A BULLET TRAIN!

DIRECTED BY: DAVID GORDON GREEN

STARRING: SETH ROGEN, JAMES FRANCO, DANNY McBRIDE, KEVIN CORRIGAN, CRAIG ROBINSON, GARY COLE, ROSIE PEREZ, AMBER HEARD with BILL HADER and KEN JEONG

David Gordon Green’s ‘Pineapple Express’ is the perfect Seth Rogen script. Rogen is the kind of guy who’d run a gag and then laugh with you. Or grimace. Or plainly just puke. Contrast this with his next action comedy (that he wrote), Michel Gondry’s ‘the Green Hornet’, which had him play uncomfortably single-faced and stuck to character. ‘Pineapple Express’, on the other hand, is entropic. It gives its unshapely hero a lot of space in his own comfort zone that the jokes are more natural and their timing sweet. He’s so disgraceful that it’s hilarious; and with James Franco’s consistent support act, Dale Denton and Saul Silver accomplish something that Reid and Kato never quite did. They click.

Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is a sort of delivery boy, except it’s justice he serves. He’s so messed up he’s found a legal way to take others down with him. He’d attend your seminar to make sure he gives you your parking ticket, he’d wait your table to give you harassment charges. If you were a farmer, he’d probably show up as Foghorn Leghorn. His girlfriend (Amber Heard) isn’t out of high school yet, his best friend’s a drug dealer who turns ‘civil’ when high, and he himself smokes more joints in a day than he has in his body, which in turn you’d never know because he’s fat. Fat, lazy, always ‘under influence’ which probably constitutes his rationale. He has more funny lines than a good stand-up act, he’s careful work that’s let loose. Saul Silver (James Franco) on the other hand can never smoke less than a particular amount that keeps him in character. He’s not allowed the erraticism of Denton; he throws fights, never rises in arms and is at his calmest best in the eve of crisis. He’s like the great master Oogway, but even less coherent. His wisdom is inertia, his aggression accidental. In fact, it’s so rare that it almost entirely never happens.

These two are as disenchanting as duos can get. They play idiots to each other’s intelligence, eventually coming out smart in the end. And on top. The adventure ends in conversation where they talk about it, Danny McBride joining in as Red, our Third Musketeer for all intents and purposes. They blast a hideout in their own way and settle down on the fact that Oprah can grow on people. Red’s taken seven bullets to one side, Denton’s lost most of an ear and Silver looks like he doesn’t know what hit him. Sarcasm smells stronger than weed, and admirably so.

I couldn’t help but think this was an Apatow answer to ‘Starsky and Hutch’, in the line of drug-busting comedies of the 70s and the 80s in Film and Television. Cops, convertibles, car-chases; love interests have nothing more to do than kiss and cause problems (lest you count kick and scream, as in the case of Carol Brazier on Ted Jones’ team), henchmen hurt each other as opposed to who they’re really supposed to kill, no happy ending is sought-after because things fall in place on their own. That’s what the Asians are for. Seth Rogen (with due respect to buddy and co-writer Evan Goldberg as well) has a comic timing which empowers the viewer in the sense that there’s no dilemma on when you’ve got to take him seriously – you don’t have to, because he never wants you to. After all, he’s the only reason ‘the Green Hornet’ was actually watchable. If Todd Phillips banked his film on the lethargy of a haul of actors including the ever-dependable Vince Vaughn, David Gordon Green has Rogen, with backup performances (the usual Craig Robinson, and even Gary Cole who has his moments). In that, we find, he’s got all that he needs.

‘Pineapple Express’ opens in a discreet, post-Prohibition setup involving Bill Hader where the forces first deem Marijuana illegal. The entire rest of the film drives the idea that it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s fast and fluent, and perpetually high on the bar-chart of fun. It’s relentlessly funny, and it never stops. Not for a moment. And if ever you think you missed something, it's actually got a recap!

But then again, you wouldn't.

BORING ADVICE

DIRECTED BY EDWARD MORGAN

STARRING: JOHN KISHLINE, DEBORAH CLIFTON, KRITI PANT and EDWARD MORGAN

‘Success’ is 75 minutes of ad-man Rick Starling’s life – most of which you would sleep through. I did. Is it a distinction if a play deliberately doesn’t aspire to be engaging? I was wide awake through the lengths of ‘Gerry’; I even liked it. It’s one thing to be lifelike, it’s another to be in slow-motion. In that way, if Gus Van Sant’s film was ‘Waiting for Godot’ kind of absurdist, ‘Success’ is just plain absurd. It doesn’t seek your attention – it tests it. A champion concept if completely unsound, but the play doesn’t boast of a void. It’s half-empty at best, of inept experimentation.

“Some calls had to be taken”, Rick says to Aaliyah Nagir; she responds saying, “and some had to be made, I understand.” I don’t. Rick spends half the play on phone conversations, only one side of which we get to hear. He doesn’t look hectic or overindulgent – he says he wants more, but it doesn’t sound like he means it. He isn’t an Anthony Montana or a Gordon Gekko – he just acts like one and badly at that. It would be a different story if the effect was intentional, but the whole concept of the play works against that satirical note. It’s supposed to be a morality question. We think of films that have asked the same – ‘Network’, ‘Wall Street’, ‘the Devil’s Advocate’ – the list is endless. What had contributed to their acclaim were their unique abilities to engage the audience with their concept. But ‘Success’ seemed entirely disinterested to even remotely attempt that. It’s boring advice – how does it matter if it’s good?

Actress Deborah Clifton, as the mysterious Ms. Nagir, isn’t quite there with her Egyptian accent, which the ad-executive Mr. Starling (John Kishline, also Ms. Clifton’s real-life husband) points out. She says she attended college at the University of Wisconsin. I remembered a similar scenario in ‘Before Sunrise’, which was about ‘prowess in English’ than an ‘accent’. Here it seems more like an excuse for bad acting. The play succumbs to the slightest of logic. And I wonder what ‘Success’ it swapped that failure for. 

(I know the tag says 'I'm Out of Here!' but in reality, I sat through the whole length of the play. Except I was asleep for most parts, as is made evident right in the beginning)

A CHILLING EXPERIENCE, ACTED OUT

DIRECTED BY TRACY HOLSINGER

STARRING: TEHANI CHITTY, THUSHARA HETTIHAMU, SUBHA WIJESIRIWARDENA, RUVIN DE SILVA, BRANDON INGRAM, TRACY JAYASINGHE, PRASAD PEREIRA, NUZRETH JALALDEEN and TRACY HOLSINGER

How do you elaborate in a thousand words what the play encapsulated in three? ‘the Travelling Circus’ is brilliantly named, neatly choreographed and is sincere enough with its emotions. It enlarges Mike Masilamani’s quirky little story called ‘the Boy who Spoke in Numbers’ to fit the estranging motifs of a Brechtian play. It’s a street demonstration on stage where technology adds to the impact – we have shrieks and booms and magnified voices, monotones and back-projections in a sort of augmented reality in which the play finds nourishment. It’s too sensitive to be questioned, more so when it laughs at itself, where it surprises you with sparks of wit and irony. It’s like an Awareness Campaign that scores with heart armed by concept, but it scores points for conception on its own as well. There are moments when you’re truly touched, there are those when you can’t help but laugh out loud. And in the end you find you can’t get past the plight it depicts, in a bittersweet realization.

Two things – two distinctively singular sequences that, I felt, lifted the play. One where the play’s central theme of being ‘caught in the crossfire’ is made literal and the other, a scatter of lines here and there with which the characters narrate the trauma of their fictionalized lives. It’s slightly disappointing that ‘the Travelling Circus’ doesn’t take a side in Sri Lanka’s Civil war, but that’s only because it doesn’t want to. It voices the ‘Internally Displaced’ – Ignorant Defeated, it calls them. They’re refugees in their own country, subjugated and thrust with authority that’s plainly unwelcome. Soldiers in a war they don’t accept, their hope is deceptive, their fates unkind. And you’re made to wonder what’s more horrific about what you see – the situation of these people, or the fact that they’re having to reconcile with it.

Yet, the play is diplomatic – in the sense that it’s clear it’s a play. The characters have no names, they’re all ‘Boy’ and ‘Cow’ and ‘Kind Aunty’ and ‘Madam’. Sometimes the actors are emotionally absorbed into the premise, sometimes they stick out with acting performances. They speak in an English that’s hard to place, most of it predominantly of an obvious British tongue. We know the actors are Sinhalese, but the same cannot be said about their characters. Perhaps the play intends to be secular, perhaps it’s content with depicting one side of a story that deems itself sad. For all we know, the other side could be worse. It IS worse, as a matter of fact. But those horrors are skated upon in a whirlwind of dates and statistical data in the numbers that the Boy recites. The numbers are the heart of the play and they, in turn, are largely unclear. And the play then closes, hinting at a future Sri Lanka inspired and governed by those events and incidents that threatened to thwart its integrity. A rather soft ending, I should say.

‘the Travelling Circus’ is a people’s play and not a political play. It offers solace, not a solution. It’s an hour of substantial sympathy and empathy, from housewives to housewives who are going through worse; from Mothers to Mothers as they shudder in fear and from boys to boys, shell-shocked. It scores with self-empowerment, although it retracts to passiveness at times. And I repeat: It is NOT a political play. To call it one would deem it unworthy of the praise it receives, and I want to praise it. It’s an engaging play, a single tragic fable presented with quirks that make it both likeable and strong. Hence, it is but my sincere request to all alike: Please do not call it political. There’s nothing ‘political’ about human suffering, right from Joan of Arc to little Anne Frank and the Holocausts. And there’s nothing political about ‘the Travelling Circus’ either. It’s a reflection of an incorrigible human nature which consumes its own kind. A chilling experience, acted out – methodically, and sometimes strikingly so.

WHEN 'CHICKS' TURN CRAZY, TURN WOMAN

DIRECTED BY PAUL FEIG

STARRING: KRISTEN WIIG, MAYA RUDOLPH, ROSE BYRNE, MELISSA McCARTHY, WENDI McLENDON COVEY, ELLIE KEMPER, CHRIS O’DOWD with JILL CLAYBURGH and JON HAMM

‘Bridesmaids’ shouldn’t have been about Bridesmaids – it makes it sound like a Venus answer to ‘the Hangover’ where it’s a bridal shower instead of a bachelor party. On the other hand, it promises to be a chick-flick that dies to disagree. But it startles one and all with an incredible display of heart that more than compensates for the crassness of humour in many a place. It’s a loud and frontal statement against men that humbly resigns when its views don’t apply. It’s sincere, and in that it’s a first – a film that wants to be honest to all alike. Man and Woman, Husband and Wife; Mother and Daughter (all adults, of course!) Siblings of the world might protest citing unfair treatment, but that’s another story.

Kristen Wiig writes herself in Annie Walker, an underachieving, out-of-work baker selling novelties for a living. She’s good with stuff but she’s bad at selling them – kind of like Randal from ‘Clerks’ except she’s a little sensitized with her cynicism. Hers is circumstantial, while his was just plain post-adolescent disinterest: She’s a burnout, or that’s what she thinks. She frequents a man who screws her over and over (literally), lives with aliens (a brother and sister pair from Britain) and is best friends with Lillian (Maya Rudolph) who’s getting married and married big. Annie is made ‘Maid of Honour’, an ordeal unfitting of one without a life of her own. With that, Wiig throws an ultimatum at Katherine Heigl’s '27 Dresses'. And I don’t even have to tell you who comes on top.

Our women don’t fraternize; they fleece each other. It’s a rat race up to the pedestal where it’s all about taking giant steps. The entire male kingdom would wonder why it’s so important to be vied for. In Annie’s defence, it’s understandable – she’s the best friend and hence wants to stay so. For Helen (Rose Byrne) it’s just plain, raw ego. I can’t imagine why Kristen Wiig didn’t play her part instead of retracting to the ‘shit-taking’ Annie. One reason could be the fact that she’d already been the annoying stereotype in Judd Apatow’s ‘Knocked Up’. Another could be because she wrote the whole thing anyway and it didn’t matter anymore. She’s had her laugh already, so she’d rather wait till the end for seconds.

Rose Byrne is a revelation. It’s difficult to ascribe villainy to her Helen, but she does a good job trying not to emphasize. She’s less-talk-more-work than being the face-contorted chick-flick meanie who we’re all supposed to hate; she's more 'vixen' than 'evil b*tch', if you get what I'm saying. But we still hate her because we take Annie’s side of the argument, which in turn we do because Annie floods the film with adept rationale, her gaping flaws being fun to mend. In short, she’s likeable and once in her shoes, Helen turns nemesis. Jon Hamm as the sexually aggressive Ted exists to make Nathan Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd) respectable even though he does a fair job by himself. He has the laughing drawl of Seth Rogen and his eyes twinkle with stony, middle-aged sincerity inviting abuse, except he won’t take any. I like how the writers (Wiig and Annie Mumolo) extract convincing characters out of stereotypes, more visible in the film’s women than the men. It’s the company that brings a chick-flick down, but in ‘Bridesmaids’ they’re kept coherent and intact, even exciting in a fair share of moments. Like when Rita (Wendi McLendon Covey) complains about raising teenage boys; like Megan (Melissa McCarthy) when she calls her bridegroom-brother an ‘ass-h*le’ amidst the other bridesmaids. The quintessential pick-me-up monologue towards the end has its quirks as well, not to mention the (in)famous restroom sequence of ‘Girls Gone Wild’. Such pleasure!

For once we have a chick-flick that doesn’t try hard to be. ‘Bridesmaids’ is faithful to where it comes from, but is full of energy it doesn’t hold back. It drops all pretence and its girls really have some fun – sensible, mature, ‘adult’ fun. And we find we have some fun with them as well in the process.

P.S. Maya Rudolph so has to get out of the whole bride/expecting-mother groove. Someone better cast her in the next 'Kung Fu Panda' or something and make sure they don't give her a Pregnant Pelican to play. Just saying.

APPLICANT STATUS: ---UNDER REVIEW---

DIRECTED BY AKARSH KHURANA

STARRING: KARAN PANDIT, KASHIN SHETTY, ADHIR BHAT and PRERNA CHAWLA

I thought ‘the Interview’ would go on to be an “it’s so mean it’s actually funny” sort of dark comedy, but it arrested that thought by showing some soul towards the end. I was confused. I chanced to ask this question to director Akarsh Khurana himself, who was kind enough to spare a few minutes for a little chat we shared. But I found his answer unconvincing. He said the sensitivity of their play (written by Siddharth Kumar) depended on the sensitivity of the audience – if we wanted the Boss to be ruthless, he would be, and if we wanted sensitivity then we have that too. A typical entertainer’s answer from a person who doesn’t deny he’s one. I appreciated his honesty but it doesn’t save his play, which is either a painful intrusion of emotions in a laugh riot, or an injection of humour in a social drama, both distinctively spelling ‘half-baked’. On the one hand, it tries to be as crushing as a Coen-invention like ‘A Serious Man’, on the other it takes off in an ‘Up in the Air’ sort of soul-search. I wished I could laugh it off, but then it slapped me with a moral responsibility to take it seriously. I couldn’t decide.

Let this not be mistaken for rawness, even though the play did have ample amounts of it. The presentation was raw, its concept not so. We don’t get to know what happens off-stage, it’s but our own crude extrapolation that we’re entitled to. The interview in itself is obscure, we don’t know who is interviewing who for what post in which corporation. The most we get thrown in are words like ‘Middle Management’, sufficient to define the scenario to a fair level of precision. We have a candidate who has been Boss as well as Employee, set to continue doing the same. There’s his superior in Keith who views him as a potential threat, a pawn moved against his own corporate status. And ultimately, we have the ‘Boss’ as part of an elaborate Good-Cop-Bad-Cop routine with the occasional turn of table. To add to this, there’s also a Secretary who plays both cause and effect in a distorted centre of attention.

The Interviewee corners his bosses, the ‘played’ gets to play back. We delve into fantasy in a flesh-and-blood guise – there simply can’t be a soft ending. The play takes a sensitized turn; a downgrade for the sake of subsequent climactic peak. And the ending isn’t ‘crushing’ or ‘horribly funny’, it’s just wrong. The characters have their catharses – the ‘Candidate’ in the fact that he’s getting a job, Keith because he’s finally getting his promotion, and the ‘Boss’ because his problem is ‘fixed’ as Keith puts it. The Secretary, on her part, finds the highest form of peace. The problem here is that I was denied mine.

I liked how the Candidate reveals to his Boss that he’s about to marry the woman he once molested. I hated how the Boss responds with a similar story of his own. Bosses don't respond to subordinates, they Boss them! And I liked the sigh of relief as the Candidate breathes an “I got the job!” to his fiancée, but I hated the intersperse of sensitivity between bouts of indifference. It’s like our characters ‘reconcile’ into who they are as opposed to being themselves – a contradiction to corporate mentality. I felt as though Siddharth Kumar was prepared to do anything to reap his share of laughs – a trait I empathized with, the sloppy debut that I’ve been through as a playwright. I liked every imperfection of the play in form of premise and presentation, how actors, as characters, fidgeted when inactive; how their exits were announced but not explained. The play stuck religiously to its sequences, its back-stories giving scope for conscious and unconscious imagination – I liked that.

But then I hated how it got so carried away with its own pet concept, much like how I did. Well, what can I say? I am self-critical. Even more so when I find my flaws manifested in someone else, where I don’t have to go easy on them. This ‘Interview’ brought out the Boss in me. And I don’t fire it altogether for that, but I strongly maintain that I expected something more. It’s an Upper Management thing.

A SHIRK OF 'NECESSITY' AGAINST 'DEMAND'

DIRECTED BY PRASHANT PRAKASH and NAYANTARA KOTIAN

STARRING: KALKI KOECHLIN, NEIL BHOOPALAM, GULSHAN DEVIAH, SUHAAS AHUJA, PRERNA CHAWLA, RATNABALI BHATTACHARJEE, VIVEK GOMBER and PRASHANT PRAKASH

Tom Stoppard slaps convention and kills critics with ‘the Real Inspector Hound’. It’s perhaps a mark of who he hates more. Or perhaps not. I’ve always been biased against parodies for the simple reason that I believe they try to play to two different audiences. It’s like how Zack Brown remarks with the intonation of Kevin Smith in ‘Zack and Miri make a Porno’ on how their ‘Star Wh*res’ would cater to both Star Wars nerds as well as those who consume porn in general. Writers have forever leeched upon this thin line separating a satire from a tribute. And in that context, ‘the Real Inspector Hound’, I thought, liked what it scorned, though there were times when it dared to differ.

Two critics discuss a play in progress. One of them gets to be cozy with the fresh faces, the other is still an understudy and laments about it. The two then proceed on separate streams, often crisscrossing in conversation. The former fantasizes about the actress, the latter strays to places sinister. Tom Stoppard deems one critic an infidel and the other a would-be murderer found guilty in intention. Playwrights shall be overjoyed by this concept, critics would arm their fortresses with tongue-in-cheek. Either way, our critics (in the play) then step into the play-within-the-play one after the other, a ‘whodunnit’ that ties both worlds together. And they find themselves confronted by characters than actors in a recurring sequence such that they know what’s happening and yet fulfill the pre-destined plot.

The play-within-the-play goes into a lull when the critics speak, the critics in turn don’t raise a word when a scene is in progress. They’re an orthodox audience at a conventional play. They don’t interject – they summarize. And they succumb where Stoppard wants them to. Yet, ironically, it’s a critic who has the last laugh and snares the effervescent Cynthia (Kalki Koechlin). Maybe that’s indicative of his favouritism towards a select few. Maybe not. I would never know.

Kalki Koechlin reminds me too much of Eva Green. They’re both French, they’re both petite and graceful, sexy and mature, and they both smoke like kettles! This is a dangerous comparison, however, for it throws Koechlin in brighter light than she warrants for. Nevertheless, she’s fairly eye-capturing and her performance effortlessly outclasses the rest, who are more about fake accents and impersonations. There’s barely scope for directorial credit (or set design) either, lest one ought to throw accolades for not destroying the integrity of the play. But the actors did have good comic timing, consistency and stage presence. They kept the play alive and managed to get all their jokes through to the audience. Neat, but doesn't knock you out. Still commendable, right?

The Q&A session after the play had an Elderly enthusiast ask the cast and crew as to why they didn’t ‘Indianize’ the play. I had an even more fundamental question – why perform this in the first place? ‘the Real Inspector Hound’ was a British play written in 1962, while both Prashant as well as Kalki have ‘proven their ability’ in writing their own draft (‘the Skeleton Woman’). It’s an Indian Theatre Festival in 2011 that features foreign plays as well – where’s the burning need to adapt? Just a thought that irked after an entertaining performance. I shall let you ponder upon it, if you would.

THIS DUCK IS LAME!

DIRECTED BY KARTHIK KUMAR

STARRING: T.M. KARTHIK SRINIVASAN, YUDHISHTHIR RANA, ANIL SRINIVASAN, ANISHA SARAH VARGHESE and KARTHIK KUMAR

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes from David Mamet’s ‘Duck Variations’ as far as its premise goes. It’s about two guys who sit on a bench and philosophize about ducks, drawing parallels where they can. I was reminded of the scene in Gus Van Sant’s ‘Good Will Hunting’ where Will Hunting (Matt Damon) asks his therapist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) if the ducks were some sort of fetish in a ‘taster’s choice moment between guys’. While that sequence went on to prove him wrong, ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did nothing to bust an existing conviction of mine – that I was about to watch a bunch of people try too hard. The conversations were stressful, even though the scenarios turned out to be pretty inventive. The setup and performances helped raise a few laughs while the dialogue turned it to a grimace. I wish Indian (English) theatre wouldn’t try to emulate its Western counterpart. It’s like the duck that tries to fly with its wings clipped – it falls too hard.

The play featured three motifs. One was director Karthik Kumar ‘breaking the Fourth wall’ carrying out overwrought audience-interactions. The second is a duo in different scenarios, belting different forms and structures of ‘Mamet-speak’ (a form of dialogue popularized by the American playwright). Thirdly, we had a couple of video clips which tended to not only disrupt the actual flow of the play, but also destroyed its idea as a whole. It’s one thing to reveal the concept, it’s another to just throw it away. ‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ did exactly the latter and seemed happy to do so. To add to this, we had pianist Anil Srinivasan fill in with interludes that got redundant after a while – the play crossed the delicate balance between adequacy in music and an over-score. He had me wishing for that elusive silence that the play began with – something that was harder to get than the fact that ‘the Hindu’ actually included this play in its Theater Fest roster.

Nevertheless, the play was verbose despite its share of glitches (like using ‘seeked’ instead of ‘sought’ and ‘juxtapositioning’ instead of ‘juxtaposing’). It was, in a teeny-tiny little way, a fair bit of fun; the no-brainer kind of fun. The audience, for most part, would not have understood what was going on. I myself had a pair of neighbours who were busy texting on their mobiles, even at the time they were not asked to do so – let me not get down to telling you any more about them. The runtime was too much given the lack of substance, which diluted it even further. Still, it had a fairly continuous narrative that seemed well-motivated, at least until Karthik started pleading with ‘fifteen more minutes of patience’ and then ‘ten more minutes’, consuming a half-hour in that process. That too for sequences which weren’t worth the stretch and served to distort the whole idea of the play. It’s like we walked into a public service announcement – nothing could make it more pretentious.

‘Chasing my Mamet Duck’ takes a whole, flawless, magnificent Duck and breaks it to chunks with a crucial lot missing. The whole point of it, in short. And It then proclaims vegetarianism. Of course, I speak in metaphors – after all, I did sit through a 'child's play' that liked to call itself smart.

A 'REAL' ROLE MODEL

DIRECTED BY CRAIG GILLESPIE

STARRING: RYAN GOSLING, EMILY MORTIMER, PAUL SCHNEIDER, KELLI GARNER, R.D. REID, DOUG LENNOX and PATRICIA CLARKSON

‘Lars and the Real Girl’ is a perfect sex-satire. It has good measure of wit, and yet stands apart with its sweetness. It’s a comedy film that’s never insecure to harbor the necessity to laugh at itself. In a time where films usually shy away from (inevitable) mental and emotional retardation, this film, its writer and its lead actor come out stark-naked with their intentions and are brave in doing so. And with her efforts, Nancy Oliver castrates the viewer, lifting us to such drastic levels of innocence that no other film or writer has ever accomplished before. There are so many little questions that one would have wanted to ask which would have been wiped out in the course of the film – magically extinguished in its ‘Little Prince’ charm. It’s a rare accomplishment by an even rarer film.

Gus and Karen Lindstrom (Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer) are an everyday couple pregnant with their first child. The man is an embodiment of typical, snarky narrowness, the woman – of the wild-eyed eagerness of an expecting mother. She likes to act like one already, finding apt candidature in her brother-in-law Lars (Ryan Gosling) who seems to be a little down on the ladder of mental growth. He looks like a big Teddy Bear and has the mind of a child with gentleness to match. He is not beyond intelligence, though. He carries himself fairly well, earns his own living working as a clerk and knows enough about the internet to order online. In other words, he’s yet to come to terms with the world outside despite the fact that he’s ready for it.

There are (ideally) two ways for the film to accomplish this feat, both pushing hard on the borders of believability. One would be for Lars to drop his defences. The other would mean the same about the world around him, in this case being a small, snow-covered, parish-sort of a town. And Nancy Oliver, consistent with a mother’s kindness and sensitivity, takes the more improbable, exhaustive route, giving the viewer the uncanny pleasure of having experienced something truly ‘one of a kind’.

Everyone owes it to Lars (including Gus, who pleads guilty for abandoning him his childhood, the reason behind his ‘condition’). Everyone does everything they can do to help rehabilitate him. He’s lovable, he’s everything that’s good about being human. Wouldn’t you do the same to the one person who could help you believe that there is a future in being utterly and mindlessly kind? Our town convenes, we have a meeting with the Reverend and other respected men and women where they decide they’d do their best to assist. They would just have to ‘play along’ with Lars’ sincerity, and they don’t find it too hard. One cannot say the same about the younger generation, though. They can’t seem to get past the fact that Bianca is a sex-doll. Even Margo (Kelli Garner) who has a crush on him for a good part of the film, decides otherwise. She’s taught her lesson in due course. So is Gus Lindstrom. Their rationale stands out of a premise that works to linearize every single character towards finding their Samaritan self. They’re thorns amidst flowers, but they blossom into acceptance – inspired by the kindness personified in Karen and the lot.

Patricia Clarkson as Dagmar, Lars’ (or Bianca’s) therapist, is amazing. She’s one of the most learned people in town, as well as the most experienced actress amongst the whole cast – her performance lives up to both majestically. Ryan Gosling is 27 years old, but he doesn’t look like it; he doesn’t behave like it. I refer to both actor as well as his character in this context – you’d understand if you watched the film. And I don’t even have to tell you about Nancy Oliver. Building on a concept that could swing both ways, she serves to keep it straight out of sheer sincerity, backed by Australian director Craig Gillespie (of ‘Mr. Woodcock’ fame). Overwhelmingly kind-hearted and never short of wit, ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ is an abundance of chuckles on top of a perpetual smile. And I didn’t feel touched by the ending – I felt happy about it. It was like I was part of the effort resulting in consequential relief: I applauded. It’s a good film, an even better story and a great experience. I was glad I was involved.

(This is my second review of the film. The first had me trying to play 'smart' and unscathed. With this review, I admit I'm impressed; that I loved it)

A SONG ON SELF-DESTRUCTION

DIRECTED BY LARRY CLARK and ED LACHMAN

STARRING: JAMES BULLARD, JAMES RANSONE, STEPHEN JASSO, TIFFANY LIMOS, AMANDA PLUMMER, WADE ANDREW WILLIAMS, JULIO OSCAR MOCHOSO and MAEVE QUINLAN

Let me not worry about spoilers because you’re probably not going to watch this film anyway. ‘Ken Park’ begins with Ken Park killing himself at a skate-park by blowing his brains out with a smile on his face. The film then goes a full circle to get back to the point where it explains ‘Why’. He is what is called a ‘plot device’ – he does not go beyond the title, but he serves to explain it. He’s like the ‘Amy’ in ‘Chasing Amy’, a working metaphor for the film in itself. In this case, he’s representative of the pointlessness of the film, an experiment that’s futile as it’s meant to be. Larry Clark knows it and perhaps that’s why he called his film ‘Ken Park’ and not something like ‘Restless Teenagers in search for Joy’. It’s like a deeper, scarier, more explicit version of ‘Kids’ that speaks of its maker’s experience in the years that followed.

Larry Clark is an intriguing filmmaker. His boldness knows no barriers, his conception more on experience (‘Ken Park’ is based on his journal, we’re told) than an attempt to incriminate. He doesn’t point fingers. He situates himself in the middle of his characters in a wild-eyed man’s effort to find beauty in their dysfunction. Even his overtly controversial, yet-to-come-of-age film ‘Kids’, a juxtapose of clubbing, consumption and underage sexuality, served to shine some light of awe on a thing as emotionally destructive as date-rape, where (I felt) he gives the viewer the boy’s pleasure in executing it despite the dry irony of the whole situation in plain sight. Teenagers aren’t subject materials for Larry Clark. They’re objects of his fascination, his films as cocky as the people it’s about. The man was about 50 years of age when he started making films. ‘Ken Park’ had come about in his 60th year, but the man relates to teenagers like he’s one himself – in fronts of both innocence as well as dangerous perversion.

Roger Ebert, in his review of ‘Wassup Rockers’ (Larry Clarks subsequent film), inquires as to whether it makes Larry Clark a pervert. I felt that the filmmaker answers that question in ‘Ken Park’, in a scene where one of the branches of a tree hides the frame partially as we look into Claude’s household from the skateboard confrontation to the Father’s (Wade Williams) guilt at having been rough on his son. We wait till he breaks down, moved to tears, and we proceed to the next scene. I thought I heard the statement loud and clear – the man is unafraid of his perversion and he hands the apple duly to the audience, with the air of one who always shares his things to the most intimate detail.

His characters come in a wide variety, ranging from ‘explainable’ to ‘eye-popping drastic’. While Shawn (James Bullard) can be thought of as a guy who takes lessons from his girlfriend’s mother (Maeve Quinlan) on how he could keep her ‘happy’, Rhonda, the woman in question, is an accommodating mentor if you had to explain. The key here is you shouldn’t want to. I felt something similar when I watched Lee Daniels’ even more powerful ‘Precious’, a film where I was as lost for words as the counselor towards the end. I simply couldn’t absorb its premise, as brilliantly as it could have been offered to me. Same with ‘Ken Park’. There are emotions in it which, even if not relatable, could be understood. There are those who elude, and then there are those which I could not tolerate. Like Rhonda’s little girl often in focus, dressing her Barbie watching Lingerie Models on TV. I pitied the girl who actually played that part – it is an age where curiosity can’t even be acknowledged, let alone entertained. And I asked myself who the bad parent was. Is it Rhonda, or her actual mother?

Forced Incest, Gay abuse, promiscuity – there’s so much going on in this ‘journal’ that it looks more like a travelogue on the underbellies of the USA. It looks assembled, not like it’s written from experience. I liked how the characters both acted their ages as well as strayed out of them occasionally, be it above or below (as in the case of Tate). The best part of the film is around an unnamed character who tells us about the trauma in his Father’s death, dewy-eyed; the rest is indifference. Our teenagers are very resistant, but each story succeeds in breaking into their little worlds, giving us glimpses of who they really are. And yet, ironically, it didn’t break into mine. I didn’t know if I liked this film, but I felt it was sound. And I don’t know what that qualifies as.

THE RING, THE STING AND THE ICONIC STEPS

DIRECTED BY JOHN G. AVILDSEN

STARRING: SYLVESTER STALLONE, TALIA SHIRE, BURT YOUNG, BURGESS MEREDITH, CARL WEATHERS, THAYER DAVID and JOE SPINNELL

It’s hard not to like Rocky Balboa. Anthony Gazzo (Joe Spinnell) would agree with me in spite of the fact that his star henchman hands a fair share of pardon votes without consent or consultation. And in that, he fails to be a good debt-collector, while his debt-collecting activities makes Coach Mickey (Burgess Meredith) scorn his talent in boxing. He punches dents on his opponent to make up for his lack of grace in a sort of counter-balance of abilities. He’s modeled on Rocky Marciano in a Chuck Wepner plot, both of which are duly notified – he worships one and quotes the other regarding his duel with the legendary Muhammed Ali, who in turn is personified in Heavyweight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers). It’s astonishing how much consistency in detail that Sylvester Stallone manages to empower the film with, all balanced on the very broad shoulders of his majestic performance.

Stallone the actor and Stallone the writer never try to emulate each other. The writer knows exactly what the actor is capable of doing, while the actor has an impeccable idea on what the writer wishes to channelize through him. Of course, this would be the case with any other writer-actor, right from the inimitable Chaplin through the likes of Woody Allen, down to George Clooney (in ‘Good Night and Good Luck’) and even Seth Rogen (in ‘Superbad’). But Stallone, we see self-satisfaction - he doesn't try too hard. It’s a casual, yet adequate performance in a script where there are no surprises. The emphasis is neither on conceptual intricacies nor in portrayal of the down-on-luck Boxer who corks his anger inside a Samaritan bottle that cracks but just once. Instead, all focus has been directed in making ‘Rocky’ the most stylish film that Hollywood has ever seen, where every sequence would render itself memorable, some even to fever pitch. And it accomplishes that rather royally, without as much as a whiff of anything deliberately provocative. We have a Gangster, but not a gun. We have a charming woman in Adrian (Talia Shire) and there’s Rocky’s relationship with her, without shedding a single garment that her introversion wouldn’t allow. And we have sport – deep, passionate sport – without cheap thrills or a manipulated ending.

In short, ‘Rocky’ does what his cinematic peers from the past, present and future have done, except he does it effortlessly, being full aware of both capabilities and requirements. His strength isn’t showcased, his perseverance flickers, but his sincerity never changes course. He’s human, and he’s got game.

Sports films usually tend to explore the sportsman’s psyche through the game he plays and the way he plays it. Stallone was one of the very first to distinctively focus on his activities off the field to explain his behavior when on the field; to justify his rationale. ‘Rocky Balboa’, the last installment, finessed this to overwhelming proportions. In ‘Rocky’, we catch a glimpse. Stallone captures his suburban grit as well as the lack of it in a package of such boyish charm that his Rocky endears beyond mention. The effect is made even more pronounced by a simplistic background score that keeps its faith (and brilliantly so!) to the single track in ‘Gonna Fly Now’ composed by Bill Conti. And to top it all, there’s a certain rawness in in the film’s friendly locales, which complements Stallone’s down-to-earth rendition, thus making us feel like we’re a part of the town. We root more for the kindhearted bum from the neighbourhood than a representative of anything heroic about cinema and its protagonists. The effect is uncanny.

But ‘Rocky’ is anything but realistic. It’s an exaggerated drama saturated with heroic moments in simple premise. It’s not cinematic, but it’s well-directed. It’s a pure, honest-to-the-core entertainer that banks its success entirely on how endearing its characters turn out to be. And in that, it’s a ten on ten.

ON HOW TO TURN 'LOVEABLE' TO 'LACKLUSTER'

DIRECTED BY TAYLOR HACKFORD

STARRING: RICHARD GERE, DEBRA WINGER, LOUIS GOSSETT Jr., DAVID KEITH, LISA BLOUNT, LISA EILBACHER, TONY PLANA, HAROLD SYLVESTER, DAVID CARUSO and ROBERT LOGGIA

‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ is a badly-acted film that has an impressive premise otherwise. Think about it. It’s about a man who tries to hide his insecurity behind ambition that which in itself he’s not too sure of. A Will Hunting minus the genius ends up with the dead-faced Richard Gere (as Zack Mayo) who has nothing to show but the twinkle in his eye, part of his boyish charm. A fear of guilt and clarity against commitment, his tortuous army-camp experience (pilot training, in this case) finds a bright spot in the time he spends with Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger), a working class woman who plays the stereotypical anti-stereotype as far as quirks go. It’s a romance in intimacy, alongside which a friend and fellow peer in Sid Worley (David Keith) hits it off with Lynette, who’s Paula’s friend. Music speaks louder than love scenes as the two couples devour each other, the first confrontations of reality turning out unconvincing. It’s a hiccup and nothing more.

We’re tying two worlds together here – on the one hand, there’s the battle of life in a frontal metaphor – the training camp under the Devil (Louis Gossett Jr. as Sergeant Emil Foley). On the other, we recline into a sensual affair. Zack has had a bad past, changing hands from a gullible mother who died waiting for the man who’d never get back, to the Dad he’d never ever want to be. Paula’s mother has had a similar past as Zack’s, except she’s found solace in the paper mills and in a man who wouldn’t leave. The two of them find theirs in this similarity, in what I thought was the only genuinely romantic scene in the film which scores two-on-two in both conception and performance. They both evolve with each other, Zack particularly more so because she’s ice to his wounds. To Paula, on the other hand, he’s a sign of hope, of emotions the both of them would be much better without. The rest of the film (whose premise begins pretty much only after halftime) is about accomplishing fulfillment of this fantasy romance.

Zack distrusts Paula fearing emotional blackmail in the prospective future, something that the viewer knows she’s incapable of. Lynette is, though, but Sid resorts to trust her blindly in the course of things. A comedy of errors of right conviction against the wrong person in which, surely, only one could/would be made to work, at most. There’s no marks to guess which one that would be.

Taylor Hackford is incredible with his dramatic poise in scene setup, but he does a really bad job with a really bad bunch of actors. Richard Gere is larger-than-life. He looks convincing with shoulders squared and a puffed-up chest as he runs his hand through his mop of hair like a starlet on the rise. We wonder what he’s doing in an army camp. He’s flamboyant, he’s fit, but he’s incapable of getting across a single emotion. Nor does he try. Debra Winger is loveable as Paula, the wild-eyed, hoarse-voiced brunette who could light many a hall with her presence. She works the magic in a whirlwind of intimacy, but her bitterness in later parts is but a voiceover from a disconnected universe. Same as Lisa Blount as Lynette, a character of startling practicality who’s reduced to a bitch by a premise that’s hostile to anything real. The ‘Femme Fatale’ is insult to injury, as much as David Keith’s situational puppy-dog. The sequences are fairly sensitized, but the actors have none – which works only in the case of Sergeant Foley because that’s what he’s supposed to be. His borderline smiles and the post-rescue frenzy are saving graces to a shipwreck of performances where everyone’s decided to abandon ship.

I didn’t hate watching ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’. I was disappointed. This is supposed to be a stylized film that ends at an inimitable high in rainbow vividness. And yet the scenes lacked any sort of real impact – they served no purpose but to advance the plot, which in turn was all about its sequences in a cyclic sort of let-down. I shall remember this film forever as one that I wished to be excited about, both before and after, and as one that adamantly refused to give me the pleasure of having enjoyed it.

AS BEAUTIFUL AS THE ELUSIVE 'AMY'

DIRECTED BY KEVIN SMITH

STARRING: BEN AFFLECK, JOEY LAUREN ADAMS, JASON LEE, DWIGHT EWELL with BRIAN O’HALLORAN, CASEY AFFLECK, JASON MEWES and KEVIN SMITH

There’s this scene in ‘Chasing Amy’ where Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) reveals to her girlfriends that she’s dating a man who she thinks she’s possibly in love with. The group is disappointed, one of them says “another one bites the dust” – something I was thinking about at that moment, coincidentally, where I feared the film was about to take a delusional turn. But what was in store made me feel a whole lot better (by that I mean ‘a whole lot worse’) and I understood. It was a bad scene in a good film; irksome, but tolerably so. That aside, Kevin Smith gives us his best ever, where he handles the emotions in an everyday complex without resorting to too much of his characteristic, forced witticism. For once, his characters are more real than they’d ever get, something he’d resort to again only in ‘Zack and Miri make a Porno’. For once, they do more than repent – they hope and shout and shed tears than pass it all off as a comedic routine that’s otherwise called ‘life’. For Kevin Smith, it’s a first. For the viewer, it’s more than just a sigh of relief.

Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) blasts the whole concept out as the film nears its end in a fashion not unlike a press interview. The title never inspired hope in the first place and he slams the door harder on any prospect of reconciliation. But it’s not a dead end. It’s an endless road of dealing with oneself. A sort of purgatory where the ends wouldn't ever meet.

Ben Affleck is an endearing man. He has an overall laid-back gait superimposed on painfully-withheld emotions in his Holden McNeil, serving him to be more relatable than just ‘understood’. It took me just a car-confession to step inside his shoes; the scene where slap-happy turned sensitive in an uncontrolled upchuck. I empathized. Alyssa Jones, the film’s ‘Amy’ makes Summer Finn look absurd. It’s tough not to compare even if in contrasting eras, but we find that in this case there’s scope for none. Kevin Smith does that by manifesting himself in her striking originality. Alyssa, dressed in a lusty rendition by Joey Lauren Adams, is as talkative as Silent Bob is not, though she’s equally clear-cut with her sensibility. And it’s not just her: Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), Holden’s disapproving friend, tells him he’s too conservative to stomach someone like Alyssa. “She’s done things that we’ve only read about!” he tries to explain. I was amazed at how much that hit me. Isn’t there such a point of emasculation in every man’s life? It’s his pet concept that he coaxes to perfection with this film, having done a brief overview in ‘Clerks’. Even more impressive is how he manages to impact with the simplest of conversations. He has the rare ability to make representatives out of every single character than just the usual case of the male lead, as a result of which we have a film that eases you into vulnerability in all directions before a full-blown confrontation. This is exactly what I was looking for!

If ‘Annie Hall’ shushed Alvy Singer up in his attempts to rationalize their break-up, Alyssa Jones opens Holden up to a whole new world, quite like how he accredits her back in that car which I never left. Both films have their share of ‘male-endings’. Annie Hall breaks up with the man she left Singer for. Alyssa Jones turns tearful in a half-hearted attempt at denial. We witness an exciting rebirth of the sensitized conversationalist in form of Kevin Smith, a man who has the guts to put the blame on man than woman, and comes on top with his decision to stomach it than shy away.

In a time where comedies are purely physical with over-emphasized sexual tones, we have a film that talks its way through and stays quiet when it has to. It’s funny, it’s incredibly romantic; it’s crazy-sexy in its own off-hand way, and it’s got a lot of heart. What more can one ask for?