Nightcrawler - If it bleeds it leads!

Looking up Nightcrawler on wikipedia so I'd have the cast and crew mentions accurate for this review revealed that they are categorising it a 'crime thriller'. As such I would move it over into the territory of 'pyschological thriller' just as easily. Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Lou Bloom, can only be described as a sociopath climbing the rungs and stumbling on an elevator to ascending stages of depravity.  A couple of movies came to mind, one when looking at Lou's final strut and another on recalling the events of the movie for this review. The latter is 'Taxi Driver' which also highlights the mental ascent of a loner to increasing stages of anti-social characterization. Nightcrawler deals with the always on camera of a news-gatherer in the city of angels, gathering up sins on video and declaring its motto via the dialogue of Bill Paxton - 'If it bleeds, it leads'.

Working from a script he wrote, Director Dan Gilroy(brother of Tony Gilroy) takes us through the darkness of LA and Lou's mind systematically. The story does not let us give up and zone out at any point with Dan reminding us that none of the thrills or the evenly spaced laughs, black comedy as it may be, comes free or cheap. It almost feels like the view we get of Lou is one of the inner reaches of his  mind, the part where there is a small stage whisper that is always prompting him to claw rather than reach. Robert Elswit handles the camera for Nightcrawler giving us a sort of a night-mode modern noir view of the city, never completely dark but shady enough for discomfort. There are parts when the background music by James Newton Howard  almost approaches a sort of retro pop level of cheeriness, beautifully contrasting with the images on screen.

Jake Gyllenhaal needs no introduction as an actor capable of carrying off the darkness of a character in a disturbingly nonchalant way but as the titular Nightcrawler his dialogues delivered in a casual almost cheerful monotone are sometimes plain scary. His evolution from someone who steals and deals scrap metal to the owner/director of 'Video News Corporation' leads us on a dark odyssey with Lou at the helm. His home is shown to be a single room with a bed facing a stark lcd screen that runs the news. Lou stares, thinks, plans and sometimes chuckles and the most passive of his actions disturbs. He is an avid learner, someone who is able to rattle off leadership and management principles and jargon(probably from the latest TedX) and is a skilled researcher as well. His mind does not stop there, beneath the pallor of his skin is a darkness that Jake Gyllenhaal plumbs with seemingly no effort but the depth of his skill is evident in the coldness that settles against his behavior in the minds of the viewers.

Jake is supported by a cast which is put together brilliantly well. Rene Russo as the newsdesk chief of one of the hundred pulp news channels of LA walks the extremely delicate line between victim and other dark shades with her usual ease. When pushed into a corner, should one decide the corner is home? Maybe but what if the corner always has been home? Characters that dip in and out make us question the depths of human behaviour as well. Riz Ahmed (of the superb adaptation of 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist') gets recruited to be Lous cohort in night time video gathering sessions. Seemingly flat, the characters layers are peeled as is Bill Paxton's, the latter playing a competing Nightcrawler who initially shuns Lou's approach but tries to recruit him later, a sequence that ends with my favourite bit of Gyllenhaal in the movie.

The movie also showcases the nature of news channels that sometimes deliver and deliver without questioning if its through a curtain of tears. Its not only Lou who cannot take no for an answer and takes 'by hook or crook' to a new level of videography but it is the entire ecosystem in which he thrives. The extreme levels of motivation that come forth from someone who is introduced to us as a normal and capable everyday guy only serve to question our own judgement of people as we go along. Lou does not change but our perspective of him is guided through so expertly that by the conclusion there is an illusion of something having crawled into the night space of our minds. As mentioned in the first paragraph, another movie came to mind when Lou struts in front of a police station - Kevin Spacey's self imposed limp disappearing at the end of 'The Usual Suspects' and inexorably the thread that exists between great movies gains another fibre.

Four stars and two thirds.

Big Hero 6 - huggable action!

It just seems right to mention that the first movie I have watched after Interstellar is 'Big Hero 6'. Movies have long been a part of my life and the impact of watching a well crafted movie based on grounded facts is always a pleasure. Envitably the experience makes one biased about the movies one watches right after but 'Big Hero 6' stands tall by its own right. Animated movies have gone more and more into either the fantasy, rom-com or whatever genre while ensuring that they always always set up themselves like an origin story. Some are endearing and have an impact, most serve as a bridge to serving up more of the characters they are targeting for endearment in the first movie. Where 'Big Hero 6' stands among the two categories is something thats worth the watch.

The apparent Japanese manga influence is because the movie is based on a Marvel comic of the same name which hopefully would be worth checking out to see how faithful the adaptation has been. The environs of this particular movie adaptation are beautifully crafted with the story based in San Fransokyo, an amalgamation of the tram-filled streets of SF with the glaring neon lights and momo bars of Tokyo. Produced by John Lasseter via Disney and directed by Don Hall and Chris Williams 'Big Hero 6' plays an interesting twist on a comic characters,  the primary of which here is programmed to be non violent.

Hiro(a coincident no doubt, voiced by Ryan Potter) is the central character, a 14 year old more interested in using his natural robot building and programming skills in winning bot fights than honing them in schools. His brother Tadashi who is a grad student in a school of research worries about his kid brothers future and tries to get Hiro interested in his school. We meet other characters there such as Honey Lemon, Wasabi, Gogo and Fred who are into high tech research with Tadashi and a professor who inspires Hiro to rethink his future. The story line then delves into a predictable plot line of loss, cause for revenge and the eventual and inevitable rise for a bit. Hiro thinks up ways to get into the school and is skilled enough to do so when a tragedy puts him in a period of dormancy where his 'mood swings' get the better of him. His love for his brother and his brothers ideals poured into a project that helps him pulls himself out of his mourning makes up for the racy middle and ending acts.

Which brings us to the 'Stay Puft' like balloony robot from the trailers, Baymax. Tadashi introduces Hiro to Baymax, his healthcare project, who has but one goal in life - the patients health care and their satisfaction as derived from it. Activated by simple catchphrases like(no, not ok google!) 'Ow' Baymax quite literally drags Hiro from his lethargy into what is initially a quest for revenge. But on the way Hiro finds out that there are noble things written into the code of a healthcare robot that humans can stand to use in their view of things as well. Baymax is meant to be endearing and anyone who does not fall for his spell must have a cold non-emoji oriented abacus for a CPU. His central philosophy of healing and doing so in a non violent way is one of the best take away messages I've encountered in Disney features this year. By himself and in combination with his partners Baymax uses thrusters to fly, rocket powered punches to defend more than attack and forms an indispensable companion to Hiro.

The director and screen writers Robert L Baird and Dan Gerson have adapted Man of Actions marvel characters in a slightly more accessible manner. When I was a kid, there were science fiction stories and animated shows that captured my interest but I cannot help but envy the current young audience who get such fun intro to concepts of robotics, engineering and science. Not that the movie is a 'Introduction to Robotics' lecture but its a neat showcase of said concepts. Blending a normal, heartfelt, 'huggable' to use the words of Baymax story into an action, animated avatar finds a successful vehicle in 'Big Hero 6'. Bring the kid in you and treat yourself to Baymax's satisfying health care!

Three and a half stars.

PostScript - An appeal to moviegoers - Please switch off your mobile phones and if you find yourself having to answer an urgent call take it out of the cinema. One of us in our party of two found ourselves in the awkward position of having to stand up and ask the person behind us to step outside with his phone. The plain arrogance of people who refuse to stop talking loudly or have a conversation on their phones inside a movie theater is astounding! On more than one occasion we've been looked upon by said sick parties as crazy people who're taking away their basic right to interrupt a movie session by answering their phones. Take a stand - the next time the person next to you or in front of you or behind you in the cinema takes away from your enjoyment as a paying moviegoer - embarrass the crap out of them. The entitlement exhibited by this group of posterior orifices should not be allowed!

Interstellar - Where Gravity watches from the front seat

For the first time in a movie theater, I sat with my hands clutching the seat rests, holding on to ensure I don't fall when the thrusters fire. I craned my neck to ensure the scope that was in field of view was just right to manoeuvre. The images projected on the eighty foot screen in front of me were not only believable for the most part but were in their entirety what one would expect of a partnership between technical masters like Chris Nolan and Hoyte van Hoytema. Quentin Tarantinos remarks on the epic scope of the vision of the Nolan brothers(the other being Jonathan) made sense when we sank back into our seats in saturated satisfaction at the end of the near three hour journey.

Nolan would be accused of being over-ambitious, the sheer soaring visuals of the movie justify his ambition. After having forced myself to not read any reviews and having read some of them now, the incredibly polarised reviews offer more than enough proof of how novel an experience the movie has been for everyone. Refusing to let film go gently into the night, Nolan has filmed in 65 and 70 mm stock on regular and IMAX cameras opting for practical miniature based effects and relatively very little CGI. The resulting imagery is spectacular on an IMAX screen be it the dust bowl that earth has been left behind as or the rings of Saturn in the background while the interstellar travellers find their way.

While paying homage to some of the most impressive science fiction movies that have been made such as '2001 - A Space Odyssey' and 'Contact', Nolan crafts a movie that is mostly epic, part drama and part thriller with a lot of theoretical physics thrown in. A pioneering spirit is not something that he has not been likened to and Matthew McConaughey as Cooper in the movie seeks answers to why the Earth in its depleting state where nothing but corn grows should be allowed to die with humans standing by in their current 'caretaker' roles when they were born explorers. A-list actors comprise the rest of the cast with Nolan usual Michael Caine playing Astrophysicist Dr.Brand and Anne Hathaway playing his daughter and protege. Mackenzie Foy plays Coopers daughter Murph with Jessica Chastain playing a grown up Murph and these four characters form the links in the prime layer of a plot that is neatly convoluted.

The first act unfolds in about forty five minutes and shows Nolan’s urgency to take things outside the earths sphere of influence. Cooper lives with his family and is closest to his precocious near-prodigy of a daughter who is convinced that there is something thats not natural in the way books keep falling from her shelves and dust forms patterns. Cooper embarks on a journey to save humanity and finds that its not Earths gravity thats difficult to escape from but the fact that his journey might take him away from watching Murph grow up. His son played by Timothy Chalemet(and later on by Casey Affleck) and father played by John Lithgow accept Coopers decision without question but Murph is unable to reconcile with her father and closest companion leaving her without giving her a return date. The departure from Earth to enter a wormhole and find a potential future for humanity forms the second act leading up to the question of whether or not Coopers and Murphs relationship forms a closed loop. Nolans collaboration with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne unveils to us a space vista thats more grounded in science than most other depictions. The space ship Endurance is a novel and for all assumptions a practical design with modules that can be used for landing and exploring analogous to shuttles that dock with a long range module. What could have been avoided is the 'Astrophysics 101' nature of some of the dialogues. In comparion movies like '2001..' offer imagery that is not explained but provokes thought and the initiative to find answers none the less.

Nolan has never been one to go easy on the viewers, much to the pleasure of the audience, when it comes to challenging ones imagination and Interstellar is no different. Not only does it offer a chance to travel to places never seen before but it is sure to spark physics based arguements among the initiates and the uninitiated alike. Right down to the two AI robots(for want of a better word to describe them) the respect afforded to physics is overwhelming. TARS and CASE are designed as collapsible quadrilaterals composed of jointed single units that pivot and reassemble as required. They have programmable honesty and humour settings which gives the people dubbing for them license to unleash at times their genius(quite literally). Gravity, Relativity, Black Hole theories and the ability to survive stasis in unfavorable environments - all these and more including a cameo by a much loved actor sum up to a movie experience that I have never been subject to before. The pure joy of being seated in a movie emporium and realising that the fare for the ticket has just resulted in an experience instead of a mere passing of time is unparalleled. Which is not to say there are no negatives but I will leave it to the pedants to talk about. There being so few movies that enable the thought process rather than leave it in limbo(no pun intended) Interstellar can only be described as a movie experience par excellence.

It would also be remiss of me not to mention that there is an emotional thread that runs through the movie. Nolan has often been described as a heartless auteur whose cold and calculated plotlines are meant to satisfy the story line and nothing else. I have found this to be false in more than one occasion and Interstellar relies on the characters' and the audiences' emotions to deliver its story across space and time. Anne Hathaway's role does not offer her scope for histrionics but her story loop none the less is one of despair, hope and duty which she duly conveys with expected aplomb. The chemistry between Cooper and his daughter surpasses vast interstellar distances and thus time and McConaughey is perfect with his texan drawl and salt of the earth portrayal of Cooper in transcending these physical boundaries. 

Based on our experience, it would be best to embark on this stellar Interstellar trip on an IMAX screen. The visuals and the excellent visceral score by Hans Zimmer pummel us in multiple G and suspend our disbelief in zero G situations. In calling this the 'Movie experience of a year' my fellow movie enthusiast Archana minced no words. Nolan has proved again why he does not need to rehash a storyline or follow a comic book dictated timeline and that executing a high budget original screenplay takes only the almost infinite care and meticulousness that has gone into bringing Interstellar to life. A five dimensional movie that has been delivered to us in glorious 2D.

Four and a half stars.

Gone Girl - disturbingly brilliant!

David Fincher is not a bad director at all, he's a master of edge of the seat material that usually involves dark doings or violence against women. But 'Gone Girl' would not have challenged him on the screenplay level as that aspect of the movie has been more than ably handled by the author of the titular tome Gillian Flynn. Having read the book a while back I was expectant but not very expecting of the movie and Fincher executes well and delivers the right emotional twangs mingled with the thrills Flynn's page turner provided.

Point of view movies(not to be mistaken with the soon to arrive point of view perspective movie) are not uncommon but to look at things from literally two sides of a marriage sometimes needs a neutrality which is not what Gone Girl is all about. A husband walks into his house on his fifth anniversary to find signs of a struggle and his wife missing. Quite naturally he raises the alarm but seems a little disconnected. Why that is forms part of the near two and a half hour twist-and-turner. A fairytale romance of guy meets girl in big city, blows her socks off for all intentions and gets married. Wife being a trust fund daughter of difficult parents adores him and really does love him. But does love survive time and turbulence also forms a part of the dark entertainment thats guaranteed from the movie.

The casting is smack on the money with Ben Affleck neatly pulling off the blocked writer with the shitfaced grin(a very important part of his character study), which convinced me that the rest of the movie was going to be pretty good as far as he is concerned. Starting out as the guy who's bound to have all the answers in exacting form when posed questions by a prospective beautiful companion for the night, Affleck plays his heart out as the husband going dark on a marriage which has its layered shades. His chemistry with his twin sister Margo, difficult as it was to establish in the book is brought out as sharp as the razor edge it walks in the source material. Did he have a hand in the violence surrounding his wifes disappearance? Affleck leads us into the story beautifully. Which bring us to Amazing Amy, Rosamund Pike deserves an academy award this time around. Yes, the movie is not really what can be considered Oscar worthy but to convincingly play a character thats as disturbed as is disturbing is a challenge that has been made to look like a cakewalk by Pike. Neil Patrick Harris departs from his usual slapstick camaraderie roles to essay one that carries a certain depth in and of itself, suffice to say his handling of the role is more than perfect. There is a list of supporting characters whose performances can be summarized in saying that from every suburban housewife neighbour to disgruntled detective, individual performance lives up to the spunk or the scorn demanded by the role.

Stylised and dark as it is, the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross once again provides superglue factor in keeping the viewer and their attention riveted to the screen. Sound design complements the on screen material so well that sometimes a drawn out groan almost sounds like a continuing death rasp when in fact it is the background that sets up the goings on in front of us. The music plays out like a beautiful summer song accompanied by a dentists drill. Accomplices in crime as they are with Fincher since 'The Social Network' the composers are not strangers to the moody and ominous pictures that he paints and aid him tremendously here as well.

A good movie in its entirety is all that a fan paying good money looks out for. A review of movies like 'Gone Girl' and a fair few others cannot be complete if viewed in India without going into detail and recording for posterity the hypocritical posterior orifice type characters that comprise the Central Board of Film Certification of India. Manning their prudish scissors and other such douchey tools they strive to save the Indian populace from the brazen and adulterous nature of Hollywood movies. There is no dearth of completely misogynistic suggestive and objectified brazenness in Indian cinema, especially in movies such as the vacuum fluff that was 'Happy New Year'. However the Censor board chooses to cut out minutes of 'full frontal nudity'(easier to access than the days newspaper), 'thrusting movements'(you only need to watch any south Indian movie and its unjustifiable 'item' songs to find a couple of thousand such) and dialogue with 'American slang for genitals'(I distinctly remember a Tamil film song which described copulation in ugly and sly disguised terms being allowed to screen with a general certificate). In a country and a city where headlines of child abuse echo blaringly every day, would you rather the adults be adults regarding topics that you deem taboo or titillate them by making such topics taboo. It does not take genius level intelligence to figure this out but thanks to David Fincher for allowing the babboons their cuts rather than disallow us from watching a brilliant movie(the last one we missed out on being 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'). In closing do not miss the movie in spite of the 'intercoursing' Censor Boards 'American slang for female genitals' attitude.

Rating - Three and three quarter stars

Annabelle - starring Annabelle!

From the producers of the enjoyable retro take on horror 'The Conjuring' comes a prequel that looks very promising in its promos - 'Annabelle'. Titular doll having been featured as capable of moving itself on a whim while fixating everyone with a disturbing grin in 'The Conjuring', this movie goes into a little more detail about who puppets it about and how it came to be.

I for one can list about three scenes where my heart jumped to my mouth, but the deficiency of scares is not what makes the movie dangerously close to being mediocre. Director John R Leonetti works on a script by Gary Dauberman that tries hard to make us sit down and take notice of how Annabelle became Annabelle-ish in the first place. The cast headed by Annabelle(yes, it looks coincidental, just normal not demonic) Wallis and Ward Horton play retro American couple Mia and John who are expecting a baby. Tony Amendola and Alfre Woodard round out the main cast playing the Forms' priest and neighbour respectively.

The first half hour keeps us interested by mixing in the Manson murders and the advent of the cult-culture in America. Cue expectant mother and a truly disturbing intrusion after the introduction of Annabelle the doll as a gift from her doting husband. Sound, scene and character set up, even dialogue proved to be elements that worked well in 'The Conjuring'. Strangely all those successful elements do not fully feature in Annabelle. A tracking shot to reveal previously unnoticed elements from the backdrop works well in horror but when a left to right pan is all we see in every scare inducing scene even the most non technical among us will feel the stirrings of a yawn. One other haunting question(if you'll pardon the pun) that you might leave the theater with is what happened to the grafitti kids?

Negativity aside, 'Annabelle' proves again that the classics can never go wrong by borrowing elements from 'Rosemarys Baby' and from pulp Satanic horror movies where the devils hand in dealing with deceit features as a plot element. A scene in a storage vault in the basement is probably one of the best implementation of a haunting in a long while. Talking about which plot elements are never really developed to a serious end. Ominous cartoon warnings, neighbourly noises, the role of the Church, the curious vulnerability of Church entrances - none of these things are provided enough screen time or a proper explanation as to why it did or did not work. Mia is almost thrust into a nervous mother with postpartum problems before things take a devilish turn leading to the climax.

What leaves us exiting the theater with the lingering afterthought of why couldnt this movie have worked is the fact that there is scope for 'Annabelle' to have been a horror classic. Call it the writers reluctance to make this doll dance to its full evil potential or a reworking the movie could have sunk its teeth a little more into dark territory instead of stopping at sewing machine and popcorn tricks.Curious about where else it has worked well? I would suggest 'Angel Heart' and 'Rosemarys Baby' for a satisfying and disturbing horror kick.

Annabelle - Two stars and a half