Category: Uncategorized

Jab Harry met Sejal : The Review.

Just when you thought that SRK’s Schengen visa had expired for good, he goes and renews it in Imitiaz Ali’s latest and almost traces the route he took in DDLJ two decades back.This movie has to be an extended tribute to DDLJ and if anyone could’ve pulled off this time tested tale of “girl meets boy in Europe”, with a pinch of yearning for homeland thrown in, its the King Khan himself.Its the only logical explanation that i could come up with as to why SRK and Imtiaz Ali decided to do this movie in the first place.Now, i wasn’t bored and certainly didn’t find it as unbearable as some of the reviews going around would have you believe but its not for everyone either, strictly for fans i’d say and that’s something SRK has in plenty if the full house was any proof.In the same breath i admit that the banality of the whole premise of the film did made me burst into laughter towards the end ,much to the chagrin of the viewers next to me.

Its impossible for this film to do bad at the box office financially i think, but then i could be wrong too.Imtiaz Ali could’ve considered strapping a GoPro on his head and following Anushka and SRK all over Europe, just saying you know, for capex’s sake.The movie almost entirely relies on and revolves around Anushka and SRK.There are no other significant characters or subplots to distract you or them for that matter.The film is almost all about conversations between the lead actors and if it weren’t for their earnest performances this movie would’ve been unbearable indeed.They manage to bring a smile to your face more than once, especially Anushka.SRK has rightly been called a superstar and i realized why, long back while watching Chalte Chalte, it was his ability to carry a film with a basic plot entirely on his shoulders and manage to pull in crowds to watch him do that.No one can do romance like the King of Bollywood ,you have to give him that.

For all its cliched storyline and setting, if you look closely you’ll see that Imtiaz Ali has tried his best to bring some originality in the dialogues at least,especially in the climax.Having said that,I am all for poetic licenses and i never prod and pry into the working details of a scene as a viewer but i just can’t let this one go.By Imtiaz Ali’s logic, Punjabi singers have a higher pitch because they’re farmers and they have to sing above the noise of the tractors they’re riding on the job.Does that mean there weren’t any loud Punjabi singers around before the tractors came along?Beats me.And with the current plight of the Congress party, wouldn’t blame him for naming SRK’s character Harry and not Rahul.He’s past that age to be a Rahul too, if you ask me.

Dunkirk : The Review.

Us humans are weird. We inflict atrocities of every imaginable kind on each other whenever we engage in conflicts and once we are done, we look back, searching for moments that unveil the humane side of our nature as a species, those very aspects that make us human and epitomise our infallible spirit, amidst the trail of death and destruction we leave behind. We have done this with every major and minor wars we have fought, using every medium of expression at our disposal in the era they were fought, from art to literature to cinema. Of all these wars, the Second World War has proven to be the most popular source material for cinema, which is especially true for Hollywood. The recent Netflix documentary “Five Came Back” narrates the experiences of five major Hollywood directors who were enlisted to document WWII. Maybe this is one of the reasons why the war has been a prolific backdrop to countless war movies in the past seven decades or so.So it would have been a conspicuous absence in his repertoire in terms of genre if Nolan did not have a war film to his name. He “announced” a while back that he was coming our way with his take on the war and now he has arrived, and how.

Dunkirk is not a movie by Nolan, rather its nothing less than a military assault on the viewer by this master of the craft of filmmaking, if you ask me. Nolan drowned me, set me on fire, shot at me, let me fall from the sky and yes of course, bombed the hell out of me, to his heart’s content for a little over an hour and a half that it left me deeply disturbed and strangely hopeful at the same time, by the time the movie was over. Now I do not know if that was his intention, I can only speak for myself and this indeed was my experience and the movie wasn’t even in 3D, nor did I watch it on an IMAX .He followed up every moment of hope with another moment of deep despair that you almost ended up hating him for doing that to you, on a consistent basis.

The Sundowner,the original yacht on which the “Sea” part of the movie is based, ferried 130 people to safety and was captained by a 66 year old former second officer of the Titanic, his son and a teenage scout. Nolan relies entirely on visuals and music to retell this tale of one of the most poignant rescues in the history of human conflict. I can’t recall watching another war movie which has built up such tension on screen that the viewer’s heart rate matched the crescendo of the background music right from the word go to the final scene. In fact I think it would be unfair to call Hans Zimmer’s work in this film “background” music so to speak, the movie would be something else entirely, without it. Tom Hardy hardly gets to show his face or his body from neck down to be specific, still he is a major presence, throughout.Cillian Murphy, another Nolan regular shows up as a haunting character too.

To take a cue from Dunkirk’s dialogue, the men who are of the age to decide to send men who are of age to fight on the ground, to wars, should be asked to watch this film. There’s an off chance that we might end up with lesser news of death and destruction to wake up to every morning.But hey then again, as Ozzy sang, I’m just a dreamer.

Vikram Vedha : The Review.

Vikram Vedha gives the audience a hint early on about the shape of things to come when the statutory warnings starts rolling with Madhavan delivering in English and Vijay Sethupathi in Tamil.The slick trailer had spiked expectations but these are times when you can’t but help feel that some movies should’ve been released just as trailers, once you were done watching the movie in full.So it was with apprehensions that i sat down to watch the film because it had two great actors in roles tailor made for them and i most certainly did not want their collaboration to fail for any reason whatsoever.

The first few minutes of the movie looked like an extended tribute to the Gautam Menon “police story episodes” that we’ve all come to love replete with sophisticated police officers who were as much at ease gunning down bad guys as they were at sitting down with their families for a quiet dinner. The only thing missing was the voice over narration.The senior cop on crutches was a direct reference to GVMs cameo in Kakka Kakka if I’ve not got it all wrong.Madhavan’s cop character had shades of grey which are entirely absent in GVM’s leading men though the sense of purpose and clear conscience were evident.Shraddha Srinath who made quite an impression in U-Turn makes the turn here as the equally sophisticated leading lady to Madhavan’s cop, again reminiscent of GVM movies.Well the comparisons end there, thankfully i admit.I had had enough of self righteous cops who had a tendency to break into a soliloquies at the drop of a hat too.

Madhavan more than just holds himself well early on but Vijay Sethupathy soon swaggers on to the screen and gives him tough competition in a role that he almost sleepwalks through.Its nothing less than a casting coup to pit these stellar performers in roles that not just compliment their on screen personas but their images in popular culture as well.The director-writer duo have managed to engage the viewers successfully with a plot that has little or no loose ends and some smart and real witty dialogues too but its Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathy who carries the film on their able shoulders for its entire running time.The film even doesn’t stop from mocking itself either when it unwittingly slips into cliches, most evident when Vijay Sethupathy’s character asks if abandoned industrial complexes were built for people like his and Madhavan’s characters to stage showdowns, almost echoing the viewers thoughts.

AaranyaKandam is the only other gangster movie from Tamil film industry that i can think of, which could pose any serious competition to this movie when it comes to content and execution.The film plays out like a gansgter drama and a whodunnit in the same breath and is your money’s worth just for the performances delivered by the lead actors.A cult classic in the making if you ask me, though i wonder if the makers chose to play safe by swapping mutton curry for beef fry, given the times we live in or then again it could be the Malayali in me who just can’t accept the fact that porotta was paired with anything other than beef.

ഒരു വകുപ്പുണ്ടായതും മറ്റു ചിലതും.

1891 ജനുവരി ഒന്നിന് ആണ് 10,037 പേർ ഒപ്പിട്ട “മലയാളി മെമ്മോറിയൽ ” ജി.പി പിള്ളയുടെ നേതൃത്വത്തിൽ തിരുവിതാംകൂർ മഹാരാജാവിനു സമർപ്പിച്ചത്.നായന്മാരോട് ഒപ്പം ഈഴവരും കത്തോലിക്കരും നന്പൂതിരിയും ആംഗ്ലോ ഇന്ത്യനും തിരുവിതാംകൂർ കൊച്ചി ഗവണ്മെന്റിലെ ഔദ്യോഗിക പദവികളിലെ ബ്രാഹ്മണ കുത്തകക്ക്‌ എതിരെ ഉയർന്ന പ്രക്ഷോഭത്തിന്റെ ഭാഗമായ ഈ ഹർജിയിൽ ഒപ്പു വെച്ച് ഐക്യദാർഢ്യം പ്രഖ്യാപിച്ചിരുന്നു.മദ്രാസ് മെഡിക്കൽ കോളേജിലും ലണ്ടനിലും ഒക്കെ പോയി മെഡിസിൻ പഠിച്ചെങ്കിലും ജാതിയുടെ പേരിൽ തിരുവിതാംകൂറിൽ ജോലി നിഷേധിക്കപ്പെട്ടത് കാരണം മൈസൂർ പോയി ജോലി ചെയ്‌ത ഡോക്ടർ പല്പുവിന്റെ നേതൃത്വത്തിൽ അഞ്ചു വര്ഷങ്ങള്ക്കു ശേഷം 1896 സെപ്റ്റംബറിൽ 13,176 ഒപ്പിട്ട “ഈഴവ മെമ്മോറിയൽ” മഹാരാജാവിനു സമർപ്പിക്കപ്പെട്ടു.

ക്രിസ്തുമതത്തിലേക്ക് പരിവർത്തനം നടത്തിയത് കൊണ്ട് സർക്കാർ സർവീസിലേക്ക് അർഹത നേടിയ സ്വജാതീയർക്കു ലഭിക്കുന്ന പരിഗണന തങ്ങൾക്കും ലഭിക്കണം എന്ന് ആ ഹർജിയിൽ ആവശ്യപ്പെട്ടിരുന്നു.ക്രിസ്ത്യാനികളും മുസ്ലിങ്ങളും ഈ പ്രസ്ഥാനത്തെ പിന്തുണച്ചു .ക്ഷേത്ര ഭരണം റവന്യു വകുപ്പിന്റെ കീഴിൽ ആയിരുന്നത് കൊണ്ട് അഹിന്ദുക്കൾക്കും അവർണർക്കും ആ വകുപ്പിൽ ജോലി നിഷേധിക്കപ്പെട്ടിരുന്നത് കാരണം ഈ ഹർജിയെ പിന്തുണക്കേണ്ടത് അവരുടെ കൂടെ ആവശ്യം ആയിരുന്നു.ഈ പ്രക്ഷോഭത്തിന്റെ പരിണിത ഫലമായി 1922 ഇൽ റവന്യു വകുപ്പ് വിഭജിച്ചു റവന്യുയും ദേവസ്വവും എന്ന രണ്ട് വത്യസ്ത വകുപ്പുകൾ നിലവിൽ വന്നു.റവന്യു വകുപ്പിൽ മേല്പറഞ്ഞ സമുദായങ്ങൾക്ക്‌ ജോലി നൽകാനും സർക്കാർ തയ്യാറായി.

NSS സ്ഥാപകരായ മന്നത്തു പദ്മനാഭനും കേരളാ ഗാന്ധി കെ.കേളപ്പനും 1924ഇൽ വൈക്കത്തും 1931ഇൽ ഗുരുവായൂരും നടന്ന സത്യാഗ്രഹങ്ങൾക്കു നേതൃത്വം നൽകി അയിത്തോച്ചാടന പ്രസ്ഥാനത്തിന് ശക്തിയേകി .ചേഞ്ച് ഡോട്ട് ഓർഗിലോ ഫേസ്ബുക്കിലോ പോസ്റ്റിട്ടു ഇന്നായിരുന്നേൽ ഈ ഇതിഹാസ നായകർ പുഷ്പം പോലെ 45K ലൈക്ക് മേടിച്ചേനെ.പറഞ്ഞു വന്നത് അല്പം ചരിത്രബോധം ഉണ്ടെങ്കിൽ തമ്മിൽ കൈ പിടിച്ചും കൈത്താങ്ങ് കൊടുത്തുമൊക്കെ തന്നെയാണ് കേരളം സമൂഹം ഉണർന്നു മുന്നേറിയത് എന്ന് ആർക്കും മനസിലാക്കാം .കാള പെറ്റു എന്ന് പോസ്റ്റിട്ടാൽ ലൈക്ക് അടിക്കുന്ന ഈ കാലത്തു ഇതൊക്കെ ആരോട് പറയാനാണ് എന്റെ സെയിന്റ് തോമസ് പുണ്യാളാ

Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum : The Review.

Having been born and brought up in a place which lies midway or so on the span of the erstwhile NH 47 that stretches between Cherthala and Alappuzha, a question that I’ve had almost all my life and have never quite figured out yet is if I hailed from a village or a town or a hamlet, though technically its classified a village in the records of the State’s local self governance system.Hey, don’t blame me,the place never looked like the village from the social studies textbooks at school, it never had a winding mud road nor did it have a well around which people flocked to fetch water and i most certainly did not come across a bullock cart, ever.It did not look anything like the villages i got to see in the DD shows or in any of the movies I’d watched either, until “Thondimuthalum Drihsakshiyum” came along that is.

The locales in the film were familiar and mostly were places that i have visited or passed by countless times but apart from that what caught my eye is the authenticity with which the households and neighborhoods have been depicted.”Pullipulikalum Attinkuttiyum” and “Venicile Vyapari” did a decent job in that department but they were again set against the tried and tested filmy Alappuzha backdrop of backwaters and houseboats.”Thondimuthal” has to be the first malayalam movie to feature a “thara”, the traditional coir loom which is a regular fixture next to most homes in the coir belt of the district, especially Cherthala where the story is set.I guess this is what residents of Idukki experienced when they watched Dileesh Pothan’s debut movie too.Its safe to assume that this is where Shyam Pushkaran contributed the most in his creative director avatar,which obviously is an indicator of the inevitable next step for the writer, I think.

It’s not just the rustic appeal of the region that the makers have successfully translated on to the screen here, you realize when the story unfolds in layers before you for the next two hours.This has to be the first movie to address and acknowledge the stigma that caste is even to this day in a society that’s otherwise been a harbinger of social progress and change in many fields compared to other parts of the country.The movie makes subtle but pertinent statements about the comfort zones in which people of different castes tolerate each other and what happens when its breached.

The story soon shifts to the barren midlands of Kasargode and the stark change in the landscape which reflects in the countenance of the protagonists is a metaphor to their predicament too, I felt.Its against this backdrop that Fahadh Faasil gets his most dramatic introduction scene ever where he proves that when you’re as talented an actor as he is you don’t need acrobatics and ballistics to make an impact,all he uses here are his eyes.Credit here goes to the “brilliant” director who I assume conceived the sequence and to that master cinematographer for the execution beyond comparison.

This film can be read at so many levels but one thing that struck me most is the maturity it demands from the audience.If you’re looking for explanations and cues from every other character for the events on the screen, this film is not for you.In fact if anything turns out to be this film’s undoing it could be this subtlety, when it tries to convey the most significant of moments and themes in the quietest of ways on screen.People just might not get it.

Of late we have seen a surge in films where ensemble nondescript cast have made an impact but Thondimuthal turns out to be the mother of all those films with the entire police station cast stealing the show.The film would belong to them entirely if it weren’t for the stellar performances from Suraaj, Nimisha and of course the man himself. Fahadh has relegated himself in this film both in terms of the character he portrayed and screen time he had,but has delivered one of his most memorable performances and that’s something few of his contemporaries would be comfortable with or capable of, I think.To take a cue from a line in Maheshinte Prathikaram, after Mammooty of the yore he seems to be the only lead actor who’d take roles purely upon its merits rather than appearances and stature.

Networks in Kerala: They’re as mad as hell !

Network the 1976 movie is one that’s truly ahead of its times, over four decades to be precise. The film beats Nostradamus in predicting the future, with its dark and satirical take on the mess that news television is. It’s relevant more than ever now in the Indian context and even more so in Kerala considering the number of channels that crop up every other day for the size of the state and the audience they cater to.

With every channel vying for space and that elusive exclusive that would ensure a loyal viewership on a consistent basis, a fair dash of manipulated news content is something that we should start getting used to, I think. Prime time broadcast is not about news anymore, it’s about opinions. In fact we’ve already been there and done that, the ISRO scandal being the most glaring example. Back then it was still mostly print media, imagine the kind of hounding the individuals involved would have been exposed to, if we had the kind of visual news media presence we have today. The political landscape doesn’t help either. The networks are merely tools at the end of the day and broadcast television is an expensive affair too. It’s dog eat dog and to expect ethics and morals to take a front row seat would be downright naive. The arrival of internet and social media added fuel to a fire that was already raging. It’s only a matter of time before we start yelling in Kerala, to quote Network itself. In fact, we’ve already been yelling for a while now, thanks to social media too.

Madhur Bhandarkar explored these themes to an extent in his filmPage 3 in the context of the print media a decade and half back. Politics, celebrity culture and big business are as heady as mixes come. Technology and new media have definitely changed the ecosystem today. The nature of interaction and level of engagement with the audience has changed too but the influence and the effect on the audience isn’t far removed from what we see in Network. Like it or not, we are in fact discussing something that the West was exposed to and dissected, almost half a century back.

 

സ്‌പൈഡർമാമൻ :മടങ്ങിവരവ് , ഒരു വരവ് കൂടെ വരേണ്ടി വരും.

സ്പൊണ്ടേനിയസ് ആയിട്ടു എഴുതി പിടിപ്പിച്ചപ്പോ സിംപ്ലിസിറ്റി വേണം പോലും .പോരാത്തേന് സിംബോളിക് ആയാലും മതിയെന്ന് .എങ്കി ആയിക്കോട്ടെ എന്ന് ഞാനും….
ഇന്ത്യൻ എക്സ്പ്രസ്സിന്റെ സപ്പ്ലിമെന്റിൽ സ്ട്രിപ്പായിട്ടാണ് സ്പൈഡർമാനെ ആദ്യം കാണുന്നത് പിന്നെ അങ്ങോട്ട് കാർട്ടൂണായിട്ടും സിനിമായിട്ടും കണ്ടിട്ടും മടുപ്പ് തോന്നിയിട്ടില്ല.കഴിഞ്ഞ പതിനഞ്ചു വർഷങ്ങൾക്കുള്ളിൽ ഇത് മൂന്നാമത്തെ സ്പൈഡർമാനെ ആണ് സിനിമയിൽ കാണുന്നത്.നേരെ നിന്ന് ഉമ്മ വെക്കാൻ പോലും വകുപ്പില്ലാതിരുന്ന കാലത്താണ് തല തിരിഞ്ഞു കിടന്നു ഉമ്മ വെച്ച് ടോബി മഗ്‌യറിന്റെ സ്‌പൈഡർമാൻ കടന്ന് വരുന്നത്.പിന്നെങ്ങനെ ആരാധന തോന്നാതിരിക്കും?മൂന്നാമത്തെ പടം ആയപ്പോഴേക്കും സാം റൈമി തനിക്കൊണം കാണിച്ചു സീൻ ഡാർക് ആക്കി തുടങ്ങിയ കൊണ്ട് ആണെന്ന് തോന്നുന്നു സോണി പുതിയൊരുത്തനെ വലയിൽ കെട്ടി ഇറക്കാൻ തീരുമാനിച്ചത്.ഗാർഫീൽഡ് പയ്യൻ വല്യ തരക്കേടില്ലയിരുന്നു.ചില സമയത്തു അവൻ ഷാ രുഖ് ഖാന്റെ ആരാധകൻ ആണോ എന്ന് വരെ സംശയം തോന്നിപ്പിക്കും വിധം ആയിരുന്നു പ്രകടനം.ഇടയ്ക്കു എപ്പോഴോ കി കി കിരൺ എന്ന് വരെ അവൻ പറഞ്ഞോ എന്ന് എനിക്ക് തോന്നാതിരുന്നില്ല.പയ്യന്റെ ആദ്യത്തെ സ്‌പൈഡർമാൻ പടം വല്യ തരക്കേടില്ലായിരുന്നു എങ്കിലും രണ്ടാമത്തെ പടം അത്ര മോശം ആയിരുന്നില്ല എന്ന് ഞാൻ പറഞ്ഞാൽ പക്ഷപാതം ആണെന്ന് ചിലർക്കെങ്കിലും തോന്നിയാൽ തെറ്റ് പറയാൻ പറ്റില്ലെങ്കിലും സോണി ഗാർഫീൽഡിനെ വെച്ച് പടം പിടിക്കുന്നില്ല എന്ന് കേട്ടപ്പോൾ ഞാൻ അല്പം നിരാശനാകാതിരുന്നില്ല എന്ന് പറഞ്ഞാൽ അസത്യം ആകും അത് .സിംപിൾ അല്ലേ ഇപ്പോഴും?

അത് എന്ത് തേങ്ങാ ആയാലും ഇനി മൂന്നാമത് ഒരുത്തനെ സ്പൈഡർമാനായി വേഷം കെട്ടിക്കാൻ മാത്രം വേറെ ഒരു മാനും ഇല്ലാത്ത എന്താണ് സ്‌പൈഡർമാന് ഉള്ളത് എന്ന് ചോദിച്ചാൽ ഉത്തരം മാർവെൽ സിനിമാറ്റിക് യൂണിവേഴ്‌സ് അല്ലാതെ മറ്റൊന്നുമല്ല.റോബർട്ട് ഡൗണി ജൂണിയർ അഥവാ അയൺ മാൻ എന്ന സൂപ്പർഹീറോയെ തുറുപ്പു ചീട്ടായി ഇറക്കി എത്ര പടം ഇനി വിജയിപ്പിക്കാം എന്ന ആലോചന സ്റ്റുഡിയോ മൊതലാളിമാർക്കു വന്നാൽ അവരെ കുറ്റപ്പെടുത്താൻ പറ്റില്ല.എതിരാളികളായ ഡിസി ഉടനെ എങ്ങും എന്തായാലും മർവെലിന്റെ അടുത്തു ഓടി എത്തില്ലെങ്കിലും തങ്ങളുടെ ഏറ്റവും പ്രസിദ്ധനായ ഹീറോയെ സോണിയിൽ നിന്ന് കൈമാറി കിട്ടാതെ എം സി യൂ എന്ന ആശയം പൂർത്തി ആക്കാനും സൂപ്പർ ഹീറോ യോണർ കുത്തക ആക്കാൻ മാർവെലിനും ആവുമായിരുന്നില്ല എന്നാണ് എനിക്ക് തോന്നുന്നത്.മിനി സ്ക്രീനിലും സ്ട്രീമിങ് സൈറ്റുകളിലും മാർവെൽ തങ്ങളുടെ ആധിപത്യം ഉറപ്പിച്ചു കഴിഞ്ഞു.അവിടെയും മാർവെൽ യൂണിവേഴ്‌ എന്ന പ്രമേയം തന്നെയാണ് അവർ പിന്തുടർന്നത്.

കാപ്റ്റൻ അമേരിക്ക : സിവിൽ വാറിൽ അരങ്ങേറ്റം നടത്തിയ ടോം ഹോളണ്ട് സ്‌പൈഡർമാൻ ഇത് വരെ കണ്ടതിൽ വെച്ച് ഏറ്റവും പ്രായം കുറഞ്ഞ സ്‌പൈഡർമാൻ അഥവാ പീറ്റർ പാർക്കർ ആണ്.ഇതിനു മുൻപ് കണ്ട പല ക്ലിഷേകളും മാർവെൽ പുതിയ സ്പൈഡർമാനിൽ ഒഴിവാക്കുന്നു എന്ന സൂചന സിവിൽ വാറിൽ തന്നെ തന്നിരുന്നുവെങ്കിലും അയൺ മാന്റെ രക്ഷാകർത്താവ് അവതാരം എനിക്ക് അത്ര ദഹിച്ചിരുന്നില്ല.പ്രായത്തിൽ ബാക്കി അവഞ്ചേഴ്‌സ് സ്പൈഡർമാനെക്കാളും മൂത്തത് ആണെങ്കിലും ജനപ്രീതിയുടെ കാര്യത്തിൽ അവരെക്കാൾ കാതങ്ങൾ മുന്നിലാണ് സ്പൈഡി. സൂപ്പർ ഹീറോ പടങ്ങളൂം സിജിഐ ആക്ഷൻ രംഗങ്ങളും കണ്ടു പതം വന്ന കാണികൾക്കു പുതുമ ഉള്ള അവതരണവും ത്രസിപ്പിക്കുന്ന സീനുകളും കൊണ്ട് മോശമല്ലാത്ത ഒരു അനുഭവം കൊടുക്കാൻ ഹോം കമിങ്ങിനു കഴിയും എന്നാണ് എന്റെ വിശ്വാസം.സ്‌പൈഡർമാൻ ടുവിലെ ട്രെയിൻ രംഗത്തെ അനുസ്മരിപ്പിക്കുന്ന ഒരു ഫെറി രംഗം ഉണ്ടെങ്കിലും അവിടെയും അയൺ മാൻ വന്നു കേറി വല്യേട്ടൻ ചമഞ്ഞതു എനിക്ക് സത്യം പറഞ്ഞാൽ അത്ര പിടിച്ചില്ല.പിന്നെ എടുത്തു പറയാൻ ഉള്ളത് മൈക്കിൾ കീറ്റൺന്റെ റോൾ ആണ്.ബാറ്റുമാനും ബേർഡ്മാനും ആയി തിളങ്ങിയ കീറ്റൺ ആ രണ്ടു കഥ പത്രങ്ങളുടെയും നിറഭേദങ്ങൾ ഉള്ള വളച്ചർ എന്ന വില്ലൻ കഥാപാത്രത്തിന് തന്റേതായ മാനങ്ങൾ നൽകിയിട്ടുണ്ട്.മാർവെൽ സിനിമകളിൽ അല്പം രാഷ്ട്രീയം എപ്പോഴും പ്രകടം ആയിരുന്നുവെങ്കിലും സ്പഷ്ടമായി ഒരു ഡയലോഗിൽ ആദ്യമായി അത് കണ്ടതും കീറ്റൺന്റെ ഇൻട്രോ സീനിൽ ആയിരുന്നു.
ഇതിൽ കൂടുതൽ സിംപിളാക്കാൻ എന്നെ കൊണ്ട് പറ്റൂല്ല .തൽക്കാലം ദിത് വെച്ച് അഡ്ജസ്റ് ചെയ്യണം എന്ന് താഴ്മയായി അപേക്ഷിക്കുന്നു .

Spider-Man Homecoming : The Review.

No other superhero movie has had as many reboots in such a short span of time as the Spider-Man franchise.In fact the 2002 Sami Raimi Spider-Man movie with Tobey Maguire marked the beginning of the superhero origin story trend in Hollywood which hasn’t died down even a decade and half later.Since then, we have had three actors playing the friendly neighborhood masked man with Tom Holland”s turn in the last Avengers movie setting the stage for things to come.

Marvel movies have always had a political undertone if you have cared to notice and Homecoming opened with the most explicit political statements of all in any of their movies till now when Michael Keaton’s character expresses his angst at the people who get paid to clean the very mess that they made.Micheal Keaton’s presence is significant in more ways than one and his character is almost a tribute to two of his most famous outings as an actor, Tim Burton’s Batman and the more recent Birdman, which ironically was about an actor who loses himself to the superhero character he played.

The Andrew Garfield spidey is a personal favorite because his quirky,neurotic Peter Parker reminded me of SRK for some reason, in the romantic scenes even more so.Though i have nothing against the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man, he brought a kind of emotional depth and air of melancholy to the character who has otherwise always been identified with mischief and irreverence, which took a toll on the charm of the character if you ask me.Tom Holland plays the youngest version of Peter Parker to have graced the screen i think and his own age helps him stay truer to the traits of the character, who was originally conceived as an adolescent superhero, for a target readership of that age group.The new Spider-Man is just as tech savvy as your average neighborhood teenager and shares his excitement about all things super-heroic in a video diary and thats just one of the reasons why more teenagers are going to identify and relate to this Spider-Man than his predecessors.Plus he’s more fun too and hardly listens to his elders which obviously adds to his appeal, i guess.

The movie rights for the Spider-Man franchise rested with Sony Pictures who spawned five movies in two reboots and it was only a matter of time before Marvel wanted its most famous superhero back, with its ambitions for the Marvel Cinematic Universe being more evident with every other Marvel movie since Iron Man.Though Marvel has no dearth of superhero characters they have a lot riding on Robert Downey’s Iron Man than they would like to admit and i would be lying if i say that I’m not curious to see how the Avengers would fare without Downey’s charm to keep them afloat.Spider-Man, as a character has had more popularity globally than any other Marvel hero including Iron Man and this could be a reason why the theme of The Avengers playing mentors to Spidey, just because he happened to be the youngest of the superheroes, never went down well with me at least. Well after all this is indeed the guy who figured out long back that, with great power came great responsibility, on his own.

What do Michael Bay, Rajiv Rai and I.V Sasi have in common?

If a cinematic parallel is drawn across film industries the world over, for every kind of film making out there, the names Michael Bay, Rajiv Rai and I.V Sasi would figure on the same line for more than one reason, I’ve felt for a long time now. For one, their films were always intended to do just one thing mostly, to entertain the audience that is. All three of them have a penchant for featuring ensemble cast in their movies too, apart from being synonymous with big budget blockbusters in their home turfs. While the critics have rarely been kind to Bay and Rai, Sasi has had the best of both worlds I’d say. They have always played to the gallery and have been the favorites of the viewers if the box office records of their movies are anything to go by. Goosebumps are what they dealt in primarily and its no mean feat to draw those kind of emotions from audiences irrespective of their color, creed and race on a consistent basis.

Some of the best names in the Malayalam film industry, from script writers to actors to technicians frequently collaborated with I.V Sasi to deliver the most memorable films of our times. Devasuram, the film that redefined Mohanlal’s image as an actor and marked the birth of his larger than life on screen persona is seldom spoken of as an I.V Sasi film but the signature is evident throughout, if you care to notice. The scene where the antagonist played by Napoleon, literally makes his thunderous debut on screen in the film is a fine example and is a personal favorite.

With movies like Tridev, Vishwatma, Mohra and Gupt, Rajiv Rai proved on more than one occasion that he had a direct line to the pulse of the Indian masses. The bad guys of Rajiv Rai movies had a sense of humor and a colorful persona too with actors like Amirsh Puri, Raza Murad and Gulshan Grover making regular appearances. He also gave those champions of serious cinema, Nasseruddin Shah and Om Puri, their most memorable turns in commercial cinema. Om Purim’s deadpan delivery in Gupt is priceless and is almost a tribute to his roles in the Nihlani films if you ask me. Viju Shah faithfully delivered his best work in the Rai films every single time they collaborated too though he had his moments of “inspiration” if you know what i’m talking about.

Michael Bay of course had all the privileges and options that the studios of Hollywood endows up on their artists and though he’s been a director that the critics love to hate, has delivered some of the most popular action flicks of our times, The Rock being his magnum opus. Sean Connery in his mid 60s was nothing less than the rock star he already was, in The Rock, with a classy Ed Harris in full throttle and Nicholas Cage at his “Cagiest” best keeping him company.If Bay were to make a western, the cowboys- yeah there would be more than one for sure- would be riding into the sunset for ever in slow motion with the most rousing of scores playing in the back ground.

If you still feel that I am not making any sense at all, this scene from the first Transformers movie where one got to see a glimpse of the Michael Bay signature for the last time in a long time might help, though I admit I would have a hard time explaining what’s so damn overwhelming about a scene where – no, I’m not talking about Megan Fox- a truck just rumbles up a dark alley to a BGM thats so “Hans Zimmerish”(for obvious reasons).

 

Wonder Woman: Not a review.

If Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, what would it be like when Wonder Woman is scorned, i couldn’t but help feel curious. So here goes.
The weekend past turned out to be one of tough choices for the cinephile in me when i had to decide between a movie with a female super villain and one with a female super hero lead.At the risk of being branded a chauvinist and a misogynist i admit that i had held out from watching the latter for a week but when the going gets tough, the tough gets going and thats how i ended up going to a show of Wonder Woman at the multiplex around the corner and i swear that it had nothing to do with the fact that my wife wanted to watch it too.

The internet would have you believe that though DC has two of the greatest superheroes to ever don a cape in its camp, it took Wonder Woman to restore faith in the DC Universe and save it from sinking into oblivion cinematically.Though this is indeed the “post-truth”, so to speak, in these times of paid news, fake news and online promotions when even established media houses can’t tell a genuine story from an ad campaign,i couldn’t but help feel that something was rotten in the state of California,Hollywood to be specific.The kind of gushing reviews that are doing rounds were conspicuous by absence when a genuinely female centric film like Hidden Figures hit the screens.Yeah apples and oranges, i know but if you think i am exaggerating, the fact that DC had the clout to convince the United Nations to appoint Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador for women’s empowerment last year is proof enough.Come to think of it, though UN withdrew the announcement after drawing considerable flak from all quarters, the timing of the declaration and DC’s campaign sounds more like an ambitious marketing ploy rather than a coincidence.

When i finally did got around to watching the movie, i realized that cinematic swindle that unfolded before my eyes was second only to what the makers of Twenty Twenty did to Mammootty, if you know what i am talking about, but then you don’t.Gal Godot’s Wonder Woman stays true the original comic strip character traits, making her an embodiment of innocence, honor and of course superhuman skills but she ends up using these mostly in the realm of fantasy fighting mythical villains while the real world is actually saved by Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor.
In fact you have to be ignorant beyond measure not to notice that its Steve Trevor who saves the day and in fact dons the thinking cap on more than one occasion.Though you could argue that i have gotten it all wrong and that the film is exactly how its supposed to be, for a character being marketed as a feminist icon, it did look more than a bit odd to me.

Patty Jenkins helmed Charlize Theron’s Oscar vehicle which i have watched in only bits and parts but i am familiar with her work in the remake of the scandinavian series ,The Killing, which again featured a female lead and was an engaging watch with some truly unique characterizations.The Swedes and the Danes have always been miles ahead of Hollywood when it comes to ground breaking concepts and breaking gender barriers on screen, The Millennium trilogy and The Bridge to name a few.
This may sound like a ploy of mine to win over the animal lovers now that i have invoked the wrath of feminists rather Wonder Woman fangirls, but i have to say that the honor for greatest no man’s land run on screen belongs to War Horse and not Wonder Woman.And if you think that no female lead has kicked ass in a movie like Wonder Woman did, you obviously haven’t seen Lisbeth Salander in action and she doesn’t need magical bracelets either.Pepper spray, she makes do with.