Gosford Park (2001)

Director: Robert Altman
Writers:   Bob Balaban, Robert Altman, Julian Fellowes
Cast:       Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren

The lives of upstairs guests and downstairs servants at a party in 1932 in a country house in England as they investigate a murder involving one of them.

Apart from its period settings, I didn't know much about the film going into it. The murder happens only halfway through the film and this lack of knowledge about its plot made what came before even more enjoyable. It really looked as if a social studies kind of film with a 'Festen' twist to it. The behavioral examination of  decaying British aristocracy and the parallel world of their servants which also mimics the social hierarchy of their masters' were fascinating to look at  and the wise words of the Russian Duchess from the recently watched Peaky Blinders series three came in handy. Even though it takes a whodunit turn midway through the film, it doesn't toe the traditional lines as the investigating officer played by Stephen Fry is a bumbling idiot. We also don't care much about the whodunit aspect as we are interested much more in the way the characters behave rather than treating it as a puzzle that we should solve.

It is a great watch and all the films that I have seen of Robert Altman's have been great. Nashville is next on my list. The TV series 'Downtown Abbey' was initially  conceived as a spin-off show from this film and but later it ended up as a stand-alone one. Gosford Park has got a great ensemble cast and it must have been a big break for Clive Owen.

PS: British period drama are really a mystery to me. You just don't feel like watching them but if you can get past the first 15 minutes or so, it more often than not impresses you. Am not talking about shit like King's Speech but more in the vein of Atonement, Jane Eyre etc...

Rating: 4.5/5

Ghost World (2001)

Director: Terry Zwigoff
Writers:  Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwigoff
Cast:       Tora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi

With only the plan of moving together after high-school, two unusually devious friends seek direction in life. As a mere gag, they respond to a man's newspaper ad for a date, only to find that it will greatly complicate their lives and their relationship.

The film opens on an unexpected note with the opening credits featuring an yesteryear Bollywood disco song. The film is basically about friendship if you look from the perspective of the relationship between the two girls in it. Most of what we call as friends are merely acquaintances who become part of our lives for a brief while as we move across various stages of life. As we move from one stage to next, we lose them from our life in a conscious manner or just by not bothering to keep in touch. Finishing school and the time after that is the first time that we do this process and since it is first time, it happens over a longer period of time. By the time we finish graduation, it happens a lot quicker and after post-graduation it will be quite swift. Whoever that stay out of the cull list remain as friends for life, probably. It is a phenomenon that doesn't get looked at enough in films and Ghost World does essentially that even though it is not limited to that. Film is told mainly from the perspective of Thora Birch's character centering on her relationship with her best friend from school and the older Steve Buscemi character. Birch being the weirder one out of the two and Johansson is the more normal one who will go on to have a normal sort of life. That transition happens over the course of the film.

Overall, it is a very good watch and is like 'Napoleon Dynamite' with girl characters. Which reminds me that I should watch that film again (Vote for Pedro!!!). Thora Birch already had her big break with 'American Beauty' while this one came before Scarlett Johansson's breakout role in 'Lost in Translation'. Steve Buscemi is someone who is famous for playing type cast kind of roles and it was good to see him playing a character which was very much against his type. I haven't seen any other film of Terry Zwigoff's who hasn't really made too many films.  

Rating: 3.5/5    

Band of Brothers (2001)

Based on: 'Band of Brothers' by Stephen E. Ambrose
Cast:         Damian Lewis, Ron Livingston, Matthew Settle, Scott Grimes, Donnie Wahlberg

The story of Easy Company of the US Army 101st Airborne division and their mission in WW2 Europe from operation Overlord through V-J Day. It consist of ten episodes and was an HBO DreamWorks production . Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg served as executive producers with the former directing one episode as well. With a budget of $125 million, it was the highest budgeted TV show at that point of time.

I had obtained 1080p print of Band of Brothers some time back (joys of ultra-fast XIMB broadband) but had postponed watching it primarily due to the involvement of Steven Spielberg. I am not really a fan of his and the fact that Saving Private Ryan played some part in the production of this series didn't really fill me with a great deal of confidence despite the great reviews that it got. My skepticism could be justified because SPR also got similar reviews when in fact it was a thoroughly average film after the first thirty or so minutes. It turns out that Spielberg was involved late in the production only, to serve as a final eye on the project, and it was largely developed by Tom Hanks and Erik Jendersen. My fears about it were thoroughly misplaced and Band of Brothers was a fucking great watch like everyone said it would be.

The entire story is based on the war efforts of Easy Company and therefore what we are getting is as much of an authentic account that we could possibly get in this format of what it was like for them. By the same token we don't get a strategic account of what really happened during the war and so it is more of a micro look as opposed to a macro one. The main advantage that BoB had over the SPR is the length with which it can work and they were not really under pressure to establish the main characters in the story immediately. In fact I actually started recognizing most of the characters by around fifth episode only. The first episode have them getting trained in USA first and then in England in preparation for D-Day while the second episode depicts their actions on D-Day. I found the third and fourth episodes to be like the low points of the series as they served more as disjointed accounts of some operations that they did. The fact that we don't have any protagonists as such made those episodes quite uninteresting for me but for people who like seeing army maneuvers and such it should still be enjoyable. After that, each of the episodes are told from the perspective of a particular protagonist and it gets better and better. The best two episodes of the entire series are the sixth one (Bastogne) and the seventh (The Breaking Point), both of which are set in Belgium during the brutal winter. By the end of seventh episode we are involved so much into the series that we don't mind the low key nature of the later episodes as the series stay true to what really happened with the war winding down. That said the ninth episode had a brutal depiction of them discovering a concentration camp for the first time. I got to say even though it was quite harrowing, I was affected much more when I saw the concentration camp episode from the documentary series 'World At War', which is also a must watch. 

Like many I guess, the favorite character from the show is the bad-ass Captain Ronald Speirs and the favorite scene would be his mad run in 'The Breaking Point'. I think my opinion of third and fourth episodes will change if I re-watch them because the fact that I know the characters now might alter my perception of it. The series was filmed largely in England and the snow filled Belgium episodes were done inside a hangar. The production quality of it is something else and at around 12 million per episode you can see how it managed to beat films of this genre. If you are hell-bent on finding faults with it, you can maybe criticize for the binary portrayal of most of its protagonists. It is understandable since most of these details are gleaned from the real life characters involved. Each episodes contain several brief interviews with real-life counterparts but their identities are only revealed at the end of tenth episode. Overall it is must watch and I would say the best TV series that I have seen in terms of the overall production quality. As far as favorites in TV drama series go, I think it will be third after 'The Wire' and 'True Detective'.

Rating: 4.5/5