American Hustle (17 Jan 2014)

Cast: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., Elisabeth Rohm, Michael Pena, Jack Huston, Alessandro Nivola, Shea Whigham, Paul Herman

Director: David O. Russell

This movie is about a sting operation master minded by an FBI official (Bradley Cooper) on two con artists (Christian Bale, Amy Adams) who con people of hefty commissions in lieu of fake financial investments. Interestingly, with the aid of these very two con artists, in a matter of time, the operation grows multifold. Each new emerging target turns out to be more powerful than the last one. Resultantly, the operation ends up encompassing mayor, mafia as well as senators in its tentacles! 

The setting is that of 1978 i.e. the late 70’s and therein resides the beauty of treatment of the movie. Revelry of the urban population in the modern high society, the royal manner of listening to a record player, amateurish presentation of food, power dinners amongst business associates and their spouses, trend of maintaining an angel faced but dull wife and tramp looking but smart mistress (both wearing almost equally revealing outfits), you name it and it’s there in the movie. The director has brilliantly woven the entire story amidst the 70’s backdrop. Not for a single moment, you will miss the jingle of the 70’s or the pulse of the movie! The movie is well researched and made to appear funny and not serious.

The three main protagonists have done full justice to their roles. Christian Bale as one of the con artists is so natural that you don’t even realize that he is acting! It is hard to believe that he is ‘the Batman’ of the modern day movies. He has put on considerable weight for this role and guffaws through it pretty efficiently. Amy Adams has given a very liberated performance. She has candidly played the character of a woman, who is kind of, in love with two poles apart men, as well as vengeful towards them both! Bradley Cooper has seamlessly blended from the role of an honest official to that of a ruthlessly ambitious one! Remaining cast has performed good as well. There is guest appearance by Robert De Niro (mafia head) sans any impact.

The Wolf Of Wall Street ( 3 Jan 2014)

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Cristin Milioti, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Jonah Hill, Rob Reiner, Joanna Lumley, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, Kyle Chandler, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi

Director: Martin Scorsese

An economy is supposed to happen when a section of the population indulges in various stages of creation of different products or deliverance of different services to the other section in lieu of a fixed or fluctuating price. In short, when a consumer pays a price, he/she actually gets something in return. Sadly, this is not the case with the modern world economy, wherein mammoth speculations and manipulations in the world of shares and equities, make people part with their money on a day to day basis, on the pretext of a handsome return, which is nothing but a pure myth created by share brokers and share companies to ensure free flow of their brokerage from share transactions and commission from share distribution. So, in the latter case, a consumer pays a price but gets only false hopes in return, or you can say that he/she pays the price for an imposed dream which will never come true!

The movie shows the con facet of the equity industry like never before. Starting from – putting a client portfolio in unnecessary transaction loop, to selling them nondescript company’s shares by fabricating it’s portfolio, to rigging an IPO, to manipulating a script’s price by selling it’s majority shares from various personal holdings, you name it and it’s there!

The movie also beautifully shows the complete journey of a personnel from this industry who is initially guided and who also chooses the path of malpractice to attain unlimited wealth, power and success, and ultimately ends up paying the price for the same. 

Leonardo DiCaprio is simply amazing as the protagonist. His acting is flawless and dialogue delivery is just perfect. Be it his scenes as a wannabe broker, or as an upcoming one who is over zealous while nailing his client (read striking a deal) over the phone, or as a spoilt power figure who unabashedly uses women and narcotics to ease off his day long stress and later his ever present stress, or as the one in huge dilemma, his takes are well planned between funny and brat like. Never once he appears to be vulgar or repulsive! And not crossing this thin line is not easy. He may not be mindful of the country’s economy, but the sole purpose in his life is the growth of his company and it’s people. If he is brat like, then he also ensures that there is enough fun and freedom like environment in his office. Meaning to say, that his character may not appear rightful, but it damn well appears interesting and lovable. All the other actors have done full justice to their characters as well.

Best thing about Martin Scorsese’s direction is the amazing continuity in all the characters. Also, the dialogue delivery is not theatrical, but very natural throughout the film. Martin has managed to direct a huge room full of people, all at once, talking about the same script (share) on different telephones to different people. And it all looks so real! This kind of execution requires mammoth planning and a very keen eye for detail. Hats off to Martin for pulling this off. His different presentation of a narrative like tale gives an altogether different edge to the movie.

Gravity (11 Oct 2013)

Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris

Director: Alfonso Cuaron

This movie is a first of its kind. It gives you the experience of being in space. Not travelling in space in a spaceship or being on an alien planet. But the on-the-face experience of being in space (in close proximity of the earth)! And this experience is beautiful as well as unnerving. It is beautiful to watch different snapshots of earth at different time periods. But it is also very unnerving to realize that you actually don’t ‘belong’ in space! We are so accustomed to the earth’s ‘force of gravity’ that we hardly notice its presence or give it any importance. In fact, we try tooth and nail to overpower it with more efficiency, so as to venture in space with more ease. But this very ‘force’ gives us the sense of ‘belonging’.

The movie ‘Gravity’ gives you the opportunity to experience the following novelties –

-       Picturesque views of earth from space.

-       Exterior repairing of space stations.

-       Interior functioning of different pods.

-       Methodology of stranded astronauts.

-       Method of positioning oneself in a directionless area i.e. space.

-       Mega destruction without an iota of sound because sound cannot travel in vacuum!

The entire movie revolves around Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and in most part of the movie they are clad in hooded spacesuits. Their realistic facial expressions and excellent voice modulations keep you glued to the screen. Not for a single moment, you happen to miss the sheer body language associated with a normal movie. Direction and special effects are awesome as well. It needs great r&d and immense focus to create such a movie. In fact, you can also call it a very interesting and educational documentary. It will not be surprising, if this movie will inspire many of its young viewers to become rocket scientist or astronauts in the future!

This movie is best watched in 3D. Actually these are the movies that live up to the full potential of 3D viewing.

Last but not the least, you need to see it to believe it.

The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

Cast: N!xau, Lena Farugia, Hans Strydom,

Director: Jamie Uys

The movie is a sequel and except for the plot, it’s very much identical to its prequel Gods Must Be Crazy I (1980). However, the prequel is more detailed and justifies the actual movie message i.e. how the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert are eons away from the urban civilization, but still happen to be the masters in their own world, and also how a mundane and daily use (read consumable) object from our life appears totally inexplicable and utterly useless to them and how hard they try to simply get rid of it!

It seems that since this message was well established in the prequel, the sequel simply concentrated on a plot comprising of both the Bushmen and the city dwellers without going deep into the differences of their perception, preferences etc.

In the movie, it is very interesting to observe how Bushmen calculate and understand everything just by reading different footprints on the sand. It seems that the desert talks to them just about everything! Just by looking at footprints, they can derive – who/what has imprinted it and whether it’s wounded, copulation activities of specific animals, tracking of lost children etc. It is important to note that they are the only population in the world who has thrived successfully for so many years without any surface water! They are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters" (from which all known modern humans descended).

The movie actually is a well made documentary showing snippets of Bushmen culture and also the pace is little slow. People who are interested in knowing about different cultures, or say world movies will surely like it.

Hideous Kinky (1998)

Cast: Kate Winslet, Said Taghmaoui, Bella Riza, Carrie Mullan, Sira Stampe, Abigail Cruttenden, Pierre Clementi

Director: Gillies MacKinnon

First and foremost, the movie has nothing to do with its name. It is based on Esther Freud’s novel of the same name. It’s a simple and nice partial journey of a hippie (by heart) English woman along with her two kid daughters. And this journey of hers is solo and not in a group or caravan. She is a gypsy by heart who is absolutely untouched by money and grandeur. What she seeks for her daughters and herself is the true meaning of life and the opportunity to live life as it is intended to be lived i.e. with the soul.

Morocco as the movie background serves as a good setting for such a storyline. Kate with her divine face has acted well. Actually it does not feel that she is acting at all. Maybe somewhere she believes in the character. An interesting study that you find in the movie is the impact of a hippie lifestyle on the children. It is amusing to see the elder daughter argue with her mother (the protagonist) to get her admitted to school in spite of her mother’s nonchalance to do the same! The movie clearly shows the ease with which they adapt to any new environment, get attached to people, provide and seek assistance at the drop of a hat and are at absolute ease without any money!

All in all, it is an interesting movie to watch if you wish to understand the actions and reactions of a gypsy soul.

How Do You Know (2010)

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson

Director: James L. Brooks

Till now we have seen stories on true love, shifting from false love to true love, sudden realization of an association as true love, but this love story defies all the aforesaid settings! This one is about being in a casual but genuine relationship, keeping in hand an upcoming friendship and ultimately putting the ‘true love’ label on the budding friendship and leaving the casual but on the verge of turning steady relationship midway for no particular reason!

The only plausible reason for the aforesaid choice seems to be the fact that the protagonist i.e. the heroine happens to be in the same mental state or life phase as the chosen hero during the decision making period. This made them totally understand the respective needs of each other to - stay quiet or constantly blabber or be indecisive or make a total mess of themselves.

There is no bad guy in the movie. Neither any of the characters are looking for love or happen to believe in only serious relationships. Everyone here is well mannered and good at heart. They may be childish and/or eccentric at times, but they are genuine at heart. So, there is no moral as such in the story. It perhaps just depicts the ultra urban scenario where relationships don’t commence with the hindsight of longevity, forget the sentiment of commitment! Partners are chosen at whim and left at whim without intending any actual harm and perhaps no major offence is taken since things start on a very casual note!

Acting wise, Reese is very natural. This lady can put sense into all kinds of characters. This trait of hers remind very strongly of Kajol. Owen has great screen presence. Others are also up to the mark.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Josh Hutcherson, Michael Caine, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman, Kristin Davis

Director: Brad Peyton

It is a sequel to ‘Journey To The Center Of The Earth’. But like most sequels, is unable to repeat the magic of the prequel. Or you can say that now we are so used to CGI wonders on the big screen that the idea as well as its implementation needs to be really out of the world to make us feel out of the world. Otherwise the movie is nice and entertaining. It has its own new ideas like – riding on a honeybee, vulture sized butterflies, dog sized elephants, enormous rock sized lizard eggs, electrified water dragon etc.

Like its prequel, this movie is also based on a novel (The Mysterious Island) by Jules Verne. Mostly the children will like it.