Damsels in Distress (2011)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:        Greta Gerwig, Anaeligh Tipton, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke

A trio of girls set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, grunge and low standards of every kind. They adopt a new transfer student to their clique and over the course of the film, the four girls date less attractive men in order to help the men's confidence. 

Film is really out there even if you are familiar with Whitman's other films. This one, he made after a long gap of twelve years and he is really a vastly underrated figure when you consider that he made three great indie films with his first three efforts over an 8 year period. The humor in Damsels in Distress is really quirky and outlandish and very different from his previous films. Stylistically, it is a very unique film and you can't really pin it down into some sort of category. I haven't seen Animal House but it is like an inverse take on such films with the characters being unbelievably frank, cooperative and naive. There isn't much of a plot to speak of and even though the humor in it is quite uneven in terms of frequency, there are more than enough laughs to make it worthwhile. 

Overall, it is a very good watch while not being as good as any of the previous Stillman films. It might not be for everyone but I did enjoy watching it. Performances are really good and Greta Gerwig is a favorite actor of mine with her performances in all these quirky films. Can't wait to watch Noah Baumbach's 'Mistress America', which is getting rave reviews.

Rating: 3.5/5  

                                                                           

The Last Days of Disco (1998)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Eigeman

Story of two female Manhattan book editors fresh out of college, both finding love and themselves while frequenting the local disco. The first three of Whitman's films are together classed as 'Doomed-Bourgeoisie-in-Love' series and this one concerns a group of Ivy league and Hampshire graduates. Film is set in early 1980s New-York and the two main characters were not really friends during their college days but circumstances have conspired to make them share an apartment with a third girl. Personality wise they are polar opposite with the Kate Beckinsale character being the dominant one. 

Unlike previous Whit Stillman films, where the interactions between the main characters were a bit endearingly harmless mischievous kind, in this one it is much more cutthroat and cruel. That kind of took me aback initially but it is kind of realistic if you go by the stereotypical way female acquaintances are supposed to interact. Humor in it is much more of the darker kind and film as a whole is quite three dimensional compared to his previous efforts. If you think you are gonna get a typical Whit Stillman film, then there is a chance that you might get disappointed by it. But it is still a great film in which Stillman chooses to go a bit more adult. All his first three films are set in 1980s with Metropolitan being the latest one in the chronological sense of its setting. There is references to previous two films with Matt Ross' (Gavin Belson from Silicon Valley) being kind of a cartoonish take on the protagonist from Metropolitan and Taylor Nichols making a cameo reprising  his role from Barcelona. There is also this USS Maine reference from Barcelona as well.

Overall, it is another great one from Stillman with his own identity etched on to it rather than being very Woody Allenesque. Chloe Sevigny as the uptight protagonist reminded me of Greta Gerwig and sure enough, she is in Stillman's next effort 'Damsels in Distress', which came out after a very long gap in 2011. Disco didn't do very well financially but was very well received by critics. That fact that it is in the Criterion collection itself should be enough of an advertisement now.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                         

Barcelona (1994)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen

Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation, is paid an unexpected visit by his somewhat less stuffy cousin Fred, who is an officer in the US Navy. Over the next few months, both their lives are irrevocably altered by the events which follow Fred's arrival, events which are the trivial stuff of a comedy of manners at first but which gradually grow increasingly dramatic.

Yeah right, it is not a post on how Capello's Milan raped the favorites, Cryuff's Barcelona, 4-0 in the 1994 Champions League final. I had recently discovered Whit Stillman through his debut film 'Metropolitan'. This is his second film after a long gap of four years and he had a significantly higer budget of $3 million to work with. It took me about three weeks to obtain the 1.7GB print and it was totally worth it because of the exquisite way it is visualized. Barcelona frequently figures at top among the best cities to visit/live lists and lent itself very well for films. We are now very familiar with such English films set in European cities with Woody Allen filming his recent ones there. One could really say Whit Stillman got there first, but then again, considerable Woody Allen influence is there in Stillman's films itself.

In 'Metropolitan', we had rich kids from privileged background fretting about the hate that other people have for them and worrying about downward social mobility. Instead of that, we have two American guys fretting about the hate that people from other nationalities have for American, quite unreasonably in their opinion. That and other things like why Europeans look down upon US 'culture', which Americans themselves accept in a self-deprecating manner. It is summed up in the below conversation.

Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and...

Ted: Really?

Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?

Ted: The text.

Fred: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

It is tremendously funny like you would expect and is a must watch if you are a fan of Woody Allen. Film is quite hard to describe and best way to do is to say it is like a Woody Allen film. Stillman's first three films are supposed to be part of a trilogy with the third and last one being 'Last Days Of Disco', which I am going to watch pretty soon. Both Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman were in Metropolitan as well.

Marta: Ramon is very persuasive, and he painted a terrible picture of what it would be like for her to live the rest of her life in America, with all of its crime, consumerism, and vulgarity. All those loud, badly dressed, fat people watching their eighty channels of television and visiting shopping malls. The plastic throw-everything-away society with its notorious violence and racism. And finally, the total lack of culture.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                    

Best of 2015 (2015)

I thought 2014 was a glorious year and compared to that 2015 has been rather underwhelming. Anyway, I will be updating this list as and when I watch good ones from 2015 and the minimum cut-off is 3.5/5. Short films, TV mini-series, documentaries etc-all included... Yet to see- 'The Forbidden Room', 'Macbeth', '45 Years', 'Son of Saul', 'Dheepan'...

1. Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
2. Slow West (John Maclean)
3. Kung Fury (David Sandberg)
4. Clouds of Sils Maria (Oliver Assayas)
5. Court (Chaitanya Tamhane)
6. The Look of Silence (Joshua Oppenheimer)
7. The Martian (Ridley Scott)
8. Bitter Lake (Adam Curtis)
9. Show Me A Hero (Paul Haggis, David Simon)
10. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
11. The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
12. Duke Of Burgundy (Peter Strickland)
13. A Most Violent Year (JC Chandor)
14. Eden (Mia Hansen-Love)
15. Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
16. Mistress America (Noah Baumbach)
17. The Big Short (Adam McKay)
18. Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
19. Titli (Kanu Behl)
20. Look Who's Back (David Wnendt)
21. The Ardennes (Robin Pront)
22. Masaan (Neeraj Ghaywan)
23. Steve Jobs (Danny Boyle)
24. Going Clear (Alex Gibney)
25. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie)
26. While We're Young (Noah Baumbach)
27. Youth (Paolo Sorrentino)
28. Black Mass (Scott Cooper)
29. Nina Forever (Ben & Chris Blaine)
30. Beasts of No Nation (Carey Joji Fukunaga)
31. Yakuza Apocalypse (Takashi Miike)
32. Best of Enemies (Robert Gordon, Morgan Neville)
33. The Wonders (Alice Rohrwacher)
34. Merchants of Doubt (Robert Kenner)
35. The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt)
36. Lukka Chuppi (Bash Mohammed)
37. Premam (Alphonse Putharen)
38. Aadu (Midhun Manuel Thomas)
39. Double Barrel (Lijo Jose Pellissery)
40. Deadpool (Tim Miller)
41. Far From The Madding Crowd (Thomas Vinterberg)
42. The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino)
43. The Revenant (Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu)
44. Mustang (Deniz Gomez Erguven)
45. Deep Web (Alex Winter)

Le meraviglie (The Wonders) (2014)

Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Writer:    Alice Rohrwacher
Cast:       Alba Rohrwacher, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Monica Bellucci
Language: Italian

Nothing will be the same at the end of this summer for Gelsomina and her three younger sisters. It is an unusual family which includes their father and mother along with another woman helper and they are a farming family with Honey being their main source of income. To this struggling group, a 14 year old juvenile boy is added and then there is this banal reality show, hosted by Monica Bellucci, in which they can participate with some attractive money on offer for the winners. 

It is really an unusual film which depicts the family in a very non-glamorous and realistic manner. It is quite common to make films in such settings with a very romanticized depiction and our Malayalam industry is replete with such (Ivide Swargamanu). Despite its grittiness, it turns out to be such a sweet film with nuanced performances. Toward the end, it does get a bit more serious in a very non-hammy way and even goes into the surreal territory. It works as a coming of age story of its protagonist teenager, Gelsomina. The basic story of struggling farming family is quite universal these days but participation from even the little kids in the activities is quite rare to see. This must be a really alien concept in Europe and that in itself might be its primary attraction.

It is a great and unique watch. It won the 'Grand Prix' award at Cannes. I would assume it to be semi-autobiographical for the director, going by her bio on wiki. I guess that authenticity is reflected in the film. It kind of reminded me of 'The Broken Circle Breakdown' in terms of its farming settings.

Rating: 4/5  

                                                                       

Show Me a Hero (2015)

Director:Paul Haggis
Writers: David Simon, William F. Zorzi
Cast:      Oscar Issac, Carla Quevedo, Catherine Keener

Mayor Nick Wasicsko (Oscar Issac) took office in 1987 during Yonker's worst crisis. When Federal courts ordered public housing be built in the white, middle class side of town, it divided the city in a bitter battle fueled by fear, racism, murder and politics. It is a HBO miniseries comprising of six episodes of about one hour each and is directed in its entirety by Paul Haggis. It was written by David Simon (The Wire) along with journalist William F. Zorzi and is an adaptation of the book by Lisa Belkin.

The title of the series come from the phrase: 'Show me a Hero and I'll write you a tragedy' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is not to say that the character played by Oscar Issac is a heroic one since the actual heroes in the doing good sense are the judge (Bob Balaban) and his consultant, Oscar Newman, for the housing project. The story is told largely through the mayor  character as well as through would be residents of the housing project and their would be neighbors. The mayor character played by Oscar Issac is very much similar to Tony Carcetti from The Wire in terms of their character arc when it comes to growing desperation. Wasicsko, from the right off, is pursuing his own interests but happens to fall on the right side of the issue due to outside compulsions. He gradually sells himself out like Carcetti as he tries to prop up his flailing political career while Carcetti was doing political climbing in 'The Wire' over the course of its latter three seasons. Carcetti is my favorite character from 'The Wire' and so getting something similar from this series as well worked very well for me. Oscar Issac has been in some great projects lately and this one can be added to the list. 

Even though it is story from the late 80s, it does have great relevance for USA of today as questions regarding racism is again at the forefront. It can also be viewed in the context of so called 'Multiculturalism' Vs Integration debate and I always favor the latter. Be it when it comes to countries with immigrants or be it Liverpool FC when it comes to integrating foreign players. Multiculturalism is an easy way out taken by politicians and integration, while being a complex task to implement, works better in the long run. 'Show Me a Hero' is done with a 'Take no prisoners' approach with the makers fully confident on the back of critical success of 'The Wire'. So you don't even get cinematic/colorful characters like 'Omar', and overall, it is done in an even more realistic manner compared to 'The Wire', if that is indeed possible. I haven't seen any other works of David Simon (Treme. Corner) and so I can only compare it to Wire. Catherine Keener bravely takes up the role of an old lady from the neighborhood who is against the housing project initially. Paul Haggis jumped at the chance of working with David Simon and told his agent to agree even without asking for the script. He offered to direct all six episodes himself after reading the script and that is a practice that I really like when it comes to TV (True Detective Season 1).    

To sum up, it is another social studies class from David Simon with a layer of drama added to it. If you've seen 'The Wire', I'm sure you won't need any recommendation to watch it and if you haven't seen it, let this series be your 6-hour gateway drug towards watching Wire. I ended up binge-watching the series over two days as my broadband connection reached FUP limit pretty early last month. As for this month, I exhausted the initial limit before top-up on the first day of the month itself, thanks to David Simon and HBO. Even though it could be described as tragic from the point of view of Oscar Issac character, it is really a feel good story.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                              

കിളി പോയി (Kili Poyi) (2013)

Director: Vinay Govind
Writers:   Joseph Kurian, Vivek Ranjit
Cast:       Asif Ali, Aju George, Sampath Raj
Language: Malayalam

Kili Poyi is a Malayalam stoner film directed by debutant Vinay Govind, a former associate of VK Prakash. It can also be characterized as a 'Bromance' film even though the nature of it is similar to the love-hate one involved between Malayalam's evergreen characters Dasan and Vijayan. That is referenced in the film and basic story-line is about the two central characters, played by Asif Ali and Aju Varghese, getting their hands on a bag full of cocaine inadvertently during their stress-busting trip to Goa. And, unlike Dasan and Vijayan, they decide to keep it and sell it for money. The bag references to Taxi Driver by featuring Robert De Niro with his mo-hawk in it and there are plenty of other references to Quentin Tarantino's 'Pulp Fiction' as well as the similarity of plot with 'True Romance'. Even the song 'Girl, you'll be a woman soon' is used in soundtrack during a scene.

There have been plethora of Malayalam films recently that uses old cinematic references as a crutch to make up for their lack of originality. This one, which came out pretty early in the so called new-gen film wave that swept Malayalam industry recently, is a rare case of it being done in a good way. This is in spite of the rather average performances from its lead actors and not so great script. I caught up it on Asianet HD, and I guess you do have to watch it on HD to appreciate it more since the cinematography and shot-making is stylishly done, reminding me of the seedy look of 'Ek Chalis Ki Last Local'. The title translates, not literally, as someone losing their mind and is used to refer to getting high taking drugs. I assume the phrase would have been in existence prior to this film but it did bring it to the mainstream Malayalee lingo since then. Malayalam cinema have introduced/popularized so many new phrases and words into our daily life language and this is another one to add to the long list. Even the phrase 'Scene Contra', now popularized by the song from 'Premam', is featured in this film during a song sequence.

Overall it is a mindless fun watch, if watched in the right mood with a good print, and a very good effort from all involved. Film got an A-film certification and, predictably, didn't do well at the box office. Even though it is marketed as a stoner film, it doesn't go into the surreal territory enough to justify the tagline. They could have done it better if they added a bit more idiosyncrasies into it.  Still it is a decent enough effort considering the limitations that we have in our industry in showing drug use, sex and violence. 

Rating: 2.5/5