Saturday, February 29, 2020
In (Premature) Defense of 2.0 & Every New Movie Ever Going to be Made
It is my humble opinion that great movies serve one purpose - they make it a memorable experience for viewers. And they make it memorable by wowing audiences visually, cognitively or emotionally or a combination thereof. Few movies transcend all three experiences in the exact right proportion. Movies that fall do this are defined as Awesome Movies.
As an example, Enthiran, released in 2010, was an awesome movie.It had a humanoid robot (cognitively appealing), built from scratch with sheet metal and PCBs (more cognitively appealing),with Aishwarya Rai (visually appealing), a robot that falls in love with her (emotionally appealing), and tons of Rajinikanth (cognitive, visual and emotional phenom).
But alas, there is such a thing as "too much" of any one of these experiences.If there is too much visual action, or emotional drama or cognitive masala, the Awesome movie fizzles out. And that has been known to happen before as well. A lot.
In the coming days, 2.0 hits the screens. There will be moments before,
during, and after the movie, where you will question everything you know about
your appreciation of a fine cinematic experience, and start to believe that the
movie is bad.
You will hate Akshay Kumar as the Bird in the sky, and every time you look
at his face you will be reminded of the insane amount of CGI and Artificiality
and Non Realistic Fantasy the director has put in the movie.
If you are a Rajini fan, you will think the movie didn't have enough Rajini
in it. It will descend into a debate about whether or not Rajini should enter
politics.
If you are a Shankar fan, you will think the movie was too much about Rajini.
It will descend into a debate about whether or not Rajini should enter
politics.
If you are a Rahman fan, you will question if his days of good music are
gone forever and if you should officially start a Santhosh Narayanan
Thalaivaaaaaa (with 4 extra a's) Page on Facebook.
If you are an Amy Jackson fan..... well, dont bother, you are not real. Wake
up. (Incidentally she's not real in the movie either, playing a role written specifically for her - a robot!)
You may be a progressive thinking liberal, and you will want to burn the
theater down for a couple of the bad jokes Shankar tried to insert to please
front benchers. It will descend into a debate about India's culture and
Sabarimala.
You may be financially conscious and the vulgar $450 Cr number will boggle
your mind into saying crazy stuff like "So much Poverty we could've
removed if we spent money on buying clothes for poor". It will descend
into a fight about whether BJP should be building statues.
There are possibly thousand different reasons you have been waiting for this
movie to come out. And as soon as the initial rush of being in the
theater, watching this movie leaves you, you will find that the movie doesn't
live up to the extraordinary expectations you had for it, because one aspect of
the movie ruined it for you.
In the midst of all this, you will read a 100 reviews trashing the movie,
500 status updates and check-in's with movie ticket pictures, Youtube videos
with poor imitations of the Superstar, a few crazy clips of the people involved
in the movie getting angry, and at least 5 High Court cases for banning the
movie for either "hurting sentiments" or "copyright
infringement".
And all this will spoil the movie for you, and you will start to question
"everything you know about your appreciation of a fine cinematic
experience, and start to believe that the movie is bad."
It is important you resist that feeling.
You see, regardless of how good a movie 2.0 actually is, this is an
extremely important movie for audiences in India to watch. Because this movie
in some ways, will decide what movies we will watch for the next 10
years.
Few film-makers break out of the safety net (and only they can afford to)
make movies that expand the boundaries of the cinemas we watch. And these
pioneering filmmakers giving new technologies, new styles and new techniques a
platform in their movies is what makes the Indian film industry gain new
capabilities to tell new and bigger stories.
When Shankar used 65 cameras in one action scene in Anniyan, it was unheard
of. Today it is common place enough that simple duet songs use it.
When Rajamouli made Magadheera, he really built the tools to be able to make
Baahubali in the years down the road.
When Bollywood made 10 different boxing movies, it was slowly building the
fanbase and interest, and the template to succeed at making one Dangal.
In an absolute disappointment of a movie called Kochadaiiyan, an established
sequence of operations was established to produce a motion capture movie in
India, and that's what is making 2.0 possible.
Bad Ambitious Movies always beget Great Ambitious Movies!!
The possibility that making 2.0 today may make an Amar Chitra Katha
Superhero Movie possible, or a Mars mission movie a la Tik Tik or Martian
possible.
But what about being objective, and critiquing the nuances of filmmaking as an appreciation of art and a reflection of our society and popular culture? I say - Valid point! But hear me out.... Now, I know very little about how the Universe operates, and my worldview is restricted to my Facebook and Twitter feed. But if the reviewers on my feed are anything to go by, nuance and subtle references are severely underrepresented features of their assessment of movies, and in all fairness, the First Law of Social Media Engagement states that the more nuanced view someone takes, the lesser likes/retweets/engagement it gets - which defeats the whole purpose of posting opinions onto social media in the first place. So reviewers, by natural laws of Social Media Survival of the Fittest gravitate towards populist 1-liners which reduces movies to caricatures of themselves.
So regardless of why you hated 2.0 or any other movie that will be released in future, please
remember to thank the people who stared at the task, knew and understood how
impossible it was to make the movie they wanted, and went ahead did it anyway,
because at the end of the day, this movie is not about this one movie alone, it
is about the kind of movies we will see in decades to come in Indian Cinema!
Update: I watched 2.0 in Rochester Hills, MI (on the day of release, there were at least 20 shows in Tamil, in addition to about 10 more shows in Hindi/Telugu in the Detroit area - in total Maayajaal style - unheard of for an Indian movie, even Baahubali), and absolutely loved the movie! It was everything I hoped for, and more. 2.0 the Rajini character in the second half of the movie is Black Sheep Chitti on steroids, and I absolutely loved it! And what a great job tying everything back to the environment and how we are destroying it with cell phone towers - I get it, it was a little preachy, and felt like a kid's movie at times, but the lighthearted nature of the movie was a big part in why it was enjoyable! And as predicted, social media is full of disappointed moviegoers - there's just no pleasing some people I tell you.
Labels: FDFS Review, Social Media
Friday, December 23, 2011
The King is Back !! Don 2 : Review
It is the middle of the sea. 5 influential
men of the European drug cartel sit on a yacht, having a heated discussion.
They cannot stand the sight of each other, but they have to tolerate them, because
they have one common interest which has to be addressed before it’s too late – to
kill Don. What follows is a
remarkable spectacle of brilliant film making virtually unknown in the Indian
film industry – an experience which delights as it happens, and when it ends,
fills your mind with images that make you want to undergo the experience again
and again!
Don-2, written and directed by Farhan
Akhtar, has the best written screenplay in a Bollywood film in recent times.
The story has a great pace about it that never really lets you lie back. You
are on the edge of your seats right from the moment the movie begins. It has plenty of negative characters including Vardhaan returning from the first movie, and a couple others thrown in to make one grand party! From
Europe to Thailand, Malaysia to Berlin, the story runs in a brisk fashion,
leaving your heart pounding for action. And when the action begins, by god, you
don’t want it to stop!!
The trailer gave us a hint of what to expect. Don surrenders himself to the Police to rescue Vardhaan from prison. Together, they plot a plan to loot the DZB (cant expand it, some German shit I cant pronounce or spell), Germany's largest Reseve Bank where they print the Euro Currency notes. To those who think Don is after the money, he makes it clear "Mujhe paise mei koi interest nahi". He is not interested in the money. Then ??
He is after the currency printing plates. Why take truckloads of cash when you can print it yourself with the plates??
That's Don for you.
If you are complaining that I let out the film's plot to you, I have to tell you that there is still too much for you to keep track of in the film. Every scene, every second of the film has a vital link. I can only advise you to go easy on coke or water or any other liquid before the film. You don't want to make one trip to the bathroom and end up losing track of the entire film!!
I always knew Farhan Akhtar was a great
film maker. He is famous for bringing his father’s Don to our generation, and until
yesterday evening, Don was a remake
of the 1978 film. But after Don-2, people will remember Don (1978) as the film
that inspired the Don series. It is
always difficult to make sequels to hugely popular films cos more often than
not, it is the first movie of the series that is enjoyed the most, but Don
breaks that trend. And no one gets bigger credit for this than Farhan Akhtar.
Talking of credit, another man deserves a
big applause for Don-2 - no prizes for guessing who. Shah Rukh Khan comes back
in the role that he loves so much, and we love seeing him in so much. Shah Rukh
Khan can finally sleep well after the RaOne nightmare, knowing that people
across the country still love him, when he lets the director do stuff.
It is regular for actors to own characters and fill it with a lot of themselves. But the great thing about the Don series is that the character is slowly growing bigger than the actor.When you come out of the film, it is one of the rare moments when the character dominates your experience more than the actor himself. Almost everyone I asked about the film after I came out said “Great film man, Don was fucking awesome!!” and not “Shah Rukh Khan was fucking awesome!!” The only time I have witnessed this before is with the 007 franchise and that’s a mark of how the Don character has captured the imagination of the audience.
It is regular for actors to own characters and fill it with a lot of themselves. But the great thing about the Don series is that the character is slowly growing bigger than the actor.When you come out of the film, it is one of the rare moments when the character dominates your experience more than the actor himself. Almost everyone I asked about the film after I came out said “Great film man, Don was fucking awesome!!” and not “Shah Rukh Khan was fucking awesome!!” The only time I have witnessed this before is with the 007 franchise and that’s a mark of how the Don character has captured the imagination of the audience.
Another important feature of the film is
its awesome score by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. I know a lot of people were
disappointed with the soundtrack of the film (my dear friend Prasad even went
to the extent of calling it “a cheap remake of the first part”, and I feel too
that the trio are well beyond their peak) but the music of the film is
haunting. It has only two full length songs (thankfully!!) ‘Zara Dil ko Thaam
Lo’ and ‘Hai Maya’ which are appropriately placed in the screenplay and directed really well. One may
feel sad that there is no ‘Aaj Ki Raat’ or ‘Main Hoon Don’ in this, but trust
me, any more songs would have dampened the movie. This film was about pace and
speed and any more songs and dance would have been irritants as they so often
are.
Brilliant screenplay and direction, a Don with a killer edge, awesome background score, you will think that this is
almost all that defines Don-2. But then you gotta add in the ensemble cast and
their performances, be it Priyanka Chopra returning as the “junglee Billi” Roma,
or the versatile Boman Irani as the Don’s scheming cold blooded nemesis
Vardhaan. Kunal Kapoor makes a decent attempt to get noticed among all this as
a young computer hacker, Samir Ali, and manages to leave a mark. Lara Dutta
appears on and off and along with Hrithik Roshan who appears briefly, is credited
for guest appearance in the end titles.
It has been a trend for the past few years
that the last film released in the calendar year also becomes the most
successful. While Aamir Khan has been the Ruler of December in recent years,
this time its Shah Rukh Khan’s turn to carry the flag. He is after all, the King
Khan. And as a Shah Rukh Khan fan, I take great pride that at the end of the
day, as all the promo’s of the film proclaim, The King is Back.
Verdict:
Don 2
Highly Recommended.
4/5 stars.
Watch it before crappy reviewers and mindless critics spoil the experience for you.
Labels: FDFS Review
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Ra.One : The Review (Damage Assessment)
(MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. DONT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE ANY INTENTIONS OF WATCHING THE MOVIE RA.ONE. HAVING SAID THAT, I WOULD SINCERELY ADVISE YOU TO PROMPTLY GIVE UP ANY SUCH PLANS AND WATCH IT ON SONY TV TWO MONTHS LATER.
THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS POST ARE THE AUTHORS PERSONAL THOUGHTS. NO VANDALISM HOOLIGANISM AND BAD-WORD-ISM FROM SRK FANS AND SUDARSHAN SRIDHAR WILL BE TOLERATED.)
When I went to Sathyam at 5.30 AM on Sunday morning to stand in that long serpentile queue to get a ticket of Ra.One, the guy standing behind me annoyed me by laughing through the length of the queue. His point - What kind of a guy wakes up so early and stands in such a long queue to get the ticket of some random "saettu" movie. I ignored him, got the tickets, elated. I was going to watch SRK's film in theatre, On the FIRST DAY! The day has passed, and so has the movie. From this end of the equation, I laugh at myself - I mean what kind of a guy wakes up so early and stands in such a long queue to get the ticket of some random "saettu" movie that finally turns out to be this bad? Ra.One has been my biggest movie disappointment since birth. Maybe because I expected so much out of it, or maybe because of SRK's own doing - the intense hype that he created - the film just didnt take-off for me.
Ra.One("Raavan") or Random Access One is the most powerful villain ever made - an invincible villain - born out of a Video Game maker, Shekar Subramanian's urge to do something great for his son, Prateek (Armaan Verma), who feels that the best video game ever made will be the one where the villain cannot die. In an attempt to make the villain even more stronger to conquer, Shekar adds some "Artificial Intelligence Programming" to Ra.One that gives Ra.One the ability to think beyond what normal video games can, to avoid losing the game. Soon he develops an ego because Lucifer, Prateek's vitual world alter-ego, has defeated him in two rounds, and wants to come out to the real World to find and kill Lucifer. In the ensuing battle, Shekhar dies, and the only thing Prateek can do to save himself and his mom is to bring G.One or Good One, the hero of the video game built on Shekar's personality and looks, to reality too. Then begins the eternal Indian quest of the victory of good over evil and the film shows how the biggest battles are one, not by power of the body, but by the power of the heart.
Impossible science apart, the premise is pretty great and different from the sci-fi films seen yet. But there is no flow in the plot and the film is poorly scripted . The bad screenplay could've been made up with good direction, but there again, direction is a huge let down. This is probably what SRK's ghost directing the film did to it.
However, there are some reasons to cheer the film. Excellent graphics and awesome stunt scenes keep you engaged in the movie even when there's nothing else to watch out for. The Background Music though out of place in one or two scenes is classy throughout. The Vishal-Shekar duo has done an amazing job with the soundtrack of this movie. The Soundtrack has a couple of chartbusters and they make their mark in the film.
Music overall is a strongpoint that this film has, and Vishal and Shekar are maturing by the day, getting lots better. A great reason to watch the film would also be Arjun Rampal, though he has been virtually reduced to a guest appearance, appearing only in the last 45 minutes or so - good enough to make an impact as the cold, dreaded villain. Kareena Kapoor, far from her size zero days, looks awesome, though has nothing to do at all apart from use up the glycerine they stocked up for the film!
So where does Ra.One crash ? It has a seemingly good premise, and though not a very good plot, Bollywood movies rarely run on a great story anyway. It has great music, excellent World Class graphics, so then what exactly went wrong for Ra. One ? There are a couple of reasons, first of which I feel is SRK himself. The films got too much of him, to a point where you cant take it anymore. SRK features in every scene of the film and tries to become that Super hero. It is a noble attempt, no doubt, but it gets boring after a point of time. Comparisons to Endhiran (Robot) are expected initially, but you must know, Endhiran was a far better movie, in terms of both the entertainment quotient and a lot more sensible script.
His antics as Shekar Subramanian dont help matters much. The character is a Tamil stereotype, one that is not likely to go down very well with Tamil audiences (me included). A particularly bad example is how he eats noodles mixed with curd. That's lame. I do not eat noodles with curd. And I am yet to find one Tamilian who does, so what's he trying to do? It is in this kind of a background that he brings in his half hearted tribute to the Superstar, which though awesomely greeted and excellently executed, doesn't have the kind of impact it deserved because of the Shekar Subramaniam fiasco.
These factors apart, the biggest reason why I feel Ra.One fails to impress is the hype that he himself created. This is the best example of a mega promotion backfire. For the first few days, Chammak Challo was okay, but soon he went overboard trying to dominate every single space of advertising, giving interviews to Jaya TV and all, and that just collapsed. There were so many people I can think of who went to the theatre to watch the movie, already fed up with the whole Ra.One galatta.
Ra.One was a heartbreaker. But a heartbreaker with a heart. I wouldn't watch it again, nor would I recommend it to anyone, but it was an attempt to offer something no 10 year old Play-Station Lover has ever seen before. And as I left the theatre, my grandma was happy. She called me and said it was a very nice film and SRK was awesome in it. I couldn't help acknowledging the fact that Children and SRK fans will love this film. I smiled and told to myself - I am an SRK fan after all.
Rating : 2.5/5
Might've been 3 if it had been Shekhar Kapoor or Rathore instead of Subramaniam,
3.5 if Arjun Rampal appeared in the first half of the film.
Thats as good as it gets.
Labels: FDFS Review
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