Captain America: Civil War – Divide and Conquer

Tony Stark: That shield doesn’t belong to you. You don’t deserve it! My father made that shield!

When Peter Jackson decided to bring JRR Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings (LoTR) to the screen, it marked an important chapter in film history. A story of such ginormous proportions was never witnessed in cinemas before; there were multiple storylines, more than a dozen enigmatic characters, jaw-dropping locations, and visual imagery of the highest caliber. The twelve-hour runtime of the LoTR series is a testament to Jackson’s mammoth-sized ambition. It transported us to Middle Earth, a fantasy world of hobbits, warriors, and wizards. Several blockbusters have come and gone since, trying to replicate its success, yet there has been nothing that could come close to LoTR’s epic narrative.

Movies adapted from comic books are perceived as just that: a movie based on a comic book. We often see them as nothing more than costumed men and women with superpowers who save the world from an alien attack or a mad terrorist. There are some laughs here and there, buildings are razed to the ground, scores of people die, at the end of it all, the world is finally saved as our heroes head to the nearest shawarma joint to solemnly celebrate. Superhero movies till now, although entertaining, lacked the narrative depth of LoTR. Even Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, that pushed the bar for the superhero genre, never matched the size and the scope of the fantasy genre. But with Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: Civil War, all of it is has changed.

Marvel had split the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) into three phases, if Phase One ended with bringing together Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in The Avengers, Phase Two saw the seeds of unrest being planted in Age of Ultron. Simultaneously, it also opened a different universe within the MCU with Guardians of the Galaxy. All Marvel films with its Easter eggs and post-credits end scene had led to Phase Three: a shakeup in the MCU.

In a film where there are close to a dozen powerhouse superheroes, it is the writing that stands tall. It is no easy task to come up with a plot that will fit in every character without making them feel like fillers, yet, writers Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely spin a smart, engaging story with political connotations. Under the deft direction of the Russo brothers, Civil War feels like a layered spy thriller that demands repeat viewing.

The events in Age of Ultron, that caused destruction and loss of lives in Sokovia leads to world leaders demanding that the Avengers be reined in, thus born the Sokovia Accords. However, Captain America doesn’t warm up to the idea of being controlled by politicos, while Iron Man feels that having our powers regulated is the right thing to do, this difference in opinion fuels a battle of ideologies between the two. The emergence of the troubled Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier and Cap’s loyalty to his old friend further causes a divide in the Avengers camp.

Civil War could be a sly political commentary on the current state of affairs, it represents the online arguments we see every day on the Internet between the liberals and the right wing. That the Russos decide to show our leading heroes as egotistical and vulnerable makes them seem more human, them being superheroes happens to be just a coincidence. Within their body armor and spandex suit, they are just men and women who want to hear that they are right, the fulcrum of every twitter argument.

Vengeance is a theme that has been done to death in superhero films; it is an easy leitmotif to get the audience’s attention, but is akin to walking a tightrope, one misstep and you’d lose the audience. However, in Civil War it is one among the several themes that push the story forward, which is why despite the premise seeming familiar, it feels refreshing.

The action scenes–from the opening sequence in Lagos to the much talked about face-off involving all the big guns in an airport–keep you hooked. Unlike the scenes in Batman v Superman, the fight scenes happen during the day with even the ones happening indoors being well-lit, which makes for a fantastic experience. Other than action scenes shot across the world, the use of hand-held cameras to shoot fight scenes and manipulating Bucky by using a special set of words are a few plot points that would remind you of Jason Bourne movies.

The whole cast comes together to give a fabulous performance, in Robert Downey Jr’s. Tony Stark, we see a man who underneath the sarcasm and razor-sharp wit is hurting over the loss of his loved ones. Chris Evans as Captain America is charismatic possessing the gravitas of a man who leads a group of powerful men and women. While it is always great to see familiar faces, it is the two new recruits in the MCU that leave you enthralled, Tom Holland’s Spiderman is the cocky, web-shooting teenager we have been waiting for all these years. Chadwick Boseman brings in the right mix of elegance and aggression as T’challa the Wakandan prince and his alter ego Black Panther.

From being a hit-and-giggle superhero franchise under Joss Whedon, the MCU has matured in terms of vision and style thanks to the Russos. With Avengers: Infinity Wars slated to release in the next couple of years, Anthony and Joe Russo will be taking on a monumental challenge. But we can rest assured knowing that these guys know what they are doing.

Image source: http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/sites/default/files/civilwarposterimh.jpg

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Review

Alfred: That’s how it starts. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness that turns good men… cruel.

From the time it was announced, Batman v Superman (BvS) had been under severe scrutiny. Right from when Ben Affleck was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman to the trailer release that got divided opinions, Zack Snyder’s latest superhero behemoth has been a film that has been debated upon by Marvel fans, DC fans, film critics, and average moviegoers like myself. The positive initial reports during the pre-release screening validated my decision to have booked the ticket a month ago, my joy was short lived once the bouquets turned into brickbats, because when it rained it poured.

It is easy to get carried away by what you read online, one tweet confirms our worst fears, but hundreds only go on to quash any hopes of enjoying it. Nevertheless, I recalibrated my expectations and decided to watch the movie neither as a critic nor as a comic book fan, I went in there as someone who loves the movie-going experience, for that thrill you feel after they are done showing the previews and the lights dim for the main event. And at that moment, nothing else mattered; not the scores of tweets and reviews that had torn the movie to shreds even before it released, not the cynics and the blowhards with their “I-told-you-so” comments.

You can say that Batman v Superman is a story about three men who were scarred from childhood, Superman (Henry Cavill) as Clark Kent spent his childhood raised by his adopted parents, Jonathan and Martha, his moral compass, who helped him come to terms with his powers. Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) watched his parents get killed in front of his eyes, the event turns him to fight crime as Batman, who literally leaves his brand of justice on his victims. Lex Luthor (Mark Zuck.. Jesse Eisenberg) grows up under his father’s legacy, so bitter and damaged does his father leave him that Lex feels that the only way to prove his worth to his now dead father is by killing the most powerful man on earth: Superman.

And this is why Lex Luthor manipulates two of the greatest comic book icons against one another.

While Nolan’s Batman was a grieving superhero who is self-righteous enough to not kill the bad guy, Snyder’s Batman is intimidating, a beast who is in-your-face and doesn’t shy from breaking bones or even impaling someone. Ben Affleck is outstanding as Batman, the gruff Batman voice is cleverly replaced with a voice modulator that makes him sound even more menacing. BvS shows Batman taking the lead in forming The Justice League along with a mysterious ally in Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). With new images of Wonder Woman released online and an intriguing introduction to her in BvS, I am quite excited to see how her origin story unfolds.

Batman v Superman has a grim and dark tone to it, the opening credit just meanders along bereft of any thundering background music or title card that would signify the intensity of the movie. Clocking at a run time of 150 minutes with an overdose of CGI, BvS on a 3-D screen can leave you weary and is best enjoyed in a regular 2-D screen. Zack Snyder’s love for slow motion is established in the first few minutes of the movie where we are shown the fabled story of how Bruce Wayne was orphaned. Most of the scenes are shot at night, the much touted face-off between Batman and Superman is fantastic to watch on the big screen, although the reason they fight for and eventually compromise seems to have been borrowed from an 80’s Bollywood potboiler. And this is where its bigger problem is: the lazy writing.

You can find shades of loosely written situations and harebrained resolutions similar to The Dark Knight Rises, which was also written by David Goyer. There are bizarre dream sequences that are unexplained, how Luthor gets the intel on metahumans such as Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg is something that we are left wondering about.

Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor is loud and hyper, shut your eyes and you could almost feel that it is Shah Rukh Khan hamming his way to glory, however, it is towards the end when he becomes more subdued that he starts to make an effect. Ben Affleck is not a better Bruce Wayne than Christian Bale, but he makes up for it by being the best Batman we have seen on screen–menacing and ruthless, it was great to watch action sequences that used his physique and strength to full effect. Jeremy Irons has a limited screentime as Alfred, yet is a treat. Snarky and even handy with the tools, Alfred is more like Jarvis than a philosopher and guide that Michael Caine was to Bale’s Bruce Wayne. Amy Adams as Lois Lane is decent as the aggrieved journalist who is getting used to the pitfalls of being a superhero’s ladylove.

Directing BvS was akin to walking a tightrope considering that Snyder was taking over from Christopher Nolan, who redefined the superhero genre. The movie sure has some boneheaded moments up front, but there are other big moments that work really well towards the end. The cliffhanger ending and the citing of a bigger threat are enough to make you look forward to the next installments.

Batman v Superman despite its flaws is entertaining. It is getting poor reviews because of the huge expectations it has set, yet, few months down the line, when all the excitement has died down and you decide to watch it again on television, you’ll be willing to look beyond the plotholes. And who knows, like me, you might book your tickets for the next DC installment because it is all about the “S” that is imprinted on Superman’s vest.

The best I have watched – Part II

There has been an influx of young, innovative directors in Indian cinema across Bollywood and Kollywood, but there is one young director from Kerala whose sophomore feature changed Malayalam cinema this year. We begin the list with this year’s crowd favourite:

Premam: Of all the movies that I have watched this year, this was a movie that’d bring a grin to my face by just thinking about it. Alphonse Putheran’s second feature deserves a longform on its own because there is so much to write about it: It being a pop-culture phenomenon that introduced to us the freckle-faced Malar (Sai Pallavi) who looks like she just woke up from a slumber, George David’s (Nivin Pauly) journey from a boy to a man in search of love in the company of his friends Shambu and Koya, the use of colours in each frame, it using music effectively to enhance the narrative–if Malare made you feel like wanting to fall in love, watching a scene shot in single take tuned to Kalippu gave you goosebumps, while Scene Contra is just a hilarious song on a couple of friends trying to dissuade their friend from falling in love a third time. Premam told a story about love, a concept as old as the hills, but what made it a fantastic watch was the innovative approach. We may have heard this story countless times, but not like the way it was told in Premam.

Uppu Karuvaadu: A movie about movie making, Radha Mohan’s Uppu Karuvaadu has Karunakaran in the lead as a struggling movie director who is enamored by the fictitious leading lady in his script. Chandran (Karunakaran) seeks the help of a local bigwig called Ayya (MS Baskar) who decides to finance his film, but only if he casts his daughter Mahalakshmi (Nandita) as the main character. Chandran has a tough job in preparing the immature Mahalakshmi for the role. How Chandran ends up directing his project forms the rest of the story. What works for UK is its quirky cast of characters: a superstitious manager, a fake godman, an English-butchering helper, and a thirukkural quoting assistant director. A philosophizing henchman called Manja only adds more variety to the cast of characters. While the movie could have ended like Jigarthanda, about a meta-film, where UK changes gears and leaves you enthralled is during the final fifteen minutes when the screenplay heads to a direction you couldn’t have predicted.

Sicario: Rarely does a movie that has actors like Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin and Emily Blunt gets overshadowed by a cinematographer. But when it is Roger Deakins handling the camerawork, it comes as no surprise. From the first scene to the final few frames, Deakins’ camerawork makes Sicario a tight, atmospheric thriller keeping you at the edge of your seats. Denis Villeneuve shows us why he is an exciting filmmaker with this engaging drama-thriller. From a shootout at a crowded highway to gunfights in an underground tunnel, the war on drugs never looked this beautiful on screen before.

Mad Max: Fury Road: A movie that had cinema critics and the average moviegoer going gaga over it, Mad Max: Fury Road was high-octane, action-packed entertainment from the get-go. A reboot of the Mel Gibson movie franchise from the 80’s, director George Miller’s thrill-a-minute was one of the most gorgeously shot movies of 2015. The psychedelic camerawork and the VFX complement the characters we see on screen, each of them crazier than the last. Tom Hardy’s stock as a solo hero rose high, while Charlize Theron won plaudits for her role as an ass-kicking emancipator. The pulse-pounding score and the large setpieces come together to leave you breathless in the biggest hit of the year. Read a detailed review here.

The Hateful Eight: Twenty years ago, Quentin Tarantino broke into the scene with Reservoir Dogs, a story about a heist gone wrong that leaves the surviving criminals in a room with bloody circumstances. Now established as one of cinema’s leading experimental directors, QT brings The Hateful Eight in the large 70mm format to revitalize an obsolete technique of film making. The story is similar to Reservoir Dogs, but with a post-Civil War setting with more established actors. A room full of strangers interact in lengthy conversations, as an air of distrust and deception fills the room. Clocking close to three hours the story unravels chapter by chapter, yet never seeming too tedious. Set to the original background score of the legendary Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight is one of the bloodiest and shocking movies of the year. Read a detailed review here.

Rajathandhiram: In a year when Arvind Swamy won accolades for being a smooth criminal in Thani Oruvan, Veera Bahu’s cocky antihero went almost unnoticed. A cleverly written heist thriller, Rajathandhiram takes its own time in getting to the main plot, it sets the story up with flashbacks and fleshing out its characters, there is an impending double-cross that is boldly revealed in the first half of the movie. These are tricks we have seen in Guy Ritchie and Matthew Vaughn movies, but it still keeps us riveted because of the enigmatic lead actor and an earnest bunch of supporting actors.

Kaaka Muttai: Kaaka Muttai is a story of the travails of two little underprivileged boys who yearn for the taste of pizza. With a story set in the slums, M. Manikandan could have tried to play at your heartstrings by emotional manipulation, instead he portrays the boys’ predicament matter-of-factly. Kaaka Muttai doesn’t ask for your charity, it only asks for your attention. We become so attached to the boys that when one of them contemplates stealing a phone from a moving train, we hope he doesn’t lose his way. Kaaka Muttai works as a social commentary, a satire that mocks the great divide between the rich and the poor in India. It could have turned into a Slumdog Millionaire indulging in poverty and misery porn, yet it is more dignified in approach, much like the two boys.

Honorable Mentions:

The Revenant: Dicaprio battling a bear, Dicaprio rising from the dead, a badass Tom Hardy, a breathless action sequence between Native Americans and a hunting party, Innaritu’s masterful direction, the gorgeous cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezk all together make it a must-watch Man vs. Wild survival thriller.

NH10: Produced by and starring Anushka Sharma, NH10 has her fighting against misogyny and honor-killing. Anushka Sharma is a tough cookie and it is great fun watching her dole out her brand of justice to those who have wronged her.

Spotlight: A throwback to movies on good ol’ fashioned investigative journalism, Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight has a stellar star cast comprising of Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Stanley Tucci. Despite being heavy on conversation, a powerhouse bunch of actors discussing how to bring down the Boston Catholic Archdiocese that covers up for child molestation keeps you glued to your seats.

Orange Mittai: Vijay Sethupathi as Kailasam gives an understated performance as a grumpy old man in this poignant drama. Also starring Ramesh Thilak from Soodhu Kavvum, Orange Mittai is a mature take on old age and the loneliness that accompanies it.

Click here to go back to Part I of this list.

The best I have watched – Part I

I wanted to make a year end post of how this year has been and how I am looking forward to the new year as a changed person, but then who am I kidding? I’d be the same procrastinating slob. Movies have been a constant companion this year, I may have seen a lot of movies but there were some that stayed with me long after I shut down my laptop. So here is my pick of some of my favorite movies from 2015, in no particular order.

Badlapur: After a lackluster Agent Vinod, Sriram Raghavan returns to form in this revenge thriller. Raghu’s (Varun Dhawan) quest for revenge over his wife and child’s murderers turns him into a sadistic, manipulating sociopath. Rarely does a movie fill you with contempt for a bereaved man and makes you take sides with heartless killers. Aided by a stellar performance from Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Badlapur is a character study of how far one can go for vengeance.

Dum Laga Ke Haisha: DLKH is an unconventional love story between an untamable, school drop-out and his educated, portly wife. Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar) is a strong female character–a rarity in Hindi cinema–who is independent enough to walk out of her marriage and fend for herself. Making a movie on arranged marriage in the 90’s in a conservative society like Haridwar is akin to walking a tightrope, but Sharat Katariya handles it with the maturity of a seasoned director.

Ennakkul Oruvan: A remake of the Kannada film Lucia, EO is an engaging psychological thriller with a Nolan-like twist. Siddharth plays the dual role of an actor (Vicky) and a theater operator (Vignesh), one shown in colour and the other in black-and-white. As their stories converge, the colours juxtapose to pull the rug off your feet during the final moments. Watch it because it is one of the smartest psychological thrillers to come out of Kollywood.

Hunterrr: Hunterrr is different from other juvenile Bollywood films that pass for “adult comedies”, it’s the story of Mandar Ponkshe (Gulshan Deviah), a man in his mid-30’s who wants to leave his philandering ways behind and settle down in life. With his cousin Dilip narrating his flashback, we are introduced to Mandar during his adolescence, his first girlfriend Parul and his steamy affair with the married woman in his neighborhood. Deviah as Mandar is a joy to watch, as he effortlessly switches back and forth from a gullible middle-aged man to a lascivious youth. Radhika Apte gives a grounded performance as Tripti, a modern-day woman who has had her fair share of escapades and is a perfect foil to Mandar.

Masaan: Masaan is as much a story on the city of Banaras as it is about love and grief. It takes us through the two separate stories of Devi (Richa Chadda) and Deepak (Vicky Kaushal), both are victims of a conservative and traditional society. Bound together by values and family, both seek desperately for a way out. The ever-dependable Sanjay Mishra as the helpless father of Devi turns in a touching performance. Masaan is a understated drama that never makes the predicament of its lead characters melodramatic to win our sympathy.

Talvar: The controversial murder of Aarushi Talwar is fictionalized in this gripping thriller put together by Meghna Gulzar and Vishal Bharadwaj. What makes it more real is how they show the law take its course–from the nonchalant way the police mess up the investigation to the final act where both the CDI teams make their cases. Multiple narratives and the tinkering of minute details make it a cleverly crafted police procedural. And there is also Irrfan Khan who owns every scene he is in.

Kirumi: This has been a good year for Tamil cinema with a lot of young, impressive directors on the rise; Anucharan is one among them. Kirumi is a taut thriller that stars Kathir as a cocky young informant for the police. Kathir falls victim to the politics between two police officers, what adds more to his woes is his beef with the local don. Kirumi is a grim reminder that ordinary men have a lot more to lose in the fight against evil. Sometimes, one has no other way but to let evil coexist and turn a blind eye.

Kuttram Kadithal: Adding to the list is Bramma, whose Kuttram Kadithal is a powerful drama of an unexpected event that changes the lives of everyone involved in it. It tells the story of a newly married Merlin, a schoolteacher at the local school who ends up punishing a mischievous boy. What follows is a PR disaster for the school with everyone baying for Merlin’s blood. A cast of unknowns keep you at the edge of your seats for two hours.

Honorable Mentions:

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!: Dibakar Banerjee’s stylized take on Byomkesh Bakshi seems to be inspired by Guy Ritchie’s take on Sherlock Holmes. The movie may have been underwhelming, but watch it because Banerjee is an exciting film maker, and for the great set design and cinematography.

Indru Netru Naalai: Another debut director, another engrossing plot. Rarely has time travel been experimented in Indian cinema, but Ravi Kumar seems to have all his bases covered in this fantastic sci-fi comedy. Elango (Vishnu) and Arumugam (Karunakaran) stumble upon a time traveling device with hilarious results.

Piku: Deepika Padukone outshines a quirky and constipated Amitabh Bachchan and the understated Irrfan Khan. A road movie about a daughter who puts up with her father’s second childhood gives you many heartwarming moments.

Titli: Dark and disturbing Titli is a depressing story of newlyweds Titli and Neelu who are looking to break the shackles of their dysfunctional and violent family. The usually funny Ranvir Shorey gives his best performance till date as Titli’s menacing older brother.

Click here to go to Part II of this list.

Hateful Eight – Bloody Christmas

John ‘The Hangman’ Ruth: One of them fellas is not what he says he is…

On a roller coaster you know when the breakneck descent is coming, you see it when the ride slowly crawls across the peak, it gives you time to hold on to your seat belt tight. Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is a roller coaster ride in terms of the narration. You can feel the tension rise when the story hits a narrative high, you are at the edge-of-your seat when Ennio Morricone’s terrific score hits the right note. Something’s gotta give you feel, and when it does, you fall back like the character on-screen who has been shot in his gut. Tarantino’s latest slow-burn western is his most bloody, brutal and shocking. I could even say that it is his best film till date, but then in a few years he might make another movie and I would go on to hail that as his best pic. The genius of Quentin Tarantino lies in his ability to consistently surpass his previous ventures.

The Hateful Eight is a departure from Tarantino’s previous works that have a theme of revenge and redemption. It has the basic premise of a whodunit: a raging snowstorm outside, eight strangers stuck together in a tavern, a secret that connects them all to each other. It could be an Agatha Christie novel, but in typical Tarantino fashion the story unravels with long-winded dialogues and shocking revelations, that is soon followed by gunshots and lots of blood.

The story takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War, John “The Hangman” Ruth, a bounty hunter, is transporting the foul-mouthed Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to be hanged in Red Rock. With a blizzard raging, he meets Maj. Marquis Warren (Samuel Jackson), a fellow bounty hunter and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), the soon-to-be-instated sheriff of Red Rock. The first two chapters go about setting the dynamics between the characters. Both Warren and Mannix have their roots in the opposite camps of civil war which fuels further animosity between the two. They seek refuge in Minnie’s Haberdashery with four other mysterious strangers, General Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern), a vitriolic war veteran grieving his dead son, Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth) the smooth-talking hangman of Red Rock, Joe Gage (Michael Madsen) a silent cowboy, and Bob, the caretaker of Minnie’s Haberdashery. But all is not as it seems inside the haberdashery.

Distrust and paranoia have always been underlying themes in Tarantino’s films, in The Hateful Eight it is brilliantly used to pit the characters against each other. Lines are drawn, and so are the guns. Tarantino has often used the setting of a story as a tool for shock and awe, like he were holding a mirror to us showing where our bigotry and hatred stems from. If Inglorious Basterds used Nazi violence, Django Unchained used slavery to make us squirm in our seats. In The Hateful Eight, the aftermath of the Civil War creates an animosity between the whites and the sole black man. A story narrated by one of them just before the interval, (a Tarantino signature) leaves you revolted and stunned. The n-word is thrown around liberally in contempt, the only female character is treated with disdain. Tarantino has always had strong female characters, strong enough to take on an army of killers, yet, the women in The Hateful Eight often seem to be at mercy of other men.

What adds more to The Hateful Eight as an absorbing feature are the sound and the visuals. Tarantino, an old-school filmmaker, in his attempt to revive 70-mm cinema, has shot the movie with Ultra Panavision, a throwback to sixties. The result is simply astounding when enjoyed in a 70-mm screen. What adds more intrigue and a sense of reality to the movie is the constant howling of the blizzard outside the haberdashery, making a force of nature look like a character in itself. Ennio Morricone returns to composing for a Western after 40 years lending the movie more gravitas.

The Hateful Eight is not an easy watch, the language is disturbing, the violence is terrifying. The movie has been getting mixed reviews over the Internet for the aforementioned reasons, at a day and age where hate is prevalent online and offline, is such glorified violence necessary? If you are familiar with his body of work, you’d know that a filmmaker like Tarantino doesn’t hold back in adding shock value to his movies. And if you are someone with a strong stomach and grounded sensibilities, go watch The Hateful Eight because it is an ode to cinema by one of its maverick students.

 

 

 

The Elders in our Family

There is a noticeable change in the older generation in our family. You will know what it is if you open your Whatsapp, or when you log in to your Facebook account. It could be a text from your mother who just discovered emojis, or your selfie-addict of an uncle has uploaded another picture of his from a weird angle. The older generation has discovered how wondrous and amazing the internet is, and they are loving it.

This year I taught my father how to download movies over a FaceTime session. While I was the one teaching him the multiple steps in downloading, it was a lesson for me to stay patient with my father as I watched him falter and fumble right from step 1: which is to open a browser, to the final step: transferring a movie from a computer drive to a portable hard disk. In the end when he gave me a thumbs-up sign–like a child who had just learnt to ride the cycle–the creases all over my face vanished, the forty-five minutes I had spent with him seemed worth it. This was after all a man who told me “It’s alright”, when I banged his car out of shape while learning how to reverse it.

“Tomorrow can you teach me how to download subtitles?” he asked, wary of the fact that he had eaten up a lot of my time.

“You bet, dad” I thought to myself.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a “hi” from my mother’s Whatsapp number. My mother was the last person I would expect a message from, because she often blamed the phone for her inability to figure out how to make it work. So when to my surprise I got her message, I replied hoping all was fine. In return she sent me a picture of a cat that she had taken.

“How is it?” she asked.

“It’s nice” I texted back.

“Gee, thanks” she replied with an emoji. The emoji got me even more paranoid, making me think someone was forcing her to type all these with a gun to her head, because my mother was someone who isn’t known to be expressive, let alone use emojis on a whim. I called her to check if everything was fine. Everything was fine. It was just that she had discovered the joys of instant messaging. Since then on I’d receive videos and images of cats and religious deities everyday, not sending a reply despite the dreaded √√ meant I did not find her texting skills impressive, and she’d text me back asking why I did not reply.

Once I got comfortable with the idea of texting my mother, my one-worded replies were replaced by sending her funny videos, like Obama dancing to a kutthu song I’d come across on the internet. Soon I began writing how-to instructions on Whatsapp for my mother on how she can forward videos and images to multiple people.

Internet may have managed to bring the world closer for us, but what we forget to notice while connecting with people from different corners of the world is how the older generation in our own family has embraced it. Uploading a photo, sharing a video might seem like a child’s play for you and me, but it is a worthy achievement for them; something they expect to be patted on their backs for.

While we are busy expressing ourselves and calling out others we hardly know on various social media platforms, we have our own parents trying to communicate with us using the applications that we use.

In an age where technology grows obsolete every six months, the elders in our family are looking to stay relevant. Their attempts in trying to come to terms with technology will make for a cute story to share with our friends, but if you look beyond it, they just want to fit in with our world. And that in itself deserves a 😃

 

 

A Faceless Friend

I got my first personal computer in the year 2003, so excited I was to own a Compaq Presario back then that I tore open the ziplock bag in which its instruction manual came in instead of neatly opening the bag by just sliding the zip, which only made me earn the ire of my father who had long term plans for that ziplock bag. I got a PC back then in the pretext of using for education, like having a computer with Windows XP operating system will make me the smartest guy in college and pave the way for a bright future. While normally anybody that wanted to buy a computer would inquire about its technical features like RAM, ROM, Intel processor, its memory, my only question back then was:

“Can I play Road Rash and Wolfenstein on it?”

The Internet had slowly found its way from cybercafés to our homes through an Internet starter pack that had a CD offering us 100-hours of high-speed Internet at a mind-boggling speed of 50 kbps. Internet back then used to be dialup, which meant you would get to hear the gentle sound of a dial tone and keypad being punched slowly rise up to a crescendo of shrieks and beeps, and a brief passage where it would sound like nails were being scratched on a chalkboard while raining heavily inside your modem. Once all the lights on your modem ended up glowing you were connected to high-speed Internet. The catch was that once you were using the Internet, you couldn’t use the phone for incoming or outgoing calls.

Before we had Facebook, India had Orkut, a website invented by Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten. Orkut was more famous in India and Brazil but was unheard of in other parts of the world. While I began my foray into online chatting with Yahoo! chat rooms, it was Orkut that first introduced me to the concept of meeting people online, where you could go beyond the ASL (age, sex, location) greetings that you used to begin an online conversation. Someone’s profile page was akin to being invited to their world, I could see their faces, their interests, what others said about them—which was so special about Orkut’s testimonial part—it was within Orkut’s online communities that I made some friends to whom I could voice my opinion. With the decade nearing as Orkut was withering away from the Internet, I carried over a few of those friendships to Facebook. However, there was one friend whom I had left behind.

He was a private man, while many of us have no qualms in sharing our personal life in photos and words and putting it out on the Internet, he was someone who had a guarded approach even online. In a world where you could choose any name, he chose his screen name as Mozart, in a world where you had the freedom to be whoever you want, he chose to be anonymous. We became acquainted with one another in movie forums talking about movies. From there we took to suggesting films to one another, after dismissing the initial bout of skepticism that one encounters during online friendships we shared our Google IDs to one another.

We had our online chat sessions around 9.30 p.m., that was when he would have returned home from office and I would be stretched in front of the computer taking a break from college work which I would do half-heartedly anyway. Movies were a constant presence in our conversations, more than the technical aspects of it we would often discuss of the themes that it represented, and the more we delved into its characters and their motivations the more we shared our own philosophies and principles, both of which are shaped by our past experiences. He instilled in me a love for foreign cinema and Ilaiyarajaa, a rabid fan of Ilayaraja, he often discoursed of the music maestro’s contribution to Indian cinema and urged me to listen to some of his classics. We never veered off into each other’s personal lives or political opinions, like characters from a police drama he remained the old hand, wizened by European cinema and Ilaiyarajaa—the senior detective—and I his hotshot rookie partner who never cared for a world beyond Hollywood and rock music.

And then the usual happened; I got into a job and slowly lost contact with my friends in the real world and the virtual world as Mozart faded away into being just a screen name.

Seven years later in a little room in Toronto, I was browsing twitter when I found a Soundcloud link to an Ilaiyarajaa song credited to the name Mozart. It was as if the name resurrected a man who was buried deep in my memory. However, the coincidence seemed too good to be true, what were the odds of bumping into a man on the Internet whom I had never met? Out of curiosity I checked out his Soundcloud link, and therein my faint suspicions were confirmed. The Soundcloud link had a host of Ilaiyarajaa’s background scores, carefully collected and shared by Mozart, his love for the musical genius burned bright, and so did his love for remaining anonymous. He still hadn’t shown the world what he looked like.

Chancing upon a forgotten friend made me browse our old conversation history, as I was browsing through our old chats all the memories of our virtual friendship came rushing back. The Internet is like a crowded street, what are the odds of bumping into a friend you once knew? But when you do, it is a special feeling. Reading through old emails and online conversations are the virtual equivalent of going through your photo albums, as if you stepped into a time capsule. Be it old forwards, conversation history or even the job applications to which we once applied, they remind us of our naiveté and of all that we once held dear.

I checked out Mozart’s Facebook profile wondering if I should send him a friend request, it had been a long time, would he even remember me? At Facebook, where we share every minute detail of our life to an extent that it blurs the thin line between public and private, Mozart kept it as private as he could. There were the snarky quotes from George Carlin, ideologies to which he affirmed, and there was nothing else. No details on where he worked, no vignettes of his life, no rants, no status updates, no photographs of the places he has been to or the people in his life.

However, he had a bunch of followers, people who were indebted to him for his dedication towards collecting a database of rare and forgotten Ilaiyarajaa soundtracks. Instead of sending him a friend request I decided to click the “follow” button. I was now a part of hundreds of other people who awaited his weekly upload, only I hope that someday he uploads a picture of how he looks like. Till that day I will listen to Raja.

Jurassic World – The Sequel That You Never Asked For

                    Owen: She’s killing for sport.

There are movies that are an essential fabric of our childhood, it introduces us to a world that we look back upon fondly once we are all grown up, some movies are the closest we can come to inventing a time machine. While I had watched many movies in theatre while growing up, Jurassic Park will always be one of the finest movie-going experiences of my life. It was the year 1993 (or was it 94?) when I first watched Jurassic Park in a theatre, my dad and I traveled all the way to the city with him being a stern parent throughout the journey. He had gotten me a bar of 5-star that I had hungrily gobbled up in a single go, quite taken aback to see chocolate smeared across my face as I had finished my conquest only boiled his blood. I had blissfully wolfed down a bar of chocolate without bothering how I looked in public while eating it.

“No popcorn for you during the interval, you are such an embarrassment!” he hissed in my ear. The whole joy of watching a movie increases exponentially when you have something to eat, with presumably no popcorn my enthusiasm for watching dinosaurs only simmered down. But then, who needed popcorn when there is Steven Spielberg to whet your appetite.

The rumbling John Williams background score as we see the first shot of the dinosaurs, the scenic shot of Isla Nublar, the iconic gates that opened us to the world of Jurassic Park, the shaking of the glass of water that indicated that the giant creatures were coming and how it got you at the edge of your seats. Spielberg took us back 65-million years ago, we didn’t have to imagine how a world with dinosaurs would have been, he had shown it to us even better than we could have ever imagined.

Spielberg had set the template for the disaster genre with Jaws, you don’t throw the audience right into it the action. You build up to the big event, you begin with introducing the characters showing how human they are, people with real problems who put it all behind them when calamity strikes, men and women who take charge and rise to the occasion. As for the creature, you don’t show it right away, he’s the star attraction of this feature. You show glimpses of it, there are trails of anecdotes that refer to it, that build its legend, and when the background score reaches a crescendo you unleash it upon the audience as it struts its stuff in all its glory. Spielberg of the 90’s was a showman of a different kind, he knew how to reel in the audience.

Jurassic World takes place two decades after the events of Jurassic Park, the park is open and fully functional, they also have a Starbucks cafe, and have Samsung as one of their sponsors (so much for subtle product placement). A shift in the philosophy takes place in these two decades. While it was initially conceived by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) as a park that was for the public with no talks of profit and loss thrown in, it is now seen as an opportunity to bring in more moolah. Dinosaurs are termed as “assets” and are engineered like they were attractions at Disneyland to bring in more crowd. When greed is coupled with a god complex, you know it is not going to end well.

In a disaster movie genre there are no complicated characters, characters are black or white, there is no middle path. Disaster movies always serve a purpose for a guessing game of who will survive and who will die, men who treat nature with respect, who are wary of its fury, survive, those who rebuke it or have an ulterior motive for using them, die. We find similar such characters in Jurassic World, it becomes quite easy to figure out who will leave the park dead, all that is left to be seen is the how. And that is what movies of such nature are all about, the hows.

The Indominus Rex is the wrecker-in-chief in Jurassic World, made from combining the DNA of other carnivorous dinosaurs it is a bigger and badder version of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Kept under wraps from the public, it is treated with respect stemming from fear of its huge size. They rope in the services of star dino trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) when it seems to have gone missing, but it turns out to be too little too late as I-Rex breaks out of the restricted area and starts to head toward the general public.

Director Colin Trevorrow, in only his second feature film, is asked to step into the largest shoes in the movie industry, and he does a great job of making the film visually appealing. He sets up the pace of the movie just right, he introduces us to the two boys who are off to the park to be under the guidance of their aunt Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is in charge of the park and has little to no time for her nephews. There are certain superficial subplots thrown in, namely, the boys’ parents being on the verge of divorce, and a flimsy romance that never took off between the two lead actors. Trevorrow takes us through the park and shows us the dinosaurs in display, the raptors take the center stage until the I-Rex officially takes over.

Chris Pratt is an endearing actor, he shifts gears from the goofy Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy to a macho dino trainer in Jurassic World, however, he has nothing much to work with. His Owen Grady ends up being a one-dimensional action hero, smart and capable with brains and the brawn he shares a relationship with the dinosaurs that the suits that run the park take for granted. Bryce Dallas Howard as the businesslike Claire has her world centered around the parks control room, too immersed in her work she doesn’t even know how old her nephews are, let alone remembering when was the last time they met. It is when their lives are in danger does she seek the help of ace hunter/tracker Owen Grady and set off into the jungle in search of the boys. Irrfan Khan as Simon Masrani is Richard Hammond-like, the moral compass of the movie, and delivers a neat performance. Vincent D’onofrio as Vic Hoskins is the token bad guy who intends to use the dinosaurs as weapons of the future. Ty Simpkins (Gray) and Nick Robinson (Zach) as the two siblings turn in a mature performance, not the typical child actors that you see in a disaster movie.

There are the classic Jurassic Park memorabilia thrown in good measure to invoke a feeling of nostalgia–from the t-shirt, to the night vision goggles, to the jeeps–and it is a sheer delight, like looking at an old Polaroid photograph that brings back fond memories, which only makes you wonder why even make a sequel to an original that still stands the test of time. Some parks are better remained closed.

A Thing of Beauty

I used to play football in our PET classes during school, and by “play” I mean running around the field begging for someone to pass me the ball so that I could showoff my non-existent dribbling “skills” to the girls who were watching from the sidelines. There would be around thirty-odd schoolboys running behind the ball trying to score a goal, sometimes, the number of boys rose to sixty if the playground already had another section of students occupying it. The games were often competitive, which is often hurling expletives at the opponent team, if played against the boys from section C, it would often turn rabid. Heroes were born, heroes were buried.

While I never got sucked into following the game with a passion that I only reserve for cricket, I have played the video game version of the sport in FIFA 98 and its other installments. I followed the FIFA world cup that happened last year, but who didn’t? There were times when I felt left out for not having followed a game that has a global fan following, because who doesn’t want to have something to talk about other than movies, television and cricket? A few weeks ago, the whole world had become an expert on boxing when the much touted Mayweather and Pacquiao bout took place. People whom you thought you had known your whole life somehow turned out to be boxing aficionados. But the craze for football never goes through any rise or low or periods of lull, it stays the same. Fervent.

Sports is made of individual brilliance, you don’t have to be well-versed about the intricacies of the game to appreciate a super- human effort on a field. It becomes a team effort when players put together their brilliance, but there are moments in the game when a lone piece of magic stands out, and be it an invested follower of the game or a causal observer or someone who is watching the sport for the first time, it simply takes their breath away. I was browsing through twitter when I first saw someone tweet excitedly about that Messi goal, I scrolled past it as I saw another one, and then another, soon exclamations turned into an analysis on how he did it. Lionel Messi had scored more than 50 goals this season, and I hadn’t bothered to catch a replay of even one of them, may be because it was not talked about as his latest one was. As I googled to check out his goal–one that he scored during a final, no less–it left me dumbfounded.

I had heard of Lionel Messi (while following the World Cup) over the last year, of how he is considered as one of the greatest ever in the game, I watched the FIFA final hoping to see a glimpse of his genius, but unfortunately there did not turn out to be any Messi magic that night. As I watched his recent goal, replaying it over and over, I realized why he is regarded as the best to have played the game. If it gives a thrill by just watching a replay–while knowing its outcome–could you imagine how spellbinding it would be to watch that passage of play live without knowing the result? The joy is in the whole act that leads to scoring a goal, not the goal itself.

Messi takes possession of the ball when he is a little into Athletic Bilbao’s territory, and since then on takes complete control of it. He steers it past not one, not two, but FOUR of Bilbao’s players without breaking a sweat. The adage “shattering the defences” doesn’t hold good here, Messi doesn’t shatter the defence, there is nothing forceful about it, it is done with a delicate precision like running a needle through a fabric. He guides the ball through a troika of players trying to converge into him, yet, he never lets the ball get ahead of him, all the while being in contact. During those forty-five seconds, Messi, from a footballer becomes a boxer, and from a boxer to a magician. Those forty-five seconds have everything in it, the old one-two punch of a boxer, the misdirection of a magician, all of it culminating toward the end into the finesse of a footballer as he cannons the ball into the net. In those forty-five seconds Messi becomes an artist.

I could not make sense of what the commentator was saying as he was describing Messi’s run, the man seemed breathless, out of words, and flabbergasted. But flabbergasted in any language sounds the same.

Image credits: http://cf.c.ooyala.com/50cjRmdTrN_aSlLwAUNhuRgazaTJde4e/promo257287217

Mad Max: Fury Road – Pedal to the Metal

I live, I die, I live again! – Nux

Hyperbole is a dangerous thing, it makes the ordinary seem amazing. In an age where every second movie has larger than life special effects and huge production values, we often fall prey to hype and hoopla generated in social media. I have never been a fan of dystopian, post-apocalyptic feature films. I was never captivated by the universe it is set in, nor could I understand the motivation of the characters. What drives them to behave the way they do? How did the world end up that way? None of it is answered in great detail in Mad Max : Fury Road, but there was talk, serious talk about how good a movie it was, some on twitter even went on to call it one of the greatest action movies of all time, that it would be a tough feat to repeat.

Hyperbole can raise your limits sky high, if the movie achieves anything short of your expectations, it ends up being a disappointment because of all the excitement it has generated. As Mad Max powered through the first hour I feared that I had become a victim of it, I had set myself such huge expectations that I was finding for reasons to be blown away. Where was the big action sequence that will take my breath away? There is just a bunch of crazy people chasing a woman in an outback (a gorgeously set outback, at that), nevertheless, did I become a prey to all the hype that was generated on Twitter?

“Never trust people on Twitter, I have told you time and time again,” I told myself.

And then, as the movie clocked into the second hour, all my opinions changed.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a chase film at heart, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) a character as fiery as her name helps a bunch of enslaved women escape the Citadel, a post-apocalyptic ghetto run by Immortan Joe, Max Rocktansky (Tom Hardy) used to be a cop in the normal world before it went berserk. Having lost his wife and child during the events that reduced the world to a wasteland, he wanders the desert until he is caught and enslaved by the “War Boys”, a faction headed by Immortan Joe. In a world where gasoline is the only currency, Max, with the blood type of a universal donor is a precious commodity among the enslaved, until he breaks free and reluctantly begins to help Furiosa.

Despite having a huge, detailed world with big production values, and remade with the premise of a franchise that was created thirty years ago, Mad Max doesn’t bother to sprinkle its narrative with pretentious philosophy or emotional moments that are often forced in action movies to give them a human angle. George Miller sticks with keeping it an action movie that unfolds with such frenetic pace–all of it to the riffs of guitars and beats of the drums–that you would feel that the cameras were injected with drugs while filming it. There are some epic set pieces, from the desert storm through which Max and Furiosa have to drive their oil rig, to fighting through a biker gang, and the final action sequence where they are relentlessly chased and attacked by the War Boys, all of it sets up for a pulse pounding experiencing.

Amidst all the carnage that happens around her, Charlize Theron gives a solid performance as Furiosa, keeping her sanity intact while she is chased by mutants, men and monsters. Despite the movie named after the lead hero, it is Furiosa who delivers the punches, matching her male counterpart blow for blow while shepherding a group of women who were used for morbid purposes in the Citadel. Tom Hardy as Max fits the role perfectly, playing a tortured hero–physically and mentally–with a silent rage. Nicholas Hoult is terrific as the loud and brash Nux, blinded by his devotion to a fault you could empathize with him as he tries to seek the attention of Immortan Joe. Hugh Kay Beans who in the 1979 original played the bad guy, returns as Immortan Joe, and is menacing.

There will be movies in the near future that will knock our socks off, there will be larger-than-life set-pieces, jaw-dropping visuals and fight scenes that will take our breath away, and we will tweet, post and share about them, too. In an age where we are spoilt for stories and content, with attention spans that only last from one Friday to the next, Mad Max is one of those movies that will stand the test of time. And when you talk of it, you won’t talk about it just as a movie, you will talk about it like it were a shot of adrenaline through your veins.

So much for hyperbole.