Announcing 2014 Blind Spot Entries

Around Christmas, I will post my entry for this month's Blind Spot and with that 2013 Blind Spot Series will come to a conclusion. Blind Spot series is designed to motivate us into scratching off the names from our to-watch lists. We do that with every film we watch but these are meant to be those big, glaring omissions that are certain to attract some stares if you admit not having seen them in public. At this time of the year last year, I was little skeptical about being a part of it because first of all, there are just too many of them and secondly if I did participate, I wanted to take it seriously and look at the finish line. I am happy that I am at least looking at it now but as usual, others are way ahead of me. Most others have already published next year's entries. I might be lagging but I ain't a quitter! This is what I intend to check off for this series in 2014.

Safety Last!(1923)

Dracula(1931)

How Green was My Valley(1941)

Brief Encounter(1945)

Diabolique(1955)

Jalsaghar(1958)

The Exterminating Angel(1962)

American Graffiti(1973)

The King of Comedy(1982)

Au Revoir Les Enfants(1987)

Ed Wood(1994)

L'enfant(2005)

Off course in compliance with my OCD, movies are spread almost evenly over the time period ranging from silent era to contemporaries. 2 silents, 1 Halloween special, 1 previous Best Picture winner, 4 foreign films and one Satyajit Ray as a bonus should hopefully give me a lot of variety. Majority of the movies I saw this year were for their directors. I ventured into Tarkovskiy territory for the very first time and will encounter Ozu in December, went deeper into Kubrick and Bergamn filmography. I see the trend continuing next year as well with likes of Scorsese, Coppola and Bunuel but there are few here I have included based on their own accord. Biggest change from this year, however, would be me abandoning the question-answer format I used this year for these posts. I think I am about ready to do straight up posts for them. We'll see how that goes!

This year was a great hit considering that I ended up loving almost all the movies I saw for this list. I really don't like writing negative reviews so I really hope next year will be the same. Huge thanks to Ryan McNeil for organizing this, compiling the links every month and championing it throughout the year. I hope to be at the finish line this time next year as well. 

Catching up with 2013 Mini Reviews: Part II

Gravity(2013): I know I am very late to the party. First of all, it got here couple of weeks late and then I saw it almost a month after it did. Only thing is, I am really glad that I got to see it on the biggest possible screen because it is totally worth it. Alfoanso Cuaron’s latest is one of the best visual masterpieces I have seen and Emmanuel Lubezki deserves every credit for it. I am not a big fan of 3D but after Hugo(2011), this is first film that made me think that it can be used to good effect.

Set in space, Dr. Ryan Stone, on her first ever space mission, and Matt Kowalski, on his last, are on a small mission to service Hubble. However things soon go south as debris from Russian missile strike causes a chain reaction and puts everything in danger. Hands down favourite thing about this film is the kind of atmosphere Cuaron creates around us. With the help of amazing camera movements assisted by some quality editing, Cuaron manages to get viewers into the head of Dr. Stone, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively, to give them a first hand experience that makes everything so much more better. One of the predominant reactions after watching this was this is closest a normal person will get to being in space and it has a lot of truth to it. One of the frontrunners in this year's best actress race Sandra Bullock, who spends most of this movie alone, also has done a great job in this role. These days it's rare we have a movie that revolves around a female character, which incidentally all three movies in this post do, but it is even rarer to see a movie treat it's female character the way Gravity does. Bullock had a great chance to prove her mettle with this role and she takes it with both hands.

Since I was one of the last 5 people on earth to watch this film, I'd heard lot about it before going in. As much as I was aware of its technological achievements and acclaim it was getting, I also knew it was being criticized for script problems. I never got into specifics of it but I certainly was aware of them and while watching it, I realized why they are important. I am not going to flack it for portraying Russians as villains here or space Jetpacks being retired 30 years earlier. Neither was I too concerned about it getting the names of space shuttles wrong nor did I think Bullock in her shorts sexist. None of these are major plot points that dampen the whole experience but there are some valid points which do affect it. I guess everyone knows what major plot point I am talking about. I am also not sure what I think about unlikelihood of three space ships being in such close proximity at such an attainable altitude. More I think about it, more I have problems with it. I know that it will still be one of my 10-15 favourite films of the year but I will always have a lingering feeling that it could have been better.

Rating(out of 5):

The Bling Ring(2013): I have a very non-typical reaction to Sofia Coppola. I have seen them all except Marie Antoinette(2006) and I haven't disliked any of them but I don't react to them as strongly as many others seem to. There are many aspects of it that I like - stylistic look of it, loneliness it portrays but I guess it doesn't resonate as strongly with me. Even in case of Lost in Translation(2003), which would probably be her highest regarded film, I am much colder to it than everyone else though it certainly is overdue for a rewatch. I am saying all this because it's interesting that despite this history, my reaction to her latest which received much less critical reception than usual is much stronger than the consensus. So much so that even though I will rate both Gravity and The Bling Ring at the same level in stars, I think I like it even more than the former. Yup, I said it! And it is not a dig against Gravity, I just like this one more.

Since its premier in Cannes earlier this year, The Bling Ring is getting a mixed response. For those unaware, it is based on a real story about a group of teenagers in Hollywood who would break into houses of various celebrities and steal from their houses for fun. First of all, it looks fabulous. It has always been Coppola’s strong suit but their clothes, houses – even the ones they break into, lingo they use, locations are done meticulously. It is shot beautifully; background music is used very well. I think it does a great job of poking fun at the current celebrity culture. It really shows the frivolousness of all the characters involved in those robberies for no reason than materialist values in it. There are so many reality shown these days on any network that indulge in exactly this kind of behaviour which Coppola is making fun of in this movie. It is like a satire on that lifestyle. She shows the glamour and glitz of their lifestyle but without making them glamorous. The ending is yet again little jarring but that might my non-typical reaction to her movies.

One problem many people have with it is it lacks any depth. I don’t know how do you make these characters, whose first concern after being caught breaking into Lindsay Lohan’s house was “What did she say about us?” or “Is this long enough to appear conservative?” before appearing in court, look more deep, more real? I doubt if they know the meaning of being one. In their own way, in their own world, they are being as real as they can. At the end, after being caught, Nikki even tries to look more responsible, to look less disconnected to the rest of the world. But we all know it is a sham and Coppola treats it like one. I don't think I would've liked it any other way.

Rating(out of 5):

Frances Ha(2013): Bless Greta Gerwig in all her awkward glory! I think this one sentence is more than enough to express everything I want to about this film. I had been hearing a lot about this movie and especially about her for quite a while now. I won't say I was too excited for it because, despite all the acclaim, it still looked like a chick-flick. I had my expectations in check but it delivered what it promised and some more. The best thing about this film is, even though I actually laughed a couple of times - sometimes with her and sometimes at her, I had a faint smile on my face for all 86 minutes of it. There aren't many movies that have managed to do that! I have a hunch that glorious Black and White played some part in that too.

Frances Ha is a story of Francis Halladay, 27 year old woman leaving in New York who is unsure about everything in her life. She is not sure if she wants to have cats with her boyfriend or move in with him or if she wants to be a dancer or choreographer where she is an apprentice currently. She is not even sure if she doesn't want to any of these things. At one point, she asks her teacher at the academy if she can take some more classes, any more responsibility and after being rejected admits she is proud of herself just for asking. So she is not particularly interested in achieving something or reaching somewhere in her life, she is perfectly content with just trying for it. She's like what one character says about her - she is much older but less grown-up. And despite all this, and we have to give credit to writers for this, she is neither annoying nor pitiable. She is actually very sweet and charming; awkward, little weird and sometimes embarrassing but endearingly so.

Maybe she should think seriously about her future, maybe she should have been somewhere in her life already but she is not and she knows it. Thing with Frances is she lives in the moment. She does what she thinks like doing like going to Paris for a couple of days while being broke. This is probably the stupidest thing you can do but somehow Baumbach and Gerwig even manage to make that endearing. Maybe because we all want to do exactly that; we just don't do it because we are supposed to be more responsible, more grown-up. Not Frances! and its liberating in some way to see at least someone else can do that. Knowing what I did before watching this film, I was almost certain that I will hate her for being plain immature and behaving as if she has some existential crisis. But I did not, even for one minute. Her sudden transformation in the end might be too sudden but I was happy to see her get there, to see her mature through all these experiences and get somewhere at the end of them to be Frances Ha. That was a deft touch by the way!

Rating(out of 5):

Catching up with 2013: Bombay Talkies

Indian film industry completed 100 years earlier this year. I even did a post on it then, if you want to have a look. Obviously it was a pretty big deal for the industry and everyone involved in it. Among many other efforts to commemorate this moment, there was also a special movie made for this occasion. It brought four of the four of the contemporary filmmakers together. Each of them would make a half-hour short film showcasing the power of film and they were released together, sort of as an anthology film, together as Bombay Talkies(2013). I knew all about this and even remember being excited about it at the time of its release. But then somehow it dropped off my radar and I forgot all about it until, Courtney Small wrote about it here but I am glad I finally got around to it.

First of the four shorts is directed by Karan Johar. Johar, son of producer Yash Johar, made his directorial debut with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai(1998) and has been considered as one of the defining directors of his generation since. His short is about a gay man, Avinash, who falls in love with husband, Dev, of Assistant editor of the magazine he works for. I’ll be very frank here – I CAN NOT stand Karan Johar for the life of me. So you can say my opinion is biased here but I have few problems with this. I’ve hated every single film he has made so even if I say this is his best work yet, that doesn't make for much of a compliment. His movies have a typical brand and I hate even those that fall in that brand despite him not directing them. These movies are too glossy, too uppity, completely disconnected with any kind of reality. The kind of things people say, the kind of things people do in them happen only in his movies.

I am not homophobic or at least I don’t think I am. I have never actually tested my hypothesis. I don’t have any problem with that aspect whereas I think what Johar wanted to say in this, he does it quite effectively. I just don’t think it demonstrates the power of film in any way, which was the main objective of these films. Of the four shorts, I believe this is the one most loosely connected to the cinema. All it does is use old songs as the way Avinash and Dev connect with each other. I could’ve used Chinese food or some political leader instead of those songs and all I’ll have to change is half on one conversation and 1 dialogue of another. Again, I am not saying this is a bad film. I quite like it for what it is and I would stand by it if it was a stand-alone feature. I am just saying this does not fit in the canon of movies showcasing power of cinema and the only reason it got through is because Karan Johar made it. There, I said it!

Second one and by far the most wonderful of the four is directed by Dibankar Banerjee. Banerjee debuted with wonderful Khosla ka Ghosla!(2006) also deirected last year’s Shanghai(2012), an adaptation of  Costa-Gavras’ Z(1969). Purandar, played brilliantly by the brightest rising star of the industry in the recent years, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, is an ordinary looking man, leaving an ordinary life in small house with his wife and sick daughter. He is actually a very talented actor who struggles to find any job, even to make the ends meet. Apparently he never got his due, despite being a talented actor, because he never worked hard for it. He always wanted everything to fall it on his lap than work his way to it. Biggest joy of his otherwise ordinary life is telling stories of different films as bed-time stories to his daughter but he is running out of them. And then one day, completely off chance, he gets to play an extra in an actual film.

I am not sure if this plot does any justice to this wonderful short because the way it makes you feel is so much more important to me than anything else. After playing that part, Purandar runs home to tell everything about it and much more to his daughter and look on his face while telling that story to his daughter was so wonderful, so blissful that he has a new story for his daughter that it will melt your heart. Banerjee also gets many other small things just right. Purandar's pet Emu which he names Anjali, like that animal is his daughter and also gives similar treatment, his drama teacher that appears from his conscientiousness just to spite him, his reaction to it, small bits he adds to complete throwaway role. Everything in it adds something more wonderful to it, without ever loosing its poignancy. Subtle, soft moments that can put a smile on your face as well as tears in your eyes are always my weak point and this short certainly offered some such moments.

Third in line was a short by Zoya Akhtar, sort of Sofia Coppola of Bollywood. Zoya Akhtar, daughter of legendary writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar who co-wrote milestone movies like Sholay(1975) and Deewaar(1975), made her debut in 2009 with Luck By Chance(2009). She also wrote the screenplay for last year's Talaash(2012). Even though I will not call any of her films as my favourites, I don't think she has made a bad film yet. Her short here is about a boy, Vicky, who wants to be a dancer when he grows up whereas his father wants him to play football, be strong and physical; basically be a typical, good boy. It talks about innocent childhood dreams and fantasies, about parents' need to be one of the pack, be conventional. Akhtar's story tackles a different subject or at least something that should definitely be brought in front for discussion in traditional society like India and I would say she did good enough job with it. But similar to Karan Johar's segment, I had some problems with it despite everything good about it.

First of all, I am not sure why but I didn't feel anything for the kid. It might be because I was that sort of kid Vicky's father wanted him to be but I was rather annoyed by him. Sure his father, played rather brilliantly by Ranvir Shaury, made me feel sorry for him a couple of times but that was sort of pity than anything else. His older sister was someone I would like to see a movie of. As a character she might not be as interesting but that little girl playing her part certainly made it so. And once again, I am not exactly sure how to justify this film celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema. Sure, Vicky gets this whole idea of being a dancer from an item number in Hindi film and he sort of idolizes one Bollywood actress and it is a way of demonstrating how cinema can affect our lives but I guess I was looking for something deeper. Considering all this, I would probably say this to be my least favourite of the four.

Last of the four is directed by Anurag Kashyap. It is very hard to point to one thing as start of his career because this guy has been all over in the last 15-20 years. First thing I remember his name from is as a writer of Satya(1998). However in the last few years by starting producing different films, he has become quite a big deal. He has done handful films as a director as well and one people will probably remember the most is last year's Gangs of Wasseypur(2012). His short is a story of a man whose father is ill and may die soon. His last wish is for his son to meet legendary Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and share a murabba with him. Kashyap, whose films have always been gritty and grim, shows a lot of heart in this film and is probably the funniest of all four. I loved its ending! Not to beat the dead horse again but what I said above about Karan Johar's short, I know can be applied to Kashyap's short here as well. But the difference here is he integrates that fact into the story so well that he probably will have to rewrite the whole story here if he was to change it from meeting Amitabh Bachchan to, say, some great industrialist or a visionary.

While I am on the comparison of the two directors, it is also interesting for me to see the two working together. From mid-90s Bollywood was taken over by what I called above Karan Johar brand of films. In the last few years, it is moving more towards serious, more realistic, more experimental films. I believe Anurag Kashyap has played very important role in it. In other words, it has migrated from Karan Johar school of film-making to Anurag Kashyap school of film-making. And to give credit where it's due, even though two streams could not be more different, Karan Johar has been very supportive of this transition. But for that reason, it is rather interesting for me to see them work in collaboration.

It ends with sort of song and dance sequence that Bollywood is famous for. I haven't exactly sorted out how I feel about it because best thing about this is it brings a lot of big names of the industry together to give tribute to industry itself but I then it also could have been better. I thought it to be rather cheesy and lyrics certainly could have been much better but I guess I can live with it.

Rating(out of 5):