Movie Review: Big Eyes

Tim Burton is one of the most prolific filmmakers of all time yet he faces a lot of heat for indulging in commercial interests over the past decade. Since the terrific Big Fish he’s made just one good film, about a demon barber of Fleet Street, and cashed in on underwhelming big budget stuff like Alice in Wonderland Dark Shadows.

With Big Eyes Burton reteams with his Ed Wood writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and the results are really quite fantastic. It’s the film Burton’s fans have been waiting for a long time.

Big Eyes chronicles the really strange but darkly funny true story of Walter Keane (played by Christoph Waltz), who pioneered the famous Big Eyes paintings in the 60’s. The paintings sold like hot cakes back then, generating millions of dollars for the Keans and gaining the attention of the biggest bigwigs in the art and showbiz industry, not to mention creating a cultural phenomenon previously unheard of. Little did the world know that Kean hid something huge – he had zero skill in arts, and that his wife Margaret (played by Amy Adams) secretly did all the paintings, while Walter took all the credit.

It’s a great story and Burton and his writers flesh out the film in a winningly comedic manner. Burton restrains his direction to downplay the ‘artiness’ yet the film retains that unmistakable Burton charm in pretty much every scene of the film. There are dark themes, like a man rescuing a woman from a divorce, sweeping her off her feet and eventually putting her in the same prison she was initially in. There’s also the subject of a willing participant in a fraud being unsure of the love for or the fear of being harmed by the other participant. But the film is very funny, hitting the perfectly right notes in the dark region linking a farce and a drama. There’s a great scene in the final act where Keane battles in court both as the lawyer and the client – that whole sequence is so ridiculous you won’t believe it’s true but you’ll eventually realize the filmmakers have toned down the real life craziness in the film.

Waltz is yet again terrific as Keane, he seems to have mastered the character of an inherently unscrupulous man, but this time he gets his comedic chops out. Amy Adams is wonderful again in the wistfully sad avatar, and her own eyes are a not so subtle indication of the casting decision. If superb performances, a winning script, and beautiful visuals are your thing there’s no reason why you shouldn’t see this film in theaters.

(First published in MiD Day)

Movie Review: Tevar

The moment in Tevar when Manoj Bajpayee says 'Jo chane khaate hai wo badam ke paad nahi maarte', one is sure of what this film is about. 

One becomes even more assured of this film, when, in another moment Bajpayee’s kidnap and potentially rape victim Sonakshi Sinha runs away, and Bajpayee permanently takes off his pants to proclaim ‘Pant upar tab hi chadhegi jab Baby waapas mil aayegi’.

Starting off the new year with the bang of a stinkbomb, Tevar is a reassurance of the fact that no matter how budgets, technology and the human race advance in time, Bollywood would keep reverting back to the 80’s.

Tevar is directed by Amit Sharma, a well respected ad filmmaker but the film seems like it was made by the central character from The Human Centipede. Yet again, we have a remake of an already terrible South film. Yet again we have a heroine who is not only proud to play a mere object but also an embarrassment to woman empowerment in cinema. Yet again we have a gunda mawali hero clashing with the local gunda mawali villain to whisk away the moronic woman that he even more moronically loves.  Yet again we have a barrage of eardrum piercing massy songs, migraine inducing dialogue baazi, rage-rendering lapses in logic, eyeball squeezing violence and head pummeling instances of contrived melodrama.

Done right, all these things can either be a lot of fun, if not a lot of headache. Tevar furiously lunges on to the latter.

Arjun made an interesting impression in his first movie, but since then he’s played just variations of the same character in Gundey and now in Tevar. He wears sidey clothes. He is a kabaddi champ. He is the quintessential roadside Romeo who also happens to save women from being picked upon. After being hit by bullets and knives, he first falls down to make us believe he’s dead, and then like a WWF wrestler he screams and shouts and gives the goons a proper whooping. Clearly he’s been cast in this movie as a vanity vehicle to create the new Salman Khan. How well do you think this idea would work?

Sonakshi, after playing a character who wants to see the hero’s nether regions for good luck in her previous movie shockingly outdoes herself. Her character is the sister of a respected news channel head, who is off to the US for the post graduation, and also a dancer, and also someone who would rather hide in the house of a goon than go to the police, who after days of running away from a murderous and rapey rowdy finally reaches the airport, checks in, gets her ticket to the US, and comes back out to be in the arms of a rowdy she met two days ago.

Why is the concept of love been degraded to something so asinine to make an already regressive audience even more vacuous? Why are these elements present in a film of this day and age, when Bollywood is supposed to make an impression in world cinema? Why are desi filmmakers assuming that even the lowest common denominator of audiences deserve to be subjected to brutal torture. Why even with gigantic budgets do films like Tevar even look like crap? Why would any audience pay money to see a movie that looks, sounds, plays out and even feels ugly as hell? Even under the garb of ‘commercial masala’ why are the fight scenes so dull, why are the stunts so clumsy looking, and why is the comedy so awful it makes you want to suddenly get off your seat, run towards the cinema screen and smash your face against it?

Until anyone from the creative team of Tevar has answers to any of these questions, I leave you with a rap song inspired by the beats and lyrics of Let’s Celebrate:

The tagline of this movie

Tells you to show your Tevar

But this movie ain’t groovy

Covering your eyes is a life saver

Arjun tries a Salman Khan doodie

While Sonakshi is as if she’s doing us a favor

Regression is her hoodie

Or maybe it’s the only talent acting school gave her.

(First published in Firstpost)

Most Anticipated Desi Films of 2015

NYODDA

Produced and written by Vishal Bharadwaj, and directed by Meghna Gulzar, Nyodda is the fictional dramatization of the true life events revolving around the Aarushi Talwar murder case investigation. The film boasts strong performances from Neeraj Kabi as the father, Konkona Sen Sharma as the mother, and Irrfan as the investigating officer. Tabu also makes a special appearance in the film. The film is produced by the new Junglee Pictures banner, and like most of his films, the music has been scored by Bharadwaj himself, with lyrics by Gulzar.

BADLAPUR

After the disappointment of Agent Vinod it looks like Shriram Raghavan is back with vengeance. Judging by the trailer Badlapur takes us back to the neo noir pulp zone of Johnny Gaddar, something fans of the film sorely missed in his previous outing. Plus there’s a bearded and a badass Varun Dhavan to boot.

DIL DHADAKNE DO

Zoya Akhtar returns to her comfort zone – a large ensemble cast, big budget and foreign locations. While her previous film took us on a road trip, this time it’s about a dysfunctional family on a cruise.

NH10

Navdeep Singh, the director of Manorama Six Feet Under had a tough time when his potentially awesome projects Basra and the Punju wedding zombie comedy were canned. His latest is a fiery horror thriller about a couple’s road trip gone awry. The film stars Anushka Sharma and is slated to be a pretty dark film, with a layer of female empowerment folded in.

X

An interesting desi filmmaking experiment, X starring Rajat Kapoor, is one story with eleven segments directed by eleven different filmmakers – including film critics Sudhish Kamath, Raja Sen, Pratim Dasgupta, and filmmakers Q, Nalan Kumaraswamy, Sandeep Mohan, Suparn Verma, Hemant Gaba, Rajshree Ojha, Anu Menon and Abhinav Tiwari. It opened to good reviews at SAIFF and is slated to arrive in theaters soon.

BOMBAY VELVET

 The long delayed period noir epic from Anurag Kashyap is bound to be a massive film. With Ranbir Kapoor playing a boxer, Karan Johar in an ‘antagonistic’ role, jazz based music from Amit Trivedi, Thelma Schoonmaker editing the international version and the fact that Kashyap is making a big budget film, it’s impossible to not be excited about this.

TAMASHA

After delivering the refreshingly different and smaller scale Highway, Imtiaz Ali returns to the big budget Tamasha, with two of the biggest stars in the business – Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone. 

LIAR’S DICE

India’s official entry to the Oscars, Liar’s Dice stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Geetanjali Thapa as a tribal woman searching for her missing husband. Writer-director Geetu Mohandas’ debut film made some buzz at Sundance and is slated to release sometime this year.

UMRIKA

Delhi in a Day director Prashant Nair’s Umrika scored the prestige of being selected for Sundance 2015 for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. The film stars Life of Pi’s Suraj Sharma as a young village boy who discovers that his brother, long believed to be in America, has gone missing, and begins to invent letters on his behalf to save their mother from heartbreak. Liar’s Dice was selected for the same section in the previous year’s Sundance.

TIGERS

Danis Tanovic, the filmmaker behind the Oscar winning No Man’s Land directs Emraan Hashmi in a true story about a pharma exec in Pakistan uncovering a major scandal involving baby formula. The film is co produced by Anurag Kashyap and scored decent reviews at Toronto International Film Festival in 2014.

TUMBAD

Ship of Theseus director Anand Gandhi’s next is an interesting little period thriller with elements of horror and fantasy and a mysterious haunted well. It’s co-directed by debutant Rahi Anil Barve who made the ultra-dark short film Manjha earlier. Kiran Rao was earlier in talks to produce the film.

TITLI

Kanu Behl’s film got tremendous acclaim at the festival circuit in 2014, and we’ll finally get to see it this year. The film stars Ranvir Shorey and is a drama-thriller that delves into patriarchal issues, freedom from roots, and human cost of aspirations of a new India as seen through the eyes of a family of car robbers.

DETECTIVE BYOMKESH BAKSHI

Dibakar Bannerjee making a Byomkesh Bakshi thriller. With Yash Raj productions. With Sushant Singh Rajput in the title role. Set in 1940’s Kolkata. That has Chinese gangsters. And death metal music. Sold.

KILLA

Avinash Arun’s Marathi film won a Crystal Bear from the Children’s Jury and a Special Mention from the International Jury at Berlin. It also received rave reviews when it screened at the Mumbai Film Festival last year. The film chronicles a young boy trying to cope with moving to a new home after the loss of his father, scrambling for the connection he seems to have lost with his mother.

COURT

Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut has been widely acclaimed in the international festival circuit and was often referred to as the best film that screened at the 2014 Mumbai Film Festival. The film makes a bitter statement against India’s justice system, delving into the dicey themes of power and class, and the muck that lies in between.

I

Shankar’s latest doesn’t feature Rajinikanth but it does feature a ton of truly insane visuals, absolutely bonkers stuntwork and Vikram in a gazillion different avatars.

Others:

a) Nikhil Mahajan, the director of the underrated offbeat gem Pune 52, has decided to go properly mainstream with Baji. Starring Shreyas Talpade as Marathi cinema’s first vigilante superhero.

b) Vikas Bahl's follow up to Queen, Abhishek Chaubey's 'Udta Punjab', and SS Rajamouli's 'Baahubali'.

Honorable Mention: MSG Messenger of God

Really don't need to explain anything here. The trailer pretty much speaks for itself. 

(First published in Firstpost)

Top Ten of Bollywood 2014

2014 was a mixed bag for Bollywood. The year started off with a bang, and it made us believe the reign of nonsensical regressive commercial masala was over. That ray of hope remained bright until about the first half of the year, after which Bollywood resumed reverting back to the 80’s. Still, it’s generally very difficult to even name five good films, but there were ten worthy ones this year:

10 – SULEMAANI KEEDA

The true blue indie of the year, made by a bunch of Versovians, starring a bunch of Versovians, made mostly for Versovians, Amit Masurkar’s Sulemaani Keeda was a lovely mishmash of Bollywood satire and a love story. The fact that this film managed to find a wide release is achievement enough - hopefully it would pave the way for more such films to be made and released in the country. Because heaven knows we need more of these than Singhams.

9 – HASEE TOH PHASEE

More of a Parineeti Chopra acting showcase than a rom com, Hasee to Phasee was a fairly engaging and surprisingly well directed first film by ad filmmaker Vinil Matthew. Despite the likes of Anurag Kashyap, Vikram Motwane and Karan Johar as producers the film didn’t set the cash registers ringing, thanks to the horrid marketing. But if this film’s quality is any indication, the trio ought to collaborate more often.

8 - HIGHWAY

The film that made everyone take Alia Bhatt seriously. The film that made us believe Imtiaz Ali could make something more than schmaltzy contrived dard e dil filmi dramas and rom coms. The film that brought Stockholm Syndrome to the mainstream audience. It had silences and long takes, and it was refreshingly different from what one expected it to be. This one didn’t make much money at the box office either, so the hopes of Ali attempting something different again remain slim.

7 – AANKHON DEKHI

Rajat Kapoor’s tiny film had a big heart and terrific turns by Sanjay Mishra as a man trying to understand the fabric of reality, and Seema Pahwa as his long suffering but good-natured wife. Not being a commercial movie with a wide release, Aankhon Dekhi too suffered a bleak fate at the box office.

6 – DEDH ISHQIYA

Smarter, funnier, richer, way more gorgeous and containing more sardonic dialogue than its predecessor, Dedh Ishqiya delivered by the truckloads. Few filmmakers have the ability to deliver dark and nuanced humor with such confidence, and Abhishek Chaubey, in just his second film brought the house down. The mention of this movie also not making gold at the box office is unnecessary because by this point I think it’s clear that good films don’t do well in India.

5- HAIDER

Vishal Bharadwaj ‘s searing, brutal new Shakespearean adaption turned Kashmir into Hamlet, India into the mother and Pakistan into the uncle. It was ballsy, and glorious to behold. Shahid Kapoor delivered his career best performance, and the fact that he didn’t take any fees to make this film is commendable.

4 - KATIYABAAZ

A docu on the power crisis in Kanpur, Deepti Kakkar and Fahad Mustafa’s Katiyabaaz was a comedy, an expose, a satire, a vigilante tale, and more hilarious and enjoyable than most feature films.

3 - UGLY

After the terrible Girl in Yellow Boots and the good but not great Wasseypur films Anurag Kashyap returned to blazing form by returning to his comfort zone – a blood soaked dark thriller. There’s so much to admire in the film and for the first time since Black Friday, Kashyap delivered a film with a ton of repeat value.

2 - QUEEN

The biggest surprise of the year, Vikas Bahl’s Queen had rare subtlety and quality for a mainstream commercial film, and it spread like wildfire when people decided to see it twice in theaters. Kangana Ranaut won hearts and also a lot of respect with her incredibly lovable (and honest) role. Apart from the laughs and the sheer entertainment value, the feminist angle in Queen was an icing on the cake.

1 – MISS LOVELY

Ashim Ahluwalia’s film was a hilarious look at the world of low budget Hindi horror movies in the 80s, and also a dark rumination on loneliness, alienation, and desperation. It was the only Hindi film of the year that was truly out of the box, and it was impossible to not be mesmerized by its audacity.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: ENTERTAINMENT and SINGH SAAB THE GREAT

Entertainment was the greatest thing created since the Monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. It was the most innovative idea devised since sliced bread. It was the single most astonishing masterpiece since Apocalypse Now. Directors Sajif-Farhad deserve a lifetime achievement Oscar for satirizing their own loud, crass, vulgar and regressive work.

Singh Saab the Great had lot of vintage Sunny Deol Shouting, random acts of pointless and over the top violence, and actors getting kicked, thrashed and killed in increasingly ridiculous ways. What more could a film viewer want?