Entertain Me

Rachel Getting Married

2009-02-02T05:57:00.023-05:00

It is not troubling that movies are getting so awful. What is truly a sign of cultural decay is how awful film crtics are getting. Rachel Getting Married has gotten rave reviews and folks have been betting on Anne Hathaway being the front runner for best actress Oscar. Wow! This movie has got to be one of the most boring, awful movies I've ever seen. Almost 2 hours of wedding video is all there is interspersed with a weak, black sheep of the family plot thrown in just to lure the critics and the idiots like me who actually read and believe them.

We were just sitting through the bad wedding home video, I mean the movie, just painfully waiting for something to happen. A full 5 minute shot of people loading dishwashers. A wedding toast that lasted for over 10 minutes. A wedding dance that seemed to last forever and the actual wedding where the guy (and where the heck did they get those specs from? Do they even make them like these anymore?) murders (ok, not quite) Neil Young's 'Unknown Legend', one of my alltime favorite songs, the full song as his wedding vow! wow!

I want my 3 hours spent getting to and watching the movie back. Mr. Demme, I did not realize that your title was literal -- Rachel Getting Married -- and that's all there was to it. I know you used smalls plays from the Oscar book to lure the critics -- the casually interracial couple, the black-sheep who has a dark past, a disengaged mother, white folks dressing in Indian Saris (for no clear reason) and oh, the God awful live music that does not seem to stop ever -- even after the films finally does end. Sorry, but I cannot stand for this kind of manipulative video-making. You suck, Mr. Demme.

The Dying Animal - Phillip Roth

2009-01-16T06:13:00.000-05:00

I avoid modern American fiction. I generally don't get it. However, the name 'Dying Animal' stirred something in me and I was really curious about reading this book. Well, it certainly is different, unfortunately not in a very good way. It, in fact, is the kind of book that you so badly want to be good and it starts out so but soon descends into utter apology of what it could've been. It is also the problem of single-idea stories or stories that really should remain short. This book even at 120 pages is a drag when you get to its 2nd half.

The Dying Animal in the story of an ageing professor and his relationship with a young attractive woman of Cuban origin. The book suffers from there being no plot of any sort, just a cheap trick employed at end as if to apologize for the brilliant, raw, jarring and difficult to read first-half of the book. Difficult to read because it is so true and deep down inside everything you've always known being a man about the feal desires lurking in your heart is there for you to confront. It is powerful and moving. You shake your head in disbelief, not because you don't believe but because you don't want to but you know you do.

And hence, what comes later is just such a pathetic ending that is no conclusion at all. What a pity.

Burn After Reading

2008-10-04T15:32:00.003-04:00

Near the end of the film, John Malkovich says to a character something like "You are in the league, the league of morons, the kinds I've been fighting all my life..." and he goes ahead and shoots that character. This to me is the essence of the film and in many ways of all Coen brothers films, specially their original films, the ones that are neither remakes [The Ladykillers] nor adapted [No Country...].

Burn After Reading is thematically similar to other mid-career Coen brothers films specially the likes of Raising Arizona, Intolerable Cruelty and even a bit of Fargo. It is about idiots (or morons, if you prefer) ending up in situations that are beyond their control ultimately leading to violence and destruction.

It is another appropriate film for our times. A film with no redeemable characters. No one that you could identify with, trust, or root for. Everyone being pulled into this quagmire of crass, just plain crass. While this is common in Coen brothers films but they generally have at least one or two characters that you can root for. Their characters are generally likeable even when they are terrible criminals up to no good. This time the brothers seem to have gone out of their way to create characters so absurdly unlikeable. Even the cold-blooed killer Antoine Chigurrh is a man to be feared but not disliked.

John Malkovich as the CIA agent Osbourse Cox is so foul-mouthed, so pathetic, incompetent and lost that is a miracle he is fired (sort of) and not promoted in the agency. He delivers some of the films best lines including the 'league of morons' bit that I just loved too much.

His uptight, ill-tempered cheating wife, Tilda Swinton, is annoying and repulsive as usual. And then she is supposed to be a pediatrician of all people. I would not believe for a second that it was just a co-incidence. Frances McDermond is utterly foolish middle-aged woman who is so obsessed with finding things outside, even on the internet, that she cannot even see what's around her. She has a perfect (as in exactly like and not as in a superlative sense) teenager brain in her aging, sagging body.

George Clooney is of course the ideal (as in typical, not as in perfect) man of our times. He is a skirt-chaser with a teenage lust, a man so self-consumed, so deceitful that he cannot even imagine others deceiving him. A tiny-hearted boy who never grew up and is afraid to even acknowledge reality. A man who simply 'blows-up' when reality finally hits him somewhat. You see, a complete man of our times. I am surprised he wasn't cast as an investment banker.

Brad Pitt is a new addition to the Coen brothers camp and does a fine job of an uber-hydrated, shallow, stupid, gym-rat. He is another perfect man-child who would've been more interesting if he wasn't so real. I challenge you to go to a gym and not find a copy of this character. While most outwardly funny, Pitt is probably the weakest caricature that has been drawn in the film. It was like shooting ducks to build his character and it works but is unimpressive.

There are some awkward and non-sensical plot elements (even for Coens) that weaken an otherwise excellent film. This is again a film in relentless pursuit of entertainment. This isn't screwball, unless you want to only look at it that way. This is a comedy for our times, dark, whimsical and of men and women so foolish that they'd not just burn down their own homes by their idiocy but the entire world.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

2008-09-23T16:51:00.005-04:00

As I started reading 'Fooled by Randomness' about a month ago I could swear that I'd read this stuff before. A man of middle-eastern origin trading on Wall St. in options. Black Swans. I could swear I had read about him before. I went to The New Yorker's website and searched for this Taleb's name and sure I hit an article from 2000 written by Malcolm Gladwell, no less. I know I had really enjoyed that article then and I got excited about the book even more and read it pretty quickly (at least for me) right after that.

'Fooled by Randomness' is Mr. Taleb's attempt at analyzing success in its generally accepted form: wealth. Taleb writes in a forward to the book about how the first edition of this book got a ton of email from readers telling him that his book made them feel vindicated. It made them feel accomplished or successful in its own little but significant way. It seems that the readers were essentially on target. Mr. Taleb does seem to be obsessed with the idea that successful people aren't necessarily smart. This idea has become fairly popular in recent months among The New Yorker crowd. The magazine has lately featured many articles discussing success. Is success a result of smart people or is the result of the times or of luck or randomness or intuition or what exactly.

But this is about Taleb and his book about Randomness. Taleb is of course sitting pretty today. He is probably laughing his ass off today in some random bar in Manhattan. More practically he is probably working on a new book -- how about 'The Suburban Swan'?

The type of 'blow-up' Taleb talks about that happens to traders and others on Wall St. when they make foolish bets is much of what consumes Taleb. Today is his day. However, we'd be more cautious if we'd take his own advice of not paying too much attention to detail and waiting for the 'end' to make up your mind about something. Trouble with this approach is that there really is no such thing as an 'end.'

Taleb talks, brilliantly, I must say, about the inexact scale that tells you more about the scale than about what it measures. Taleb, of course, has first-hand experience. His book tells you so much more about Taleb than about randomness.

Taleb is very well-read and isn't afraid to show it to you. Again and again. He has what I call as the 'Gopnik-syndrome.' He is a brilliant man and has brilliant friends. He has Gladwell praising the book on front cover and he praises Gladwell's book inside the book. I guess they formed a 'partnership' in 2000 to promote each other's cause. Very un-Taleb-like if you ask me. But then you don't really know the real Taleb. Is he the brilliant author who writes beautifully and excoriates the Wall St. for their 'exceses' or he the pompous ass who does not follow his own advice. Ever.

The book is still a lot of fun to read. His wild rants against journalists and financial wiz-kids is certainly very very entertaining. His stories are charming even if beside the point.

The biggest problem with the book is the cop-out in the last section where Taleb accepts that he is the worst offender of everything he criticizes. This attempt at self-apology is so out of character with the Taleb of everything before that it just leaves a horrible taste in your mouth. He is just not believable anymore. We cannot respect the rants of a man, an educated man, when he says he'd direct most severe criticism toward himself. It drains leadership. That would also make Taleb fit well, unfortunately, today.

However, guys like Taleb will be right on certain days and these days are those. It is fitting that I should've read this book only a few weeks ago. It certainly makes me think about Wall St., if not differently, then in at least a different vocabulary.

[Ravindra, thanks for gifting this book to me]

Glengarry Glen Ross

2008-09-18T09:44:00.001-04:00

It was only fitting that we watched 'Glengarry Glen Ross' the night capitalism was tested on Wall St. The festering 'man-eat-man' world dominated by men who weild ultimate control over the lives of others by virtue of mostly inherited meritocracy. 'Gelngarry Glen Ross' is based on a play written by David Mamet. A man who's themes generally border on the misanthropic. That, however, shouldn't take much away from this amazing theme of working men put under such stress that to crumble is really the only option.

The all-star film is low-key, raw even. It portrays middle-aged and older who suddenly find themselves outrun. In a weird sense -- they are Tommy Lee Jones's character in 'No Country for Old Men.' Their lives are fractured beyond repair and there isn't much hope. Except, of course, the proverbial 'next sale', which just does not seem to happen in difficult economic times.

'Glengarry Glen Ross' is about an economic system that puts premium on 'sale' at any cost. It could be that it was inspired by the fall of 1987 but it probably rings true for any time in human history, probably none more so than now.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

2008-07-10T21:40:00.000-04:00

Sidney Lumet is over 80 years old. He has been making films for over 50 years and has made some of my favorite films such as 'Network (1976)' '12 Angry Men(1957)', 'Dog Day Afternoon (1975)', and to a lesser extent 'The Verdict(1982).' His last few movies though have generally been very disappointing. And as a lot of filmmakers have done lately (Woody Allen & Coen Brothers jump to mind immediately), when the chips are down, you go off the deep mind and make something that is out of your recent character but essentially pulls you back to basics.

'Before the devil knows...' is one of those harrowing films that are designed ground-up to be shocking. Right from the beginning, through the middle and all the way to the very end. Everything seems calculated to titillate you. A fundamentally overboard theme, a misguided, creaky plot and characters so hopelessly flawed that you never ever develop any sympathy for them. Unfortunately, what keeps the film gripping and keeps you focused also helps erode its appeal. The downward spiral that the characters willingly step in, in a moment of poor judgement, seems so tailormade for disaster that it isn't clear why people would be so stupid to go ahead. And yet, in real life we see it all the time.

Humans are driven to thrill-seeking by evolutionary mandates and we all make mistakes that are so stupid in hindsight that we wonder what sane person would ever commit it. And yet we do it all the time. However, in the story with a fundamentally flawed plot (the money the brothers would've made by robbing their parents' store and selling at 20% was just inconsequential for its intended use) and characters even more flawed, there is something terribly unreal and disconcerting.

Marisa Tomei, incredibly fit at 43 and naked in most of the film might be the most unreal thing of all. After one of Hollywood's finest performance ever as the car wank waif in My Cousin Vinny, she just seemed to disappear. Here she is after 15 years and a bunch of petty roles, finally trying her hardest to get back and alas this is the only way she is offered. That might actually be 'Before the Devil...''s biggest showcasing of misanthropy.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

2008-07-09T13:57:00.001-04:00

Mark Haddon's small, tight, poignant novel is certainly a good read. It's narrator is 15-year old, mentally challenged kid Christopher Boone. The story revolves around the mysterious murdered dog of a neighbor and how Christopher's attempt to solve the murder mystery leads him to other (unpleasant) discoveries that threaten to ruin his life.

Haddon's strong characterization of the boy and judgemental portrayel of the post-modern adult life and its inherent flaws through the eyes of a mentally challenged (or autistic, it is never quite specified) is vivid and logical. Haddon's Christopher, the boy with special needs, is the only logical character and adults around him seem inefficient at best and completely unresaonable at worst.

Christopher's world is black & white. Crystal clear. Mathematical. He is oblivious to nuance and does not deal in false currencies. He loves math and loves Sherlock Homes. He His approach is so precise, so defined that he is a complete misfit. Haddon is clearly proclaiming that perfectly logical behavior can only be attributed to someone who will be perceived as...well, an idiot.

And this brings me to Prince Myshkin. How Dostoevsky's Idiot lives through the ages and resurfaces in various different ways. The recurrence of 'Crime and Punishment' themes in modern entertainment is overwhelming but 'The Idiot' themed entertainment isn't far behind. The more I read the more amazing Dostoevsky's work becomes to me.

Also, Haddon's novel will have a different appeal for parents, specially new parents. Taking care of your children is clearly a task rendered excruciatingly difficult by the demands of post-modern life. Working parents, distractions, blackberrys and so on. While Haddon doesn't hammer on this and is generally sympathetic to the adults, it is hard for a parent to not cringe with guilt, earned or not.

Through "Curious incident..." Haddon cleverly disguises what is essentially the hardest possible thing for a parent to do (dealing with a child with special needs) into a poignant yet funny, touching and ultimately entertaining tale.

Persepolis

2008-07-02T12:42:00.003-04:00

Persepolis (Persian City) is a very entertaining film based on an autobiographical graphic novel written by the co-director of this film, Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian who grew up in the late 70s in Iran. The film traces about 20 years of Marjane's life from the beginning in Iran with the ruling Shahs, their downfall, the Iran-Iraq war, her stay in Vienna and then life back in Iran under the religious mullahs and then finally her departure to Paris.

Shot in slick, dark, powerful animation, the film starts of bright and brilliant with a young Marjane living with her parents under the rule of the Shahs. She is a fiesty young girl, curious and determined. She is a joy to watch and you root for her cause. Her narrative is smooth and appropriate as she leads you through the various different incidences that start to change her wonderful life into something quite different as the revolutionaries take over.

As the heroine grows up and out the film starts to lose some of its grip. With Marjane, the film seems to sink into some depression as well. The politics that rends Marjane's life also blunts the appeal of the film a bit and at times, in Marjane's dislocation, it looks pretty much like your routine immigration experience film. However, the film's politics is very clear in its belief that politics basically sucks.

Marjane is ultimately the classical modern immigrant: one who is as lost in their own culture as they are in the new one they try to flee in to.

Eastern Promises

2008-05-07T13:16:00.003-04:00

Here is another one from the David Cronenberg horror factory. No, there are no supernatural flies (The Fly) or telepathic Scanners or even an underground car Crash culture and yet among all the scary films Cornenberg has ever made, Eastern Promises is up there. It is clearly more in line with his more recent film A History of Violence than with his older, supernatural, and generally crass films.

Eastern Promises is also easily his best film. Well researched, well, cast, well acted, and well directed. It is the story of a Russian crime family operating in London. Naomi Watts, a nurse, somehow gets involved in a world filled with bizarre, almost macabre violence. Viggo Mortensen, in easily his best role to date, is a chauffeur at the crime family. What ensues next is violence begetting more violence. The film clearly uses violence as an embellishment, something to keep your attention while the story, suspenseful yet ultimately predictable, unfolds.

Amidst the brutality and violence, Eastern Promises really does attempt to have a heart of gold and generally succeeds .

Juno

2008-04-29T15:39:00.004-04:00

Jason Reitman has just verified that he is one of the smartest directors out there. It is hard to believe how good 'Thank You For Smoking' is. It is easily one of the best written (he wrote it) and best directed films of recent times. And he chose Aaron Eckhart to play the smoking lobbyist. I cannot think of anyone else playing that role better. The film is so good it is almost too hard to watch as you are constantly admiring the sheer brashness and gaul of the director. At the age of 31, Reitman hopefully has a long career in front of him.

But this post is about Juno, the 'little miss sunshine' of 2008: A quirky comedy that is mildly offensive, very smart, brilliantly cast and made by the indi arm of a big studio (Fox Searchlight).

Juno subscribes to the recently popular 'pregnancy' sub-genre. It is either too easy (Knocked up) or too hard (Then I found Him) and anyone who has tried it in real life knows that it is neither -- it is just that it only happens when you don't want it to. Pregnancy sub-genre follows well-defined stages of grief ranging from disbelief, denial, anger, melting to eventually, deliverance via delivery. Juno is, if not novel, certainly the smartest of such films. It succeeds because it is one of the few where you don't end up hating the characters (specially the mother) by the end of it. Ellen Page (who doesn't need any more press) clearly acts as if she knows what she is doing which is more than one can say about what Heigl (Knocked-up) and others.

What also uplifts Juno is an amazingly quirky yet effective soundtrack. It is fresh, campy, very high-school in spirit that seems to fit the film wonderfully well. It does get annoying very quickly though, as most things 'teenage' do but it has a warmth that is otherwise hard to find.

However, the single-most winning facet of Juno is that Page's character understands, right from the beginning, that raising a child is not for her. While she goes through the usual emotional upheaval she never really identifies with motherhood and stands by her somewhat unusual decision. What let me down though is that she (Juno) does seem to find love or something like that in the sorry loser played by the sorry loser Michael Cera.

Juno redeems itself by no indulging in the redemption of its heroin.

Juno makes little attempt at understanding why children are somehow out-of-fashion now. It does make an attempt to show why they are out-of-fashion by showing that we are a society of such fierce hedonists that in order to chase are baser biological wants we've somehow managed to lose sight of our real biological needs.

The Brave One

2008-04-11T13:42:00.002-04:00

Recovering from a horrific, life-altering tragedy and one, the brave one, getting stuck at a specific stage of grief is the topic of this Jodie Foster film that completes in some sense her Charles-Bronson-of-the-suburbia trilogy that started with a tight Panic Room followed by a loose flight-plan and ends (hopefully) with The Brave One, a film that is the most disappointing of them all because it is the only that seemed to have a soul -- even it only for the first 30 minutes or so.

Jodie Foster's character reacts to a tragedy like a vigilante in The Brave One. She wants to make peace but all she does is make more violence which never quite works out. She is a radio host who discovers the soul of the city (New York City, of course) and has powerful statements about its implicit toughness. She is confused and shows it. Pained and shows it. Lost and shows it. She is scared but is brave. The director though is lost and a in such cases one usually takes the easiest way out. Like the coward one.

Anthony Minghella

2008-04-09T09:27:00.002-04:00

I recently saw 'Breaking and Entering.' I saw the film in several sittings and the directory actually passed away while I was still in the middle of it. Another very strange coincidence.

I didn't think much of 'Breaking and Entering' even though there was something odd about consuming the work of someone who had just passed away at a relatively young age. However, going back to his earlier films , the much celebrated 'The English Patient' and mostly misunderstood 'Cold Mountain' and also the confusing yet arresting 'Talented Mr. Ripley', Mr. Minghella came across as a powerful visual storyteller with a bend toward literature (He was working on 'No. 1. Ladies Detective Agency' -- another famos book). While 'Breaking and Entering', his last published film, is clearly not his best, it does show the director as an observer of human misunderstanding and despair hence created.

His death is a loss to film-making. We've lost another director who made films for adults.

Long Road Out Of Eden - Eagles

2008-04-07T19:44:00.004-04:00

I often wonder why famous people that have nothing to prove anymore keep coming back and soiling their own reputation. What is it that makes them do it? Is it as simple as greed for more money or more fame or is it pursuit of the true desire to say something left unsaid or to paint that final brush stroke that completes the masterpiece. Or is it just some kind of biological compulsion for destruction that seems to permeate us all at some level and specially so those that hold a kind of social stature.

Eagles have come up with a new studio album after 28 years called 'Long Road Out Of Eden.' It is certainly a long road and maybe out of Eden but not sure where it is headed. Just listening to this album is like being on New Jersey Turnpike, a dour, flavorless patch of American highway that seems desperate to get somewhere, too desperate and does seem to go somewhere, an odd exit to an odd suburbia but takes the rider nowhere, at least nowhere they'd rather be.

Why, after already letting Hotel California be your cash cow time and again. Why? No hell has frozen over so what prompted this turkey?

Don Henley sings of the war and declares that the 'Road to empire is a bloody, stupid waste' but the shame is that Henley wants nothing less.

Shine Over Babylon - Sheryl Crow

2008-04-02T13:11:00.003-04:00

I listen to way too much music to ever get obsessed about a horribly bad song (and there are too many of them) but once in a while there comes along a real turkey. A song so insidious, so terrible that I am amazed at the mind that might have come up with it. I obsess on these for the same reason that I cannot take make eyes of a truly awful TV show (Office?)

I have never had strong feelings about Sheryl Crow. I found her a mediocre artists that tries to make up by being a part-time socialite and trophy wife. Never had strong feelings until I heard a song called 'Shine Over Babylon' from her latest album called 'Detours.' Initially, I found the song just mildly irritating because it seemed to have a really bad tune. However, as I started getting some of the lyrics is when I started to get appalled. What the hell was this woman saying? What the hell did she mean? Here is a sample:

If there's a god where is he now
The precipice is slipping further out

Sanskrit message from the mounts
Leave your possessions, hope abounds
There's nothing here for you to cry about
We're all just followers from here on out

I wonder if the world would be a better place if at least some cliche were retired forever. Take the first sentence for example. "If there is a God where is he now?" I mean how could you get worse than that? Who writes this kind of drivel? Good she is taking the credit for writing this hackneyed garbage. "Singer-songwriter', my ass.

Also, anyone using precipice from now on to communicate some kind of newly discovered tipping point should also be put out of their misery.

But what took the proverbial cake for me was the damn Sanskrit message from the mounts and the next couple of sentences that seem to be some sort of a hyper-condensed Bhagvad-Gita for the twitter generation.

There are slant references to oil-driller (Bush) and the war and some hifalutin bullshit all amidst a noisy, cantankerous tune.

Who is keeping score of the bad art being bred by the war?

And just to drive the point further, here is another gem. You are welcome to revel in the genius of Ms. Crow's songwriting talent.

I found my way to Alexandria
Where gurus bubble up on Ganges
Scavengers, they run up and hand ya
All the junk that should have damned ya

The Naked City

2008-03-11T05:57:00.004-04:00

Life is full of baffling surprises and one came this morning when I opened the New York Times (no, not that one) but a small obituary to Malvin Wald, the screenwriter of the gritty 1948 police drama "The Naked City." Well, I just completed the film (in four sittings) last night and this morning I should read about the death of its pioneering writer. Malvin Wald won an Oscar for screen-writing this film and is credited for creating the "police procedural" genre that has led to many successful shows and films including Law and Order and even the super-famous CSI series.

The Naked City is a New York film about a hard-working aging police detective and it was the first of its kind in those days. It lays out an elaborate and painstaking process of police investigation in the murder of a young woman desperately trying to seek a place in the upper crust of New York society even if that meant parting ways with morality and the law.

The film starts with -- "There are 8 million people in The Naked City..." and ends with the famous rejoinder -- "There are 8 million stories in The Naked City..."

When would that statement ring truer than today when we suddenly have realized how naive we are in and around The Real, Really Naked City.

The Darjeeling Limited

2008-03-08T06:28:00.005-05:00

Wes Anderson's films are like those of Coen brothers but without fangs. He is up there in quirkiness and creating unforgettable characters but while the Coens drive home their point with a thump (or an air gun, if you will), Anderson's films are a gentle nudge. They goad but do say with a feather while the Coens leave you bloody and reeling. Coens seem to obsess over the insertion of crime into everyday life and everyday characters and Anderson seems to be all about the insertion of quirkiness into everyday life and everyday characters.

"The Darjeeling Limited" is the story of 3 brothers from an average broken American family that must seek resolution via an exotic train trip in the old spiritual guard: India. Anderson generally plays by the rules of the sub-genre (yes, going to another country to seek resolve is at least a sub-genre) and shows us little tidbits of India, its people and its quirkiness that all fit his plot well. However, Anderson also breaks the rules a bit by making this mostly a film between the brothers and their inability to communicate or connect. The story mostly works as a device to get their characters out in the open and lets him (Anderson) play with them in their full effect. There are some astonishing gems like Adrien Brody's character says -- 'I couldn't save mine' -- after the brothers try to save, and the two others succeed, the lives of 3 drowning village boys; or the Owen Wilson character's strange presumed leadership of the outfit or Angelica Houston's role as the estranged mother who left her charmed life in mid-west (presumably) to become a nun in a sleepy Indian town.

The film features an extraordinary soundtrack including an unbelievably brilliant collection of title songs from various Satyajit Ray films (Charu's theme from Joi Baba Felunath being my favorite) and old Merchant-Ivory films that play throughout the film as background music. This among other brilliant songs (This Time Tomorrow and Powerman by the Kinks, an amazing French Song and so much more) helps complete a well-rounded package of neatly tied brilliance.

No Reservation

2008-03-05T06:48:00.002-05:00

Once again our collective disdain for a serious woman, serious character even, is exposed in this Valentine film starring two of the more pretty specimen of our kind. Catherine Zeta-Jones is a celebrated chef who takes her job, her life seriously, a bit too much, her shrink tells her and the fact that she has no man in her life is mostly because of that. Today's Hollywood hero, embodied by Owen Wilson at best and Will Ferrel at worst isn't going to tolerate seriousness of any kind. However, Aaron Eckhart is able to 'fix' her by inserting joy and laughter among other things in her life. It wouldn't quite be a Valentine movie of the 21st century without a cute little kid somehow adding the 'aaaawwww' factor. Abigail Breslin is here to add that icing on a rather limp cake.

There Will Be Blood

2008-02-26T15:01:00.003-05:00

In "...Blood", Upton Sinclair's socialist agenda has been all but obliterated by Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis. While his 'Oil' was more about the plight of oilfield workers and him using that as a vehicle for pushing his views against capitalism much like the horror faced by the workers in meatpacking industry in Chicago was used in his more famous work 'The Jungle' greatly diluting the impact and seriousness of the work.

Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is more a character sketch than a social commentary of any sort. There really isn't much in terms of a plot or even a theme. It is mostly about Daniel Dey Lewis's Daniel Plainview and a bit about his troubled relationship with his son H.W. Plainview. There is also Paul Dano (the troubled teen from Little Miss Sunshine) who is another powerful and strange character that tries to achieve some counter-balance to Daniel Plainview and often succeeds. There are some brilliant scenes between these two actors and Dano is certainly up to the task. (Do we have another Johnny Depp in the making?)

Plainview is a self-made oil-man who rises from the filth of the land slowly but surely to build a fortune for himself mostly built on hard work and a harder soul.

Daniel Day Lewis's over the top performance just won him his 2nd best actor nod. Many have called his performance 'brutal' and his character scary and weird. I somehow found the character quite realistic. This is is early 20th century American you are talking about. The civil war has just gotten over and more than half the population can still not vote. It is the birth of American capitalism and like any such natural birth it is messy, difficult and there is, for sure, blood.

No Country For Old Men

2008-02-22T11:01:00.003-05:00

We've loved Coen brothers' films since the day we saw our first one (Fargo.) Since then we've seen every one of them and extracted and unusual amount of joy from them. It is hard to imagine a filmmaker that has made some of the most endearing, quirky, funny, macabre and above all brilliant, memorable films of recent times. Only Billy Wilder or Howard Hawks come to mind. I think where the Coen brothers outshine any other filmmaker is their creation of character mythologies. They are masters at creating characters that outlive the movies and really just start living in your head almost forever. H.I. McDunnough from Raising Arizona, Leo and Bernie from Miller's Crossing, Charlie Meadows from Barton Fink, Muncy girl Amy Archer (to name one) from Hudsucker Proxy, almost anyone from Fargo, the unforgettable Jesus, The Dude, Maude and Walter from The Big Lebowski and of course the entire cast of O' Brother Where Art Thou. The more you think about these characters the more you see the spectrum of awesome storytelling skills. You see a deep understanding of human ambition, folly and failure. You just don't see how the Coen brothers can top anything they've done in the past specially when they seem to be losing their grip.

And then comes along Anton Chigurh...
*

So, there was a tremendous anticipation for this film for us. Specially with their last two films (the populist Intolerable Cruelty and the dud The Ladykillers) being such disappointments. Also, this was turning out to be one of those movies that you can never get to. We were finding it hard to find the time, a babysitter and even tickets to watch this film. However, it did happen last weekend finally and man what a ride!

Moss (Josh Brolin), when confronted with a grisly crime scene, finds a lot of money and in what turns out to be rather poor moral and practical choice, decides to keep it for himself. Moss isn't dumb. "They will be coming like I would go after someone who took my 2 million dollars" he says to his wife Carla (Kelly Macdonald) although he is naive. He soon realizes that he may have bit more than he could chew when a gang of Mexicans following the money trail come hunting for him with dogs and guns. However, there is another danger. A complex, psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is also looking for the money and he has some very definite ideas about what needs to be done. He basically propels the film into an edge-of-your-seat thriller until about three-fourths of the film. The rest of the film is heavy on moral commentary that sort of works around the title and is clearly a personal statement by the author (Cormic McCarthy whose novel the film is based on) and the Coens stick very close to the basic narrative of the plot eliminating a few chapters for drama and suspense. Cormic's thoughts are voiced by an aging sheriff Ed (an especially crusty Tommy Lee Jones) who feels 'over-matched' by the younger criminals around him and more importantly what seems like a young crime around him.
*

The film really belongs to Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh. He is easily one of the most scary villains in the history of recent cinema. The Coen brothers are clearly committed to his mythology more than anything else in the film. Many characters (Woody Harrelson for one) seem merely to exist as a means to propagate the legend of Chigurh. Even the somewhat open and confusing ending is cleverly constructed to solidify the myth of Chigurh.

*

"No Country..." is an amazing film because it is singularly entertaining. It is a drama taut, wound tight that unwinds with the slow, frightening uncertainty of the Absurdist thought that the Coen brothers have maintain throughout their long, fantastic career.

3:10 to Yuma

2008-02-14T05:33:00.002-05:00

Once in a while we still get to see a grown-up film, a man's movie. A tale that is well-crafted and steady. The plot is kept tense by brilliant performances, dialog and soundtrack. "3:10 to Yuma" starring Russel Crowe, Christian Bale and Ben Foster is a remake of a 1957 film of the same name with some changes and is based on a short story by Elmore Leonard. This is essentially a battle of wits played behind a gun battle; a battle of responsibility and post-war disillusionment with ethics.

Russel Crowe plays Ben Wade, a criminal, who is being escorted to the the train in the title eventually to the prison by Dan Evans played by Christian Bale. Getting Wade to the train is going to difficult because Wade is almost a mythical draw and his posse, led by an extraordinary performance by Ben Foster, wants to free him at any cost. However, Ben is an unusual criminal and he begins to like Dan which makes things even more difficult.

Seems like Russel Crowe often does his best when partnered with another formidable character/actor (Kevin Spacey & Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential, Al Pacino in The Insider, Denzel Washington in The American Gangster) and this film is essentially a a vehicle that feeds the hostility, the conversation and eventual trust and understanding that develops between Dan and Ben. It is the kind of tale that Michael Mann would present. Criminals and cops are essentially the same people and on any given day it may be hard to tell them apart.

Both Crowe and Bale and brilliant as one would expect them to be.

It borrows the essential motor of the plot from the great High Noon (the race toward the clock) but is actually very different from that earlier film. High Noon is essentially a social film about social responsibility whereas this film is personal and about personal responsibility.

Ratatouille

2008-02-07T17:26:00.000-05:00

Ratatouille is another delicious offering from the animation collaboration of Disney and Pixar (Cars, The Incredibles, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters. Inc, A Bug's Life, et al.) The story of a chef rat is presented with flair, care and an amazing attention to detail. Ratatouille has all the elements that have made the films before it enduring. However, it suffers some, but not all, of its flaws. The self-assured, smug rat chef Remy is very true to his pedigree. He is certainly more sophisticated than his ancestors (Nemo, Mambo, Lightening McQueen (cars), Mike(Monsters inc)) but shares a very carefully constructed behavioral pattern that can be described as clinical at best and utterly affected at best. Unfortunately, Hollywood and specially Pixar, seems to have set on a winning formula for these animated films and keeps repeating it with the next set of improbable characters (incredible, cars, monsters, penguins and now a rat chef.) All the characters in the film from the bumbling hero, capricious love interest to the villainous head-chef are so well formed that they really are nothing more than cardboard cutouts.

Everything they say has been refined over and over again until it is exactly as it should be and that predictability dwarfs these films in front of the more original, if quixotic, Japanese exercises such as 'Spirited Away', 'Howl's moving castle' or even European films such as 'Triplets of Bellville.' The last one is actually a stark contrast, brilliant one at that, to the Hollywood mainstream, as it barely has dialog and thrives on an amazing soundtrack and visual splendor that no amount of CGI can really bring to life. They are stories that a grandma would tell a young one to calm them down and put them to bed whereas the Hollywood films are not unlike a crass joke a teenager would tell his new girlfriend trying to make an amorous move.

But Ratatouille has Anton Ego, probably the first true mythical character that the Hollywood machine as ever created. Anton Ego, the food critic, is larger than life but true to it; he is scary but real and he is what really 'saves' Ratatouille from being lost amongst the many before it and surely the many to come after it.

However, given that the animation film making (as against cartoon film making) is really in its infancy as an art form, these films and particularly Ratatouille are a good first step toward maturity but alas it is only a first step. If Hollywood would try to tell a good story not just a beautiful one and not just a contemporary one we might one day actually love these films as much as we enjoy them.

Snow - Orhan Pamuk

2008-02-01T15:59:00.000-05:00

I have always been curious about Turkey. Several articles in the New Yorker about the role played by the military that is surprisingly secular and has been since the 1st world war have ignited my curiosity. The military has, on more than one occasion established a secular rule by overthrowing elected governments that seem to relent to the Islamists. The idea of a military doing the "right" thing, as would seem to an outsider, has always been quite fascinating to me. Turkey, in this strangely, sometimes of often forced, secular way has always stuck out in the otherwise oppressing world of mullahs and shieks. Unlike other Islamic countries, Turkey has insisted on modernism, based on the guidelines laid down by the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It has applied modernism by any means at the state's disposal. The women in Turkey are forbidden by law to wear head-scarves or burqas in public places and universities. (Incidentally, however, the trend seems to have given way, disappointingly for some, to an openly religious society following the general rightist shift in world socio-politics.)

Orhan Pamuk's (who recently won the Nobel prize for literature) "Snow" is the tale of Ka (the protagonist) who has spent several years in Frankfurt, in the season of Kar (aka Snow) goes to the city of Kars (in north-eastern Turkey bordering Russia) to report on the several suicides committed by the "head-scarf girls" and to meet his old lover Ipek in the hope of reviving the old romantic flame.

Snow is not an easy book to read or like. Contrary to its name, it is heavy, not because it is overly philosophical but because it is too less so. It is fluffy and yet leaden: which might also describe some of what Ka sees in Kars. A society torn between fanatical secularism proposed by the State and Islamic radicalism proposed by cultural roots. This is essentially what Mr. Pamuk has been trying to explore all his life. He is the classic immigrant who can see the provincialism of his original homeland and sneer at it but cannot help but reject the modernism of his new home either. It is the classic dilemma that defines immigration in general and brings about the middle-path that ends up changing societies: more to which people migrate than from where they migrate.

Unfortunately for us, Snow is pretentious and repetitive. It's overuse of 'Snow' as a metaphor for pretty much everything (love, distance, beauty, cover-up, joy, sadness, commonness, difference, you name it) is cloying and makes it impossible to plow ahead. It's overuse of the word 'Snow' not just as a metaphor but for itself every other sentence is also jarring. It starts to hurt.

Snow's style is literary with heavy influence from others before who explored the east or mid-east from Western eyes. Dostoevsky and Conrad come to mind immediately (but they do almost all the time) and one could see hints of Prince Mishkin and even glimpses of Raskonikov in Ka. However, as an outside but not necessarily a wild thought, Ka (following the the inclusive pattern of naming his prime characters: Kars - city, Kar -snow, Ka - the hero) might actually be at heart closer to Kafka's K than anyone else. His utter dislocation, albeit fueled by differing cultural views rather than just a general sense of being lost amidst the oppressing social structure, is basically an emotion personified by Joseph K (The Trial, The Castle). While K does not understand the world around him and generally doesn't make an attempt, Ka seems to make too much effort and then seems to give up to easily. He is essentially a coward once-to-often guised as a skeptic.

Snow is full of characters, alas only some of them interesting. Ka's love Ipek is a rather boring character though the final propulsion to the novel and its fulcrum is essentially provided by her indiscretion. In contrast, Kadife, Ipek's younger sister is feisty and far more elegant. However, the real force of the novel is two contrasting philosophies presented by the all-powerful stage actor Sunay Zaim (a shadow of Atatürk's) and the equally charming but enigmatic Blue, a fundamentalist who really is the only force that keeps the pages together. Pamuk never allows them to be face to face and he uses Ka as a sort of interpreter between the two presenting and digesting their ideas without being really touched by any. While Blue is the motor of the book, it is the young Islamist Najib who provides its soul and Pamuk clearly wanting to make a statement kills him early on (this is not a spoiler -- Pamuk tells you this upfront sort of laying down the foundation of his covert pessimism.)

I struggled through the almost 500 page book. I really did. There were many times, specially about half-way through, I saw no reason to move on because I thought I knew what was going to happen. However, Pamuk has some tricks up his sleeves, he pulls the right kind of gargoyle out at the right time and kept me going.

I wasn't utterly disappointed at the end. Books to me are a mirror into another life that I could never have or know about. The fantasy of Snow is the type where the fact that it is is often more important than the fact that it isn't fantastic.

Once

2008-01-31T07:03:00.000-05:00

We generally love small-budget independent films (while not disliking the big-budget Hollywood films) and 'Once' is about as good as it gets. No, it breaks no great ground or brings no new principles to life nor does it present any great new idea that would never appear in a regular film but 'Once' is like one of those light, refreshing drinks (like fresh Coconut water that I recently had) that merely exists as a sliver of time , a shooting star that ends before you've fully begun to enjoy it. Mild and memorable, 'Once' is a modern musical, a look into the lives of two individuals in a made-up small-town Dublin that explores the possibility of romance between two essentially lost souls connected, loosely, via music and gentle sensibilities. The two try to find meaning to their otherwise mundane and gently decaying lives via their natural interest in another human.

Watch 'Once' but you will probably want to watch it twice.

Complications - Atul Gawande

2008-01-27T17:32:00.000-05:00

It is something about New Yorker staff writers that I end up liking all the books that they write apart from their articles in the magazine. James Surowicki, Malcom Gladwell, Adam Gopnik and now Atul Gawande.

I've always enjoyed reading Atul Gawande's articles in the New Yorker. He alway seemed insightful, circumspect and curious about a profession that I look at gingerly at best. In 'Complications: A surgeon's notes on an imperfect science', Atul Gawande takes it even further. He seems much more in control here given the much larger canvas of the book to present his thoughts in a cohesive and meaningful manner. He lists interesting anecdotes, presents great insights and tells stories with depth and understanding of both patients and doctors. He talks about what makes it so hard for doctors to be good at what they do, he speaks about the mystery and uncertainty of the profession and ultimately ends up both scaring you and liberating you in some sense.

Heartburn

2007-12-26T17:15:00.000-05:00

Bad movies come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it is the acting, sometimes it is the direction and then editing and music even that ruins films. However, nothing ruins a film like a bad script and most bad movies are actually bad because they are just bad stories or bad scripts.

Heartburn (1986) stars two of the most promising Hollywood actors: Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. It is written by a celebrated Hollywood writer: Nora Ephron, and directed by a celebrated Hollywood director, Mark Nichols (Graduate, Who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Working Girl and so on) and yet Heartburn is one of the most boring, lifeless, trite films you will ever see. There is really just nothing in the story. Loosely based on a real-life affair and marriage between Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein, this film just has nothing going for it. The story is just not interesting or appealing in any sense.

Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson and both good as they generally are but there is nothing for them to do that would be of interest to anyone proving that even beautiful people are a chore
when they are not interesting.