Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (28 May 2005)
I am not, and should not be, ashamed to admit that Episode III was by far the best of the six movies. Even Empire Strikes Back could not have come close to the nuanced Revenge of the Sith. They said the dialogue was bad, the script weak, the performances inane. I think "they" were simply being too snotty. Most movies require some suspension of disbelief and perhaps it is a sign of my jadedness and age, but I have begun to be more lenient towards a few of them. The movie ties the prequels to the first three parts quite well. Anybody who invested any time in the Star Wars enterprise will have probably already seen the movie or inevitably will see it sometime soon, so it would be a waste of my time to speak of the plot. So, I move to the visual appeal of the movie having dismissed the question of the script. This movie vindicates Lucas' decision to bide his time and wait for better technology before he could launch on his prequels, though if he is as shrewd now as he was then, he will look to milk the franchise in the years to come with new releases and productions timed with advances in CGI. Then, the performances. Yes, some of them looked flaky but they played out their parts well within the confines of the script -- however weak or strong it may have been. Christiansen gets credit for showing us the seething anger we were looking for in the transition from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader. Some said that was a little overdone, but that should not be his doing. But there was no doubt in my mind that the best performance in the movie was by Ian McDiarmid as Chancellor Palpatine.

Bunty Aur Babli (27 May 2005)
In an interview a long time ago, Amitabh Bachchan was asked what he would have ended up as had he not become an actor -- he wasted no time in replying "Allahabad mein doodh bech raha hota". As good an actor as he has been in all his roles as the angry young man, the tall and lanky romantic hero or the greying sage, none of them would have made anywhere near the iconic impression on a country of a billion had it not been for Amitabh Bachchan's penchant for humour aided by his ripe baritone laden with tart and sharp one-liners. That was what endeared him to us; we identified with his self-effacing, quick-witted, fun-loving persona. Bunty Aur Babli is a happy, engaging throwback to that part of Amitabh Bachchan that has sadly eluded us all these years. But what is more good news: his flair to make us laugh thrives and is equally alive in Abhishek Bachchan whose performances in recent movies (Yuva, Naach and now Bunty Aur Babli) have filled me with a sense of contentment and relief knowing now that he is more than equal to his grand lineage. Of course, for that personal charm and comedic sense to work in a movie one would require that the script itself be well-imbued with the Bachchan flavour of wit and Bunty Aur Babli is a shining exemplar to this. Coming away from the movie, I was so impressed with the script that I was tempted to write a personal note of appreciation to Jaideep Sahni who is credited with the screenplay and the dialogue.

The plot scarcely matters when the script and dialogue are this good, but if it must be mentioned Bunty Aur Babli is loosely an amalgam of Bonnie and Clyde (albeit a Bollywood-harmonised version) and Catch Me If You Can. More than the storyline, what works so well for the movie in addition to the superb performances and dialogue -- which I shall return to soon -- is how well the movie absorbs and portrays the classic, rustic elements of small-town life in Northern India, and Uttar Pradesh in particular. For people that hail from that area, this movie is sure to hit the bulls-eye. At a time when rampant corruption and shameless politicking are what spring first to mind at mention of UP and Bihar, this movie tells us of people simple-minded, laidback and ingenuous in their thaat-ravaiya, of their immeasurable contributions -- counting great stalwarts like Harivansh Rai Bachchan, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Mahadevi Varma, Premchand not to mention humorists like Bedab Banarsi -- to Hindi literature and popular culture.

Returning to the specifics of the movie itself, the Abhishek Bachchan-Rani Mukherjee combination now is beginning to assume the mantle that was once occupied by great screen pairs of yesteryears. Rani Mukherjee is effervescent and, well, bubbly. Abhishek Bachchan is a chip off the old block. He manages to retain all the mannerisms of his father's. And then, of course, there was the man himself. His disguise reminded me more of his turn as the dock-worker in Hum and he looked definitely much older than the regular Deputy Commissioner of Police but when you have Amitabh Bachchan in a role that requires him to revisit his roots, such trifling non-details are not worth more than a second's thought. The support cast was great and distinguished although they were only support cast -- Prem Chopra, Raj Babbar, Rameshwari and Kiron Juneja "Sippy" -- the last two re-emerging from hibernation. The singularly most spectacular moment of the movie though was, surprisingly for me, the Aishwarya Rai item number. The song was a typical UP folksong with Rai as the foxy naachnewaali and the Bachchans, inebriated with cocktails and liquor (I wish they had used Bhang instead!), joining her in the song-and-dance. As much as it pains me to say this, Rai was quite good in her short stint and thank goodness for that -- there was every danger of her five minutes in the movie threatening to spoil three hours of the most enjoyable Hindi cinema I have watched in a long time. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music, with the minor exception of Nach Balliye was brilliant and made good use of Gulzar's native lyrics, the central highlight being Rai number -- "Kajra Re".

The Captain's Paradise (20 May 2005)
Sir Alec Guinness in an Ealing-style comedy in the 50's when all things British had the Midas' touch. Needless to say, the movie was effortlessly elegant and pointedly comical. Alec Guinness seems to have figured out the perfect marriage by marrying a domesticated woman that he keeps at Gibraltar, romancing a sensuous mistress at North Africa and keeping a bay's and a ship's length between the two. Sadly, his perfect marriage starts to tinker as each pines to be on the other shore of lifestyle and the captain is left high and dry in the midst. His angst is so acute that he prefers the shooting squad to going back as the opening scene tells us. If something must be said in brief to extol Guinness' performance, I shall stifle my adulation for the man and be contented in commiserating with the captain and his first mate. The only reason The Ladykillers as a movie was a tad better than The Captain's Paradise was Peter Sellers. Otherwise, both are on par -- splendid.

The Verdict (20 May 2005)
I had this urge to watch a string of legal thrillers, and I started off with The Verdict. Starring Paul Newman, James Mason and Jack Warner, The Verdict tells the story of a washed-up shyster lawyer who suddenly finds a conscience within him to pursue criminal charges for an egregious case of medical malpractice instead of settling out of court. The movie shows him pitted against the Church, a veteran lawyer played brilliantly by James Mason and the court establishment itself which has, a trifle hard to believe this, been overtly "bought over" by the hospital and the clergy. The movie doubtlessly sports a stellar cast but does not use it well enough. Perhaps this failing has to do with the premise itself. It might not have been then, but the plot of an ambulance-chaser bringing the mercenaries of the corporate world has -- since Grisham's emergence as the central braintrust of all things legally related -- lost its sheen and been beaten to pulp. Still, this should not be held against the movie for it was the pioneer and set the trends. Nonetheless, the movie did not exploit its innovation all that effectively. Mind this should not be purported to mean that the performances were not spectacular which they were indeed -- especially Newman and Mason. But it could have done with more powerful dialogue, a more captivating and compelling script and storyline which it sorely lacked.

Three Days of the Condor (12 May 2005)
Sydney Pollack's movie based on James Grady's novel "Six Days of the Condor" is a fantastic espionage thriller made in the Cold War days but surprisingly is without a reference to the time. Not wanting to give any more away, I shall instead focus on the technical aspects of the movie. The scenes of a cold New York '70s winter with the city in all its original breathtaking glory are quite a treat. The only grouch I have against the movie is the lovemaking scene between Robert Redford and a beautiful Faye Dunaway which is positively the clumsiest I have ever seen to date. As acting performances go however, they excel and so does Max von Sydow. The movie was reminiscent of John le Carré's espionage novels which were subsequently turned into great television series like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People -- both starring the great Alec Guinness.

Three Kings (6 May 2005)
When David O. Russell's "I ? Huckabees" came out, many were distinctly unimpressed by it even in spite of its very quirky episodical premise. Some compared it with Russell's earlier "Three Kings" and confessed to being thrown off the loop. I now see what they probably meant. I have not seen Huckabees, but Three Kings came very close to making a good impression on me. Three Kings is perhaps, and will probably remain for a while, the only fictional satire based on the United States' engagements with Iraq. It attempts to turn the motive for war on its head and focuses on the soldiers in Iraq and what they see and compute from their military exercise. I wish though, that it went the whole length in trying to subvert the war-as-a-necessary-evil and the positive-sum game themes. Instead, Russell chickened out at the very end to put a purely commercially oriented spin on the whole movie replete with it-was-not-as-bad-as-you-thought epilogues to the climactic conclusion. As usual, George Clooney was brilliant in his role. Mark Wahlberg just passed muster, but the star was Spike Jonze who plays the "redneck" effortlessly.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring
There is much too obvious symbolism and purportedly deep and hard-to-elicit mystical reality in this movie. The movie in some sense is an homage to Buddhism and draws deeply from Buddhist teachings and philosophy. The weather cycle is easily seen to be a metaphor for the different phases in the protagonist's character -- from a child guilty of cruelty to a boy guilty of lust to a man guilty of anger and finally returning to his origins to begin anew as a hermit. The cinematography is breathtaking and the actors are fresh and in-character. Quite a treat to watch.

A Shot in the Dark
Peter Sellers. Pink Panther. And to a lesser extent, Blake Edwards. As much as "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" might attempt to convince you that Peter Sellers positively loathed acting in Blake Edwards whimsical slapsticks, you are never completely in agreement. That may be because of Sellers' genius at foppery or Edwards' total mastery of the slapstick. A Shot in the Dark continues after the Pink Panther series to follow Inspector Clouseau as he is convinced that a Scandinavian maid, foxy and voluptuous though she may be, is innocent of all the murders that seem to follow her like a shadow. Yet another attraction to this movie is a brilliant little cameo by the suave George Sanders.

Stray Dog
Although Kurosawa can be repetitive in his themes and motions, he remains one of my favourite directors simply because of how much groundwork he laid that was built upon by scores and scores of movie-makers after him. One recurring theme in each of his movies is the following pith that I shall remember before I watch another: "All of Japan is a philosopher". Every character in his movies has something subtle, simple and profound to say and it is only because the actor playing that role, the writer of the dialogue and the director behind the camera are very talented that you never suspect the credibility of Kurosawa's premise. Notwithstanding this minor complaint, Stray Dog is brilliant in its story, heightened suspense, character portrayal -- what less could one expect of the incomparable Toshirô Mifune and Takashi Shimura, and the newcomer-soontobe-majormoviestar Keiko Awaji and of course the homilies.

The Perfect Murder (16 April 2005)
This was a delightful, albeit little-known, movie about a "murder" in upscale Bombay and how almost everything else including a diamond-smuggling racket, a rape, a women's protest march and a Swedish police officer has something to do with it. The movie is based on H R F Keating's Inspector Ghote novel. Playing Inspector Ghote is Naseeruddin Shah who is wonderfully understated and earnest in the lead role. The Swedish police officer is essayed by Stellan Skarsgård who turns in a good comical sidekick performance. Amjad Khan, Ratna Pathak (playing Naseeruddin Shah's wife on screen too), Mohan Agashe and Dilip Tahil are others featuring in the movie which is impressive enough.

Boogie Nights
I felt ambivalent after watching Magnolia. It pulled at different directions and I could not conclusively determine what the movie's mojo was if at all it had any. It was just a rambling, desultory look into the dysfunctional lives of a few oddball characters who shared a common thread. There was frequently a reference to child abuse but it was merely a tiny whisper. It helps to keep this in perspective when writing of Boogie Nights. P.T. Anderson's earlier venture shaped the hazy vision of Magnolia. Boogie Nights definitely did have a plot and a very curious one at that -- pornography. The movie serves more like a ready pocketbook reference to the underground pornography industry of the 70's juxtaposed into the years of free love, the flower children and marijuana. As the years serve out, the movie progresses from the rise of a star to his days of fame and then inevitably to his fall which, perhaps unintentionally, provides for much amusement. In the lead roles, Mark Wahlberg and Burt Lancaster are stellar in their respective roles of protegé actor and guardian angel director but the support cast is good too with Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, John Reilly, Philip Hoffman and Don Cheadle. What puzzled me however was the ending -- when after all the trials and tribulations and the advent of the direct-to-video porn industry everybody goes back to start from scratch. But maybe that was what it was all about -- full circle.

Kung-Fu Hustle (14 April 2005)
Kung-Fu Hustle is so much of an improvement over Shaolin Soccer that I wonder if Stephen Chow did not feel guilty about his first venture. Maybe the intent was there with Shaolin Soccer, but Kung-Fu Hustle is easily the definitive spoof homage to the kung-fu movies and their imitations in Hollywood. The story is brilliantly held together by the principal actors in the landlord v. ganglord muddle while Stephen Chow provides comic relief from time to time with equal poise. All the hilarity and outlandish tomfoolery do not in any way make excuses for the gore and liberal dosages of blood spewing out from all possible orifices which is just as well -- nobody, not I at least, expected to see a movie on kung-fu without its concomitants. The action sequences are wonderfully choreographed and very original in their jest while the dialogue has been flawlessly translated to retain all its native Mandarin/Cantonese humour so much so that for once the original diction seemed to have the right comic timing.

Brother (11 April 2005)
As part of the International Week, the Caltech Russian Club screened Brat (Brother). The movie tells the story of an ingenuous young man who comes to St. Petersburg after a mysterious stint at the army. He is innocent in the ways of the world and is the hearty sort of chap -- a perfect ambassador for Russia. For all his camaraderie and easy-going charm he is nonetheless an extremely sophisticated assassin. For him though, that presents no moral dilemma. He uses his fighting skills both as a vigilante to browbeat lowly hooligan ticket-offenders on buses and as a killer for hire with an uncanny knowledge of guns. One act never grates irritably on the other. He loves his music loud and blaring, his friends the downtrodden and his women as they come. The movie also throws helpful insights into the new Russia. St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad as his cynical brother corrects him) is a town that is trapped in a bizarre time of punk and acid, mohawk and ganja, McDonalds and empty seatless trams. Free markets never seem in imminent ascendancy over the old ways of the Communist world and all are trapped in the cold, brutal climes of the Arctic winter.

Shaolin Soccer (April 6 2005)
With the upcoming Kung-Fu Hustle, I figured I should precondition myself with Stephen Chow's earlier work -- Shaolin Soccer. When it was released, I remember there was a big brouhaha about the visual wizardry and the innovative gimmickry to blend kung-fu with soccer. Sadly, it was all the praise it got that stuck in my head and I paid no heed to some of the gentle criticisms many of our so-called acclaimed film critics cautioned their readers with. Thirty minutes into the movie, I was appalled to find how low the bar is set for movies that make ever so slight a mention of martial arts. Even the plaudits for its wire-work, and its self-ridicule were ill-deserved. Sure, Stephen Chow is to be commended for at least not taking himself too seriously but he, like all other men of his ilk, succumbs to the credo of what-sells-works and ends up in no better shape than the bit-piece movie directors that line Filmcity in Bombay. The movie is crass and at best a confused, half-witted attempt to make a genuinely good action comedy along the lines of the Jackie Chan movies.

Sin City (April 3 2005)
There was a time when comic books were in the realm of innocence -- when Spiderman and all the other superheroes where in bright contrasting colours of red and blue and you knew that the good stayed good while the evil became worse. Then, something happened in between; a glitch in the programming perhaps or maybe it was I that had grown darker and more cynical. The comic books acquired shades of black, grey and jet blue. The superheroes came into their own. They no longer had a strong moral inner voice and they had to follow certain human compulsions like infatuation, sex, greed and money. This was perhaps first characterised in Spiderman when Mary Jane was blended into the stories as his wife who grudged him his alter-ego.

Of course, all along this time much to my ignorance there was this underground, deeply cliquish culture of noirish comic books. It was this that fostered the revolution in mainstream comic-book culture. Amongst the pioneers of this genre were Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons. Both had worked on either side of the fence. Although I cannot claim to be a huge follower of their work I was quite enamoured of what little I had seen of their influence on the Batman comics and that was more than enough motivation for me to grok Sin City. But the incredible line of trailers and Robert Rodriguez's almost fan-like commitment to imbibe Frank Miller's creation as faithfully as possible onto the big screen kept my adrenaline going for almost a week in advance.

I am happy to report that it lived up more than completely to my expectation. The movie throbs with intensity and verve. It interweaves four of Miller's stories into a visceral, two-hour long tingling sensation. My pick of the episodes was The Hard Goodbye by a long shot although all of them were brilliant in their own ways with fantastic performances from Mickey Rourke and Benicio Del Toro.

Prisoner of Second Avenue
Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft star in this fantastic adaptation from a Neil Simon play about a middle-aged couple struggling and griping about their Manhattan survival. Jack Lemmon plays an acerbic veteran New Yorker who has lived all his life there but nonetheless finds something to snipe about every passing moment and yet is the proverbial lemming to its vast sea of apathetic humanity. If this were not enough, he loses his job as his company faces a severe crunch while his house is burgled in broad daylight and all the crooks leave behind are his pyjamas. Through this and through all his bitter, stinging rebukes his wife earnestly and affectionately stands by him until he suffers a nervous breakdown and she faces the harsh brutalities of the city in his stead. It becomes pretty clear from the dialogue that Neil Simon must have been a huge influence on all the numerous New York sitcoms that followed in the subsequent years, but most importantly Seinfeld. Needless to say, the only reason I picked this movie up was for Jack Lemmon and he leaves me longing for more. But Anne Bancroft turned in with a surprisingly delectable performance and corrected my impressions after The Graduate.

Bright Young Things (22 March 2005)
Bright Young Things is based on Evelyn Waugh's novel about early twentieth century London where following the first war life in the upper circles of society had returned to its normal state of exuberance -- there were drunken orgies, mindless and vulgar displays of opulence and ostentation and an entire nation swept up in the mad pursuit of the pleasures and pastimes of the haute couture. Dripping with satire and vintage patrician English humour in classic Evelyn Waugh style, Bright Young Things is quite a decent translation onto the screen by Stephen Fry.

The Story of the Weeping Camel (22 March 2005)
In an almost forgotten land far to the north of China is a tribe and a family in it that rears camels. It is the time of the year when the mothers start to calve. One of them has given birth to a calf but is refusing to lactate it. This forms the core of this movie as it relates the story of the camel and the simple lives of these people who live in complete harmony with their spartan surroundings with nary a worry in the world. All their quotidian struggles revolve around their pack of camels, bathing the boys and divine music. Meanwhile, the mother camel needs to be treated and the youngest boys in the family set off for the cultural centre to get the violinist over to soothe the camel. The movie is very effective in its minimalism. There is absolutely no background sound, all the strains of chatter and music are heard from the people and their homes and hearths. But this also seems to be its own detractor -- I had to fight off sleep quite hard to stay fixated on the screen but I would attribute that to my sad internalisation to movies that are more conducive to small attention-span viewers.

Barry Lyndon
Much as it may displease most and, perhaps even worse, discount myself I have not been a great fan of Stanley Kubrick. I have to admit that his genius as a director has always escaped me -- I can never forgive him for the scene of the apes in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I attribute my appreciation for Dr. Strangelove only to a brilliantly written screenplay (Peter George and Stanley Kubrick) and mostly to the acting talents of a certain Peter Sellers. I was persuaded into seeing this movie partially because many remarked that this was his best work but mainly because I had not realised till then that the movie was based on William Thackeray's novel whose acerbic Vanity Fair I was quite impressed with (at least its opening). Had Barry Lyndon been an hour shorter, perhaps there might have been much to admire in it but in its current length it was distressingly boring and rambling. To its credit however, the movie was a wonderfully enacted period drama with stellar performances from all its actors and especially Michael Hordern, the narrator and it was brilliantly sharp and acerbic as one would come to expect of Thackeray's works. But those fine merits were dragged down by the lack of editorial discretion displayed.

Gunner Palace (15 March 2005)
Perhaps this year's most anticipated war documentary, Gunner Palace is the first of its kind -- and there shall be many to follow in its wake -- to tell the story of the U.S. soldiers in Iraq through them. Through the movie, we see a group of soldiers who make Uday Hussein's "pleasure-dome" their living quarters and playfully rechristen it Gunner Palace. The palace comes replete with a swimming pool, a mini-links and a grand bedroom with "cheesy furniture", as one of them put it. The camera follows the men through their daily rounds, as they stumble upon IEDs (improvised explosive devices) with mortal apprehension and as they mix with the children and the civilians. It tries to give us an even-handed picture, not tilting to any side, but largely being sympathetic to the soldiers and giving their long list of rants maximum exposure. One does get the acute dilemma the U.S. faces in Iraq from the laggard preparations of the Iraqi Civilian Defense Corps and the recidivism of the many interpreters the army employed in the past.

For all its genuine and noble intentions however, Gunner Palace does not hold up to all the great standards of a good documentary. For one, it is in bad need of good editing. There are long scenes where the director has surrendered, perhaps not without reason, to using long takes featuring soldiers as they rant and philosophise about their predicament but in its stead loses the viewer's hold on the subject. I was quite puzzled by the fact that towards an hour's end, the movie seemed headed to a conclusion as the cameraman whose voice stays with us through the first half wraps up in Iraq, heads for home and provides us with enlightening montages of his refrigerator to convey his nostalgia but then, we return all of a sudden to Iraq -- now minus the voiceover for the large part -- and are treated to a more relaxed resolution to the movie.