A Serious Man

A snowy night in a European town and an introduction to a dybbuk is how the movie begins.  You are then plunged into the sorry life of Larry Gopnik, who is a physicist struggling for tenure while in the middle of  divorce proceedings. There are quirky scenarios typical of a Coen brothers film like that of Larry dealing with a Chinese student who could be bribing him. Throw in a few more interesting fringe characters like Larry's brother who is writing a "probability map of the universe" and you have a regular Coen brother offering. And there in lies the problem; it is just regular!

Rating: * *

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The Informant

Mark Whitacre was a high flying executive at Archer Daniels Midland, when he decides to blow the whistle on the company's nefarious price fixing of lysine, an additive used in the livestock industry. He teams up with the FBI and walks around wearing a wire and surreptitiously filming secret meetings. But the pressure of leading a double life starts to show as his character starts to fray at the edges resulting in tragicomic situations. Matt Damon shines in this role and you are left in an enjoyable muddle of trying to figure out reality from Whitacre's imagination.

Rating: * * *
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OMG - Oh My God!

Kanji Lalji Mehta is an atheist who owns an antique store in Mumbai. When an earthquake hits the city, it leaves his store in shambles and.the "Act of God" clauses leaves his insurance claim in the dust. Mr. Mehta then decides to file a law suite against God which causes an uproar in the city and drags a few prominent God men and woman in to the court. A satirical comedy that makes fun of the state of religion in India and one that could touched the genius scale if it had been given the 90s Srinivasan treatment 

Rating: * +

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Silver Linings Playbook

Bit too much of the silver linings stuff. Though David O. Russell puts together a compelling cute comedy, it falls way short of other films that he has done. Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence for this? Talent certainly, but give her time man.  Bradley Cooper shrugs off his good lucks to strike it out and which he carries through in the American Hustle. I was kind of glad when it ended - but dont get me wrong, it was cute.  

Rating: * *

The Midnight After

The Chinese title's literal translation is "That midnight, I got on a red public light bus that headed from Mong Kok to Tai Po" and is based on a web novel called "Lost on a Red Mini Bus to Taipo". Given the titles one should expect to be in for a bizarre journey and you will not be disappointed. Seventeen passengers clamber on a bus which delivers them in to a post apocalyptic Hong Kong. Unsure as to what the hell is going on, you quickly get involved with characters as they try to unravel the situation they are in. You are treated to some over the top horror laced comedy that leaves you cringing and laughing. But as the final destination comes closer you realize that the plot is quite empty and disappointing. Or it is going to take some doing to get on the same wavelength as Fruit Chan.

Rating: * *

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The Angel's Share

The film opens with a drunk man talking to a loudspeaker on a train platform. One after the other you are introduced to the main players of the film including the lead, Robbie, who are all charged with petty crimes of some sort. Community service introduces the lot to the vast world single malt scotches. Robbie in particular takes a liking in a connoisseur fashion. In the foreground to this is Robbie's issues with his girlfriend's overbearing family who think he is a piece of shit. Throw in a heist to this mix and you are left with a comedy that does not leave you in splits, but is definitely good for a chuckle or two.

Rating: * *

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Neram

Mathew is a young man in love facing bad times. In spite of being an enterprising young computer engineer he has no job. The debt he owes the vicious gangster Vatti Raja for his sister's wedding is due. To make things worse his would be father-in-law is on his heels. Throw in his girlfriend running away from home into the mix and you have a spicy plot with lots of laughs. Given that there is an inspector named Ukkan Tinto (mallus will get the joke) shows that the humor is subtle and there is none of the over the top noisy raillery that is the wont these days. The director has taken many pages out of the Tarantino handbook and it is refreshing to see new film techniques showing up in Malayalam cinema. Let this be a warm welcome to Mr. Alphonse Putharen whom I hope has some good times ahead of him.

Rating: * * +

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Big Fan

Paul Aufeiro is a full time parking garage attendant, but his real job is that of a hardcore New York Giants fan.  He goes the full distance for the team, tailgating at the stadium during games and calling into talkshows to defend his team. He does all this while living with his mother and jerking off in silence giving you the sense he is a loser with a misplaced unrequited love. This is brought to the forefront when he is assaulted in a club by his favorite player. It throws his life into a loop as he finds himself struggling to deal with his team's downturn thanks to the incident. A tragic comedy that makes you question and wonder about the mental health of rabid sport fans all around the world.

Rating: * * +

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson is back with the symmetry of his frames, still camera and arrestingly strange characters. In his latest masterpiece, the story is centered around an old hotel that lingers on in the cloud of its prestigious past or I should say around that of its concierge. The movie starts off as a simple retelling of the legendary concierge's past that soon becomes part murder mystery, part prison break, part thriller and full on fun ride. Manifested with big name actors and actresses playing their bit and lead roles that they only would for Mr. Anderson, you are left marveling at this genius who makes complexity so simple. Or is it the other way around... 

Rating: * * *

Pee Mak

Set in the mid 19th century when Thailand was constantly in conflict with its neighbors, Pee Mak is based on a popular Thai folk tale that some claim is based on true events. Mak is a soldier who is gravely wounded in a battle. Miraculously escaping with the help of his four close friends, the group takes him back to his village and reunites him with his wife and child. His wife, Nak (Davika Hoorne), is an uncommon beauty that has him under her spell. The friends soon start to notice that something is not quite right with her but are terrified to do anything about it. Director Banjong Pisanthanakun could have taken the route of making this a regular horror thriller. Instead, he updates the version of the legend and peppers it with slapstick humor to turn it in to Thailand's highest grossing film ever. It is worth a look just for the reason but cinematically it is only gets high marks for its production quality.

Rating: * * 

Blue Jasmine

Woody Allen has been a bunch of hits and misses for me. More of the latter. This one, however, surges to the top of the list because of The Spectacular Cate Blanchett - who plays a neurotic ex-socialite struggling with the turn of events in her life. Heads to her sister's place in San Francisco, who is everything what big sister Jasmine isn't, to seek refuge. Things just get worse as she slowly and comically struggles to stay in the race with the Joneses. Louis C K makes a cameo as a cheating sound engineer and is perfect for a Woody Allen film - straight faced, dark, and makes more out of nothing. 'Blue Jasmine' does have a social angle to it - should be the campaign video for the President's latest brainwave on inequality.

Rating: * * * +

American Hustle

Having watched David O. Russell, Christian Bale and Amy Adams combine with aplomb in The Fighter, there was much anticipation. But didn't bargain for the brilliant performances from all the rest - Amy Adams (firmly entrenched in the top spot in Hollywood), Jennifer Lawrence (supreme talent) and Bradley Cooper (solid as the funny guy). And Bale, of course, was perfectly measured.

American Hustle was like watching a novel - space for characters to develop sub-plots to gradually unravel, but at the risk of losing the fluidity that makes a film great. The approach to story telling reminded me of Donnie Brasco, but in the latter case I did watch a fantastic film. Here it was about great performances (count in Louis C.K and Jeremy Renner) and therefore stops at 3 stars.

Rating: * * *

Tampopo

A rough and tumble truck driver decides to give a failing ramen restaurant owner, Tampopo, a helping hand. An ode to the joys of food and cooking, the film gives the spaghetti "western" genre a new meaning literally, except that there are no ranches and gun fighters. Instead, we have noodle soup and an insane obsession to get it right. Throw in some kinky sex and hilarious random bit pieces, and we have a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Just remember to eat during or before the film as it bound to get you hungry.

Rating: * * +

Ted

A falling star brings a teddy bear to life and young John (Mark Wahlberg) has a friend for life. Now as a young annoying adult, John continues to live with Ted much to the annoyance of his hot partner, Lori (Mila Kunis). Now most young men when presented a choice between a teddy bear and Ms. Kunis would not hesitate in shredding the toy to smithereens. But for the sake of comedy John secretly chooses Ted and we spend the rest of the movie trying to laugh in vain.

Rating: *

Going by the Book

Sampo, a small South Korean town is assaulted by a spate of robberies. The new police chief decides to shake things up by performing a realistic drill of a bank robbery that will help train the police force in catching the real suspects. But he makes the mistake of picking Do-man, a straight laced cop, to play the role of the robber and hilarity ensues. Another classic comedy from the South Korean film industry.

Rating: * * *

Vicky Donor

 

Made the exit at half time, after a long time. Surprised that they still have intermissions. 

Rating: *

Meesa Madhavan

In the spirit of Kayamkulam Kochunni comes a comedy starring Dilip about a benevolent small town thief. Well loved by the town folk and only viewed as a minor irritant, his only enemy is the stingy moneylender Bhageerathan Pillai (Jagathi). The film basically follows the hilarious cat and mouse game between the two as they try to one up each other. Weak on the story line but the comedy is stellar. However it is not a throw back to the classic Malayalam comedies from the 80s and 90s but it at least attempts to go back to that era.

Rating: * * + 

Four lions

 

Prompted by a colleague, I invited a few others to check out this film I knew very little about. An hour and a half later I walked out having watched a bloody funny film, a bloody good film. Cutting edge in its focus on staying away from the well trodden narrative (when it comes to suicide bombers and terrorists) and some excellent performances. Predictably, the others with me were not amused. Four lions is a dark look at a bunch of idiots in bumblefuck UK who happen to be aspiring suicide bombers. Initially I thought it was a spoof, like the Hotshots series or something. But instead it gradually develops and takes things to its logical, politically incorrect end. With some fantastic urdu swearing thrown in, this is one of the better films of 2011. 

Rating: * * *

Airbag

The Spanish claimed that Delhi Belly had vestiges from an old 90’s flick from Spain. So the plan was made for the movie, chicken wings and other things.

Dumbo Konradin is engaged to a rich countess’s daughter and wears a multi-million dollar wedding ring. Weddings also mean bachelor parties with much debauchery. Konradin is dragged to a brothel by his friends who actually have more fun than him. Unfortunately for him, he ends up losing the ring up a prostitute’s ass. So like in Delhi Belly jewels are involved here too followed by insane number of underworld dons and their underlings. But like how a lot was lost in translation from Hindi much Spanish humor was missed. However thanks to this film many things in life will be “mui profesional” and sub-machine gun will always be somachigún.

Rating: * *

Let the bullets fly

Talking of highest grossing films, I finally watched China's all time box office hit. Highly recommended by Nek, it took bit of an effort to get hold of a copy with English subtitles. After all that, I was left disappointed as the action was limited & with Bollywood style editing. Couldnt see what the deal was. But there was a whole load of crisp, bullet sharp conversation which seemed rather tame as I read the subtitles - I suspect all the wit was lost in translaton. 

Rating: * *