Watch this space!

 

To say that a Ridley Scott movie is technically superior is like saying a Swiss watch works just fine. The most miserly compliment one can think of, undoubtedly.
In his 35-year-old career, Scott has explored worlds as diverse as an eerie planetoid in Alien, a futuristic and corporate-dominated Los Angeles in Blade Runner, the Japanese underworld in Black Rain, the art of man-eating in Hannibal, the Roman polity in Gladiator, strife-torn Somalia in Black Hawk Down, and the 1960s New York of blood and heroin in American Gangster. He has even a “neo-feminist road movie” (Thelma & Louise) and a film on wine-making (A Good Year) to his credit. It is impossibly hard to think of a peer to this British director.
With Prometheus, his latest offering, Scott is returning to the sci-fi genre after a gap of 30 years. 20th Century Fox, the big studio behind the movie, made this fact the centre of their publicity campaign, playing down rumours that Prometheus was a prequel to Alien, which came out way back in 1979.
In fact, Fox’s multidimensional marketing strategy was so successful that one would not be surprised if Harvard Business School makes it a case study for its students. Juicy tidbits and teaser trailers were ‘leaked’ months before Prometheus’s release. Fox set up ProjectPrometheus.com, containing videos, maps and interactive programs that provided more than a glimpse into the world that the film was set in. Videos of an android and its owner  went viral in the internet. In short, Fox’s marketing successfully established the Promethean world in pop consciousness, even before the film was released.
The good thing about Prometheus, the actual film, is that it manages to live up to the feverish hype. The storytelling is grand and, with composer Marc Streitenfeld’s sonorous soundtrack, even operatic. The film begins with a brief prologue that shows a semi-human sacrificing himself to spread life on earth. Cut to 2089, when scientist couple Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover a star map through the drawings of several unconnected ancient civilisations.
Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), the aged CEO of Weyland Corporation, funds an expedition to follow the map and find the Engineers, the ‘people’ who created mankind. In 2093, Elizabeth and Charlie, along with 14 persons and an android named David 8 (Michael Fassbender) aboard spaceship Prometheus, lands on a distant moon LV-223.
For the next 20 minutes or so what happens is more or less a slick rehash of Alien. The explorers find cylinders with dark, slimy liquid, and one of them gets infected. Horrible things (if you have sat through the visceral dread of Alien, then not-so-horrible) happen, and the team soon discovers that the map was not quite an invitation, but a warning to stay away.
Prometeus’s narration never flags, thanks to Scott and his talented ensemble. Rapace, who played Steig Larson’s girl with the dragon tattoo in Swedish adaptations, is impressive when she tries not to measure up to Sigourney Weaver, who played the iconic Ripley in the Alien trilogy. Idris Elba, as Janek, the captain of Prometheus, is a delight. Charlize Theron is appropriately frosty as Meredith Vickers, the tough mission director. The showstopper, however, is Fassbender as the “99 percent emotionally sensitive” David 8, who emulates Peter O’Toole’s act in Lawrence of Arabia as a way to project himself as more human than humans.
The computer generated imagery, needless to say, is spectacular. The action sequences could rank among the best in the sci-fi genre. The 3D is not assaulting, but it does not improve the visual texture.
With all its technical sleight of hands, slick presentation and quasi metaphysics, the film, however, never quite reaches the contemplative heights of say, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or even Blade Runner, Scott’s most acclaimed work to date. Prometheus is happy to just string along its audience through its spectacular visuals. The questions that propel the narrative—about the origins of humanity and the Engineers who created it—are mostly left unanswered.
The most emphatic hint the movie drops towards its end is this: A sequel is on its way. Now, Alien fanboys can rejoice; others, however, may feel a bit shortchanged. 

Prometheus
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba
3 stars

This review was originally published here

Failed encounter

 

Advance word on Department said director Ram Gopal Varma and his team of cinematographers, armed with Canon EOS 5D cameras, were trying to push the envelope in guerilla filmmaking. On paper, this looked exciting. After all, the man who gave us Satya and Company was trying to do what Paul Greengrass and his Bourne films did to the spy genre. Never mind that his last few films had failed miserably.

But, after watching Department, all one can say is optimism is overrated. Varma delivers, literally, the most nauseating film of his career. The tottering camera offers crazily angles throughout the movie, making mincemeat of a compelling script and good performances.

The film tells the story of Department, a new wing formed by the Mumbai Police to step over the law’s boundaries and kill gangsters. Headed by Inspector Mahadev Bhosle (a restrained Sanjay Dutt), who is ably assisted by fellow officer Shiv Narayan (Rana Daggubatti, face etched in wood), the department takes on the Mumbai underworld. The first to bear the brunt of its offence is Sawatya (an over-the-top Vijay Raaz). As pressure mounts, he struggles to keep his henchmen loyal. But, after several encounter killings, it is revealed that the department has more on its agenda than just finish Sawatya. 

Enter Sarjerao Gaekwad (a brilliant Amitabh Bachchan), a gangster turned minister, who has his own axe to grind. Shiv befriends him, much to Bhosle’s dislike. An ugly power struggle ensues and Bhosle and Shiv are pitched against each other.

Department could have been interesting, had it been filmed by a less indulgent director. It is clear that Varma had fun shooting and editing the disorienting visuals. Though some of the sequences has its merits—like an uncut chase through the narrow gallis of Mumbai—most of the film comes at the cost of the viewers’ patience.

Department

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Rana Daggubatti, Amithabh Bachchan, Vijay Raaz

1 star

This short take was originally published here

Rough side of romance

 

 

Even the most jaded moviegoer would be intrigued by the opening flourish of Yash Raj Films’ Ishaqzaade. A boy and a girl, children of two feuding families in the rustic, fictional badlands of Almore, are shown throwing stones at each other and trading insults. As if embarrassed, the camera hides behind a wall of bogies barrelling down a nearby railway track, offering viewers a broken view of the brawl. This short sequence, along with the stylised, blood-stained visuals of the opening credits, effectively sets the tone of the narrative—that of a bare-knuckle tale of love, far removed from the glossy world of the Yash Raj staple.
The quarrelling boy and girl grow up to be staunch soldiers of their warring clans, the Chauhans and the Qureishis. Parma (a rakish Arjun Kapoor, channelling the vulnerable-bad-boy stereotype) and Zoya (a brilliant Parineeti Chopra) take their intense dislike of each other to a point where they fall madly in love. Zoya’s metamorphosis, from a gun-toting tomboy to a naive and sentimental lover, is quite unbelievable, but, for the most part, the first half of the film is a storytelling triumph.
Director Habib Faisal, however, flatters to deceive. The plot takes an unexpected turn, leaving Zoya heartbroken and vulnerable. But, even as she plots revenge, Almore’s patriarchal society and Ishaqzaade’s convoluted plot force Zoya, the single best thing the movie offers, to become the quintessential desi girl, the docile and dutiful second fiddle to the male lead.
For a movie that promises the skies at its beginning, Ishaqzaade ends on a thoroughly low note. Perhaps, Parineeti’s character deserved a better man than Parma. She certainly deserved a better movie.

Ishaqzaade

Director: Habib Faisal
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra
Two stars


This short review was originally published here

Not a safe bet

 

 

Englishman Jason Statham is the last of the old-school Hollywood action heroes. But, unlike his poker-faced predecessors Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme, he can express emotions. Before Statham built a career out of breaking limbs, he had flexed his facial muscles in films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. His performance in Safe as Luke Wright, a mixed martial arts fighter whose wife is murdered by the Russian mafia after he wins a rigged fight, is evidence that he is improving, albeit slowly. 
Director Boaz Yakin, however, fails to do justice to Statham's efforts. The lousy opening sequences of Safe cram several story threads. Clumsily edited flashbacks introduce Mei (Catherine Chan, playing a stereotype), a child genius with photographic memory who has escaped her captors. Her mind holds a code so valuable that the Triad, Russian mobsters and corrupt policemen in New York are hot on her heels. At a subway station, Mei meets Wright, who promises to protect her. Bad decision, it turns out, as it draws him back to New York's criminal underbelly and his wife’s killers. Safe, from there, turns too formulaic to be interesting.
The film does offer sublimely violent thrills, the pick of the lot being a brutal, hand-to-hand subway fight. Yakin, however, tests patience when he plumbs the emotions of his characters. Though Statham is remarkable in a close-up shot of his grieving for his dead wife, some of his efforts to widen his range of expressions are painful to watch.
Safe is a letdown for Statham fans of Transporter vintage. He still wears his suits with aplomb, though. 

Safe
Cast: Jason Statham, Catherine Chan
Director: Boaz Yakin
Two stars

This piece was originally published here

Hulk all the way

About half way into The Avengers, during a messy action set piece, the boringly earnest Captain America (Chris Evans) tells the delightfully egotistical Iron Man (Rober Downey, Jr), “We need a plan of attack!” The Iron Man replies: “I have a plan: Attack!” Suffice it to say that good sense is not one of this movie's many strengths.
The action gets rolling when Nick Fury (a dour Samuel L. Jackson), director of the espionage agency SHIELD, arrives at a secret research facility, where the Tesseract, an energy source of supposedly huge potential, has opened a portal through space. Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the exiled Norse god last seen in Thor, descends through the portal, kills a few men, takes the Tesseract and wreaks havoc on earth. To stop him, Fury assembles the Avenger Initiative with Iron Man, Captain America, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).
Director Joss Whedon, of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer fame, expertly divides screen time between the Avengers. The action sequences, though not brilliant as the recent Mission: Impossible movie, are a comic-book fan's wet dream. The standouts, however, are the scenes involving the Hulk. Whedon and Ruffalo turn the green behemoth, who was portrayed in earlier films as more of a rampaging monomaniac than a superhero, into a person with panda-ish charm. 

The Avengers

Cast: Robert Downey, Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson
Director: Joss Whedon
4 stars

This piece was originally published here

Thou shall download

If you thought Wikipedia's 24-hour blackout was a brilliant tactic against the supposedly draconian Stop Online Piracy Act, chances are you have not heard of Isak Gerson, a 20-year-old philosophy student at Uppsala University in Sweden.
Gerson is the founder and 'spiritual leader' of the Missionary Church of Kopimism, which preaches filesharing, even if it is unauthorised and illegal. Kopimism, derived from the words 'copy me', says the act of copying is sacred, and that even if it infringes copyright laws, it would not amount to stealing. Kopimism would have remained obscure, had Gerson not filed for recognition as a religion. After turning down the request thrice, Sweden, one of the most wired countries in the world, recently gave it religion status.
For the film and music industry, the move has come as a shock. Kopimism, like other recognised religions, can now seek protection from persecution. It means any action from the part of copyright holders to defend their property can now be viewed as an infringement on the Kopimists' right to practise their religion. With thousands of netizens joining every week, and The Pirate Bay, the world's most popular filesharing site, now operating under the auspices of the church, Kopimism might just become the world's fastest growing religion.

www.the-week.com

Greek tragedy

If Sophocles were to hear how the financial crisis in Greece is breaking families, the ancient tragedian would be inspired to pen a greater opus than Oedipus the King.
With their health and social services in tatters, the debt-stricken Greeks are struggling to provide for their characteristic large families. In Athens, some parents have abandoned their children in orphanages, church charities and even kindergartens. That the crisis had become really serious became evident when it was reported that Dimitris Gasparinatos, a father of ten, had put in an official request for his four children to be taken into foster care. According to him, it was the only way to save them.
Last month, a kindergarten teacher received a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. It read: “I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother.” Father Antonios, an Orthodox priest who runs a shelter for the destitute, found four children, including a baby just days old, abandoned on his doorstep. “These families,” he said, “will be judged for their action.”
However, Antonios's is an opinion that an increasing number of Athenians are at odds with. Said Sofia Kouhi of The Smile of a Child, a charity: “It is very sad... but [the parents] know it is for the best, at least for this period.”