Obvious Child (2014)

Director: Gillian Robespierre
Writer:    Gillian Robespierre
Cast:       Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann

A twenty something comedienne's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time. Film can be best described as an 'Abortion Rom-Com' and I don't think I have seen any other films belonging to this genre yet. In films like 'Knocked Up' and 'Juno', the unplanned pregnancy never leads to abortion, and in US the A-Word is a huge debate point even during Presidential elections. So it is good on Gillian Robespierre to tackle the subject in a matter of fact way with the decision itself being not even debated. 

The great thing about the film is that it doesn't act like an 'Issue' based one. The characters look like just ordinary people which is very good for the story and Abortion is dealt as if it is just something that is part of life for many of the independent women in developed world. I don't know whether the A-list stars in Hollywood would sign up for a story like this anyway, which is really sad when you think of all the liberal issues that they are ready to tackle. But not having any very well known stars works very well for this film. Couple in question seems like not made for each other but the film ends with a question of whether they will carry on regardless. The question for her was not whether to have abortion or not but whether to inform the other guy, who was a stranger to her, about it or not.

Overall it is a very good one time watch. Gillian Robespierre had earlier made a short film with the same name and this one marked her directorial debut for a feature length film. It was send to Sundance film festival through Kickstarter which paved the way for its theatrical release.

Rating: 3.5/5

Palo Alto (2013)

Director: Gia Coppola
Writers:  James Franco, Gia Coppola
Cast:       Emma Roberts, Jack Kilmer, James Franco

Palo Alto is famous as the happening place in Silicon Valley but this film has got nothing to do with Tech start-ups. It is about four teenagers whom you may stereotype as class virgin-April (Emma Roberts), class slut-Emily (Zoe Levin), dreamy artist-Teddy (Jack Kilmer) and an impulsive live-wire-Fred (Nat Wolff). April and Teddy have crush on each other which they haven't got a chance to communicate yet and the film doesn't have much of a plot and is a mood-piece, like Sofia Coppola's 'Lost In Translation'. If you liked that film like I did, you might enjoy Palo Alto.

So it is another one from the Coppola clan getting into film business. Gia Coppola is Francis Ford Coppola's grand daughter and the film is adapted from James Franco's collection of short stories called 'Palo Alto'. Emma Roberts is niece of Julia Roberts and Jack Kilmer is son  of Val Kilmer. You may very well prejudge that the film is an exercise in nepotism, but it is a very good watch if you are into films that is more about mood than plot. I will always take this over shit like 'Perks of Being a Wallflower' which got near universal acclaim. There is a coming of age element to all the four characters and it is quite subtle. James Franco plays the sympathetic football coach who has a thing for the girls whom he coaches. I don't know whether his real life Instagram related shenanigans had anything to do with promotion of this film but I suspect not. You cannot say for sure after Joaquin Phoenix's year long weird behavior for making 'that' documentary.

Gia Coppola's aunt, Sofia Coppola, also made her directorial debut with another teenage characters driven film called 'Virgin Suicide' but I found Palo Alto to be much better than that. Sofia had made another such film in 'Bling Ring' last year which I tried to watch but lasted only ten minutes or so. I guess it is similar to Spring Breakers, which also I didn't like because of the cringe inducing characters, but the entire point of those films would be the horribleness of its characters. Some people might say the same about the characters in Palo Alto but I found it to be very good but it might not be up everyone's alley.

Rating: 3.5/5  

Starred Up (2013)

Director: David Mackenzie
Writer:    Jonathan Asser
Cast:       Jack O'Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, Rupert Friend

A troubled and explosively violent teenager (Jack O'Connell) is transferred to an adult prison which also happens to occupy his father (Ben Mendelsohn). They didn't have much of a relationship before their meeting in prison and the father is trying to look out for him, even though he is a stranger to him by most measures. The son can take care of himself and the interference from father doesn't do either of them any good.

The title term 'Starred Up'  is used to describe the early transfer of a criminal from a Young Offender Institution to an adult prison. The protagonist is what he is partly because of the shitty parenting that he had. When he ends up in prison he gets more of the same although by the end of the film he develops a sort of relation with his father. That can be seen as a positive but it is at a cost. It can also be seen as a teenage drama where the parent doesn't know what his child wants. Great thing about the kid character is that it doesn't go into extremes like most films do when it comes to a violent character like this. He is behaving like a very angry teenager. But it is not without reason since he is trying to cope in a new environment where his anger issues is not doing him any favors. He ends up in a group of inmates who are handled by a social worker/researcher. There he finds people who are more extreme than him which basically puts him in his place. The whole 'Nurture' aspect of it displayed by the researcher is contrasted with the 'Nature' way of dealing things by the administration. This is a very cliched aspect in almost all the prison dramas but you cannot fault that because prison is somewhere you cannot ignore 'Nature Vs Nurture' debate.

The performances are excellent and it is good to see Ben Mendelsohn again (Animal Kingdom, Killing Them Softly). It has to be said that there is not much variety in the roles that he is getting but he has been excellent in playing these foul mouthed nearly deranged individuals. The film is based on the screenwriter Jonathan Asser's experience as a therapist in a prison. I haven't seen any other British prison dramas except for Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Bronson' which I didn't like. 

Rating: 4/5   

Peaky Blinders (TV Series) (Series- 1&2 )

Creator: Steven Knight
Cast:      Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson, Sam Neill, Tom Hardy, Annabelle Wallis

A gangster family epic set in 1919 Birmingham, England and centered on a gang who sew razor blades in the peaks of their caps, and their fierce boss Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), who means to move up the world. At the face of it, it is an age old story that has been done to death in numerous mob films but I guess the setting of post World War One England and the stylized way it is shot (brutal with some great soundtrack) makes it quite unique. I haven't seen Boardwalk Empire, save for the first episode, and that would be the one with which it is going to get compared. For me, am quite sick of American mob stories and this British one makes for a very welcome change.

The Peaky Blinders are a bunch of Brummie brothers who are all suffering from PTSD after WW1. We are reminded so many times in the series that they were in fucking France in case you forgot. The times are interesting in Britain with the kingdom declaring war on  many enemies within itself-the communists, the Irish who are looking for independence and normal garden variety gangster kind. The gangster activity they are mainly running is illegal gambling activities along with their protection business. The series one involves them getting foothold in Birmingham and the second one have them entering London. First series was built up with bit more subtlety compared to second. But it was a lot more sure about its identity in the second series as I sat there smiling enjoying the sometimes cartoonish but always stylistic portrayal. The use of contemporary soundtrack like the ones from Arctic Monkeys can be quite risky in a period drama like this, but I enjoyed it. We have seen that recently in 'Django Unchained' and 'The Great Gatsby' and I don't mind the anachronism. If you are indeed going for stylishness, then why not? 

They managed to get Tom Hardy play a Jewish mobster/baker in the second series and he is great. He had starred recently in Steven Knight's feature film 'Locke' which was also excellent. The scene in last episode of  the series where Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy are doing an unconventional negotiation was particularly great. Another highlight of the season was:'Read Daily Mail, it will broaden your mind'. Even I got that joke, probably because of me being obsessed with LFC. Peaky Blinders was produced by BBC and in US it was distributed through Netflix. Series 3 has been commissioned and I think the British TV practice of having just 6 episodes every year is just about right since it is better to be left wanting more. The name Peaky Blinders is derived from a historic subculture that was there during those times and not necessarily from a single gangster group. The opening credits song Nick Cave's 'Red Right Hand' is also excellent giving a True Detective vibe to it.

Rating: 4/5

Tim's Vermeer (2013)

Director: Teller
Writers:   Penn Jillette, Teller
Features: Tim Jenison, Philip Steadman, David Hockney

Inventor Tim Jenison is seeking to understand the painting techniques used by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, in order to test the theory that he painted with the help of optical devices.

Details about Vermeer's life are little known and there is no evidence of him getting any formal training in painting. Apart from the works that he produced, there are no remains of any trial works and his paintings don't have sketch marks or lines that are common in most of the paintings since the painters try to get the geometry right first. These points along with Vermeer's photo-realistic paintings have led to some contending that he used optics to get the paintings done though none have reproduced such a device till Tim Jenison looked into it. He finds out that he could involve a concave mirror and a comparator mirror allowing easy matching of color values. He proceeds to replicate the room that Vermeer painted for his 'The Music Lesson' and paint the same thing again using his technique. The result is what you have in the film's title-'Tim' Vermeer'. It took him almost a year to replicate the room and over four months to do the painting. The documentary is filmed over five years from 2008 to 2013.

Many of the art critics are repulsed by the idea that Vermeer could have been using mechanical aid to do his painting which according to them would have made him more of an inventor than an artist. The documentary makers contend that it is their problem to do the segregation as artist and technologist when one can be both at the same time. As for me, I am not really into paintings but I can understand why people appreciate it. Before the invention of photography it was indeed a remarkable skill to reproduce imagery on a canvas. The importance of Modern Art, which is supposed to evoke something in the viewer-whose interpretation can be very subjective, is more apparent now since replications can be easily done by machines. 

As for the documentary film, it was a great watch. I am really very poor when it comes to painting and don't have the patience to even trace stuff. I appreciate art (films can be works of art) but am not into paintings as of now, maybe I will have a rethink when I visit Kochi Biennale which starts on December 12th and will run for three and half months. Lets see.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Two Faces of January (2014)

Director: Hossein Amini
Writers:  Hossein Amini, Patricia Highsmith
Cast:       Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Issac, Kirsten Dunst

A thriller centered on a con artist, his wife and a stranger (a minor con) who flee Athens after one of them is caught up in the death of a private detective.

Film marks the directorial debut of Hossein Amini, who was involved with the writing of Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Drive'. It is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel with the same name that was published in 1964. It has got a great cast and is magnificently shot on locations in Greece and Turkey. Being a very old school film with unspoken tension between the characters, it is no surprise that it didn't too well at the box office. The story takes unexpected turns throughout without having a big reveal at the end. The character Rydal (Oscar Issac) comes into contact with the couple basically because of him being curious about Chester (Viggo Mortensen) who looks like his now dead father, with whom he had an uneasy relationship. Rydal is an American tour guide, who is looking to fleece his customers, like all your guides do I guess. Chester reads that in him and it is kind of made clear that he sees a younger version of him in Rydal. Both of them don't trust each other and Chester is insecure about his wife, who has taken a liking to Rydal. The circumstances forces all of them together and dependent on each other. What is great about the film is that the nature of feelings between Rydal and Colette (Kirsten Dunst) is not made very clear to the audience and we are very well looking into it with similar suspicions that Chester has. I really didn't buy the father-son vibe (teenage angst kind) that is supposed to be going on though. 

Overall it is great watch with some great performances. Oscar Issac was also excellent in 'Inside Llewyn Davis'. Am glad that Viggo Mortensen told Peter Jackson to fuck off when asked to be in 'Hobbit Trilogy'. I saw the film after it being included in Empire's top 50 films of 2014.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Babadook (2014)

Director: Jennifer Kent
Writer:    Jennifer Kent
Cast:       Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall

A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battle with the son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

The husband died in a car accident while he was taking his pregnant wife to give birth to their son. Now the son is seven years old and she has not coped with her loss yet. The child is a difficult one and the reason for his behavior could be his mother's troubles. When the film starts off, the problems with the child is more apparent and as it goes on we realize that the more serious patient is the mother. The whole Babadook thing is something that is happening in both of their minds and represents the darkness that they are dealing with. The question in the film is will they come out okay at the end of it, successfully dealing with the cloud that is hanging over their lives feeding off each other. What is remarkable is that we start off hating both the characters, which could be a recipe for disaster in a horror film, but as the film goes on we start caring for them sympathizing with what they have gone through in their lives. Film also highlights the helplessness that surrounds Western family system where you don't have the support structure that is common in the Indian Joint Family system. What you in stead get is the community services/social workers who might deal with such delicate situations with tremendous suspicion and limited understanding. I am not advocating one system over the other since both presents itself with unique set of problems.

I am not really a fan of Horror these days because I don't have much time for ones that deal with overt super-naturalism like most of them do. In what has been a good year for Australian film industry, I have been hearing about 'The Babadook' in the usual places but was not arsed about it because of it being described as a Horror film. I finally took the plunge after reading William Feiedkin and Edgar Wright waxing lyrical about it on twitter. After watching it, I would class the film more as a Psychological thriller than horror and unsurprisingly enough, it was thoroughly a enjoyable / disturbing watch. Unlike most horror films, there is no casualties at the end and the ending is very hopeful even though it is a precarious one. Film reminded me of 'Sixth Sense', 'Stoker', 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' and of course 'The Shining', all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. I saw 'The Exorcist' when I was very young (11 years old dude) and am not sure whether there was any subtext to it apart from being a genre film. I guess I have to watch it again since everyone rates it so highly, and I suspect like this film it also has a motherhood/parenting subtext to it.

It is Jennifer Kent's feature length film debut after having made this story into a short film called 'Monster'. Funding for the film was primarily provided by 'Screen Australia' and SAFC and part of it was raised on Kickstarter. It is getting very good reviews from the critics but if you go by the IMDB score, general audience is not embracing it that much. Since am not a fan of the genre I don't know whether they will enjoy it as much as I did. Guess some people will be also put off by the Australian accent which is sad. 

Rating: 4.5/5