Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Director: Matt Reeves
Writers:  Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver
Cast:       Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Kerri Russell

Ten years after a pandemic disease, apes who have survived it are drawn into a battle with a group of human survivors. Apes are in a position of strength and the politics in their camp leads to the inevitable war. 

This is that rare case of a sequel being much better than the first film. I guess you can pretty much consider Rise of the Planet of Apes (RatPoA) as the first one in the franchise because it is the one which starts off the story that leads up to the late 1960s film 'Planet of the Apes'. I haven't seen that one but I am aware that it had a twist ending with the humans in it, who landed on the planet in a space ship, finally realizing that it was indeed the Earth by spotting the fallen Statue of Liberty. It was a film which came out during America's Civil Rights Movement, drawing an interpretation of it having a metaphorical racial subtext to the story. One could wonder that, since most people who are going to watch the prequels already know to where it is going, whether they will be able to manage it to be interesting enough. I found the first half of RatPoA to be be quite average but that was required to set up the character Ceaser (Andy Serkis), future king of the apes. The second half of the film was great with a kick-ass final battle on the San-Francisco Golden Gate bridge. 

One would have assumed that Apes might have gone to war with the humans and that is how humans got wiped out from the planet. I don't remember whether there were any clues about the pandemic which was gonna wipe out most of the human race in RatPoA. It seems the characters played by James Franco and Frieda Pinto died due to the disease with one of them possibly being the patient zero. Film starts with Ceaser and his subjects living in the forest thinking that humans are all but gone from near their area. Kuba (nickname of Joseph Stalin) is the fiery first assistant ape to Ceaser and he is bit of a war monger when they encounter a group of humans who are in search of a dam to power up their colony in San-Francisco. Then it is like game theory in action with both groups having characters distrusting the motives of the other group waiting for a spark to start the war. It is initiated by Kuba who kind of do a coup. Ceaser and his human friend try to broker peace without success setting up the prospect for an all-out war between the humans and apes in the immediate future. It is another great performance from Andy Serkis but Gollum still remains as his best role. 

Matt Reeves replaced Rupert Wyatt for the sequel and he manages to make a film with tension throughout and having characters with depth. There is nothing novel about the story since you could replace the groups of apes and humans with the very common case of two countries who distrust each other and are on the brink of the war. The CGI is impressive and the motion capture for the apes were done in external sets unlike the prequel. Overall it is great one time watch but if you ask me whether I am looking forward to the next films in the franchise-it is a case of wait and watch. If the reviews are good like for this one I will watch but not expecting too much since there is not much scope for anything path-breaking story-wise.

Rating: 4/5

Filth (2013)

Director: Jon S. Baird
Writers:  Jon S. Baird, Irvine Welsh (Novel)
Cast:       James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Eddie Marsan

A corrupt cop manipulates and hallucinates his way through a bid to secure a promotion and win back his wife and daughter.

Film is an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel of the same name. Trainspotting was hilarious and repulsive at the same time whereas Filth lives up to its title by being more repulsive than hilarious. Bruce (James MaAvoy) is a thoroughly unlikable character who bullies and deceives his way through his colleagues projecting all his insecurities on them. James McAvoy's performance as Bruce is great but the problem I had with the film is that the supposed twist at the end has been done to death. Also the tone of the film is not consistent since it cannot make up its mind as to whether it is a comedy or a repulsive thriller. The motivations for Bruce to behave in such a manner doesn't justify his actions making him thoroughly unlikable. I don't have a problem in watching a film where we don't have anyone to root for as long as they don't try to make us rethink about the central character at the end which I think is a bit disingenuous. They should have just gone full retard. It was interesting to see 'Frank Sidebottom' character used in this film since I saw 'Frank' quite recently.

All that said it is a pretty good one time watch with great production quality and soundtrack. Radiohead's 'Creep' at the end is quite apt. Watch it like as if you would watch a cheap B-film like Danny Boyle's 'Trance' was. 

Rating: 3/5

നമുക്കു പാർക്കാൻ മുന്തിരിത്തോപ്പുകൾ (Namukku Parkkan Munthiri Thoppukal) (1986)

Director: P. Padmarajan
Writers:  P. Padmarajan, K. K. Sudhakaran (Story)
Cast:       Mohanlal, Shari, Thilakan, Vineeth
Language: Malayalam

A beautiful and well-told love story of of a guy who falls in love with the newly moved neighbor girl. But the girl's situation was worst than he thought when he finds that the man who was told to be her father was her step-father.

Film is set in Mysore, Karnataka and the title translates as 'Vineyards for Us to Dwell In' . If you go just by synopsis, it will look like a 'Painkili' story from a Malayalam weekly but in Padmarajan's hands it is just something else. The film stands out basically because of the understated acting and mannerisms. The extra members in Solomon's (Mohanlal) household are characters that many of us would find living in our house at some point of time. Antony (Vineeth) is a college student who is staying in his aunt's house far away from his home. Mary is some distant relative with a tragic past staying in the house and family sort of accepts her into the fold as she is keeping company to the old mother.  The film only consists of a very few characters but the relationships between all the characters, not just the main ones, are properly developed. Most of us would relate most to Antony, who looks up to his much elder cousin Solomon. This is a relationship that is common in majority of Padmarajan-Mohanlal films where Mohanlal plays the cool guy (Thoovanathumbikal & Season being the other two am referring to). Thilakan plays the character of step-father who metes out step-fatherly treatment and even some more to Sophia (Shari), Solomon's love interest. It is another great performance from Thilakan.

I saw the film for the first time some four years back with some friends. We all loved it then and were egging Solomon not to do some silly revenge thing at the end of it, which would have been the path most filmmakers would have taken. Even though I immensely enjoyed it first time round I really didn't think it will be worth a re-watch, and I was wrong. The usage of lines from Solomon's songs in Bible would have been not this good but for the fact that it is Mohanlal who is delivering it. Padmarajan is someone who uses songs and theme music really well to add to the story.  Padmarajan, being a writer-director, is a rare breed in Malayalam cinema. But unlike his most other films which were based on his own writings, this one is a loose adaptation of K.K. Sudhakaran's novel. It is shame that the visual quality of the print that they have preserved is not very good which is true for many films from those times.

Overall the film is a great watch and it is such a simple story very well-told with a great atmosphere. At 137 minutes, it is comparatively a shorter length film by Indian standards. It seems 1986 was a very busy year for Padmarajan with five releases. He directed eighteen films over twelve years from 1979 to 1991 and I have so far seen ten of them. When you put those numbers into context you can see why he is considered to be the greatest Malayalam film director. The ones that I haven't seen are mostly his earlier works.

Rating: 4.5/5 

22 Jump Street (2014)

Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Writers:    Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel, Rodney Rothman
Cast:         Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube

In this sequel to 21 Jump Street, big changes are not in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.

It is now common in sequel films to make fun of itself for being a sequel and stating it is not as good second time round. Well, I found 22 Jump Street to be better than the first one. The bromance is deeper in this one with the issues like open bromance handled and it is a running gag. It is an alright watch but do stay for the end credits which makes fun of how they are going to milk the franchise over the next decade or so.

Rating: 3/5 

Manakamana (2013)

Directors: Stephanie Spray, Pacho Valez

A documentary capturing different groups of pilgrims who travel to Nepal's Manakamana temple in cable cars. Static camera in the cable car films the visitors during the course of their journey which takes about ten minutes each. Some of the characters are also filmed during their return journey and many of them are seen to be taking animals with them to be sacrificed in the temple.

I don't know whether the characters are aware that they are getting filmed but I guess they are not. Life doesn't afford us moments where we can simply observe aq random someone at close quarters without the fact that we are staring at us altering their behavior. It is like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle-the simple fact that we are observing will alter the subject's behavior. Then there is the fact that it is not polite to simply stare at someone. The film delivers by giving us the opportunity to do so with many of the characters simply sitting in the cable car without too much talking. There is no external music and except for two girls who speak in English, language spoken by them is Nepalese I guess which I don't understand. The print that I had came without subtitles and I thought it was meant to be watched without understanding what they were speaking. When they mentioned the names of people who helped with subtitles during the end credits I just went FFS! Still I can claim that it is an experimental method of watching and if I watch it again, but with subtitles, it could be turn out to be an entirely different film.

Whether the film rewards you will depend completely on the viewer. I saw the first forty five minutes without finding it all that impressive and took a nap. Then I saw the rest of it after the said nap and it was a wholly different level of experience. One journey featured an exclusively animal (goats) travelers who were set to be sold to pilgrims to be used as sacrifices to the God (Must be an asshole of a God). Then there were two very old ladies struggling to eat melting Chocobars. Watching someone eat a Chocobar (any stick ice-cream for that matter) can be hideous and am not talking just about the fellatio connotations. 

Overall it is a very interesting experimental documentary. There have been many videos circulating featuring film clips without their music (Star Wars one for example), You could watch the film without subtitles like me or use it to understand what they are talking about. Anyway it is a great watch.

Rating: 3.5/5 

This Is the End (2013)

Directors: Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Writers:   Seth  Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jason Stone (Novel)
Cast:        Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill

While attending a party at James Franco's house, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel and many other celebrities are faced with the apocalypse. They initially think it was just an earth-quake but gradually realize that it is indeed the Apocalypse as described in Book of Revelations and they have to be good to each other to get sucked up into heaven.

After watching many contemplative films recently, I thought I would watch something that doesn't need you to involve your brains much and give you some cheap laughs. As expected, 'This is the End' served that purpose without being a comedy classic or anything. The film is cleverer than you think with the characters playing themselves in a self-deprecating manner. There is also an element of spoof in it with there being the token black man in this group of American friends. It is not exactly Bro-mance and the film is not as good as the sum of its parts but it is worth a watch for some mindless laughs.

Edgar Wright's 'The World's End' and 'This is the End' came out quite close together and similarity of their apocalyptic nature was apparent with some preferring the latter. In my opinion 'The World's End is a far superior film despite it being not as good as other films in the 'Cornetto Trilogy'. Among the 'Frat-Pack' films, there have been quite a few over the last decade, the one I like most is 'Superbad' which starred Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, though one could fret whether it counts as belonging to the genre but you get the idea.

Rating: 2.5/5

Üç Maymun (Three Monkeys) (2008)

Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Writers:  Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Ebru Ceylan, Ercan Kesal
Cast:       Yavuz Bingol, Hatice Aslan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Ercan Kesal
Language: Turkish

A politician gearing up for election kills someone in a car accident. He persuades his driver to take the blame for it in return for a lump-sum amount of money when he gets released apart from his regular salary that will go to his family which consists of his wife and a jobless son. When he is in the jail, communication breaks down between the members of the family.

The title of the film is based on 'Gandhi's Three monkeys'-which is depicted usually by the sculpture of three monkeys conveying- "See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil".  

It actually originated in Japan in the seventeenth century but became famous as a visual metaphor for Gandhi's non-violent fight against colonialism, oppression and injustice. The other side of this tolerant and peaceful society is one which chooses a head in the sand approach and this is what Nuri Bilge Ceylan explores in the this film. Even as driver's wife enters into an adulterous relationship with the politician, the members of the family chooses to bury their heads in the sand since they can tolerate the disturbing status-quo and is quite happy with the monetary reward. Out of all the Ceylan films I have seen, 'Three Monkeys' is the most plot driven one and it works out as a noir genre piece. It is also the only one in which Ceyan has got writing partners which might explain the tonal difference when compared with his other films. 

I don't know whether the print I got was bad because there wasn't much color in the film and it looked like a grim greyish hell. It could be intentional as well considering the subject matter. Overall the film is a great watch but I think the story is much more relatable for people from the developing world because of the power distance between the characters which the Western audience might find unusual. I didn't particularly like the ending bit where the driver is seen persuading a poor acquaintance to take the blame for a crime that his family committed. Thought it was a half-arsed attempt by the director to shoe-horn a message that people from all classes behave in similar manner when they are in a position of relative power. It is definitely the weakest Ceylan film I have seen but still a very good one.

 Rating: 3.5/5