Veep (Season One)

Creator: Armando Ianucci
Cast:      Julia Louis-Drefyus, Anna Chlumsky, Tony Hale, Reid Scott, Matt Walsh, Timothy Simons

Julia Louis-Drefyus stars as Selina Meyer, the Vice President of United states, in this HBO series which kind of depicts what it would be like to have someone like Sarah Palin being just a heart beat away from becoming the most powerful person on Earth. It is not an imitation of Sarah Palin, like 'Game Change' was, but takes inspiration from the possibility of someone with that level of intelligence being in such a position.

The obvious comparison is to be made with Armando Ianucci's BBC series 'The Thick Of It', which is apparently my favorite comedy television series of all time. Veep is also shot in a similar way and concentrates largely on Vice President's office whereas in the BBC one it was the fictional office of  DOSAC. Almost all the main characters like Malcolm Tucker, Ollie, Glenn, The Minister have a counterpart in Veep but their importance to the show is different at least in the first season. Whereas the Spin Doctor Malcolm Tucker was at the center of the show in Thick Of It, it is the Veep in  Veep. This is one reason why show is not as good and the inner competition between her immediate staff is not as intense or as cringy as it was in the British one. Also the quotability is less. It is still a very good show and is miles better than most of what comes out as comedy from American TV.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Director: John Hughes
Writer:    John Hughes
Cast:       Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Paul Gleason, Ally Sheedy

Five high school students, each fitting to the different stereotypes, have to spend a Saturday  in detention. Over the course of the day they discover that they have much more in common than they thought.

It is a great coming off age comedy-drama film from the 80s. Rob Reiner's 'Stand By Me' was about childhood friendships while this one is about five students who would never be seen together unless dictated by the circumstances. Film begins as a pure comedy and gradually develops into  the more serious  matters. That journey is provoked by the character Bender's (Judd Nelson) ramblings in not a subtle way. There is a poignant scene towards the end where the nerdy guy Brian (Anthony Michael Hall) asks them come Monday whether they will still be friends, and it is something I think everyone can relate to having been part of a particular circle of high school friends where strangers are not welcome. The ending is a bit Hollywoodish but it is a great film nevertheless. 

I will end with the final letter that they send to the teacher as part of their detention:

Brian Johnson: Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...

Andrew Clark: ...and an athlete...

Allison Reynolds: ...and a basket case...

Claire Standish: ...a princess...

John Bender: ...and a criminal...

Brian Johnson: Does that answer your question?... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

Rating: 4.5/5

Cet obscur objet du désir (That Obscure Object of Desire) (1977)

Director: Luis Bunuel
Writers:  Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere, Pierre Louys
Cast:      Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina
Language: French/Spanish

The film tells the story of an aging French man Mathieu who falls in love with a young Spanish woman Conchita who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires. It is set in Spain and France against the backdrop of terrorist insurgency. The story is shown as a flashback told by Mathieu  to his fellow passengers during a train ride from Seville to Madrid.

There are two actresses playing the role of Conchita with them switching throughout the film and even during the middle of some scenes. Bunuel suggested this idea playfully to the producer after the filming was halted due to an actress leaving the film.The relation between Mathieu and Conchita is very manipulative and it isn't clear who is manipulating who. One should wonder about the truthfulness with which Mathieu is narrating the story to his fellow passengers because he seems to get a lot of sympathy from them even though from what is shown to us he doesn't warrant it.

This was Luis Bunuel's last film and many directors tend to dabble with films about films and storytelling towards the latter part of their careers. This is one such film.

Rating: 4/5

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers:   Stanley Kubrick, Frederic Raphael, Arthur Schnitzler
Cast:       Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack

A New-York doctor Bill Halford (Tom Cruise) is shocked to hear that his wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) had fantasized about having an affair with a naval officer when they were on holiday. He leaves home after getting a call about the death of a female friend's father and proceed to have a sexually charged adventurous night. First the friend make a pass on him, then he has an encounter with a prostitute which almost leads to sex and finally he infiltrates a massive masked orgy of an unnamed secret society. 

Then real life couple Cruise-Kidman, are playing two people in a relationship that is getting a bit sterile like all relationships do at some point of time. The cocky and naive doctor's role is perfect for Cruise. Their relationship survives the ordeal that they go through over the course of the film but Bill appears to be still naive at the end of it as he insists on promising to stay together forever. It seems that Kubrick is also entering the Haneke territory by poking fun at Bill's bourgeoisie lifestyle with which Alice is obviously bored. This is also emphasized with the pity he shows towards his medical school dropout friend who is a pianist now and his admiration towards the rich socialite friend Ziegler (Pollack). 

Even though all the events depicted in the film appear straight-forward with the exposition that Ziegler gives to Bill in the latter part of the film, one could really question whether all those things  really happened. He has his encounter with the prostitute at 12 midnight after which he goes to meet the pianist. He then proceeds to get the costume for the secret meeting and he is back at home by 4 in the morning. A lot of things are supposed to have happened in just under four hours.

I had seen the film around three years back and have been meaning to revisit it for some time. I really liked it first time round but even so I was taken aback by the visual beauty of the film. Kubrick was inspired by Kieslowski's 'Three Colors Trilogy' and has tried to fit in the colors of rainbow in almost all the frames. Sounds are also amazing and especially the chants during the orgy scene. It was really cool to see that Stanley fucking Kubrick used some malayalam poetry in the orgy scene. The creepy venetian masks captures the foreboding and weirdness of the whole affair. 

Eyes Wide Shut is in the Guinness World Records for longest constant movie shoot at 15 months. Kubrick died five days after presenting the final cut to the studio. 

Rating: 5/5

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Fred Gardner, Sam Shepard, Tonino Guerra, Clare Peploe
Cast:       Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix

The film is set in late 60s' America's counterculture movement and is the second in Antonioni's group of films that were part of his three English films contract with Carlo Ponti. It begins with documentary style footage of a revolutionary student gathering followed by scenes of a student protest in which a cop is killed. The protagonist Mark  is suspected for the shooting and even as he casually strolls round Los Angeles, he ends up stealing a private plane from an airport and makes his way to the desert. In the desert he meets Daria, an anthropology student, who is helping a property developer build a housing project in the desert where you can get away from the crowded city life and enjoy a rugged but comfortable lifestyle. They together gets on her car and drives to the Zabriskie Point, Death Valley. There they fool around talking and ultimately have sex in the sand. They then go back to the plane, repaint it Hippy psychedelic style and Mark decides to take it back to the city. He is shot dead when he lands and Daria gets to her Boss's lavish desert home where he is in discussion about the property development. In her grief she decides to turn back even as she imagines the home to be blown up from various angles. The scene is similar to the earlier sex scene in the sand where various other imaginary people are shown to be having fun in the sand.

The film is an indictment of American way of life and development with no sense of humor. Mark represents the carefree youth of the counterculture movement while Daria is someone who got over it by being pragmatic and at the same time being conflicted about it. The film was a huge commercial and critical failure but is now considered as a cult favorite. I just wish it was a bit more subtle in its treatment. 

Rating: 3.5/5

Room 237 (2012)

Director: Rodney Ascher

A documentary showing several people's interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film 'The Shining'.

The interpretations include the Indian genocide on which the modern America is built, Jewish Genocide by the Nazis and the fake moon landing. The overlook hotel was built on an Indian burial ground and there are plenty of Indian artifacts and clues given in the film film to say for sure that it is a theme tackled by Kubrick in this film. He apparently had a team sent to the original hotel who stayed there for three months and took several photographs and did a  great deal of research on Colorado's history. The Jewish genocide theory is built mainly due to the repeated appearance of number 42 in the film. The film shows the lengths to which these people go to interpret 'The Shining'. One guy is said to have screened the film backwards and forwards to see how the image superimpose over each other and interpret what Stanley is offering. That just is too much and I don't think even Kubrick would have gone that far too give clues. The third moon landing theory is based on the Apollo 11 T-shirt worn by Daney and the popular conspiracy theory that Kubrick shot the fake moon landing footage and he is trying to convey this secret through this film. Also the manager of hotel has a resemblance to JFK. Out of the three theories the last one is the most crackpot one.

It doesn't matter whether the director consciously intended any of these stuff in his film. We as audience are free to interpret it anyways we want especially when the film is coming from a man with an IQ of 200. I liked the part where they show how Stanley Kubrick deviated from Stephen King's source material and have a yellow VW instead of red one and later on the film a red VW is shown wrecked, a big 'Fuck You' from Kubrick to King.

'The Shining' is an interesting film to compare Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch. Kubrick was inspired by Lynch's debut feature 'Eraserhead' while making this film. Also the posters of 'Elephant Man' is shown side by side with that of the Shining in Eyes Wide Shut. David Lynch deals exclusively with what is inside our minds whereas Kubrick shows great interest in dealing with History and Current Affairs at an elevated arty level. I consider them as my favorite two filmmakers but when it comes to surreal I prefer David Lynch's no holds barred approach. Kubrick is just unique, having made masterpieces in almost all the genres.

Rating: 4/5

Banshee (2013– Season One)

Creators: David Schickler, Jonathan Tropper
Cast:       Antony Starr, Ulrich Thomsen, Ivana Milicevic, Hoon Lee, Rus Blackwell, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Lilli Simmons, Frankie Faison

 An ex-con and master thief assumes the identity of a sheriff in a small town Banshee after coming out from prison serving a 15 year sentence.

Banshee is part of the original programming from Time Warner channel Cinemax, which can be seen as an HBO sister channel. It usually targets male audience with action films and soft-core programming. The series Banshee caters to this audience with an interesting story, lots of violence and sex scenes. It is like a well made B-movie. First half of the season is really good with the plot details revealed very gradually and the story line of conflicted bad guy Kai Proctor and the Amish storyline keeping everything interesting. In the latter half of the season, it becomes too cliched and the stunt scenes are too tiresome. I don't think I will be watching the second season as there is just too much of disbelief to be suspended. It would have been interesting if they had done it like a western.

Good to see Burrell from wire in it with the quote from bible: 'This is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.'

Rating: 3/5