The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman

Story of two female Manhattan book editors fresh out of college, both finding love and themselves while frequenting the local disco. The first three of Whitman's films are together classed as 'Doomed-Bourgeoisie-in-Love' series and this one concerns a group of Ivy league and Hampshire graduates. Film is set in early 1980s New-York and the two main characters were not really friends during their college days but circumstances have conspired to make them share an apartment with a third girl. Personality wise they are polar opposite with the Kate Beckinsale character being the dominant one. 

Unlike previous Whit Stillman films, where the interactions between the main characters were a bit endearingly harmless mischievous kind, in this one it is much more cutthroat and cruel. That kind of took me aback initially but it is kind of realistic if you go by the stereotypical way female acquaintances are supposed to interact. Humor in it is much more of the darker kind and film as a whole is quite three dimensional compared to his previous efforts. If you think you are gonna get a typical Whit Stillman film, then there is a chance that you might get disappointed by it. But it is still a great film in which Stillman chooses to go a bit more adult. All his first three films are set in 1980s with Metropolitan being the latest one in the chronological sense of its setting. There is references to previous two films with Matt Ross' (Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley) being kind of a cartoonish take on the protagonist from Metropolitan and Taylor Nichols making a cameo reprising  his role from Barcelona. There is also this USS Maine reference from Barcelona as well.

Overall, it is another great one from Stillman with his own identity etched on to it rather than being very Woody Allenesque. Chloe Sevigny as the uptight protagonist reminded me of Greta Gerwig and sure enough, she is in Stillman's next effort 'Damsels in Distress', which came out after a very long gap in 2011. Disco didn't do very well financially but was very well received by critics. That fact that it is in the Criterion collection itself should be enough of an advertisement now.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                         

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Writers:    Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Cast:         Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, John Turturro

'The Dude' Lebowski, get his rug soiled by couple of shakedown guys who mistakes him for a millionaire Lebowski. Seeking restitution for his ruined rug, which really tied the room together, Dude enlists his bowling buddies to help get it. Things escalates quickly as he is hired by the millionaire to execute a ransom pay-off involving the kidnapping of his trophy wife. Well this is a very complicated case guys, you know, a lotta ins, a lotta outs, a lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, a lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head.

Its been a while since I last watched it, at the least three years based on my previous post on the film, and I guess this is my fourth or fifth watch of this Coens masterpiece. I really didn't sense the time gap since most of the famous lines in it are referenced so frequently in places I visit on internet. If one asks you to name a favorite film that you can watch any number of times, most probably you will pick a comedy film. So for me those are Pulp Fiction and Big Lebowski and some other Malayalam comedy classics (Nadodikattu, Ramji Rao Speaking, In Harihar Nagar, Sandesham). Based on interviews that I have seen of actors talking about their work with Coens, they go into a film with a concrete script which doesn't undergo much/any change during filming. And Big Lebowski's script is one which is so brilliant that a plain reading of it will be hilarious in itself. This is true for all comedy classics like Seinfeld, This is Spinal Tap etc. The Dude says 'man' 147 times in the film and all of it were scripted. He is also in every scene of the movie, a film-noir convention, and you can really describe it as a film-noir genre bender. 

It is interesting to compare Big Lebwoski with the recent Paul Thomas Anderson film, Inherent Vice. Both of them are stoner films with complicated neo-noir plots. While in the former you can very well understand what happened even though that is not essentially the point of the film. In Inherent Vice, PT Anderson takes it to the extremes by making the plot impossible to follow and some have been put off by that. I consider it more as a failure in understanding what the film is about and Anderson himself might be partly to blame for making a really misleading trailer for it. Anyway, his films are meant to be watched multiple times to fully get them and since I was aware about the point I noted above going into it, I could really enjoy it the first time itself. A word of advise for those who are planning to watch it, the mood should be as if you're watching Big Lebwoski even though the humor is of a very different kind. It also aims to take you more into the mind of a stoner than Big Lebowski which is more about us making us want to lead Dude's lifestyle, without any care in the world.

Dude and Walter Sobchak are certainly among my all time favorite characters but the film is littered with other brilliant but brief characters. I really feel sorry for Donnie, a very against the type role for Buscemi, who is much abused by Walter and ends up dead after having an heart-attack. To make matter worse, he also ends up getting his ashes blown in the wrong direction after a very heart-felt but hilarious eulogy. This time round I spotted that it was David Thewlis who is playing Knox Harrington, the video artist at Maude's. One can talk endless about Dude, the other characters, lines, the Big Lebowski festival, Dudeism etc, but fuck it dude, lets go bowling...

Rating: 5/5

                                                                       

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Director: Terence Malick
Writers:  James Jones (Novel), Terence Malick
Cast:       Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas

Terence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during second world war. It was Terence Malick returning to film-making after a 20-year absence. It looks like some of the stars from Hollywood lined up to get involved in it somehow and you get the likes of John Travolta and George Clooney in the film albeit for just one scene each. 

In most of the war films we have certain characters through whom we see the whole story and it is true for almost all films even. So you get characters doing brave things in a hellish environment and this will be the treatment even when the film is anti-war in nature. TTRL do away with this by having almost all the characters being peripheral to what the war is doing to the place and people involved, at least for the first two-thirds of the film. They are just meat/dirt and the film manages to convey the senselessness of the whole thing. The whole thing is set against scenic locales and typically contemplative  Malickian 'Leaf' scenes (the Michael Haneke parody account on twitter which makes fun of Malick's tropes is hilarious). This first two thirds of the film is its best part ending with the storming of Japanese hold which will get you emotional because of their condition. They could have really done away with the rest of the film where it kind of falls back into traditional narrative with the characters played by Jim Caviezel and Sean Penn given a bit more screen-time with the former doing a brave suicidal thing giving the film a natural end point. It would have worked very well if they had ended the film with their Captain being shifted out by the politicking Colonel, played excellently by Nick Nolte. Maybe it was a case of Malick staying true to the source material.

As far as war films go, this is certainly one of the best. I had seen it for the first time some four years back and on second viewing my impression of it have come down a bit. The length of it could have been significantly reduced by doing away with the last one third of it and some of the contemplative shit doesn't work very well for this film like it did in 'Tree of Life'. Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' also came out in 1998 and Malick's film is vastly superior to it. It is like comparing 'Breaking Bad' to 'The Wire' and if you know your onions, you will know which corresponds to which. 

Overall it is great film and as far as anti-war film goes it is a unique one in the sense that it doesn't go for comedy (Full Metal Jacket) and doesn't have a central character/s focus (Paths of Glory, Platoon). Based on what I have seen Terence Malick's first two films, Badlands & Days of Heaven, are his best. I have only seen 'Tree of Life' from his post 2000 works and based on the reaction to his latest ones it does seem it was best when he stuck to quality over quantity.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                          

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer:    Robert Rodat
Cast:       Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon

Following the Normandy landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

I had seen the beginning of this film some years back. The headache inducing portrayal of Normandy landings in it is known for its realism and was shot with a budget of $12 million. Problem with the film is that after those initial 27 minutes, it just peters out. With Spielberg at helm, you expect only a feel good story despite it being set in a terrible situation. He did the same with Schindler's List but it being based on a true story kind of bails him out. 'Shaving Ryan's Privates' is a rather fictional story  inspired by a situation in WW2 where a family's eight siblings died in the war. 

I didn't expect to like this film since am not a fan of Spielberg and his shitty manipulative films which are high on production value but low on subtlety. After the half an hour bloodbath at the beginning of the film, Tom Hanks playing Tom Hanks gets orders to rescue Mr. Ryan because of the situation of his brothers being already dead. With some men under him they go to find Ryan based on hunches with some in the group questioning the logic behind the whole exercise. Along the way you get manipulative situations for the director to exhibit his 'Skills' involving a soldier who wants to rescue a child, another one who is protecting a POW, a sort of mutiny etc, all of which you have to watch cringing the whole way through only to finally find Ryan (Matt Damon) who doesn't want to go home before completing his mission of destroying a strategically located bridge. Bingo, we got a final set-piece of lengthy action sequence to give us some symmetry to the whole thing. 

Terence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line' also came out in 1998 and is the exact opposite of Saving Private Ryan. The latter dumbed down version of a war film was the box office hit predictably with the former standing the test of time. Nowadays most people recognize that Saving Private Ryan hoodwinked people into believing that it was good film based on the 'Call of Duty' opening. Still many people go on about how 'Shakespeare In Love' won the Best Picture Oscar over Saving Private Ryan but they should be complaining that Malick's effort didn't win. It is like people complaining about Forrest Gump winning over Shawshank Redemption when in reality Pulp Fiction was the best of the nominated lot.

Rating: 2.5/5

                                                                       

Satya (1998)

Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Writers:  Anurag Kashyap, Saurabh Shukla, Ram Gopal Varma
Cast:       J.D. Chakravarthi, Manoj Bajpayee, Paresh Rawal, Urmila Mantodkar, Saurabh Shukla
Language: Hindi

Film follows the activities of Satya (Chakravarti), a man whose background is not entirely given, who comes to Bombay in search of a job and circumstances lead him on to become the right-hand man of a middle level gangster called Bhiku (Manoj Bajpayee). Bhiku is the hot-tempered one and following Satya's advises he moves up the food-chain that is Mumbai underworld. This brings them under the scanner of Police as well as their new rivals in the mafia world. In between all this he falls in love with his neighbor (Urmila) whilst keeping the nature of his profession a secret from her.

I am a big fan of RGV's 'Company' and many have told me that his previous underworld film 'Satya' is a superior and grittier film. With Anurag Kashyap involved with its screenplay, making his film debut, it promised much. Got to say that overall it is a good film but 'Company' is far better, at least based on my memory of watching it some ten years back. Satya portrays a far more lower level of underworld in Bombay and in that sense it is grittier. The cinematography was done by a foreigner called Gerard Hooper who seems to have not done much work besides this. The way Bombay is captured is in a magnificently bleak and realistic manner and Danny Boyle had cited RGV's 'Satya' and 'Company' along with Anurag Kashyap's 'Black Friday' as influences for how he filmed his Oscar winning shite bag 'Slumdog Millionaire'. What is great about Satya is its supporting cast and where it is let down by a huge deal is the acting of its main protagonist, played by J.D. Chakravarthi. That and RGV's propensity to adhere to Bollywood conventions in the form of some unnecessary songs and overbearing & manipulative soundtrack. It is certainly very different compared to the normal Bollywood fare but the fact that it kind of stands in the middle doesn't do it any favors when not put in a historical context. It has been bettered by the likes of Anurag Kashyap himslef leaving Satya looking a bit aged in terms of its storytelling. The last one hour of the film is quite good after the arrival of Paresh Rawal in the role of a tough Police Commissioner. 

My main problem with Chakravarti in this film is with his dilaog delivery. It might be a case of his character being someone from South India, the polished sounding delivery (at least to me) didn't sit well with me. It didn't really reflect the nature of the character and this can be contrasted with how Mohanlal handled the situation in 'Company'. Since he portrayed a South Indian character he used his own voice giving legitimacy to his  very average Hindi fluency and vocabulary in that film. Company's average and cliched story-line is masked a great deal by its overall production quality as well the main cast who were all good, even Ajay Devgan. The moralising tone of Satya's ending was much more jarring when compared to its slow buildup in Company. It was not as if RGV was a small fry in Bollywood since he had already got his big breakthrough with 'Rangeela' and so he could have been a bit bolder.

Overall it is a good watch without being anything more than that. I feel like watching Company again. Got to say that the much maligned figure of Priyadarshan, who is notorious in the Hindi speaking world for his shitty Hindi remakes of Malayalam films, had made superior Bombay underworld films involving Mohanlal much before the likes of RGV began to ply their trade in Hindi film industry. He might not have conveyed the same authenticity but he made up for it with superior storytelling. 

Rating: 3/5