Analysing films

I am coming back after a very long time and this is more out an exasperation of not being able to write home anything good about cinema in general. There have been a series of trash that seems to be singularly being belted out from Hindi Film Industry and Hollywood does not seem to be giving any much hopes either. 2015 can be a watershed year to that extent where there is nothing much in there to be written about. Deep diving into Bombay and the industry, I saw only a few clear winners. Masaan, Dum Laga Ke Haissha, Talvar, NH10 (in a limited way) and Badlaapur. There were some that seemed over hyped, over discussed and most of all over the top. Baby, Piku, Byomkesh, Tanu Weds Manu 2, Dil Dhadkne Do and Drishyam fell in this category. And there were many other whom I would safely like to forget. Though I missed, Titli and Kajariya and it would be wrong to write them off, since I have heard good things about them. A quick word on Masaan. It works for its simplicity and under rated p

     God, it has been more than three and half months since I have been here and written about movies. Well for one, I was stuck into the quagmire of life with too many things happening simultaneously and also the fact that I did not see any cinema, or perhaps any cinema worth reviewing. I did see Byomkesh Bakshi, but could not come upto review it. Anyways, a movie which you really like, also calls for a review, and to me, Byomkesh was not. As a bengali, who has read the originals and who has lived through far better bengali versions (see Chiriyaghar by Satyajit Ray) that I have devoured upon there seemed too much focus on th peripherals and euphemsims, leaving the audience with the vacuum of plot and direction, the movie takes. Another gaffe, the director has taken two Byomkesh Bakshi stories and created a punch out of it. As an afficiando, one will reason that one Byomkesh storyline is enough to have you engrossed, handling two is suicide.                                    

Dum Laga ke Haisha is a little and a surprise gem from the YRF banner. The movie has everything right going from the start. Spot on casting, superb acting, great locales and the backdrop, and of course a first time director in the form of Sharat Katariya. Special words for the supremely talented Ayushmann Khurana, Manoj Mishra, Alka Amin, Sheeba Chadha, Seema Pahwa, Shrikant Verma and other motley group of actors, who contributed immensely to the success of the movie. From the word go, the pace of the film is easy and languid and it built itself up. The two cities, Haridwar and Rishikesh plays the perfect foil to the two leads. It is a movie about two odds and how they eventually even it out. The two mismatches and their own demons, perhaps the male protagonist in this case with the larger set of problems. The female lead Bhumi Pednekar a more sorted version and seems to have come to terms with the weight(y) issues. Bhumi has a stellar role to play and creates a niche for herself

Badlapur 's claim is don't miss the beginning. And actually true. I missed the first 15 minutes and through the film I was clueless, however, could join the dots, once I requested the cinema hall incharge to stand back for 10 minutes (in the next show) and watch those lost 10 minutes. And boy those first 10 minutes really really lays the foundation for the film. The typical revenge noire and the clichés attached therefore can be safely assumed to be missing from this Shriram Raghavan film. Infact he seems to have got his mojo back since the Johnny Gaddar days. In between was the forgettable Agent Vinod. The first 20 minutes of the film lays the foundation for the next 2 1/2 hours of the story. Nawaz, Varun, Huma, Radhika Apte, Vinay Pathak, Ashwini Kalsekar, Yami, Divya Dutta to name a few. Each one pitched in perfectly. However, Badlapur owes it to the director and his vision. Shriram has always focused on the script and that remains the king, Johnny Gaddar or Ek Haseena Th

Over the extended weekend I had the opportunity to see all these classics some of which are nominated to the Oscars and are agog on the festival circuit. Each one of them have been heavily talked and discussed. I will therefore restrict my comments more to the sub textual part of it. Each one of them are different genre and each one treats the subject differently. Gone Girl is a classic David Fincher film. It sets the tone from the onset and you are left to wonder till the very end as to how the film builds up. Rosamund Pike is classic and so are Ben Stiller and others in the film. But why the film is must see, Fincher's classic adaptation into a film format from the book with the same name. Scene after scene builds up as like showcasing an unhappy marriage being illustrated to viewers along with a scheming husband and  a very preposterous relationship that meets it's true fate and then suddenly the whole thing takes a U turn, where the scene after scene builds up an a

This seems to be a visible trend with most first time directors. Their first film has the energy, freshness and all the years and desperations of waiting to reflect in their film, being captured so well. But, moment they start to dwell in their second film onwards, there are the gaffes and the visible compromises that shows. Neeraj Pandey is one among them. His A Wednesday was taut and classic to watch, but with Special 26 and now Baby he is gradually making way for the abyss and that is sad. Farah Khan, John Mathew Mathan, Dibakar Banerji (he somehow could manage for surviving a longer period of time).. are some of the examples who have fallen in this trap. Why is that the first film they make, is right at the top and then they start floundering? Anyway, coming back to Baby. The film's first half drags and there are many a moments that dilute the sequence. Especially, the Akshay-and his wife angle, which is stretched and drab, Danny's workplace does not seem a a typi

2014 clearly belonged to the women in the hindi film industry. There was Queen, Highway, Dedh Ishqia, Mary Kom, Sonali Cable and Bobby Jasoos. All women centric films and this in addition to Sunny Leone being the most searched "object/piece/news/person" on the internet. The men still seemed to be trapped in their image of being the overgrown kid. Kick, Happy New Year, Bang Bang being evidences of the same. It is in movies where they decided to support the lead (often the women) did they stand out. Randeep Hooda (Highway) Rajkamal Yadav along with Ali Zafar, Nasseruddin and Arshad Warsi (why do we see so little of him) are case in point. 2014 otherwise was bad for Indian cinema as compared to the cinema of the world (noticeably Hollywood for me) which had far better products to showcase (Boyhood, Gone Girl, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Lucy, Interstellar to name a few). Interestingly, if you see the top 10 Hollywood grosser like Hindi Film industry were mindless sci-fi or

Ugly will be a great way to sign off 2014 and a great start for Anurag Kashyap's 2015. After his series of mis-timers like Gangs of Wasseypur etc. Ugly has to be his best bet after Black Friday. Nuanced, balanced and some excellent casting, makes Ugly one of the darkest movies in a long long time. The film and I will possibly give it to Anurag; he takes viewers to new highs and lows and each time you think there is a banality in the moment, the film circumvents into a new zone and unravelling a new facet of the "UGLY" human side. What is so classic of the plot, script and the screenplay, Ugly peels through each character in the movie so well. From the leads to the support every single frame is a fortitude in it's essence and perseverance. What works best; Anurag builds it up gradually and provides viewers ample moment to experience it; something not witnessed in hindi cinema for a long time. Take for instance the moment when Rahul Kapoor (Rahul Bhat) and Chaitany