The best boxer in the world would probably last 10 seconds as a coherent mass of flesh in the ring with a silverback gorilla. The fastest swimmer in the world would be shredded meat in a race with a shark. And Usain Bolt at his fastest cannot outrun any of the big cats on open ground. As prolific and widespread as we think we are the total weight of ants on the Earth is greater than the total weight of humans on the Earth. Cockroaches will probably outlive whatever calamity befalls our race, from our own hands or through a twist of fate.

At some level, we know how puny and very destructible we are at an individual level. So when 200 foot monsters come roaring out of the deeps to eradicate every last one of us, the fairly neutral observer (if there is one) will most likely put money (if he or she is of the betting type) on the kaiju.

Pacific Rim is at one level purely a 10 year old  boy’s fantasy given 150 million dollars to work with and turned into a summer blockbuster. It works because nothing appeals more to the average 10 year old boy than wanton death and destruction, and giant robots. It works because at 10, before we become adults and after we have something resembling a functioning brain, we become very aware of how small, puny and utterly helpless we really are. As adults we forget about it as the cares of the world overtake us or deny it  as the imperatives of masculinity require. As infants it doesn’t really register.

So we make up our stories (perhaps the most uniquely human aspect of ourselves) where we are gigantic and all powerful, battling mosters just as gigantic and powerful as we are on equal terms (the pre-teen age is perhaps the last stage of our lives where our fears and terrors are more tangible than intangible). Guillermo Del Toro, bless his soul, has stayed true to his inner 10 year old self, and possibly helped some of us remember or rediscover.

Disaster movies of the scale and size of Pacific Rim perform two functions – classic catharsis where heroes and heroines much like ourselves face numerous challenges imposed upon them by cruel fate or global warming; and giving us the feeling that even in the face of total destruction, we’re not utterly helpless, that we can and sometime do find a way to survive.  Whether it’s planting a nuke on an asteroid/comet in space or building giant “arks” in the Himalayas, or as in the case of Pacific Rim, building monstrous, nuclear powered Jaegers with 40 foot flexi-blades operated by mind-melded pilots (still more plausible than the “virus” Jeff Goldblum created in “Independence Day”). These make us believe, as we want to, that we can “cancel the Apocalypse” as Idris Elba’s pre-battle  St.-Crispin’s-Day-type speech would have you believe.

In contrast to the superhero genre so pervasive these days, the hopes of humanity in “Pacific Rim” doesn’t rest on the shoulders of one or even a select few gifted individuals. The Jaeger programme involves much research, development and incremental improvement like a real world weapons systems and is not overly dependent on one person’s genius or superhuman ability. Jaegers and theirs pilots to some extent, affirm the other great human trait that is often ignored – the ability to communicate and cooperate.

Pacific Rim also works as a solid science fiction film in the good old fashioned Golden Age science fiction sense. Real science fiction is not just robots, lasers and spaceships but a story where the protagonists attempt to solve a problem applying scientific methods and scientific principles in a given situation. It can be worked into many genres – the adventure story, the detective story, and even, why not, romance. The problem, of how to stop the kaiju attacks, is cracked by scientists working on the problem through the course of movie and the internal physics of the movie seem to make sense and not utterly implausible. The heroes are not infallible super-men or -women but flawed and almost broken individuals doing what they can in difficult times.

Don’t look for much emotional depth though. It is hard to fit in drama in the middle of city smashing destruction on all fronts. And that’s not Del Toro’s intention anyway. Idris Elba is as close as we’ll get to a solid actor who, despite the fact that the script almost practically calls out for it, doesn’t ham and rage but gives the restrained performance of a man with the troubles of the world on his shoulder and much worse. Far more than even Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi, the ostensible “leads” Elba is really the central character of the movie, the stable point around which the action and mayhem seems to proceed. The movie really rests on its epic Jaeger-kaiju battles and the few moments of backstory or emotional backdrop feel very much like filler.

A few words about the kaiju. No Ron Perlman is not one of them though is cameo is as delightful and enjoyable as anything Ron Perlman does these days. The kaiju are of course a tribute to Japanese anime but somehow possess a Lovecraftian feeling of being deep and abiding horrors that we cannot as humans, relate to in any human way. Whereas King Kong could appreciate beauty, and Godzilla was a creation of mankind’s, kaiju come out of a deep interdimensional portal with only the object of eradicating humanity as so much vermin to be cleared out of planet Earth. The CGI, I thought, captured that sense of unimaginable strangeness and alienness of the monsters. We cannot see them in any way but monsters.

If you want to give the inner 10 year old a chance to have a day out, Pacific Rim is the movie. In a season of rather dull and predictable summer blockbusters filled with sequels upon sequels or big name duds, Pacific Rim is a welcome change.

First, sample the image below:

This is Anil Kapoor in 1985. Long dishevelled hair, the compulsory 80s moustache, the leather jacket with steel shoulder buttons, epitomising the aspirational apogee of male machismo and an innocent smile, longing for something unattainable yet content. Much like a smile of happiness on seeing someone you love but who you know will never be yours.

Now take a look at the next image:

This is Anil Kapoor in 2009. Gelled hair, styled impeccably, black tie and tuxedo, the signature outfit of male Hollywood filmstars at any event that matters, hands spread wide taking in the applause for an uninspiring cameo in Slumdog Millionaire and a smile which says ‘I’ve arrived’. Oh and perhaps a botoxed face as well.

The changing face of Anil Kapoor in the last two-and-a-half decades is as accurate a reflection as any, of the changing face of India, pre and post-liberalisation. Awkwardness and innocence replaced by an easy conviviality, a seamless integration into the ways of the world and a constant quest for global recognition. With a growing economy has come an unquestioning assertiveness, with liberalisation a chutzpah loudly declaring India’s arrival on the world stage, and with fame, success and the world’s attention, a constant desire for gratification based on the flattery of others, fueling at times into a self-righteous rage in not getting one’s due, or a vicious one-upmanship to show who’s boss.

Take the BCCI in world cricket. The recent independent governance review of the ICC by Lord Woolf, suggested large-scale changes to the governance structure of the ICC so that it is not dominated by a few powerful boards with vested interests, but rather becomes optimally independent so that it can fulfil its role as “the leader of the international game”.  The suggestions, while certainly provocative, have considerable merit especially given the universal recognition of the flux that world cricket is in currently with three formats competing for time and attention and the increasing feeling that something is going to give. At the very least it deserved the BCCI’s fullest consideration. However the BCCI Working Committee, unsurprisingly, viewed the report as a threat to their dominance of the game and rejected it outright without going into which of the proposals it was against, let alone explaining why it took such a stand. This increasing proclivity to play victim while being the bully, epitomised by the BCCI, is a curious and defining trait of 21^st Century, post-liberalisation India.

Again, take a look at how the Indian media discusses success stories of Indians abroad. Particularly striking in recent memory was the euphoric coverage in sections of the Indian media regarding the appointmnet of Nikki Haley as Governor of South Carolina. The fact that a person of Asian origin, that too a woman, became Governor of a state in the deep South is certainly news anywhere. But in India it was not just news; it was a cause for celebration because Nikki Haley, originally Nimrata Randhawa was born to Sikh parents, and thus her victory was India’s victory. Never mind that she is as Indian as Barack Obama is Muslim and is constantly at pains to point out her Americanness, exemplified by her unimaginative and convenient change of name. The Indian media’s desire to seek out such success stories, to crave for the world’s attention through imagined notions of achievement is not its sole doing: it’s rather an incident of the operation of the market, reflective of what the middle-class Indian consumer wants to read, and the sort of stories that make him happy.

Underlying this new India, like the new Anil Kapoor is an excessive desire to be accepted on the world stage. Otherwise why would Kapoor agree to an unchallenging role of a lecherous, skirt-chasing Indian millionaire who appeared on screen for a sum total of four minutes only to be made a fool of ultimately, in Mission Impossible 4, one of the most mindless action films to be made in the history of cinema? Clearly, Kapoor himself or the Indian film fraternity didn’t think the same way since post-MI4 he became the toast of tinseltown, celebrated as India’s first real crossover star. Key to this ‘new and improved’ Kapoor and the new India, is a pervading sense of falsity, a pretence of being something or someone that one is not. Much like India’s standard story to the world today of being a country of exceptional growth whose teeming poor, despite leading desperately woeful existences are suffused by the hope of a better, brighter tomorrow.  Nothing could be further from the truth. And unlike Kapoor’s wrinkles, there’s no botox to cure this one.

This is not to suggest that pre-liberalisation India was a beautiful place where everyone was poor but happy, innocent and contented. There is a natural tendency to look at history with rose-tinted glasses, harking back to the past as a ‘golden age’ where everything was perfect. Pre-liberalisation India was anything but. Like Anil Kapoor in 1985, it was all over the place, a trifle cheesy, unambitious and easily satisfied. But its one redeeming feature though was that it was comfortable with its own identity, not chasing false hopes and basking in global encomiums that are clever disguises to tap into India’s ever bulging middle class wallets.

So what should we do about it? Well, nothing except hope that soon Anil Kapoor realises in real life, like he did on screen 25 years ago, that it’s best for India if he becomes invisible.

The Invisible Mr. India

[Photo sources: Here and Here]

Enter then, Hollywood’s Sherlock. He is played by Robert Downey Jr, one of my favourite actors. Robert, with his own eclectic personal history, plays flaws with a luscious relish, which explains him being a choice for playing Holmes even without the Holmesian physical attributes of beaked nose and towering height.

So there it was, at the time I went to watch the first instalment of Robert as Sherlock Holmes: he was going to be quirky, irreverent, and to use Doyle’s term, bohemian, I thought. And Robert was. He also did what Doyle’s Holmes did not do: he distractedly ran around dodging both bombs and beguiling women. The first movie was far from Doyle’s world, but it was also entertaining. For the just released Game of Shadows, I cannot even say that.

For such a Hollywoodised, bang-bang movie,  Shadows does what a Hollywood action movie sets out to do. It has well-choreographed action sequences, chases (on horses, not cars, given the period setting) the action-man’s defining USP, the sardonic one-liners in between action sequences (when Holmes declares, from an ostensible equine phobia, that it is after all 1891, and they should be able to charter a balloon). In Guy Ritchie’s Holmes, the USP is the ability of the detective to predict moves during physical fights. He also does some weird martial arts, and runs around even more than in the first movie.

Doyle’s Holmes requires the careful, sepia touch of a Hitchcock, not the frantic jabbings of action movie directors. And a lot has been said in critique of Shadows. Where is the mystery, asks one reviewer. Holmes has been converted to a ‘needy character’, says another. In all, I would say the atmospheric that defines Holmes- his vast intellect, his condescending but concise manner, and his towering method of filling his own life with himself without the slightest hint of caricature- is missing. As Watson sums up succinctly  in Valley of Fear: “Holmes had the impersonal joy of the true artist in his better work, even as he mourned darkly when it fell below the high level to which he aspired.”

So Guy’s Holmes is needy, flouncy, and decidedly more Jack Sparrow than Sherlock Holmes. Forgivable, in the vast grey chasm that lies between a director’s vision and box office formulas.

But what I cannot forgive Guy’s Sherlock is his particular brand of masochism.

In Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia, Holmes’ faithful companion, Watson (given fire, life, and his own charisma in the movies, which did not exist in the books) breathes reverentially of Irene Adler, the only woman who Holmes seems to ever think of: the prototype of all women, in Watson’s exclamations, “the woman”. Irene is bewitching and bottomlessly enigmatic, all the things that make good female protagonists. But she is also something else. She is intelligent. So much so that she foils the great protagonist, Sherlock, himself.  In the fictional and vast intellectual universe of Sherlock, this is what makes Irene the worthy woman- she has the smarts to hold up to Holmes. An equal then, on Holmes terms, and on his turf. This is what made her special to me.

Enter Hollywood’s Irene Adler. In both recent movies, Adler, played by Rachel McAdams is beautiful, bewitching, and enigmatic. But is she smarter than Sherlock, or for that matter, even smart enough? No. Of all the things she could have been depicted as ‘doing’, she is the oddball errand-runner of other criminal masterminds, a petty thief, and sometimes, a kinky poisoner. In Shadows, her intellectual presence is so diminutive it wouldn’t have been missed even if it wasn’t there.

To the other woman in Shadows, Watson’s newly-wedded, blonde, wide-eyed wife, Holmes behaves with the scorn reserved for a deep sea jellyfish likely to spurt venom at any given time. He chastises Watson for being married, but above all, Guy’s Sherlock indicates that all women are to be scorned at. They must fall in line with his instructions, or else (spoiler!) drown or be poisoned.

But Hollywood is often sexist. Why then, I thought, my particular derision to this unabashedly Hollywoodised series?

And Holmes is condescending, originally in Doyle’s books, and then in all the screen adaptations to follow. In the books, he treats Watson like a footstool or like a lapdog, depending on his mood, patronisingly tossing clues to Watson, after having already made the deductions himself. And this is an important point. Holmes is condescending towards men and women. In the movies however, Watson is ‘male’ enough to hold up to Holmes in the great physical tasks that Hollywood throws their way. In the first movie, Adler is competent, but on the ‘wrong’ moral side, and is left punished, handcuffed by Holmes. She uses seduction as a tool (another irritating, formulaic deviant from the original story, also observed in the TV version), and befitting that predictable movie-formula, requires rescuing.

A second reason why this annoys me is the very creation of Adler by Doyle is so cool cheap air jordans. It is rare to find a post-Victorian literary hero who acknowledges a woman as an equal because of her intellectual skill. Doyle’s Adler is witty, but not in the gay and chatty way of an Austen heroine, she is formidable, but not in the shady, criminal way she is depicted in the new movies.  She was thus, for me, a little planet in herself within Doyle’s world, a luminous planet which was often remembered, and always as self-sufficient.

The Holmes I know does not ‘perform’ rescues. He may however, be allowed to be confused by women, in the way Stephen Hawking has just said he is. Hollywood’s Holmes to the girls rescue? Not so elementary at all.

He wears thick glasses and beige suits, has a slight melancholy air and resembles a nondescript, mid-level bureaucrat. But don’t be fooled by his unassuming, taciturn visage, for George Smiley, the retired intelligence officer has been given the grave responsibility of finding a mole: a traitor to the West’s cause in its fight against the Soviet Other, at the uppermost echelons of the British secret service.

Set in the grim, dour London of the ‘70s, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a story revolving around the lives of secret agents and their shadowy games of deceit and subterfuge, played out in dark, damp rooms of an archetypal post-war government office. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is the protagonist, at once the chess player scrapping his way through an especially difficult end game and the mendicant trying to come to terms with the dilemmas and tribulations of his own life. Called back to the Circus (the name given to the MI6 headquarters) from retirement, whence he was once banished in disgrace, he sets about his task in right earnest. For this is his chance at redemption, even retribution, for things that went so horribly wrong the previous year and ended his career. Smiley and his boss Control (John Hurt) partook in a horrible misadventure in Budapest, Hungary (then firmly on the other side of the Iron Curtain) while hunting for a mole in their midst. This results in the capture of one of its agents, acute embarrassment for the British Government and, as a result of internecine departmental machinations, the rolling of Control and Smiley’s heads.

The chance for revenge arrives serendipitously, when Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a junior agent in Istanbul finds out about the mole, during the course of a rendezvous with an attractive, disgruntled Russian agent. Fearing for his life after a series of sinister events, Tarr decides to place an anonymous call to the Permanent Secretary and tells him of his discovery. Recalling his previous suspicions surrounding a double agent, the Permanent Secretary asks Smiley, the insider-turned-outsider, to lead the mission. Smiley enlists the support of the wide eyed Young Turk Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Ricki Tarr’s superior, who is outside the clique of suspects, to resolve the mystery.

The characters of the four chief suspects are masterfully developed through their interactions with each other and their interactions with Smiley, disclosed partly through flashback. Through the languidly revealed plot, we learn about the personalities of “Tinker” Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), “Tailor” Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), “Soldier” Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and “Poorman” Toby Esterhase (David Denick). As Smiley the “Spy” mulls over them, sizing them up, so do we. We get to know Tinker, the Calvinist Scot who through resourcefulness and enterprise replaces Control at the top of the Circus; Tailor, the suave public schoolboy from the English Shires; Soldier, the dogged, pugnacious British bulldog; and Poorman, the bundle of nerves constantly looking over his shoulder. Then there is Smiley’s bête noir Karla: the omniscient, Machiavellian Russian agent. Karla is the film’s invisible presence, its Moriarty, constantly engaged in a game of intellectual callisthenics against Smiley’s Sherlock. Smiley has to use his considerable analytical prowess and clairvoyance to overcome various obstacles and find the culprit, as the movie moves towards its gripping climax.

The movie, like the book, is certainly not a conventional spy thriller. Preferring substance over bling, it demands, and ultimately rewards the viewers’ attention. Not the sleek, smooth operatives who order their martinis shaken, not stirred; its portrayal of shifty, often bumptious spies with diverse motivations and interests appears authentic.

Tomas Alfredson proves to be an inspired choice as director. The Swede, whose previous directorial venture, Let the Right One In received much critical acclaim had difficult task of condensing a labyrinthine book into a two hour motion picture. He not only convincingly delivers a slick narration of the basic plot, but goes beyond that and adds some imaginative flourishes of his own. One can only marvel at the brilliant use of the office Christmas party for workers at the Circus, revealed in flashback throughout the film, complete with Santa Claus dressed as Stalin and a rousing rendition of the Soviet National Anthem. Or the more subtle, but equally effective scenes where the changing of railway tracks outside the hotel where Smiley stays is used as a metaphor for the shifts in Smiley’s thought process.

Alfredson is more than ably helped by the acting—an ensemble of the finest (male) British talent. The actors all slip into their roles effortlessly, conveying the follies and foibles of the characters that they portray. A special word for Gary Oldman. With his calmness, reserve and the ever-so-slightly quivering stiff upper lip, Smiley– rather than James Bond, is the most authentic caricature of the quintessential British spy and Oldman personifies him flawlessly.

The cinematography matches the tone of the film: not quite noir, but straddling between various shades of grey. Even the music is in sync with the rhythm and cadence of the movie: the understated score is perfectly pitched, nowhere more so than during moments when the music gives way to silence.

My only criticism is the slightly abrupt dénouement, where the antagonist, when confronted by Smiley, couches his betrayal as “an aesthetic choice” because “the West has become ugly”. A fuller justification, perhaps through a lengthier dialogue, may have done more justice to the movie.

That minor quibble aside, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a triumph because it manages to capture the essence of both John Le Carré’s novel and John Irvin’s iconic serialised adaptation for the BBC in 1979. It does so with aplomb and élan, adding flourishes of its own, profiting from both new-age cinematic techniques and the benefit of post-Cold War hindsight. In doing so, it manages to carry both the aficionado and the layman along. Don’t miss it.

]]> http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-2011/feed 2 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/world-invasion-battle-snore-fest-2011 http://www.criticaltwenties.in/mediapopularculture/world-invasion-battle-snore-fest-2011#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:36:45 +0000 Lekha http://www.criticaltwenties.in/?p=2592

I’m taking a short break from revolution movies to express outrage at Hollywood’s affinity for senseless alien invasion flicks.

For a ridiculously young civilization that, till a few centuries ago thought that constellations were centaurs frolicking in the heavens, and that you would topple off the edge of the world if you sailed in a straight line,  we’re awfully full of ourselves.  An alien army just travelled untold distances, has perfected water fuel-based technology, entered our atmosphere completely undetected and targeted and levelled most of our major cities, and we still have the audacity to say, “Let’s show those alien scumbags not to mess with us!”

Fortunately for our hubris, Hollywood aliens don’t believe in bulletproof vests or doing any reconnaissance before attacking.

World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles was predictably, a rehash of what ID4 already did, and did so much better. What really surprises me is that, despite a few thousand websites dedicated to pointing out exactly what is wrong with the traditional planet-being-invaded-by-weird-bio-armour-wearing-aliens-with-tentacles-and-they-don’t-want-to-negotiate-okay-enough-talking-let’s-open-up-a-can-of-whoop-ass plot line and a number of small ways movie makers could actually create a credible alien invasion story, the makers of this movie chose to ignore this body of literature entirely, and went with the favourite excuse of, “Hey, this is an action movie! We don’t need to have a sensible plot or even obey the rules we just created. Just watch the guns and explosions and be happy!” No, Hollywood. No.

The movie opens with the clichéd TV news story about suspicious meteor showers across the globe, where these meteors seem to be falling into oceans near large cities (Boo-YAH, Mumbai. How do you feel about your great sea breeze now?). We learn that the meteors contain aliens who are in no mood for conversation and want to quickly start destroying our cities and people. These aliens have entirely water-based technology and since 70% of our planet’s surface is covered in water, they want our planet and want us dead.  A brave band of US Marines (oo-rah!) must venture into the battle zone to go and rescue some civilians (1 pretty woman, 1 precocious boy, 2 screaming children) before the area gets carpet bombed by our side and in the process, they learn valuable lessons about love, friendship, patriotism, etc.

Needless to say, our brave band has all the favourite trope characters: Young Inexperienced Lieutenant, Tough War-Weary Staff Sergeant and a motley crew of Big Talker, Strong Silent Martyr, Male Chauvinist, Sexy Gun-Toting Female, Bro from Da Hood and Young Innocent Boy. True, there was surprisingly little “America Rulez!” and our badass marines looked less like Full Metal Jacket and more like a pleasant university brochure with a healthy representation by ethnic communities and one Canadian. But before you get the wrong idea, let’s be clear about this:  no amount of political correctness could save this rubbish movie.

The most obvious questions one must ask these aliens are:
(a) Really, aliens? Is water so rare in the universe that you must expend (what is probably) the last of your fuel on a wild expedition to an inhabited planet, where the natives have nuclear technology, AGAINST WHICH YOU HAVE NO DEFENCE? Why couldn’t you just go to one of the moons of Jupiter, dig out the ice and leisurely take it back home?

(b) Even assuming that you had absolutely made up your mind to come to Earth and take our water, how about some research? You were aware that we weren’t those pathetic Pandoran natives with bows and arrows, right? You were aware that we had grenades and bazookas, right? It wasn’t like we were trying to keep it a secret or anything. We’ve been blaring TV signals into space for decades now. If I were you, I’d have become somewhat concerned after watching Tony Montana’s cocaine fueled rampage with his “little friend”.

(c) If you knew we had guns, why did you decide to walk in wearing armour that only protects you from feathers and bunnies? On that note, since your Achilles heel is the right side of your chest, why not have some extra armour there?

(d) You have ONE freaking “command centre” which is the brain of your entire operation for an area and you choose to stick it in a highly conspicuous place and you couldn’t even be bothered to slap on a half-decent force field? You deserve to lose.

(e) How exactly were you planning to carry all the water back to your home planet? Or was this the most ill-advised illegal immigration plan in history?

(f) Have you not heard of the prevalent theory that it is logical that any alien species that makes contact with humans will be benevolent? For a species to have mastered space travel and travel across unimaginable distances is no mean feat. It would suggest that the species is far, far, far older than us and is so technologically superior to us, that fighting them would be like a child threatening a mail-clad knight with a bow of string and green willow. They could gain nothing from humankind, and therefore begs the question: aliens, why so hostile?

However, since these are bullshit aliens that are a cheap ripoff of ID4 aliens, none of these questions can or will be answered. If you thought these supernova sized plot holes might give you a headache, I assure you that your head will be pounding long before. I don’t know who was responsible for it, but shaky cam is Officially A Thing. Even when the plot doesn’t require it to be an amateur video (like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield). Nobody in this movie was filming a documentary, and yet they had to insist on using it.

The one solace was that this wasn’t another movie set in Manhattan, and we didn’t have to sit through the Statue of Liberty being destroyed again. Could this mean that Hollywood has finally woken up to how silly this sequence is, and how only one movie ever managed to pull it off?

Needless to say, once all the token characters are killed off, Marine-banter (oo-rah!) has been exchanged and the alien Macguffin has been smashed, the earthlings live on happily ever after… wait a second, how do we know this was their entire force? What if this was only their vanguard, which managed to destroy all our major cities (and based on the Los Angeles battle experience, most of the air force too)? So, is the sequel going to be titled, “World Invasion 2: Building a Pipeline Across the Galaxy for Our Alien Overlords”?

I’m going to risk sacrilege here.

Pixar is not, as many say, the new “golden age” of Disney.

Pixar is much, much more.

Sure, Disney’s tales were nice enough: the “Little Mermaid”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Aladdin” – healthy doses of escapism with pat moral truths, often leaning on the Brothers Grimm catalog and twisting those stories into more palatable entertainment fodder for the masses. This, they did well – but that’s about it. They gave us nice, feel good fun. When I think back through a haze of nostalgia to my childhood days of revelling in the splendour of Disney, I find its often just that – nostalgia.

And Pixar? Pixar movies are often, simply put, casually transcendent. Its about time we stopped comparing cheerful fluff that other animation studios churn out with any given Pixar outing; its simply unfair to the others. At any rate, let’s see where this particular offering stands.

“Toy Story 3” does not, at first glance, have a lot going for it. The fact that it’s a sequel is crippling enough, but that it’s the third part of a trilogy puts in the potential company of, oh, “The Godfather – III“; “Spiderman 3“; or “X-Men:The Last Stand“. Notice the pattern? All third instalments of once great franchises that were astonishingly underwhelming – and that’s being kind. The plot itself, when I saw the first trailer, threatened to be a rehash of “Toy Story 2″, so really, TS3 has no right to work, let alone scale the stellar heights we now take for granted from this studio.

But folks – this is Pixar. And so, against all odds, the wizards of animation have fashioned the strongest instalment in the Toy Story franchise, and arguably one of the better films in a very impressive oeuvre.

Our plastic heroes remain timeless – unfortunately, their owner Andy is growing up and now gets ready to head down to college. Fun and games come to a stop as the toys wonder about their fate: Woody is picked by Andy to accompany him to college, the rest land up at a day care centre. All seems well … a little too well actually. Before the toys know it, they’ve entered a darkly dystopian existence, and must get away before, well, their parts fall off or something.

Out of this barebones premise is fashioned a movie that is frequently hilarious and inventive: the great escape scene is one of the most inventive of its ilk that you will encounter in cinema, and Buzz-the-toy-astrounaut-spouting-flirtatious-Spanish is simply inspired. But what makes the movie truly wonderful are the moments when it reaches for the gut. Two incredible scenes towards the end form this movie’s one-two punch, as the characters are confronted with mortality and adulthood. In a moment that serves as a re-introduction as well as a fond farewell, Andy tenderly bequeaths his prized possessions to a little kid. I can give no greater praise for this movie, or for the universality of Pixar’s magic, than point out that both my 11 year old sister and I had strongly emotional reactions based on completely different reasons at the conclusion of the film. She sat in rapture at the little kid getting a new treasure trove of toys – and I reacted to Andy’s final goodbye to his childhood, and to the toys themselves resigning to the idea of mortality with barely controlled tears.

So what’ll happen Oscar night? “Toy Story 3″ will definitely lose out on the best picture award: not because it isn’t on the same level of craft as, say, a “Black Swan” or a “King’s Speech“, but because this is the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences that we’re talking about, with its usual abject refusal to look too much beyond well manufactured high pedigree drama. As far as they’re concerned, this nomination is enough of an award for the animated film. Similar, I think, will be its fate in the adapted screenplay category. That leaves us with the perplexing category of best animated film. I’m glad it exists simply because I think this reliably entertaining medium (not genre) of film deserves that kind of recognition. But how is it in any way a race this year, when, like last year’s “Up“, a best picture nominee, finds itself in competition with an obviously lesser lot ?

Oh well, good for you Pixar, anyway.

There was a point last year when I wrote about the issue of “Queer cinema” continuing to be a genre per se. It was, I felt, about time that Hollywood moved onto stories where the alternate sexuality of the characters was merely incidental to the narrative. Instead, the prime mainstream examples that leapt out – “Brokeback Mountain” and “Milk” – featured the idea of the sexuality of the characters at the fulcrum of the narrative; sexuality-as-the-issue so to speak, either personal as in Brokeback, or political as in “Milk”.

And then along came “I Love You Philip Morris“; a romantic comedy with 2 male A-listers in the lead, a movie that was blissfully unaware about the fact that it was a TRAILBLAZING GAY MOVIE. Nope, here we had the queerness of the characters as an established non-issue from the onset, after which the only concern of the movie was to spin a rollicking good yarn, give us a story for the ages – gay or straight.

If Philip Morris demolished notions of what a queer movie could – and should – be, “The Kids are All Right” cheerfully steamrolls over the debris, giving us a neat little family dramedy that refuses to call too much attention to the casually revolutionary nature of its sexual politics.

Nicole (Annette Bening, who deserves her Best Acress nomination) and Jules (Julianne Moore bloody well deserved a nomination herself) are your everyday married lesbian couple with 2 kids from the same anonymous sperm donor. As they near adulthood, the kids want to know more about their dad, and manage to investigate their way to the charming, laidback Paul (Mark Ruffalo has the most unshowy role of the lot, but does it well enough to merit his supporting actor nod). Paul has no family of his own, and his foray into the life of the settled foursome leads to surprising consequences for everyone involved.

Other than a refreshingly unconventional premise at its core, Kids makes a lot of interesting decisions with its turns of narrative. Some are satisfying; Mark Ruffalo and Julianne Moore play off against each other remarkably well, and its great watching Ruffalo’s character realizing his long-buried need for family. Others, like the closing scenes, don’t ring completely true – there’s a strangely rushed feel, and a lack of deserved closure for one of the characters.

Bening and Moore’s equation is really at the core of the movie, and the two make for a great screen couple. Bening’s the hard-to-like control freak who has moments of fragility; hers is a wonderfully written character, layered with sarcasm and empathy, and the actress masterfully navigates us through these different facets. Moore complements her with an almost balm-like laid back vibe that begins to ignite with the presence of this new person in their lives. “Marriage is hard” she says, in one tearful scene, and we nod in agreement with her, simultaneously rooting for this one to work. As for the kids, they’re, well, pretty all right.

Come Oscar night, and I think this nicely made, well acted, and well written film will probably walk away without any awards. Its probably the weakest in the movie category, as are Mark Ruffalo’s chances for supporting actor. The screenplay nomination contends with the dizzyingly intricate “Inception”, and the sweeping-but-comic “King’s Speech”, both of which I think will leave it trailing. Finally, there’s Annette Bening’s best actress nomination. This right here is possibly the closest the movie could come to snatching Oscar victory, but there’s a raging insane ballerina fighting tooth-and-nail for this one, and the way things look right now, it’s probably Natalie Portman for the gold.

Slow motion punch to face and shimmering, flying drops of sweat/blood/saliva? Check.

Protagonist severely losing, till his trainer murmurs something inspirational about love /friendship/family/America in his ear and immediately turns the match around? Check.

At least one or two training montages set to a rousing tune? Check.

Ding-ding-ding, you made Boxer Movie Bingo!

That’s the trouble with making a movie about boxing. It is simply impossible to avoid the tropes. And then, everybody will do you the enormous disservice of comparing your movie to “Raging Bull” — you just can’t come out looking good from a comparison with Robert De Niro’s brand of crazy. However, if you can ignore the superficial clichés and the de rigueur “underdog wins against all odds” plot, “The Fighter” makes for a very good watch.

This is the story of the welterweight professional boxer, “Irish” Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg) and how he overcame enormous difficulties before he finally took the WBU Light Welterweight title. Unlike other fighters, Micky’s problems did not include the mob or poverty or race or a barely controlled temper; his problem was his family. His large, overwhelming, smothering-in-love family, who make his decisions for him, apparently for his own good.

And then, there is his half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christan Bale), whom Micky and the entire family idolize and worship like a hero. Dicky could have been numbered among the greatest boxers, if it weren’t for his debilitating crack cocaine addiction. But all of them turn a blind eye to his drug problem, because Dicky once fought and knocked out Sugar Ray Leonard. They still live in that moment, despite that fact that it happened years ago and Dicky does not even have a semblance of a boxing career any more. He could make a come back any old time, they figured, and in the meanwhile, he would help his little brother Micky make a name for himself. So sure were they of Dicky’s prowess that none of them thought Micky had a chance in hell without Dicky’s expertise. Sadly, even Micky ended up believing in that. Dicky may be high all the time, but his word was gold. Admiration can be a funny thing like that.

Micky’s problem is clear, almost 5 minutes into the movie. He just doesn’t want to take responsibility for himself—be it his failures or his successes. He’d much rather place the weight of the decision-making on his megalomaniac mother or his unreliable drug addict brother. This way, if nothing works out, he can shrug his shoulders and say he tried. When the clear error of trusting his mother and brother is made obvious to him, he shifts the burden on his girlfriend and father, who are more than happy to get a piece of the Micky Ward pie. In these moments, you really want to shake him and say, “Be more in control of your life, goddammit!” That is why his real victory doesn’t come within the boxing ring, but when he finally takes the reins for his life.

Oddly enough, the most defining scenes from this movie were not of the boxing matches or even of the lead actor, Mark Wahlberg, but were those of his large family of sisters and father and other relatives, all presided by the matriarch, Alice (Melissa Leo). There is one scene when he is with his girlfriend (Amy Adams), and he is arguing with his mother, and his group of sycophantic chorus of sisters take their cues from his mother to disagree with him in unison. They are like a laughter track from a sitcom or a flock of squawking birds animated by Pixar, and brilliantly effective in conveying the sort of bull-headed mentality of popular opinion one must sometimes put up with. Sure they seem caricature-like, but that is precisely what the director intended. And Melissa Leo is superb, as Alice, sitting in the centre of her web, manipulating and controlling, knowing exactly how to guilt-trip her sons. Many are anticipating her to take the Best Supporting Actress Oscar later this month, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.

Mark Wahlberg’s self-effacing performances have finally found a place, it seems. In “The Departed”, he was almost invisible behind all the Hollywood heavyweights, and in “The Lovely Bones”, Stanley Tucci stole the show. But in this movie, he is the yin to Christian Bale’s yang. Christian Bale’s wired performance as Dicky Eklund and his manic energy was one of the real standouts of this movie, and completely deserving of the Oscar he will probably receive. But even Bale’s addict personality would have seemed out of place and discordant, if it were not for the strong, steady reliability that Wahlberg radiates through the movie; and Wahlberg’s character would have been anchorless were it not for Bale’s animal magnetism. They really do complete each other.

Ultimately, despite having a superb supporting cast and a lead actor who did not try to dominate the film, “The Fighter” is simply not one for the ages. The lead up to the climax lacked tension, because, as far as the audience were concerned, Micky had already had his victory where it mattered—at home. So the outcome of the climax boxing match was fairly obvious. In fact, if you read the real Micky Ward’s biography, you’ll find that he fought exactly like every single movie boxer in a climactic scene– he’d taken a severe beating for several rounds and then land that one punch that turns the tables. That was his signature move. So you cant really blame the movie makers for the rather predictable finish. Besides, Micky Ward seems like such an overall nice guy, you really are happy for him and his successes. In any case, ‘suspenseful, shocking climax’ was really not what the director was going for, but it would have been nice if he’d aimed for ‘thunderous ending’ or something to that effect.

There were plenty of great moments of cinema too– Dicky’s slow realization of what his life had become in reality is a stunning piece of drama. The way the boxing matches were shot: from the perspective of the spectators, so the noise of the crowd is loud and overwhelming, puts the movie-watcher right there in a ringside seat. This one won’t be winning any Best Picture awards but I’d recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone looking for an excellent movie to watch on a Friday night, which is really all that is going to matter three days after the Oscar mania has died down.

Normally I would have said “no”, and in some cases, the “original” and the re-make merit no comparison at all because of vast differences in quality or storyline or both. In this case though, the 1969 version is useful to appreciate the merits of the Coen Brothers’ version (and also understand where it falls short). Make no mistake, I think both are very, very good films and feature some fantastic work but when we’re essentially in Oscar-comparison mode, one has to pick winners and losers.

Strictly speaking, the Coen Brothers’ “True Grit” is not a re-make as it is sometimes made out to be. It is, like its 1969 predecessor starring John Wayne, based on the eponymous Charles Portis’ novel. The story largely follows the novel in both cases, though the Coen Brothers’ version is considered to be truer to the novel’s plotline. Broadly, the movies and book tell the story of 14 year old Hattie Ross, whose father has been murdered in cold blood by outlaw, Tom Chaney and her efforts to bring her father’s killer to justice by hiring US Marshall, Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn to go into the Indian Territories and bring him to justice. Along the way, they are also joined by LaBoeuf (who calls himself “LaBeef”) a Texas Ranger also on the hunt for Tom Chaney. Apart from some deviations in the plot, both movies stick to this broad outline, though in tone and tenor, though, the two movies are quite different different.

Whereas the 1969 version focuses more on Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn, the Coen Brothers’ focus theirs on the girl, Hattie Ross (played brilliantly by Hailee Steinfeld). Whereas the 1969 version has the feel of an adventure story with thrills, spills, danger and good old fashioned frontier-humour, the Coen Brothers bring their very Coen Brothers touch to the movie. It is much darker, the setting grimmer and one involuntarily feels the cold landscape in watching the movie. Whereas all the action in the 1969 version seems to take place in autumn daylight, much of the action in the later version takes place in the cold and grim winter. Not that one is necessarily preferable to the other, but it is an interesting example of how in the hands of an expert storyteller, the mood and the feel of a story can change quite dramatically without any adverse impact on the storytelling itself.

The Coen brothers did the right thing, I think, by bringing Hattie Ross back to the centre of the story. Instead of becoming just another Western with cowboys and Indians (the less-pc kind), it becomes a story about about justice on the wild frontiers of a country still trying to become a nation.In Hattie Ross’ constant evocation of the law justifying her actions (and her ultimate weapon of last resort, famed lawyer J Noble Dagett!) we get a sense of a new order (literally and figuratively) emerging on the “wild and savage” frontier. Also this has allowed them to unearth a stunning talent in Hailee Steinfeld, of whom enough praises cannot be sung. Just go watch it for her pitch-perfect performance.

The Coen brothers’ biggest drawback, unfortunately, is the gross miscasting of Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, the one-eyed, frontiersman/US Marshall/”encounter specialist” (as we say in these parts). Admittedly the 1969 version focuses more on Cogburn than the Coen brothers’ version but John Wayne brings so much more to the character than Jeff Bridges even comes close to suggesting. John Wayne’s Rooster Cogburn is equal parts pathetic, tough, foolhardy, drunk, indisputably brave and canny. When someone calls him “old and fat”, one look at him and you know they mean it. It did help that John Wayne was indeed 61 and quite fat when they shot the film but then you realize that’s just part of the impression that Cogburn wants others to believe; to hide an essentially tough and uncompromising character. His relationship with someone who seems his diametric opposite in every possible way (but just as tough and uncompromising) is the emotional core of this film. John Wayne won the Best Actor Oscar for this role, (deservedly so) and anyone who would reprise Rooster Cogburn had fairly big boots to fill.

Jeff Bridges comes off as a lucky drunk.

It probably doesn’t help that the last time Jeff Bridges worked with the Coen brothers, it was for the cult hit, “The Big Lebowski“. For those of us who loved and adored the movie and its slacker hero, its a bit hard to swallow “the Dude” swagger and stagger around pretending to be an over-the-hill frontiersman. It doesn’t help that Jeff Bridges looks exactly the same in almost all his movies. One almost expects him to take a gulp of a White Russian and blather on about his slacker philosophy. It is the cinematic equivalent of having Ellen Page of “Juno” fame play a sassy, mouthy, cringe inducing Hollywood’s-idea-of-a-teenager, Hattie Ross.

Fortunately, we get the infinitely more bearable (and talented) Hailee Steinfeld, who was all of thirteen when this movie was made and will probably go on to be one of the youngest Oscar winners come February 27th.

Matt Damon is of course a vast improvement as the blustering and bombastic LaBouef from the fairly wooden Glen Campbell in the same role. Long time fans of the Coen brothers will also be thrilled with the smaller roles that seem to add nothing to the story itself but somehow create an atmosphere that, in retrospect, seems impossible without them. Those who’ve seen “No Country for Old Men” and “A Serious Man” will know exactly what I am talking about. The landscape, in Coen brothers’ movies, whether it is the arid, red Southwest or the cold, freezing wilderness, always has this feeling of menace and discomfort that few other film makers capture so well. It is no different in “True Grit”.

Much as I liked “True Grit” (despite its one major flaw) with eight nominations, I think “True Grit” has overperformed in the nominations front. At best, it looks as though Hailee Steinfeld will win the Best Actress in a Supporting Role (a curious nomination since I think, she was pretty much the female lead of this film). If she does, it will be nothing less than entirely deserved making her the second youngest winner of the Award.

The Coen brothers are unlikely to win Best Director (they’ve already given it to them for a better film) or Best Picture (odds on favourite being that-facebook-movie). Jeff Bridges also just won Best Actor, and I don’t see the Academy giving him one more so quickly (Also, I don’t think the members of the AMPAS would want to give John Wayne another reason to rise from his grave and scalp them all). Ignoring the technical awards (they are only there to make the numbers anyway), I think True Grit’s next best shot at an Oscar is the Best Adapted Screenplay award; and it will be in a close contest with “The Social Network”.

But, forget the Oscars. (2008 is the date historians in the future will reckon as the beginning of the end as “Wall-E” and “The Dark Knight” weren’t even nominated and, ugh, “Slumdog Millionaire” won. When our children ask us why they no longer have the Oscar awards, be sure to tell them that about the time when two all time classics lost to a movie starring Anil Kapoor.)

Just go watch this movie.

Between the 500 million status updates reading, “Just watched that Facebook movie and it is awesome/totally untrue/misogynistic/loveXXX” and Zadie Smith’s review, it’s all been said, and then some. The only movie that I’ve spent more time reading about is “Inception” and its three million crackpot theories. So instead of another review about how this movie totez defines my(?) LOLtastic generation, how about we discuss its prospects at your office’s Oscar betting pool?

Let’s do the easy ones first: Aaron Sorkin is practically a shoo-in for the Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay Award. If nothing else, “The Social Network” (TSN) was a dialogue-centric movie. It didn’t underestimate its viewers and it didn’t come off like a bunch of guys wildly hypothesizing on what “smart folk probably sound like”. Sorkin has years of experience writing snappy, witty dialogue for the critically acclaimed TV show, “The West Wing“, and it really comes through in this movie. Besides, Sorkin was the one who wrote, “You can’t handle the truth!“. Give the man an Oscar already.

If it were up to me, I’d give the Best Cinematography award to “Inception” just for the zero gravity fight scene. Otherwise, it’s a close call between Black Swan and TSN. Despite being a movie about entitled computer nerds, TSN was a visually stunning movie, especially the (now much-talked about) Henley Royal Regatta scene. But “Black Swan” just had more opportunities to showcase creative artistic devices and moody lighting, what with all the beautiful women looking scared/ flitting gracefully across the set.

As the (apparently fictional) stony-faced, socially inept Mark Zuckerberg, Jesse Eisenberg was chillingly convincing. From the odd gait to the twisted lips, Eisenberg played the part to perfection. But his real achievement was, despite having to play such an unrelatable character who almost seems robotic at times, he managed to humanize him. While the audience’s sympathies may have been with Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) at having been shafted by his best friend, it was Eisenberg who claimed our empathy. The Best Actor Award– will Jesse win it? Doubt it. He’d have to beat Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech“. Everybody knows that the Academy has an enormous crush on the British monarchy and can barely restrain itself from flinging all its statuettes at movies about them. And Colin has already won at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, both of which are considered good indicators of which direction the wind is blowing. Besides, there was something so endearing about Colin impotently gasping for words, unable to express himself. If Colin wins this one, you won’t hear any cries of protest from the TSN bandwagon.

As for the Best Director Award, the Coen brothers won recently, so I doubt they’ll be taking the trophy home this time. Tom Hooper though, is the dark horse who just may end up taking the prize home, after his recent win at the Directors Guild Awards. For me, it is a close call between Darren Aronofsky and David Fincher—both of whom have made iconic movies in the past and are extremely deserving of every accolade being heaped on them for their latest effort. Fincher ought to beat out Aronofsky because it takes a special kind of skill to make a movie where computer programming+vodka shots is passed off as a nail-biting action scene, and actually manage to get us cheering wildly.

People saw the non-nomination of “The Dark Knight” in the Best Picture category as an egregious lapse on the Academy’s part. [The AMPAS should have been publicly flogged, drawn and quartered. - Alok] Lest they be called doddering old snobs who love them some prunes, the Academy made some major changes to update themselves to accommodate the v2.0 crowd. This meant having younger hosts for the ceremony and having 10 nominations for Best Picture so the cooler movies get nominated too. This whole get-with-the-programme strategy of the Academy also meant they had to invite Miley Cyrus and Kristen Stewart to the ceremony, but so long as the draw the line at Snookie, I think we can all agree that it’s a fair trade-off, now that movies like “District 9” are finally getting their due.

Of course, it will be a few more centuries before the Academy actually starts giving the Best Picture Oscar to certain genres of movies, so we can safely rule out the following movies from this year’s contenders: “Toy Story 3″ (token animated movie), “Inception” (token sci-fi movie), “Winter’s Bone” (token hard-hitting indie movie) and “The Kids are All Right” (token quirky family drama).

This leaves the following serious contenders: “True Grit“, “The King’s Speech”, “127 Hours”, “Black Swan”, and TSN. Of these, I’ve a very strong feeling that the victor will be TSN. This is, after all, The Year of Facebook. Zuckerberg has been constantly in the news, becoming Time magazine’s Person of the Year and donating millions to charity. Contrary to what Zuckerberg’s PR people feared, TSN does not vilify him. He comes off as an incredibly dedicated, simple guy who is, despite all his billions, just a boy at heart; which is far better press than bequeathing all your money to charity can buy.

A couple of weeks ago, Delhi had a minor earthquake in the middle of the night. All the shaking woke me up, and since my computer was right there, I lost no time in updating my Facebook status to “Earthquake!” patting myself on the back for being the first. And that’s when I noticed that at least 3 people had already updated their statuses about the earthquake. This could only mean one thing: these people were updating their Facebook statuses during the earthquake instead of, oh I don’t know, crawling to safety under their desks.

Yes I don’t think we need to worry about the imminent zombie apocalypse finishing off humanity any more—we’ve already lost our sense of self-preservation. Thanks, Mark Zuckerberg! How about, in retaliation we get Hollywood to make a movie about how you (probably) stabbed your best friend in the back, make it a box office success AND critically acclaimed (you know the twain rarely meet) and ironically talk about it endlessly on Facebook?

Your move, Zuckerberg.