Interstellar Review

“With great power comes great responsibility” – this Uncle Ben quote can’t be more true for anyone other than Christopher Nolan. With the talent that he possesses in terms of narrative, direction and screenplay, it is very difficult to expect something that is not mind boggling.

Interstellar is incredible, spectacular and thought-provoking. It is one of those rare genre which deals with science and space without sounding like a documentary and manages to keep us on the edge of our seat.

Story of Mankind, Space, Science, Love and Mankind

The story begins in the futuristic America, at a time when there is dust storm everywhere and Corns are the only farm that could sustain this environment. Earth is facing certain extinction, and Indian Drones are flying over America. So it comes down to Cooper, a failed space-pilot, to steer the spaceship Endurance, leaving behind his notorious son and lovely daughter to save the world by searching for new planets in other galaxies to inhabit. Sounds American yet? Well that’s the only ‘True American Hero’ moment of the movie. As the five of them- Cooper, Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway), two other scientists (the ones who usually die in these sort of adventures) and a highly intelligent box-like humanized robot TARS leave the earth for a Wormhole situated near Saturn, they have 2 plans.

Plan A is to find an inhabitable planet amongst the three they have identified and with the help of Professor Brand’s (Michael Cain) unsolved and highly complex equation they could bring all the world’s population to that planet. Sounds too ambitious for even a movie like this (And guess what?).

Plan B is to use fertilized embryo to start new human species on the other world if everything else fails.

After reaching the wormhole, the visual spectacle of this movie starts and with that our highly engaging class of physics. Nolan takes us through the Theory of Relativity, the ultimate singularity in Black Hole and the fourth and fifth dimensions. It might become too heavy for a casual viewer but the cinematography and the screenplay never lets you down. Another character who keeps you on the edge of the seat is the Music. Hans Zimmer has created some beautiful soundtrack and this one’s no less.

In terms of Acting, Matthew McConaughey is having a time of his life this year. He played a brilliant Cooper. Emotional, yet assertive. Rash, but wise. He manages to showcase his love for his daughter with genuine touch. And also managed to remain calm in tense situation without looking too heroic.

"What?? My daughter played Bella and Edward's daughter?
I need to get off this planet." 

Jessica Chastain as Cooper’s daughter Murphy is also a strong character but it’s nothing new for her to play a strong smart woman. It’s the 10 year old version of her played by Mackenzie Foy, who catches our attention with a beautifully put performance. It is very astounding to think that Mackenzie Foy played the role of Bella and Edward’s daughter in Twilight series and it has not yet diminished her brain, let alone her acting skills!!

Anne Hathaway as Amelia Brand was a sole letdown in this amazing cast. It’s nothing to do with acting skills of Anne but more to do with characterization of Amelia Brand. She starts out as no non-sense biologist and then it is revealed that she has come to this voyage for the hope of finding her lost love. That’s a real bummer.

Dr. Brand played by Michael Caine is, as in most Christopher Nolan Movies, the voice of reason and intelligence. He is the father of Amelia Brand and also the head of the operations. He has his own secrets and reasons for this mission to take place. He also has some of the best dialogues in the movie.

*Spoiler Alert*

There’s a guest appearance by Matt Damon playing Dr. Mann. And just like his surname he plays a character that is fallible and betrays the team. But 30 years of cryogenic sleep could do that to anyone! But Damon manages to play a coward so well even though being fearless in movies is his forte.

*Spoiler Alert Finished*

The most interesting thing about the movie was that the cinematography and music complemented each other very well. There’s a sequence in the middle of movie where Captain Cooper had to dock his shuttle at very high speed and rotation which was categorized as Impossible by their robot CASE. But still Cooper tries to dock it. The sequence starts with very miniscule music but by the end it will have reached its crescendo and your heart will have reached yours. Even though we know that Cooper won’t fail but still the music does its job and have us in sweat.

Also, the movie requires a pretty higher than average intelligence to follow it. Having read ‘Brief History of Time’ and ‘Theory of Relativity’ by Einstein, I could say that movie makes more sense the more you understand other dimensions, black holes, gravity and relativity. And it’s not that the casual viewers have been totally isolated, as some good examples in the movie are created to make us understand the science of it all. Even with all this going around, it manages to keep a good humor level, a trait of Christopher Nolan movies, through the two robots CASE and TARS.

In terms of story there are many flaws, not expected from Nolan. Editing could have been done better. It will definitely be compared to likes of Inception and Prestige. And it lacks the moments of genuine awe of those two. There are some exhilarating moments but the pace was slow in the starting. We need to be patient to let Christopher Nolan weave his magic on screen.

But, as with all his movies, Nolan showcases his flair in the final act. The ending was remarkable and disappointing at the same time. Don’t blink and don’t whisper as you might miss one of the most charming end.

*Spoiler Alert*

Remarkable because even though I had a pretty good guess that Cooper was the ghost in Murphy’s room, I could never have imagined it being shown in other dimensions. Or why Cooper was chosen for this inter-dimensional voyage.

Disappointing because, Cooper was meeting his daughter after so long time and so many things that he went through. And his daughter who missed him so much was meeting him after literally 120 years and there was no love to be found as she shoved him away to go and find Amelie! Maybe Nolan is not that good at showing relationships.

*Spoiler Alert Finished*

Any one of these movies in one's CV could make a director great.
He has all four of them.

In the end, watch the movie not for the science behind it, or the great space backdrops, or the incredible talent of Hans Zimmer, but for the genius of Christopher Nolan. In the years to come he will have joined likes of Scorsese, Spielberg and Kubrick, if he already hasn’t.

And yes I am a Christopher Nolan fan and this might be a pretty biased review.

9/10 – Minus 1 for not being as awesome as Inception or Prestige, as we expect him to be.

Bang Bang Review

An interesting idea for Bollywood would be to make a movie, once in a while, as good as its trailer. As much apprehension we have with these movies, we go with high hopes. And frame by frame, scene by scene, it gets dusted. While the original was mildly interesting, the remake is more or less a bland, twisted version of it. Calling it a remake is an injustice to the original, calling it fake would suffice.

One is a huge waste of talent and other is
a huge waste of money & talent.

At the very onset, the film shows us the glimpse of all the clichéd dialogs that are to follow. It’s sad to see Danny Denzongpa (Omar Zafar) in so few films and depressing to see him in one like this one. For God’s sake, he was Katya in Ghaatak! There’s also a cameo by Jimmy Shergill, who as an Army Officer visits one of the prisons created by Nick Fury for Loki in London. And then there’s Javed Jaffery as Hamid Gul, who also has a limited appearance with very limited intelligence being given to his role by writers. Then there’s Pawan Malhotra (Zorawar) as 'ISS' (Some made up intelligence agency) inspector. One trait of Pawan Malhotra is that no matter how ineffective his role is and how slim the plot is, he tries to give in his best. So when he tries to do that in a movie like Bang Bang, it ends up being laughable instead of laudable.

She had just one job - to look horrified and not laugh;
obviously its too big a task for her

Now let’s come to the Main Cast. Katrina Kaif is really in her elements. Playing a dumb damsel in distress with very limited acting to do and that too being clueless most of the times, that’s the role Katrina Kaifs are made for. I don’t remember a single dialog of hers. In fact, her Dadiji had more memorable role in the movie! And her chemistry with Hrithik is totally out of order. You just wish their conversation were lesser and lesser still. They were just making some sounds, calling it conversation is bit overselling it.

Only saving grace in the movie is Hrithik (and his 88 pack abs for girls). The talent that he possesses is immense and that he wastes it away in movies like Krissh 3 and Bang Bang is criminal. You want him to be present in every scene. He has an enigmatic presence and would have done justice to himself had this movie been a fast paced suspense thriller and not just an insipid revenge story, if you dare to call it a ‘story’.

It’s not just a wafer thin plot; it’s a paper thin plot. In terms of sizes, it’s a size zero in storyline. The protagonist steals a diamond to get to the man who killed his brother and in between all this falls out of nowhere and no apparent reason the most beautiful and annoying bank receptionist.

The ‘Knight & Day’ never touched the highs we hope from a Tom Cruise movie, but Bang Bang definitely touches the lows never expected from a Hrithik starrer and Fox Studios produced movie.

 The movie is cuisine of exotic locations, unnecessary chase scenes, non-sense dialogs (literally no sense) and action sequences which would make Salman proud. Nowadays, there seems to be a competition on who gets to break more laws of physics and levels of sound barriers. The only thing movie is faithful to is, its name ‘Bang Bang’ with the number of bullets flying around.

In the end you would hope,
that one of those bullets hit you and end your misery.

The more I think of it, it seems just another version of Dhoom 3 with less number of irritating characters.

A word on product placement: If you make the hero of the film forcibly drink Dew and say ‘Darr ke aage jeet hai”, I’ll make sure to drink Sprite and won’t ‘do the Dew’.

Ofcourse this movie fails to deliver on its promises and therefore is surely directed by Siddharth Anand (Ta Ra Rum Pum, Anjaana Anjaani), but it never looked like the one written by Sujoy Ghosh (Jhankaar Beats, Kahaani).

One could only wonder, with the acting prowess of Danny Denzongpa, Pawan Malhotra, Kawaljit Singh, Hrithik Roshan, and money prowess of Fox Studios, how good it could have been.

2/10 – 1 for Hrithik and 1 for his 88 pack abs.

The Salman Khan Phenomena: Trying to make sense of this senselessness

Understanding the phenomenon of Salman Khan is not as simple as it looks. With each of his movie, he gets bigger and better at making stupidity sell. Recently a single screen theatre had to pre-pone its 11:40am show to 10am as the crowd gathered outside the theatre and created ruckus!

Get Set to get your Brains Kicked...Again

So what is it about Dabangg star that he has become an unstoppable force with no immovable object ahead of him for now?

This phenomenon can be explained by addressing two characteristics of a Salman Khan Movie, so here we go:

     1.      An Event

The movie that revolutionized all the movies

It’s the year 1975; the year of Amitabh Bachchan in India. But in Hollywood things are going little sci-fi. Directors have been able to adopt technology to make their movies look wonderful. Enters a young 28 year old director Steven Spielberg, an acclaimed TV movie director with just one movie in CV. He made a film on Shark attacks called Jaws and released it on June 20, 1975 America-wide. It would change the cinematic space forever in terms of technology, action and business model, especially business model. It was, as some call it, watershed moment in history of motion pictures. It was simultaneously released in four hundred screens (a first for Hollywood; so that negative reviews may not impact it’s gross in any way). The trailers were shown extensively on television for first time and there were merchandise of everything related to sharks. The movie was so terrifying that attendance in beaches of USA fell several folds and attendance in the theatres increased during summer. And thus began the term ‘Summer Blockbuster’. Every film since then vies for being the Summer Blockbuster of the year. Because it’s not just a season anymore, summer was transformed into An Event where several wealthy production houses try to release the number one movie. And citizens of America, who prior to 1970s spent their summer on beaches, now try to catch up with the latest that Hollywood has to offer.

But what has that got to do anything with a Salman Khan movie? The answer is simple: A Salman Khan movie is An Event for citizens of India. Irrespective of negative reviews and rants on print and television by self-acclaimed movie geniuses, he has been able to notch a 100 Crore movie one after another.

The business model is simple: Make Salman invincible. Make a few catchy item songs. A comic but terrifying villain. An actress with lesser acting abilities than Salman so that he may not be overshadowed. One-two catchy dialogues that true Salman fans can post as their status. And make the movie release as widely as humanely possible on Eid/Diwali/Relevant festival.

The movie that started it all

The key ingredient is marketing because Salman has been there for several years and has done much better roles before, but it is after Wanted(2009) that Salman has really took off. The man himself is a marketing genius. He behaves in real life like the role he plays on screen. That’s some dedication to the movie. We will never know how this man really is until someone comes up with a genuine biography on him.

So whenever a Salman Khan movie releases the marketing had already turned it into an unmissable event. Intellectuals can cry all they want, but common people will throng the theatres in hope of entertainment, although senseless entertainment. Because movies don’t need to make sense, they just need to entertain.

Movie	Year	Box Office Collection(in Rs Cr)
Dabangg	2010	141.24
Ready	2011	121.26
Bodyguard	2011	143.06
Ek Tha Tiger	2012	186.25
Dabangg 2	2012	150
Jai Ho	2014	107.71
Kick	2014	173.58 and counting

                      The Salman Khan Filmography since 2010

     2.    Super Common Man

In recent years, the biggest movies in Hollywood have been the ones featuring Super Heroes because that’s how they wanna see themselves. But in India, we have different aspirations. And that makes us fall in love with people with no apparent super power but enough firepower to make villains cry, or so to say that our heroes are more grounded in reality. Salman Khan Movies are one such example. He can be a poor peon in a sarkari daftar, but would still be able to kill thousand corrupt men without losing a sweat.

The biggest selling point is that it can be watched with any member of your family! Not many films nowadays are able to do so as they try to concentrate on one part of the population.

The catchphrases are really catchy and easily make people whistle. That’s the ingredient of a 100 crore movie. Marketing can get people as far as theatre, only the catchy (cringe-worthy to some) dialogues will make people whistle. And our super common man is able to pull that off with an incredible (incredulous for some) entries with ease and swag. Ofcourse it helps if you are doing the same thing in EACH and Every Movie!

           Years from now our kids will ask how could we let 

           these movies become signature movies of our time

Seven 100 crore movies back to back is no mean task.

So there are the two reasons according to me for the amazing phenomenon of Salman Khan Movies! Do share here if you want to add anything!

Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania

Humpty Sharma ki Dulhaniya is many things but not a ‘tribute’ to DDLJ and neither a remake of that classic. The problem with making a remake of a classic is, you can never do it right. You can never make people who love original fall in love with your ‘updated’ version. But thanks to the Lord, Shashank Khaitan wasn’t trying to do so.

Stay Calm and let the director use tried
and tested formulas of DDLJ

We have free spirited, eccentric Kavya (Alia Bhatt) and street-smart, passionate Humpty (Varun Dhawan) who falls in love when Kavya goes to Delhi to buy herself a “Designer wala Lehenga” (yep, that's the 2014 version of Kajol going for European tour). 

It has a feeble first half and many sequences which are just not good. Sample this: Humpty's two out of work friends gives him lacs to purchase "Designer wala Lehenga" for Alia. And to top this, Humpty's father too withdraws his emergency savings for Alia's "Designer wala Lehenga".

There’s also some ingredient to make you remember DDLJ, but that’s when the plot thickens.

The second half is little more engaging, dramatic and still has some space for funny sequences. This time the Amrish Puri of the story i.e. Mr. Singh (a brilliant Ashutosh Rana) isn’t a fool to not realize what Humpty is up to. And that’s where we really see the original imprints of our director who also happens to be screen writer.

*Spoiler Alert* Mr. Singh asks Humpty to find a single flaw in the boy (Siddharth Shukla) he has selected for Kavya, and he will marry her daughter to him.

Enters Angad Bedi (Siddharth Shukla), the guy with flawless and charmful attitude, that everyone falls in love with (except ofcourse Kavya).

And this is where story really takes off with some really humorous sequences by Varun Dhawan and two of his friends Poplu (Sahil Vaid) and Shontu (Gaurav Pandey).

The climax is pretty lame and could have been done better. There are lots of loose ends and movie ends abruptly. It feels like cameraman ran out of reel and they had to just end it.

The music was nothing to write about and certainly pretty average for a Dharma Productions movie.

As for performances, both Varun and Alia looked good here, provided that you don’t compare those two to SRK and Kajol at any point during the movie. Varun is slowly and surely coming good, but it is Alia who surprise me with each movie. As dumb as she is perceived (and most probably she is) to be, she is in top form. She is most likely to replace likes of Deepika, Kareena, Priyanka Chopra (although I doubt if Priyanka is more threat to herself rather than anyone else).

Also the chemistry is enjoyable and not clichéd. You can see that they have known each other for long and have worked with each other.

The real heroes of the movie

No it doesn't end on platform and yep it should have!

But it is the supporting cast that you should really look forward to. The duo of Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pandey as Varun Dhawan’s friends steals the show. And it was so good to see Ashutosh Rana after so long. Why isn’t he doing more movies? He didn’t try to be Amrish Puri, because, no one can but he did made his character strong yet enjoyable.

Sidharth Shukla has a good but not a memorable debut. He was underplayed and the character was one dimensional.

But as they say, all’s well that ends well, and this movie didn’t end with a strong climax.

5/10 – 1 for Alia-Varun chemistry, 2 for supporting casts and 2 for some good dialogues and some original writing from Shashank Khaitan even if it suffers from hangover of DDLJ. None for songs.

Lekar Hum Deewana Dil

There are some films which looks bad in their advertisements, which lack big stars but you still think that this might turn out to be a good movie after all. ‘Lekar Hum Deewana Dil’ is not one of those.

You'll be riding away faster than these two
after watching this movie

We have dumb Dino (Armaan Jain) and crazy Karishma (Diksha Sheth) who are college-mates and might be in love. Ofcourse they don’t know this but their whole ‘college’ does. A clarification: ‘College’ in these movies means a bunch of side actors who roam around the main couple. So when Karishma is being set up by her father to get married to a boy of his choice, she decides that she will have a drink with one of the most wreckless guy (Dino) in her life and make plans for her life. And in this sojourn she realizes she loves Dino. And a song later even Dino realizes same thing and they elope. And that all happens in first 15 minutes. After that it’s a boring sequence of what not to do when you elope.

After a frustrating hour into movie, reality settles in, they realize that they are not made for each other and therefore part ways and file for divorce. I don’t even need to write how they fall back in love and land us in the most obvious climax of Hindi films.

This is not a dumb movie; it’s a movie for dumb people.

This is what happens when brainless kids with money try to make it on their own. There weren’t many funny scenes. And it was borderline insanity displayed by these two actors. There was no chemistry between actors.

Armaan Jain got this movie due to his Kapoor family links, there is no denying. But atleast he could have tried to do something of this endangered art called ‘Acting’. He has one of the most villainous smile for a hero. And even the actress says so in one of the scenes.

A word on Diksha Sheth: irritating. In fact, she is so irritating that you realize why Ritesh Deshmukh had to wield screw driver in Ek Villain, a week after that movie!

Ritesh Deshmukh after watching Diksha Sheth's antics.

I see a problem arising in movie industry which is easily giving first chance to girls who are soothing to eyes but not much to script. It not only destroys their career in one go but also diminishes their chances of alternate career. But more on that later.

In fact, the best part (relatively) in terms of acting was the parents and brother of Dino. I would have liked to see more of Dino’s brother than his own failed on-off no-chemistry love story.

The only good thing about movie is A R Rahman's music, but then also, not all songs. Evidently, greatness surrounded by mediocrity can drown it.

Next Ranbir Kapoor- in words of Karishma Kapoor

The plot takes this movie to places, but not the ones it needed to go. What’s with naxalite angle in all of this? The director sets out to become Imtiaz Ali by making something like Socha Na Tha (most underrated Imtiaz Ali movie), but he neither has the finesse, nor the screenplay.

Although it had a tribute in the end for eloped lovers, the movie itself is a proof on why it is not a good idea. The movie manages to contradict itself, in just 2 hours!

This movie was advertised as Rom-Com but neither the romance works nor the comedy exists, except for a few forced chuckles. It has loads of foolishness and tons of stupidity.

So when in one scene the actor says they have been in 4 years of college together and currently are in 3^rd year BA, I am not surprised.

2/10- 1 for A R Rahman's two good songs and 1 for supporting actors who were honest in their limited presence.

2 States Review

There’s a golden rule in film-making that behind every great and blockbuster movie there’s a relatable character in it. Most of the cases its the protagonist himself but not always. Be it Harry Potter (Titular character himself), Lord of the Rings (Frodo or Samwise Gangee and many others), Star Wars (Luke Skywalker) and closer still, 3 idiots (Madhavan).  Many a times Bollywood tends to forget this rule. But the newbie director knew this very well and gave the character of Krish (Arjun Kapoor) a very relatable, everyday look. And it helped the movie to do things that Screenwriting couldn’t. In fact, 2 states is the best book written by Chetan Bhagat and Abhishek Varman did justice to that with his direction.

 

A Rightful adaptation

As far as actors are concerned, Arjun Kapoor gave an impeccable performance. He was never over-dramatic and never too dull to lose interest in. Playing a guy that you would root for till the end is very difficult, but he does it easily. He gave us a glimpse of the performer he could be in a very serious role. All he needs is a movie like Kaminey or Rockstar. In fact, he also carried on the whole film in a be-spectacled version, a first for Hindi movies as far as I remember!!

Alia Bhatt, reveling from a power-packed performance in Highway, was simply good. I always thought of her as one of those dumb actresses who stuck gold, in the category of Katrina Kaif and Sunny Leone after Student of the Year, but this movie has totally changed my perspective. Her chemistry with Arjun Kapoor is very interesting and keeps you on edge(if you don't know the story). She is pretty & talented; with hands of Mahesh Bhatt on her she has a long way to go.

Ronit Roy.. was angry in whole movie
for his career choices in 90s.

Ronit Roy and Amrita Singh as Krish’s parents were perfect and supplied their talents well to the story. Amrita Singh as Punjabi mother(in-law) was totally over-the-top yet believable. And Ronit Roy is one of those what-could-have-beens of the Indian Film Industry. In his second innings in Bollywood he is doing some great job.

Alia’s parents were played by Revathy and S Subramanian, and were good enough in their respective role. There was a subtle and excellent throwback to Revathy’s earlier work with song Saathiya Ye Tune Kya Kia appearing in between a Tamil Song.

Could have easily been '2 Corporates'
instead of 2 States

The movie had a lot lesser humor quotient than the book and lot more not-so-subtle advertisements. It becomes too much in some scenes. I can’t understand need to pitch in bank names and shampoos when you have 2 of the biggest production houses attached with the movie. Although life in IIM-A was pleasant.

Being the son of great art director R Varman, Abhishek Varman had given a nice touch to the scenes and it feels refreshing.

The second half was turning out to be slapstick-melodrama before it picked itself again. The movie touched the clashes of culture beautifully, but could have done without some offensive statements about South Indians. The movie is a family entertainer depending on level of awkwardness you feel while watching explicit kissing scenes with parents :).

7/10- 3 for Arjun, 2 for Alia, 1 for Amrita & Ronit, 1 for being loyal to the story.