of grey whatsoever, whereas an objective handling of the situation would have been more mature.

Having said that, whether the movie was well made or not, well directed or not, didn’t seem to matter much as the movie gained momentum. The critic in me was punched out, and rightly so, by the two heroines of the movie – Mary Kom and Priyanka Chopra. What shone through was the sheer grit and tenacity of Mary Kom - the protagonist and the person.

I have a new-found respect for Priyanka Chopra after the movie, a feeling that was triggered by her heart warming portrayal of Jhilmil Chatterjee in Barfi. Priyanka is finally finding her acting feet; firmly putting her diva crutches aside as she pulls off the character of Mary Kom with aplomb. There is a sincere attempt on her part to capture the nuances of verbal and body language of Mary Kom and, for once, the ‘deglam look’ of a heroine seems completely justified. And, the freckles are to absolutely die for!

Maybe it is the woman in me that roots for the movie so strongly and makes me wonder if the male audience connects as much with the protagonist. But these musings apart, it is story that is and should be an inspiration for every person, especially all husbands out there! … Wink … Wink

2 STATES

I am dying '2 State s' o much about 2 States!

It is a undoubtedly a predictable love story fraught with clichés not limited to the reticent 'south indians', the loud punjabis, the girl goes to work for 'Sunsilk' while the boy takes up the bank. But we could loosen the noose around the moviemakers' neck as the movie is taken up almost line by line from the book. The movie is by no means an intellectual endeavor. And the creative team makes no such claims either.

Would I still recommend it? Yes! Why? For Arjun Kapoor, who summons a world full of pain in his eyes when he tells Ananya that without her 'Main to barbaad ho jaaonga'. For Alia Bhatt, who has yet to pick up the diva mannerisms from bollywood and actually essays the character in an unpretentious fresh way. For Ronit Roy, who is one of the most written away actors of his generation but who is simply brilliant. For Amrita who so aptly portrays the woman torn between being an unhappy wife yet a dutiful mother. For the cinematography which doesn't overtly scream 'look at me' but is covertly brilliant. And lastly for Manish Malhotra who i think really knows how to bring out the best of Alia's luminous beauty. 

Krish Malhotra tells Ananya that he wants to write a book in which the 'story is the hero'. Today however I feel that in a movie the character is the hero. Thank god Shahrukh or Ranbir or Saif, who were originally considered for the role of Krish, didn't get cast. There was a time long back when we loved our stars for their mannerisms, be it Dev Anand's little nods, Rajesh Khanna's head tilts or Shatrughan's 'khamosh'. In the truest sense, the characters were not the heros there - the actors and their mannerisms were. Arjun Kapoor becomes the character, not letting his mannerisms take over. He can be both edgy (as in Aurangzeb and Ishaqzaade) and soft (as in this movie) with equal ease. I think he's a talent to be reckoned with.

At the end of the movie I thought to myself 'finally.. a normal movie' as against the dysfunctional movies that seem to have caught our fancy of late. Don't get me wrong. I love me my dysfunctional movies - DevD, Honeymoon travels, Barfee and the likes. But once in a while I like to come home from a movie smiling and warm in the heart.