Prime’s free movies: Becoming Jane

https://medium.com/@placetaken/primes-free-movies-becoming-jane-612e500d97ba

We have been under lockdown for more than 3 months now. During this period, I finally found some free time, and I spent a few of it watching some free movies on Prime. From yesterday. Here are my reviews:

Read the rest here : 

https://medium.com/@placetaken/primes-free-movies-becoming-jane-612e500d97ba

KNPH - 20 year review

Happy New Year. 2020 ! Well, who would have known ? Time does fly by , doesn’t it. As Ferris Bueller adviced, life is fast. If you don’t pause once in a while, you could miss it. Or something of that sort.

Now I really did not want to start this new year discussing a movie. But I too, sadly , am running out of time. A tonne of things happening in my life, but no time to really discuss it, contemplate it. Today, while in the gym, all of a sudden, I felt like listening to some old tunes. I have been thinking of my younger days for some time now, ever since this new year. Oddly, I thought of looking up old hindi music, a genre which I totally avoid nowadays. The hindi movie and music industry is garbage these days. And my search for hindi movies landed on Kaho Na Pyaar Hai. Now at the time, I did now know that it came out 20 years ago on 14th January. I found that out later in office. What a coincidence !

On hindsight, it is amazing how positively this movie was received in its hayday. Today, the absolute cheesiness and pothole size plot holes are obvious. But back then, it seems the world’s largest democracy did not care about these things. Back then, they got something they have wanted for long, but never got to vote about. 3 hours of feel good,  movie time, with good sights and good music. Some of the songs still hold up. But the movie itself does not.

Like swiss cheese, the movie is riddled with clichés. The whole double role story, rich girl – poor boy track(second time the guy is rich too), the girls father is a bad guy, so he arranges for the boy to be killed, he serenades her with songs, he has a loyal and shorter sidekick, and a kid brother who is too young, all her friends are ok with him, she has a rich cousin in NZ who is best friends with the rich double role guy, she also has a rich male good friend but never sees a romantic relationship with him, the rich desi in NZ has never been to India, but speaks hindi & urdu without any foreign accent, sings hindi songs, they are so rich that he never has to work, he just rides around on big bikes and cars, he goes to India to find bad guys and all its dangers,and gets shot right at the airport !, finally beats up all the baddies and decides to return with the kid brother, and she finally falls for his looks again.

The End.

If released today, a movie like this would have bombed. Hands and feet down. But this was 20 years ago, so the audience and critics lapped it all up. Me too. The songs in the movie ruled the charts, people got some new dance moves, and all the cheesy dialogues, and the nation got a new actor they began calling the greek god.

It would take Hritik many more years , and countless more movies to properly act in character, and I think that movie was Jodhaa Akbar, when he finally learnt to and spoke bespoke urdu ! I now read that the movie itself won so many awards that it entered some record books. For what, you ask ? For serenading viewers and critics aside.

Those were truly fun times. We are all equally guilty of eating into the chocolate hero movie. In a cheesy movie.

And a part of me is still there.

PS: Sample plot hole: In India, everyone already has cellphones. Mallik and Sirjee converse on cell phones. In NZ, Sonia’s cousin, Neeta, has to get out of her convertible to go to a red phone booth to call home. So she leaves her car on the main road ! It is at this time that Raj comes by without wearing a helmet.

Baar Baar Dekho

Finally got around watching this movie on Prime. With a good story, and better intentions, its surprising how it completely missed its point. Neither of the leads can act, and the dialogue and background music is completely pointless. Despite this, it turns a nice story, blatantly ripping off home Hollywood products.

I specially loved the scenes set in the past and in the future. The Delhi of the nineties, and the Cambridge and London of 2040s. They went to the extreme of imagining what living in the future will look like. A kind of utopia, with automation and AI around, but not too much. The movie brings in Indian melodrama and Indian ideas to a modern family life.

I couldn't help noticing some of the scenes were shot at Cambridge, and the very place Newton and Hawkins walked !

They could have surely have done a better job with better actors, and a crisper screenplay. Then people would have definitely "Baar Baar Dekho"d it.

Virus - 2019 Malayalam movie

Working in healthcare is not easy. Healthcare profesisonals have always surprised me, and some of those moments have been the closest I have been to real 'miracle workers'. These folks, the work they do, actually saves lives. Working in healthcare is to dedicate one's life to a lifetime of service to others. And there will be days that service could be a personal sacrifice to the caregiver. There have been numerous stories , movies and tales of the heroism shown by doctors , nurses and paramedical officers.

Malayalam movie too finally got a movie which told a story of heroism. The movie is called Virus (2019), and it describes the events of the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, India. Although the event itself got wide media coverage in India and abroad, a detailed telling of the actual events has been missing till date. Here, one can finally get to see a near-reality replay of the events.

First of all, a fantastic cast. One of those rare Malayalam movies which has starpower, but no overbearing superstar syndrome. Spot on casting, every actor is apt for their characters. Every characther in the movie is based on on or more real life persons. Second, there is a hollywood like treatment to everything; the story, the cinematography, music, and dialogues. Edge of the seat tension grips the full movie, with a little bit of humour and hope sprinkled all over. The overall feeling is of optimism, and a call to come and work together in times of need.

The story picks up half way through the outbreak, and employs numerous flashbacks to connect the stories of all the characters involved. A fantastic approach, but I felt some flashbacks were not obvious; there were not enough pointers to convey the actual time of that story unfolding. Could have been a little more efficient. But the highlight is when the healthworkers come together to build the full chain of events , linking all of the victims together, starting from patient 0, to everyone affected during the outbreak. They do this by interviewing all the survivors, bystanders , hospital staff and random villagers. They also go through hours of CCTV footage, and even look at their social media and phone usage !

It is good to see malayalam movies again exploring the genre of real-life events, and telling real stories, of real people, instead of fantasy. Expecting more to come, but it should not take a virus outbreak to inspire movie makers.

Virus is streaming on Amazon prime now. Go watch it, before it incubates.

Uyare

2019 has been a rough year so far, with all the elections, and politics in multiple countries. Even the movies which came out this year in India had political tones, political agenda disguised as entertainment. So any movie which told a true-to-heart story in its time box , with capable actors playing convincing characters, would easily win and stay with the crowd. I found the first of such movies this year. And it was a super-hero movie.

The Malayalam movie Uyare.

Side note: I got to watch more movies, if good ones like these do come out. Honestly, I am sick of those superheroes.

Uyare is smartly written , seamlessly weaving the story of an ambitious wannabe pilot, who also becomes the victim of an acid attack. The wikipedia page of acid attacks is shocking and heart-breaking. Low-esteem men and dejected lovers throw acid onto women to permanently disfigure them, and in recent years there are increased occurances of such attacks around the world.

Parvathy effortlessly and convincly plays the lead, starting the movie with high spirits and confidence, and then breaking down to the helpless woman in the middle. The scenes where her character , Pallavi , is attacked and the treatment scenes are the closest one could come to actually understant the pain of being attacked in such a way. Never ones is the illusion of cinema broken. It looks so convincing, almost unreal.

The ending, and climax is predictable, and a few more twists could have helped. We don't see anyone thanking Pallavi for her bravery and presence of mind. We don't see the bureaucratic nightmare which usually follows such an air-accident. We certainly do not see it getting the media coverage such acts of bravery usually gets.

Shout out to Asif Ali for playing another negative character, I really think he should stick to these kind of roles. I have never bought his act as a romantic or comedy actor. The audience is definitely going to hate Govindhan for his atrocious act, and that is the highlight of this role.

Another triumph of Malayalam movies, Uyare has to be watched.

And once you have watched it, go read this.

Marvellous Nonsense

Ill be very glad when this is over. The new Marvel movie is hitting theatres this week. Endgame. Fans are going crazy around the world. Fans are speculating non-stop. Fans are frustrated. Because fans cannot get enough tickets.

But I have never been a fan. Of these superhero movies.

For me , there is something weird seeing grown men wearing spandex and capes and cosplaying. And I am talking of the fans here. Its even worse seeing the actors playing these 'comics' on screen. Sure, they are getting paid hundreds of milllions for standing in front of green screens. But it is still weird seeing all this hype about superhero movies.

And now I see people discussing scenes and dialogues from the movies as if they were the classic movies from the fifties. Makes me puke, when I see them discuss charachter arcs and emotional vulnerabilites.

Its also amazing seeing the marvellous marketting machinery of hollywood at work. They are able to get crazy fans pay through their noses for first day tickets for these CGI-action movies, when movies with real stories, inspiring and memorable characters lie in the dust. They just don't make those kind of fun movies anymore.

Its also amazing when you realize that real superheroes don't really wear capes. I see them everyday. They were uniforms, and hats, and are always around to protect and serve.

Just get this over with. Until they think of the next superhero movie they can write up.

Njaan Prakashan

 

Watched my first movie of the year. Thank good ness I was watching it for free, cause I would only have paid for a third of it. Directed by one of those remaining veterans of the malayalam film industry, and written by another , I guess the movie came out with high hopes. And with a skilled young actor playing the lead, hopes where heightened.

And I don't know what others felt, but I definitely felt let down. That is what happens when everyone just stays within their comfort zones, they won't take risks.

This movie is definitely one of those you can watch with your family (big or small), falling into a rapidly depleting genre of clean, family movies. But even then, its something which could have been told in a 30 minute short movie by an amateur team. As always, Sreenivan does not miss any opportunity to poke fun at today's average Malayalee. Right from being jobless due to jobs not being prestigious enough, to people joining politics with a fastrack-get-rich plan, to the fact that every manual job in Kerala is now done by unskilled Bengali immigrants, he is right in pointing out these realities. One feels sorry looking at the..well, sorry state of the state.  But the twist in the end, is not really a twist. I could see it from a mile away.

The movie addressess the problems faced by nurses, not only in Kerala , but all over the country. Nursing as a profession does not command the same respect and pay as doctor’s, though both of them cannot survive without the other. Long ago, they were paid the same, I hear, but over the decades, the pay gap between these jobs have widened. So much that nurses barely make minimum wage, if there was ever such a concept in India, even though they put in twice as many hours on the job.  This is compunded by the fact that they have to work in shifts, and even on holidays, as hospitals are essential services. So far the nurses depicted in movies are always females (22FK, Takeoff), and Dir Anthikad breaks that stereotype by casting a male as the nurse.

But that is the only refreshing thing about Njaan Prakaashan. Everything else is twice distilled, refined Anthikkad fare.

‘First Man’ destroyed my eyes

 

Man, I was really looking forward to this movie. Its a subject matter I am close to, and had high expectations from the director and studio. But all that was destroyed last week, when I watched this movie on the big screen at Hoyts.

I hated it. I hated it so bad that I walked out half way through it. The reason was not the story, or the acting. It was the cinematrography. Shaky camera. Too much shaky camera. WTF , Damien ? Its as if you just discovered the shaky camera effect. The idiotic director and cinemtagrapher chose to shoot every scene on two legs, right in the actor’s faces ! One could see the hair in their nostrills. And with the camera constanly shaking and moving, I was soon overcome with dizziness. Specially in the lauch sequences, I shrill music and shakes almost made me throw up.

I walked out just after Neil was chosen to the Apollo program.

I will catch this movie on torrents when it becomes available, because I really wanted to see his walk on the moon. But I plan to use some kind of image stabilizer software at that time.

I understand this was the perspective of Neil Armstrong, who took such a big risk for a mission guided by the cold-war politics of the time. But I didn’t want to see the actors noses all the time. I wanted to see the rest of the world too.

Space. And everyting else.

Excited about ‘First Man’

 

I love space. And after that, I love space movies. Apollo 13 is my second favourite movie, right after the dinos. I was always surprised that they made a movie about the  'successful failure' mission, but not the 'successful success' of Apollo 11. Of course, many other movies have touched upon Apollo 11, eg: The Right Stuff, and it is also the subject of numerous documentaries, no one ventured to give the story a full hollywood treatment. My personal guess is that the subject matter is equally political as it was inspiring, given that it occurred during the height of the cold war during the 60s. There is no way a studio could give it a unbiased treatment without declaring it as an American achievement.

So imagine my surprise, when someone did put a foot forward to address and tell the story of this historic moon landing. And that was the most unlikely person one would expect. Damien Chazelle, who has so far made movies in music and dance subjects, is going to take this giant leap. I hope nobody decides to break into dance on the moon, you know, with lower gravity. A few more days wait till it hits the theatre.

But already, the film has ruffled a few feathers. Some american politicians have found problem with how the film does not show the actual scene where the astronauts hoist the american flag on the moon. The creators have addressed the controversy diplomatically, saying the giant leap was for entire mankind, and not just for USA. Its hilarous reading these king of news articles even before the movie has fully released. But not surprising. Because we Indians have been seeing these kind of complaints against movies for decades.

So you see, this is a deeply political subject. Possibly precisely the reason other directors have been reluctant to tell this story on the big screen.

But although that mission was a success, it could very well have gone down in history as a great failure as well. Nobody had ever done it. And on a limited technology and the deadlines of those days, there was a very small chance of success. For all we know, Neil Armstrong and crew were on their very last mission. They could have very well crashed into the moon. Or the Apollo 11 could have been stranded on the moon, if they could not launch back into space. They could have failed to get back into orbit. They could have burnt up on re-entry. There were thousands of tiny reasons why the mission could have ended in a disaster. The pressure of expectations on the team was huge.

And that is why this story is so inspiring. And has to be told. People only the stories of successful expitions, without pausing to look at how narrow their chances were.

So , thats it. Supercharged for the movie. Ready to back in time and (hopefully) re-live mankind's first journey to somewhere else.

 

PS: Also Apollo 11 put the Futura font on the moon. And in space.

Fallout was exhausting. In a good way.

Caught the latest instalment of the Mission Impossible movie series at a cinema in Melbourne.  With new death defying stunts and editing, this is without and doubt the most impossible one of the series. There is so much action in it that it was just exhausting watching Cruize do all his stunts. In a good way. Did I mention he is 56 ?

This is only the second MI movie I have watched in a cinema. The first one was MI2, back when John Woo's style of slow motion action-choreography was all the rage. For fallout, they have chosen very fast, sometimes sped-up action, in bright lights. Its nice to see every director bring his own style to the franchise, but of course, in the MI series, it is not the director who is the star. It is the star himself.

Mission Impossible: Fallout is a testament to the miracle that is Tom Cruise Cruise is among Hollywood's last surviving superstars. And yet look at what this man is willing to endure to entertain us. He jumps from helicopters, fights hand to hand and rides bikes against the traffic without a helmet. Side note: The last one is not really an unbelievable stunt because it is very common in India. I have done it occasionally, on short stretches. :) The movie also features a now staple sequence of the famous Tom Cruize run, where he covers miles in a few minutes, running through cars and jumping from buildings. But sadly, there was no wire-drop sequence. That climax which involves sticking bombs helicopters and snowy mountain clips is so suspenseful.

But what kept distracting me constantly was watching Tom do the stunts. I remember speaking multiple times to myself that he is actually doing it himself ! I could visualize the protective wires from which he dangled, and how certain sequences were sped up to make it seem impossible. It sometimes annoying how these thoughts creep up, distracting one from watching the scenes on screen.

There's also Henry Cavill showing us that he can do more than just be Superman. I hear they had to digitally remove his moustache from his scenes in Justice League, and that might have contributed to that movies debacle. Its good to see that his acting and his moustache was justified in Fallout.

Fallout also has a lot of emotionally relevant scenes, where Ethan’s personal life from the previous movies is woven into the narrative. I felt and found it too…what’s the term…filmy. Having grown up on diet of rubbish Bollywood action movies, I could not digest it a big budget Hollywood production. What, the villain wants revenge, so he brings Hunt’s ex-wife to the location of the final bombing? So that he can personally destroy Hunt emotionally ?  Bah! Humbug!!. I found Luther’s exposition particularly cheesy, the one where he says Hunt only cared about two women in his life. Oh yeah ? What about Nyah from the second movie, who he definitely falls for ?  The point of that storyline was to remind the audience that Hunt was still human, and has his own problems, balancing personal and professional life. But, it was way to cheesy. Tom really cannot play such emotional scenes so close to the camera.

Also, is Hunt and his team the only member’s of the IMF ? We have seen six movies so far, and Hunt was disavowed in half of them. In the last 3, there was no other agent or team sent on a mission. They need to address the question of how big of an organization the IMF really is.

And why was Alec Baldwin’s character killed ? Such a fine actor.

And the final sequence of the movie is in Kashmir, India ? But there is not even a single India/Pakistani character/actor anywhere in the entire movie. All those scenes were shot in New Zealand, because they could not get permission to shoot in India.

Also, that scene from the trailer where he ramps a truck into another truck on what appears as an Indian road, that’s not in the movie. Minor offence.

At times the dialogues in the movie reminded me of my experiences from my own profession! Hunt improvises a lot, like we do in software projects, hehe. Wink, wink. When he says “I am working on it”, or “yet to figure that out”, I felt it was just how an Indian software company executes projects :)

Fallout deserves praise in every department. Its nice to see a franchise still holding strong, adding something new , while still retaining what made the original such a hit.

Fallen Kingdom - Just monster mayhem

Do you hear that? That ruffling sound ? Scratching and heaving ? Its not an Indoraptor. That is the sound of Michael Crichton turning in his grave.

Well that is what I heard, while watching the Fallen Kingdom in a theatre. With this one, the series has fully entered monster mayhem territory. Except for a few frightening scenes, its largely a forgetful affair. I guess that's good, because I really want to forget I actually watched it.

Fallen Kingdom can be summarized as a monster movie where the monsters conveniently eat up all the bad guys. And the good guys survive, with minor bruises. If you watch all the movies in in sequence, you can see how the focus of the movie moves from  discovery, to wonder, to fear and then flat-out ridiculousness . Although they came out during the summer blockbuster season, the first two movies still had a heart. The man vs nature conflict was continuously debated, the characters were relocatable, and the animals were too adorable that the audience would actually want any of them killed. That changes with the 'World' series, then the new genetically engineered hybrids are so nasty, killing them off would be just that much more better. And I think that is not what Crichton would have wanted.

The underwater opening scenes reminded me of how Titanic opened, for some reason. That 10 minute sequence in the beginning is spot on. The darkness, music and rain heightens the thrill of it. But you can still see the shoddy,lazy writing here. The bad guys could have come into the park any time of the day. Instead, they decided that the best time to pay a visit is during night, with a thunderstorm in the background. You can see that the whole point of that scene was just to get them all eaten.

But then, it falls back into really lazy writing zone. Politics, and economics and what not. By the time they are back on the island, you get a clear picture of who all will survive and who won't. What, all of a sudden the volcano on the island erupted ? Didn't the park builders do a feasibility study on that risk ? And this is all nature correcting man's mistake ? All the creatures run in the same direction ? Thats just beneath the volcano ? Amazing. Now they weaponise the creatures ? To russian mafia ? What the hell ? That scene where they try to take blood from the T-Rex ? Absolute bullshit. Whoever came up with it has to be eaten by that indoraptor.And all the creatures fit conveniently under that castle ? They have already built huge enclosures for each creature ? Including the T-Rex ? And the old man had no idea ? Shouldn't the constant construction have alerted him ? Even the old lady had no idea what was going on . And by the way, what happens to her ?

There were numerous scenes paying homages to the original movie. Clearly, they were expecting the nostalgia to kick in. Like the scene where the huge brontosaurus walks into the midst of the crew. That scene clearly refers the famous "Its a dinosaur" scene from the first.  But this time they were thoughtful enough to add the huge sound of walking, again a reference. The scene where the indoraptor opens locks. And then on entering the floor, taps twice using its middle toe. That is straight from the kitchen scene. Also the scene where the kid tries to open the doors from a computer, but fails. And then opens the wrong one. There is again a scene where Owen shuts down the power in the castle. And then the kid reboots everything and, well, it was a stupid thing to do.

But the first scary scene for me was not the dino-eaitng-human scenes. It was halfway into the movie, when it is revelead that Maisie is a perfect clone of her mother. Damn ! Didn't see that one coming. This fact is revelead to Maisie and the audience at the same time. This opens up a lot of frightening ,ethical questions. Does a cloned human have the same rights a normal human has ? Can they bring back Hammond ? :) Ok, that last one never crossed my mind, but clearly there are ethical boundaries being crossed now.

But again, the focus of the current series has moved away from wonder and awe, to fear and loathing. It is just another monster movie now. There is nothing new to add, and the series has run its course. 

The Post. Relevant, but boring.

 

Yes. The 2017 movie. Directed by 'Sir' Steven Spielberg. Starring 'Sir' Tom Hanks, and that lady who has all the oscar nominations. I finally got around to watching it. Been very busy lately. And finally got a good print. This movie was tipped to win at least a few oscars. Ended up winning none.

I could see why it did not win the best picture or director awards. But I could not see why it did not win anything at all.

This has to be the most...hmm...boring Spielberg movie I have watched. No offense, but it is not the kind of subject matter young movie goers would want to watch nowadays. But it discussed a very relevant topic, that of the freedom of the press. That of accountability of the government to the people. This is a serious topic which will be discussed for generations yet to come.

Inspite of being boring, I loved it. It has the Spielberg stamp everywhere, in the direction, photography, the way people react, even lense flares. Yes, there is a scene when a kid runs across the street and there is a lense flare in the pan. There are some nice dialogues, and good charachters . Hanks again plays a nice guy,that guy can NEVER play a baddie. There is tension in the scenes, short war scene in the beginning was unexpected. And has great music. And since its a speilberg movie, you know that it will have a happy ending. The press wins, and there is a moment of triumph, highlighted by John Williams music. "The press was to serve the governed. Not the governors". That scene.

But the thing that kept bothering me the whole time was that, I felt they chose to tell the wrong story. It was not the Washington Post, but the New York Times which broke the story of the Pentagon papers. I really really really wanted to know how they did it. How did they research the material for over 3 months, and ultimately took the decision to publish it. Who where those charachters, what all did they stand to gain from it. How did the , allegedly, 'Failing New York Times' discuss their options and take the risk of going against their Federal government. And how did they react when a case was filed against them.

And , who the hell delivered that shoe box of copies to the post ? Was it somebody from NYT ?

But instead, we see a story of another press trying to keep up in the competition. And then alloting a lot of time to discuss the legal repercussions of what they are about to do. Not bad, but there is hardly anything happening there. At some point this movie was more about lawyers than about reporters. And the whole dull lighting and grey-color palette was off.

Today the media has a more active and faster role in spreading information, people no longer wait for their morning newspapers. They get it fresh off the internet, often spreading it via posts and likes. In the past few years there have been numerous instance of media barons NOT doing their jobs, or simply overdoing them. Spreading news without indpendently verifying them. The media back home in my my country are notorious for over dramatizing events and discussing non-relevant topics just for the airtime. So watching the story of people responsible in The Post thinking ten times before publishing underscores the roles reporters play in modern democracy. Yes, they have the freedom. But then they also have the responsibilty of reporting it neutrally, without taking any sides.

So do watch how they did it at the Post.

Black Panther

 

Another weekend. Lots of time. And nothing to do. It bothers me that all shops and malls in Australian cities close down sharp at 6pm, even on weekends. And only late night bars are open afterwards. There is nowhere to go in the 6pm - 9pm sweet spot, something we used to enjoy back in India.

A quick search showed that some movies were still open. Okay. So lets go there. And then we found there was hardly any choice of movies. Having read the rave reviews of Marve's Black Panther, we decided to catch it at the Crown in Melbourne.

The movie ? Meh. So-so. Things have come to a point nowadays that the only way to really enjoy a hollywood movie is to leave your brain at home. Marvel's cinematic universe is now larger than all the other sci-fi-fantasy stuff put together. And now they were moving towards secondary heroes, building up mythology in parts of the world other than..you know, cities in the US.

So as long as you not question logic, the movie is good. Though I still don't understand how people are comparing Killmonger to The Dark Knight's joker. Naah, not even close. Whereas Killmonger fights with force upfront, the Joker was all about brains. And for me the revenge story didn't make sense.

Wait wait, I got carried away. That was the kid in me talking.

I also found it really really wierd that everyone in Wakanda talks in English ! In that slow, clearly pronounced accent. Jordan's killmonger is the only one with his american accent, which made sense. But it sounded like everyone in Wakanda had a honors degree in English.

And what was Bilbo baggins doing in all of this ? And gollum was there too. Gollum and Baggins in a movie out of middle earth. That interrogation scene, I half expected Andy Serkis to go..."my precious !!" there.

But I liked the story of the reluctant king, hesitant to do the right thing, because it conflicts with his own conscience. There are some profound scenes of reflection and dialogue there. "You are a good man. Its hard for a good man to be a good king.". You know, absolute power and everything.

But the reason people are excited  about Black Panther is because the demand for media that centers minorities is far greater than the available supply.

 

 

PS: I think this is the first superhero movie I have watched in a theatre ! And maybe the last.

A series of flops

 

Rangoon

Rangoon revolves around Rusi Billimoria (Saif Ali Khan), Miss Julia (Kangana Ranaut) and Jamadar Nawab Malik (Shahid Kapoor). The film is set in the era of World War II. Contrary to all the hype created for the film, Rangoon soon ran out of the fizz and failed to make a mark. The film was made on a budget of INR 80 crore and satellite, digital and music rights were sold in INR 15 crore. So, to break even, the film had to earn INR 65 crore. But, the film could only manage to collect INR 21.57 crore at the box office. And hence, Rangoon turned out to be a huge debacle at the box office.

Ok Jaanu

Produced jointly by Karan Johar and Mani Ratnam, Ok Jaanu is the remake of successful Tamil film from 2015, Ok Kanmani. Ok Jaanu stars the Aashiqui 2 stars Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles. Made with a budget of INR 28 crore, Ok Jaanu couldn't even manage to earn to recover the cost of production. It collected INR 23.64 crore and hence comes in this category.

Running Shaadi

Adding to the list, next up is Taapsee Pannu and Amit Sadhs's Running Shaadi. It is a romantic comedy and revolves around three character who start a new website called Running Shaadi which helps couples in Amritsar elope with their lovers. Well, the film itself had to elope from the race of becoming an earner at the ticket windows. The film could only earn INR 50 lacs at the box office, but was expected to rake in around INR 3 crore.

Trapped

Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, Trapped is about a guy who gets locked in his own apartment and the whole story revolves around his tactics of survival and how he manages to make his way out. Ever after Rajkummar Rao's brilliant performance couldn't attract the audience to come to the theatres. Trapped is made on a very low budget of less than INR 10 crore,  but would still struggling to recover that money. The film earned only INR 2.59 crore.

Aa Gaya Hero

Govinda's comeback Aa Gaya Hero had to return to the pavilion before even making a 10 runs on the field. The film was made on a budget of INR 8 crore, but could only earn INR 1.30 crore at the box office.

Machine

Directed by Abbas Mustan, Machine features Kiara Advani, Carla Dennis, Eshaan Shankar & Mustafa in lead roles. The film couldn't make a mark and even viewers weren't interested watching the film. Made on a budget INR 25 crore, the film could only earn INR 3.12 crore at the box office.

Anaarkali Of Aarah

Swara Bhaskar's Anaarkali Of Aarah was in news ever since it was announced. It made headlines for its tussle with CBFC and how the film's scenes got leaked online, But, none of these factors really helped the movie mint money and it ran out of steam as soon as it released. The film was made on a budget of around INR 5 crore and it collected only INR 0.80 crore at the ticket windows.

They destroyed Inferno

Been very busy nowadays, at a new job in a new role. So it was after a long time I got the time to watch a movie. Inferno. Yep, based on the novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks returns as Langdon. And Ron Howard as director. Which is why I was confused as to why they made this movie. This is the same team which made Apollo 13.

To be honest, the source material wasn't that strong to justify this movie. I was unimpressed with the book when I came out, and remember feeling Brown has lost his touch. In Inferno, the subject matter is not mainstream, the legends and history is not something which would attract public attention. The Lost Symbol, which had some American history conspiracy in it, would have been a better choice. Not many know about the importance of Florence, or have heard of Dante.

I think they should now stop making these movies. Brown's plots just gets clumsier , and clumsier. And now its totally predictable. Every novel has Langdon waking up in a hotel/hospital/room , being chased by police/secret service/FBI/CIA and bad guys/mafia/crazy cult. He is helped by a young , attractive and super-smart female, and the whole story gets over in like..24 hours. And I still don't buy the fact that Langdon is able to keep all those details of symbology in his head, he practically knows every work of literature created by the great artists.

In addition, they changed the story. Which was the biggest disappointment for me. In the book, Zobrist does not create a plague, but a virus which renders half of the human population infertile, so that there is some population control in the coming generation. But the movie version paints him as a foolish genius, who wants to kill people.

So right when I thought they could not go wrong with making Inferno, they have managed to mess it up completely.

ADHM is boring

 

This review perfectly sums up this movie. And how I felt.

Kabali

20 minutes into watching this movie, I could feel the director's dilemma. How can one tell a credible story of a reformed criminal gangster, who now has a heart of gold, full of regrets, while still meeting fan's expectations of Rajnikanth, India's only true superstar. Well, he has mostly succeeded, but the director's ending , I felt, just ruined all the fun.

I have never done this, but it was my first Rajni movie, first day, first show. Don't ask me how I was lured, but maybe I just wanted to see what the hype and hoopla was all about. So I got to watch this movie from the 3rd row of an AC multiplex in Bangalore, at 9am on the first day itself. It was crazy. Fans were screaming, whistling, cat calls and claps. Grownups were behaving like kids. When we first see him, Kabali is a 60 years old, just released from prison, and he is soon surrounded by his loyal supporters, who now run a charity organization. But first, he visits the current leader of his rival gang and beats them all to pulp, for revenge.

This is the dilemma I was talking about. This contrast was too much for me to handle. During the first half, he is trying to find out what happened to his beloved wife, and just after intermission we find out that he has a daughter, and his wife is also well and alive. Ok, so everyone is alive. What is the need to continue this story then, when there is no need for revenge, the old man just got his family back. He should now just retire and spend the rest of his days with them.

Instead, circumstances cause him to return to his gangster way of life. More kills, more thrills. Sure , this is fun. But just when he has become the undisputed Don of all of Malaysia, the director decides to tell his story, and has somebody else walk in and kill him.

I could feel the shock of the audience when the credits rolled. No more claps, no whistles. I guess it was too much for them to bear. They all just walked out quietly from the theatre.

PS: That one hour flashback was like a one hour documentary. That should have been fully cut.

And now they are going to destroy Ustad Hotel

 

After the Bangalore Days remake massacre, they are now going to remake the hit new-age movie,  Ustad Hotel. They are going to retain some of the actors, but it will definitely be localized a lot.

You can surely separate the creative directors from the business minded directors via these remakes. Remake directors don’t have the courage to put together something of their own. So they resort to remakes.

Eye in the Sky

 

I didn’t go to office today. Didn’t feel like it. There was not much work, and its raining heavily across the city. The thoughts of navigating through those horrible roads in the torrential rain dicouraged me. So I stayed back, and watched another movie  :) . It is a British-American movie called Eye in the Sky. No, its not a poem. It is about a single day in modern day warfare. A day in the life of modern soldiers, and the buerocratic nightmare they have to deal with while following orders issued by their own countries.

It does not have the kind of action you see in Bond or Bourne movies, there is a lot of talk. In so may different accents. They just sit and talk and talk, but man, it is rivetting. The movie holds you at the edge of your seats till the end. You really want to see how it plays out. And gives you something to think about too. The general assumption is that technology has made modern warfare much more safer, and easier. These new age satelite video feeds and drones give the armed forces reach into critical places which where way out of their reach earlier. Instead of actually getting into a fighter jet , pilots can control drones remotely, and decision makers have much more time to think and act upon the intel they receive. But that certainly does not make things easier for them. In every war, there will always be collateral damage. And policy makers try to minimize that damage as much as they can.

So we have a bunch of British and American soliers co-operating a joint task operation to monitor and capture some terrorists in a friendly African country. And what starts a capture operation moves to a strike operation due to the change in the target’s location, and the presence of multiple wanted people there. Among them are three people in the Britishers’s ‘East Africa Most Wanted’ list, and two new radical recruits, one a British and one an American citizen. Looking at the new changed situation, the decision makers - a colonel , some ministers, the attorney general, quickly loose their confidence, and decide they can NOT approve the kill-operation. Thats when things start getting messy. They refer up , in their respective hierarchies, for approval. And those guys are spread across the world, and they too refer further up.

Fun fact- this is how most decision are done in my office :) .

When the green light finally comes in, after many more hours, the novice done pilot (this is his first time firing a missile) now develops crow’s feet, due to the presence of a very young local girl within the blast radius. This starts of another series of questions up the chain. Does saving the life of ~80 people who migh die in a suicide attack soon , justify the death of one innocent girl as collateral damage ?

 

 

There are some really hard hitting dialogues in the movie, around the cost of war, politics, and its aftermath. Sometimes I felt this movie was more of  a propoganda to describe how each drone strike is carefully evualuated, assessed , the pros and cons weighed, and finally approved. But other times, it made sense too. Fighting any war is not easy, even with all the advantage one might have, its human lifes at stake.

 

Star of the movie is that little girl playing hoops in this movie. And before I close, Alan Rickman, you will be missed. Snape’s acting in this movie reminds one of what a talented actor he was.

Finding Dory - Splash of Fun !

 

The long awaited sequel to the 2003 animation hit Finding Nemo finally came out this week. And strangely enough, it made me feel young and old at the same time. Seeing the old fish gang back in action in the sea brought back fond memories. But man, I still can’t believe it has been 13 years since the Nemo came out. I feel old.

This is a fun, fun movie. Fast, emotional, funny and clever, it has all the ingredients which made Nemo a smash hit. But I did feel there were too many charachters and the story was a bit too complex, specially the (spoiler) truck chase towards the end was a little far fetched. For an ocean movie, a big part of this story is set outside of the ocean, at a sea-world kind of oceanarium. There are more humans than before and the fish gang seem just at home taking over the human world. Theres also a giant squid !! Some old charachters are back too, like Crush dude and Mr Ray ! Water is obviously a big deal in a fish story. But the water in Finding Nemo was just implied, something of an animation magic trick with the fish “floating in this virtual air,” But animation technology has improved in the last 13 years, allowing filmmakers to include all the complicated properties of water — from surface movement to the rendering of light rippling through the depths. It’s a stunning improvement.

But the stars of the show are the two Dorys, and Hank. There is an oh-so-cute little-Dory in the flashback scenes to show her childhood. And Hank, the octopus (or septepus, I don’t know) is Dorys capable partner in crime how helps her in the complex human world. As always , there are a lot of those visual gags and deadpan humor. While Dory played a not so helpful supporting charachter last time sometimes putting Marlin in trouble, this time she is on her own for a longer time. Her disability keeps getting in they way when she tries to find her parents first, and then trying to save her friends again. But thankfully, there are far lesser predators in this movie than last time, and every fish she runs into is friendly and willing to help.

Already there are reviews out which celebrate the movie focussing on the positive message around disability in the movie, and others are criticizing a part of the story which makes fun of  some other charachters which seem a little…underdeveloped. But I think one should take the movie for what it is, pure fun, aimed at kids. And to turn us grown-ups nostalgic. A whole new generation of kids are going to rediscover the strange amazing wonderful life in the sea through this movie.