Tokyo!

A trifecta of directors, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Joon-ho Bong set their lens on Tokyo in this omnibus. Gondry shows us a couple moving to Tokyo, that starts off by showing them staying at a friend's cramped apartment. He slowly drifts in to a realm of magic realism. Carax begins in the realm of quasi realism and stays there with his tale of "the creature of the sewers". The two pieces could have been set in any city and it would have made sense. But it is Joon-ho Bong who captures an essence of being Japanese as he reveals a hikikomoriin who falls in love. A film that excels in bursts but is placid as a whole.

Rating: * *

Brothers

Had high hopes for this one - considering it was Jim Sheridan and from what I understood, a fairly dark plot of 2 brothers coming face to face with new realities. Tobey Maguire, the elder brother, returns from Afghanistan with a secret that he can't possibly live with. Brothers had none of the intensity of Daniel Day Lewis (in this brilliant film) or the brilliance of Paddy Considine (in In America) on show. The story was inspired by the original and highly rated Danish movie. But Brothers came across horrendously flat and lacking soul. The trio of Tobey Maguire (desperately trying to shake his Peter Parker image), Natalie Portman (who is no Hilary Swank; more like Anna Kournikova of Hollywood) and Jake Gyllenhaal (who plays the usual goofy character that he specialises in) were poor. Immensely forgettable.

Rating: * +

Beauty in Trouble

Marcela (Anna Geislerová) is at the nexus of a crossroads leading to two men who are polar opposites. One man offering stability sans passion. The other an asshole, no end loser offering lots of thrills but no future. That is the crux of this multi layered family drama from Jan Hrebejk, the director of the brilliant film, Up and Down. The acting cake goes to Jirí Schmitzer who plays Marcela's sleazy and selfish step dad. The only jarring bit in the film was the soundtrack by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, which seem out of place from Once.

Rating: * * *

Medicine for Melancholy

The post coital angst after a one night stand between a man and a women. There are better medicines for melancholy out there...

Rating: +

Sleep Dealer

A not too distant future is shown in the movie, with a solid wall being thrown up between Mexico and the USA. Now the way for migrant workers to cross the border is through cyberspace. In an almost Matrix like setup, worker bees plug themselves in to the network and move robots across the border performing all kinds of labor from construction to baby sitting. It is in this world that three disparate individuals meet by chance. One of the better sci-fi films in recent times.

Rating: * * +

Fear(s) of the Dark

Short greyscale animation vignettes that try to bring your fears of the darkness to a bone chilling pinnacle. Except for a couple that are creepy in a Roald Dhal kind of way, they all fail miserably to put the viewer in any sort of discomfort.

Rating: * +

Thalappavu

Constable Ravindran Pillai's (Lal) idyllic life hits a rocky crossroad when he is forced to shoot naxal Joseph (Prithviraj) in cold blood. Memories rush in of his encounters with the naxalite as he starts to slide down a self destructive slope.  Based on the killing of Naxal Verghese who was killed by the Kerala police in the 70s, the film is shot in non linear fashions with vestiges of past and present overlapping each other. An excellent directorial venture by actor, Madhupal, giving a ray of hope for the Malayalam film industry.

Rating: * * *

Kabei: Our Mother

It is the 1940s and nationalistic fervor is raging across Japan. The Nagomi family's foundation is brutally shaken when the father, Professor Shigeru, is carted off as a thought criminal. The burden of supporting the family falls on his frail wife, Kayo (Sayuri Yoshinaga). She finds buttress from an old student of her husband, Yamazaki played brilliantly by Tadanobu Asano. But the focus of the film is the relationship between the mother and her two young daughters.

I was unsure as to what to expect from Yôji Yamada in his first film after the Samurai trilogy. To make things worse, the film eerily reminded me of Akashadoothu. But difference here was that the sadness was not forced nor did it seem like it was Yamada-san's plan to shove melancholy down our throats. The end result was a natural progression of events that gave us yet another window in to the Japanese psyche.

Rating: * * *

Aamir

Aamir, a doctor, returns to India from London expecting to find his family awaiting him with open arms. Instead a cell phone is thrust in to his arms at the airport and is taken on a wild goose chase. A thriller that starts off with good intentions but the poor script and predictable storyline deflates all the thrills and sends it to the dung heap.

Rating: * +

Tulpan

Asa returns to his home yurt in the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan after a stint in the Russian navy. He hopes to marry Tulpan, the sole maiden in the district, but she rejects him on account of his wide ears. One would then think the film would proceed down the well trodden path of unrequited love. But strangely the focus shifts to the life of shepherds on the steppes and thereby doing scant justice to either themes.

Rating: * +

Righteous Kill

I remember the time when one, finally, got to watch the much awaited De Niro vs Al Pacino on screen face off - brilliantly captured by Michael Mann in the Heat. There was much brouhaha around it then and rightly so. So when there arises another such opportunity, one would have expected similar hype - but there wasn't. Did you notice? No? And rightly so. The 2 heroes play police officers attempting to unlock some major crime syndicate - at least that's what I think it was about. I don't quite remember. And rightly so. 

Incidentally, made by the same fellow who made this disaster as well. 

Rating: *

Lymelife

It is the 70's and Lyme disease has started to rear its ugly head. Even though only one of the characters is afflicted with the disease, the cast seem to be affected by it. Their inter personal bonds are all in pain just like the joints of the suffering patient. Hopefully some of them will get to the antibiotics in time.

Rating: * * +

Treeless Mountain

Two sisters are abandoned to whims of relatives as their mother floats away. Quite desperation is mingled with hope for the sisters as they pray for their mother's return. A film that is dominated by women but it is the men who decided path of the story. The film is intense but less penetrating when compared to Nobody Knows, which deals with a similar situation. Maybe it is because of the latter that the film had less of an effect on me.

Rating: * +

Love Aaj Kal

Two love stories spread across eras that try to show that the essence of love hasn't changed over time. Ideal for a long flight but otherwise is just masochistic torture for the viewer.

Rating: *

Sherlock Holmes

Had a bad feeling about this one at the outset, but decided to give it a shot since its Sherlock Holmes. We've recently seen many directors attempting a "new age" take on popular fictional characters of the past - while some have indeed given the characters a second life, a good lot of them have disappointed. Guy Ritchie's Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes belongs firmly to the latter. Big muscles, exaggerated action sequences and the usual GR humour dot the plot, but there is no intrigue as one would expect from with Arthur Conan Doyle's hero - whats the point then? 

Rating: * +

Anjathe

Satya is the colony rowdy while his neighbor and friend, Kiruba is the studious one sure to crack the IPS exam. But the Indian bribery service finds Satya donning the police uniform and Kiruba wandering the streets of crime. As the friends find themselves on either side of the law. As they careen towards a confrontation, a very run of the mill and predictable story unfolds...

Rating: * +