Analysing films

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