Real Genius (1985)

Director: Martha Coolidge
Writers:  Neal Israel, Par Proft, Peter Torokvei
Cast:       Val Kilmer, Gabriel Jarett, Michelle Meyrink, William Atherton

Mitch (Jarett) is a 15-year-old Physics genius who is given a scholarship, by Professor Hathaway (Atherton), and admitted into a very research intensive university. There he assists the professor to create a LASER weapon along with several other students, with the most prominent one being Chris Knight (Val Kilmer). Students don't exactly know the purpose of what they are building while the professor is employed by the CIA to develop this weapon which could target and kill people from space. 

The film is really like a high-school/college film with the difference that all of them are nerds. Still, it does follow genre conventions and Val Kilmer is the genius rebel among them. It is like 'Interstellar' of college films but in a good way. The creators have put considerable effort into making stuff like the science in it and the behavior of nerds as accurate as possible. Martha Coolidge actually spent months researching about LASER technology and policies of the CIA, and interviewed dozens of students at Caltech. 

The story is pretty basic and I saw the first hour of the film late night in a sleepy state and was quite underwhelmed by it. But the last forty minutes was really funny and worked really well for me. Val Kilmer is absolutely the highlight of the film with some great lines and mannerisms. The professor was also great as was the cute lady nerd in it played by Michelle Meyrink. Jarett's character is the protagonist character for us and probably the weakest link in the film. Overall, it is a pretty good watch despite the predictability and 'basic' nature of the plot. I would guess that people who saw it at the time will have tremendous nostalgia associated with the film.

Rating: 3.5/5 

                                                                             

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers:  Christopher McQuarrie, Drew Pearce
Cast:       Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Sean Harris

Ethan Hunt and his team take on their most 'Impossible' mission yet, eradicating the Syndicate- an International rogue organization as highly skilled as they are, committed to destroying the IMF along the way. It is the anti-thesis of IMF with its objective being to create instability in a revolutionary sense. Rebecca Ferguson plays the role of a British agency double agent inside the Syndicate, which makes the film all the more interesting since we have to always second guess her as well as Syndicate's motive.

Ghost Protocol was the film that got the Mission Impossible franchise back on track and it worked purely as an action film with three clearly defined set-piece sequences in it. We don't care much for the story and they only act as a vehicle to get Ethan Hunt and his team from one set-piece to another. It went through the mandatory MI franchise references like lit fuse opening credits, self-destructing messages, use of masks, Tom Cruise hanging , Tom Cruise running (That is not purely MI) etc without making it look tacked on. Rogue Nation is the film in which the story takes precedence in stead of action set-pieces and they manage to pull it off nicely. It is not to say that action scenes are not good but just that story involves you more in a a good way and the character played by Rebecca Ferguson helps a lot in that regard. It always helps when you have a double agent whose motives we are not sure of and while this is not a novel concept in spy films, the balance between story and action was just right. Also, the main villain was very interesting and it is a general rule in such action films that 'You are only as good as the Villain'.

Film did start off in an underwhelming fashion with a mediocre opening credits and the disappointment on finding out that 'the hanging out from a plane that is taking off' was there in the film without much story context to it. Anyway, it worked in a marketing sense since it was used as the teaser for the film. MI5 manages to take off only by the time that action set-piece in Vienna Opera venue starts off and symbolically enough, the target is the Austrian PM (WW1 reference). The Syndicate is very much involved with creating instability in the middle east and around the Muslim world, which is the current affairs reference for the film, and a lot of the troubles that is there now is the bi-product of fall of Ottoman Empire and how the region was dealt with after WW1. It is not what the Syndicate is doing in terms of their activities that is of interest to us but whether they are using Ethan Hunt to get to their original target. So it is a case of who is leading on who. There are only three major action set-pieces in the film (Vienna Opera, Morocco water stunt, Morocco Car/Bike Chase) and they gets over, I reckon, by around two-thirds of the film. From then on, it is largely story driven and that is a bold move from the director. It turned out to be a good decision since another major set-piece at the end would have been just tiring. Ridiculousness of the plot, in case you actually think about it, is not a problem since you are expected to leave your brains out for an MI film. It is the least MI film out of all the films in the franchise and that is indeed a welcome change. The whole idea of IMF, with its stupid name of Impossible Missions Force, is itself ridiculous and it is best when they don't go overboard with self-references and Rogue Nation manages to do just that. It works well as a standalone action flick.

Overall MI5 is a great watch and is in my opinion the best MI film along with Ghost Protocol. It is the humor and great chemistry between Cruise and Pegg that worked well in Ghost Protocol along with the great action sequences, and they added Rebecca Ferguson to the whole equation and made another solid action flick. It is not as big a feminist statement as Mad Max: Fury Road was, but it was good that they didn't go overboard with a romantic angle to it. MI6 is on the pipeline now with the shoot set to happen in 2016. I really do hope they go with a good director since that is essential for an MI film to be any good (1,4,5). As far as my MI films ranking go:

1) Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

1) Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

3) Mission Impossible (Hasn't aged very well)

4) MI:3

5) MI:2 ( Turned off after ten minutes)

PS: It was the first English film that I saw at cinemas in my hometown since Jurassic Park, around 20 years or so ago.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                             

Karma Cartel (2014)

Director: Vinod Bharathan
Writer:    Vinod Bharathan
Cast:       Vinay Forrt, Sabumon Abdusamad, Joseph Chakola
Language: Malayalam

A multi-award winning, avant-garde Indian indie set in a southern city of India (Kochi). It starts with following a reporter's search for a missing actor, leads to revelation of multiple lives connected to it through greed and bad choices. It is the first Indian film to be made following the Dogme 95 Manifesto set by Danish directors Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.

Dogme 95 rules were made to create films, putting emphasize on traditional values of story, acting and theme, excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology in the hope that it will give power back to the artist as opposed to the studio. As far as Dogme 95 films go, Thomas Vinterberg's 'Festen', which was in fact the first Dogme film, is the high watermark receiving wide acclaim from all quarters, not just for its Dogme sensibilities. It ushered in a new era of film-making with its use of handy-cam, giving all new freedom  for the cameraman in terms of movement as well as scope for innovation. Festen was a big milestone in the whole Film Vs Digital debate that played out since then, with digital winning out in the end for all intends and purposes as of now. 

Karma Cartel follows the rules 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Dogme 95, which has ten rules in total. The second rule that it doesn't follow, involves usage of extra music. It also doesn't follow rules 8, 9 and 10 since it is a genre movie with the director credited and the aspect ratio is not the academy 35mm standard. It is essentially a comedy featuring mostly unknown actors. Generally you don't feel Dogme 95 films to be a visual treat, since the whole idea behind it is to make it as raw as possible. But I actually thought Karma Cartel was quite great to look at and maybe it being set in Kochi during its Biennale  and me watching it at cinemas might have contributed to it. Film does have some quality comedy moments in it but it does lose its steam during the second half. Two short films were made by the director as part of his Karma series, and this being his first feature length film, you do get the feel that the transition has not been quite smooth. Vinod Bharathan is based out of Copenhagen and it was filmed in just ten days during a Kerala visit. Considering those constraints as well as the novelty of seeing an Indian film following Dogme 95, it is quite good and a worthy effort. I don't know how well-versed he is in Malayalam but some of the scenes that are supposed to be comedic did linger on longer than it was needed and the pacing is a bit off, especially in the second half. 

Overall, it is a decent enough watch and all the more interesting because of its adherence to Dogme 95, which is out of fashion even for its founders. There is a Style over Substance feel to the film and it is as if they didn't quite know how to get to the ending in a credible manner. The references to culture of facebook film reviews with ratings worked well initially but later on in the second half, the whole commentary on film making et al did seem a bit much. Vinay Forrt is good as usual and the other actors also did a very good job. The limitations that the film have is to do with the threadbare plot and there is a comedy skit feel to it. The whole Fort Kochi setting is a bit cliched these days but it worked well for the film and they did capture some of the stunning graffiti that were made during the Biennale. It is well-worth a go at the cinemas considering the crap that are generally getting released these days. I must go and checkout the other short films in the Karma series.

Rating: 3/5

Slow West (2015)

Director: John Maclean
Writer:    John Maclean
Cast:       Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn

A young Scottish 16-year-old boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) travels across America in pursuit of the woman he loves, attracting the attention of an outlaw (Michael Fassbender) who is willing to serve him as a guide. Unknown to the Scot, there is a $2000 bounty on her head and he might be inadvertently leading the bounty hunters on to her.  

It is set in 1870 America but was shot in Scotland and New Zealand along with Colarado. All sorts of awesome is condensed into the 84 minute running time. You kind of think that you know where it is going since the premise is quite similar to the one in 'True Grit', an older bounty-hunter helping a young kid to reach a destination. But, it totally surprised me during the finale which was brutally beautiful. I am a big fan of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns but this one is quite different in tone and style. While Leone tended to make everything in epic scale, Slow West is an exercise in minimalism and there is hardly any flab to it. It is much more closer to Jim Jarmusch's 'Dead Man' rather than other films in the genre. Even the Clint Eastwood like character played by Fassbender is done in a genre-bending fashion. I was disappointed when it turned that the character had a name.

I won't describe myself as a big fan of the Western genre and don't really try to lap it up as much as possible. The ones that I have liked are the Leone films, 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' and when it comes to modern ones, I did enjoy 'True Grit' and loved 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. But these are films that you will love if you are a fan of cinema itself and really don't need to be a genre fanboy. I also like it when you get such films in Modern settings like 'No Country For Old Men' and the genre mixing ones made by the likes of Quentin Tarantino with elements of Western to it. Tarantino's next film, The Hateful Eight, is expected to be his first out and out Western.

Coming back to Slow West, it is a fantastic film and will definitely feature very high up in my year end 'Best of' List. There is surprisingly great humor in it and the surreal sort of sequences in it were also great. Ben Mendelsohn and Michael Fassbender are always tremendously watchable. It is a gorgeous film to look at and is a Film4, BFI and NZ Film Corporation co-production. It got a digital video release on the same date as its theatrical release and didn't do very well at box office. 

Rating: 5/5

                                                                         

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

Director: Oliver Assayas
Writer:    Oliver Assayas
Cast:       Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Chloe Grace Moretz

A veteran actress, Maria (Juliette Bincohe), comes face-to-face with an uncomfortable reflection of herself when she agrees to take part in a revival of the play that launched her career twenty years earlier. The play depicts the exploitative lesbian relationship between a 40-year-old businesswoman, Helena, and her 20-year-old personal assistant, Sigrid. Maria had made her debut playing Sigrid and now, 20 years later, she is being persuaded to take up the role of Helena, with whom she says she couldn't identify at all which is her taking a heads in the sand approach. Also, the relationship between Sigrid and Helena is kind of loosely reflected in the relationship between Maria and her assistant Val, played excellently by Kristen Stewart.

The play in question in the film is titled 'Maloja's Snake' and refers to a meteorological/geographical cloud formation between Maloja Pass between Swiss and Italian Alps border. The film is set in the Swiss side of the Alps in a remote town called Sils Maria near the pass. Film can be described an one which deals with 'getting-old-existentialism' and it is more pronounced for people in the acting business especially if you are a woman. Maria is not someone who thrived purely on looks but still she is finding it hard because getting offered to play the role of Helena symbolically means that she is now officially old. She tries in vain to make excuses like the character being weak, unlike her, and she cannot identify at all with Helena, which is her being in Denial stage under Kübler-Ross model. After she finally accepts the role, when she is practicing her lines with Val, they are in constant conflict regarding their respective interpretation of the play, which also reflects the difference in ages between them. This, along with Maria's growing insecurities and vainness, makes Val exasperated by her and leads to her quitting immediately after they see the 'snake'. This happens suddenly and we are not shown what exactly happened to Val and I even thought that Maria might have killed her.

Apart from Val, the third major character in the film is the 19-year-old actress, Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz) slated to play the role of Sigrid. The revival of play is supposed to attract headlines concerning Maria playing the role of Helena but by the time play is about to start its run, it gets superseded by events in Jo-Ann Ellis private life. Val leaving and her being not the center of attraction, finally hits it home for Maria as she accepts her reality by the end of the film. Film also takes potshots at Hollywood, not too different from Birdman, and there is one scene in which Val and Maria debates about the quality of films like X-Men and I am on Maria's side. I cannot take such comic book films seriously and find it quite amusing the hoopla surrounding that among the fanboys. One could even consider this film to be a companion piece to Birdman, coming from a female angle. Another film I was reminded of was Paolo Sorrentino's 'The Great Beauty', but that one had a kick-ass central character who was self-aware and assured about where he was at at that age, albeit with some regrets.

Clouds of Sils Maria is a fantastic watch. Kristen Stewart was amazing in the role of assistant and received the César Award for Best Supporting actress (French industry award) for it. This is the first time I had seen her playing a major role, not surprising since she is famous for her involvement in Twilight saga, and looking through her filmography 'Panic Room' and 'Into the Wild' are the only films that I have seen her in. Even though she got most of the plaudits, Binoche was also excellent playing the role of Maria and lack of love for her must be to do with our own exasperation with the character. The central element of the film is of course the relationship between Maria and Val, which is played with enormous amount of subtlety. It is filmed in a very modern way with a minimalist aspect to it. The story idea for the film came from Bincohe who approached the director with it and the latter wrote the screenplay. Bincohe is said to have accepted her role in 'Godzilla', just to do justice to her line that she delivers in Sils Maria about acting in blockbusters. Even though the film is from 2014, it got released in UK and US in 2015 only, and so, I will reserve it for my 'Best of 2015' list.

Rating: 5/5  

                                                                            

끝까지 간다 (A Hard Day) (2014)

Director: Seong-hoon Kim
Writers:  Seong-hoon Kim, Kim Seong-hun
Cast:       Sun-kyun Lee, Man-shik Jeong, Jin-woong Jo
Language: Korean

Detective Go Geon-soo is having a hard day, and the following events happen to him in less than 24 hours: he receives a divorce notice from his wife. His mother passes away. He and his coworkers are being investigated by Internal Affairs police inspectors over alleged embezzlement. Then on his way to his mother's funeral, he drives recklessly and commits a fatal hit and run. He tries to cover up the accident by hiding the man's corpse in his deceased mother's coffin. But someone has been watching this all along and he starts getting blackmail calls from this guy soon enough. 

The concept of a detective having a terribly bad day is explored in the first forty minutes of the film and culminates with the burial at cemetery. This portion of the film is a laugh riot and amazingly great and it reminded me of Michael Douglas starring 'Falling Down', which had gone a totally dark way towards the end.. What follows after the initial comedy portion of the film, when it takes a mystery thriller mode, is comparatively average. Still the great cinematography, which included a kick-ass overhead shot of a chase sequence, and plenty of twists and turns make even that portion of the film an enjoyable watch nevertheless. There were some lazy expositions and connecting-the-dots falshbacks which were not at all needed. Also there are just too many happy coincidences like the detective spotting his caller outside the police headquarters. 

Overall it is a good watch with some solid performances. It was selected to compete in the Director's fortnight section of the Cannes 2014. It was a big box office success, collecting close to $24 million, even though it had a tepid opening in Korea. It can best described as a fun action film in the mould of films like 'Lethal Weapon'. I was expecting 'New World' level of amazeballs and it didn't even come close after the enormously promising first half hour, but that shouldn't be a problem for people who enjoy good action thrillers.

Rating: 3/5

                                                                             

The Lunchbox (2013)

Director: Ritesh Batra
Writers:  Ritesh Batra, Vasan Bala
Cast:       Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Language: Hindi

A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system contacts a young housewife to an older man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunch box. She is in a loveless marriage, which is a very common phenomena in India due to societal compulsions, and he works in a government company and is close to retirement. Their exchange of notes rejuvenates both of them from their drab middle class life. Their relationship develops into romance, predictably, and ends in an unresolved note leaving us to speculate on whether they will get together or not. 

It is basically a very predictable feel-good film which takes an interesting idea and runs with it. 'Will they, won't they?' aspect goes along in a very conventional fashion, with him deciding not to meet her personally in the first instance and then regretting it later, by the time she decides to leave the place as well. The predictability of it doesn't matter though since there is a whole world building attached to each of the characters and it is something that many of us could easily relate to. There is this 'Govt Babu' aura to the world around Irrfan Khan's character and it seems his personal traits have also been influenced by it. Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the role of his pestering understudy, who gradually wins over him so that he could be taken under the wings of much senior officer. We are not sure whether it is a normal retirement or whether he has taken a voluntary retirement from the job but I suspect it is the latter. Nimrat Kaur's homemaker character has a young kid and she is trying to please her husband through her cooking as a way to arrest her flailing marriage life. She has a mentor like neighbor aunty, from the flat above her apartment, with whom she communicates through shouting as well as exchanging things through a basket tied to a rope. We never see the neighbor in person. All the characters exhibit subtle traits and mannerisms which makes it a fantastic watch on the whole despite its predictable nature. I was reminded of Wong Kar Wai's 'In the Mood for Love' in some places and it is mostly to do with them discussing their personal lives, albeit with notes rather than in person.

Anurag Kashyap was involved as one of the producers of the film along with several other studios, many of them being foreign. It was screened at Cannes, where it won Critics Week's viewers choice award also known as Grand Rail d'Or. It also got a nomination at the BAFTA awards in the Non-English language category. It was widely expected to be India's entry for Academy's  Awards in the Foreign Film category, but the Gujarati film 'The Good Road' was selected ahead of it, creating considerable bemusement. I haven't seen that film to comment specifically on its quality, but Oscars is not really about quality and 'The Lunchbox' had a much bigger potential to do well there due to its crossover qualities. Anyway, Paolo Sorrentino's 'The Great Beauty', a favorite of mine, won it that year beating the likes of 'The Broken Circle Breakdown' and 'The Hunt'. So, there wasn't much chance of 'The Lunchbox' winning it and it did quite well anyway financially, grossing around $13 million on a budget of under $2 million.     

Overall it is a great watch and at under 100 minutes running time and the way it is filmed, it looks more like a foreign independent film rather than something from India. Struggling middle class is something that is touched rarely by Bollywood and mainstream Indian films in general. Performances from all concerned are excellent and you expect that anyway from the likes of Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Nimrat Kaur, a theater artist, landed the job through auditions and she does a great job in a role where she portrays a normal Indian woman. Ritesh Batra made his directorial debut with this film. A third of its box office collection was from US alone and I suspect it was not the usual NRI crowd alone that were watching.

Rating: 4/5