Baron VC

The Hangover is a must see comedy. Four guys throwing a bachelor party in Vegas wake up with a massive hangover, no recollection of what happened, and lose the groom. The opening scene alone was priceless. The movie had all the stock cliches of a Vegas movie but the chemistry of the actors and the story of piecing together a wild night on the town backwards based on clues like tattered receipts and missing teeth put a fresh spin on it. There wasn’t a single dull moment and I ended up re-watching quite a few scenes to get another laugh.
Phil is a laid back partier type that can only see the positive side even in the most desperate situation. The brother-in-law is missing a few marbles and adds to some uneasy situational comedy and pulls off some classic lines. Stu is a dentist in a really nasty relationship. He’s a straight arrow type until he unleashes his wild-side with the fateful drink.
I can’t begin to describe how this movie just works without ruining it for you but all the preposterous twists and turns come off and the lines are priceless. The thing I loved about the movie was how the actors fit their characters so well that their performances seemed effortless. Don’t take my word for it, just have a look for yourself.

In any literature class they teach you the importance of establishing conflict. Conflict is what drives a plot and makes it interesting. The problem is that in the 21st century it’s hard to define conflict. Morality is a lot more loose and hard to define. Even in super-hero movies, the line between good and bad is often blurred. Who would watch the Dark Knight if the Joker and Batman worked things out by talking? You’d have to be very good with the dialogue.

That’s why these vampire romances sort of add a nice dimension of conflict. You’re madly in love with someone you really want to eat and literally suck dry. Although I had my doubts about jumping on the band wagon watching Twilight but after the opening scene of the daughter moving away to a new town complete with sad 1960s rock music, I knew it would be good, though not in a conventional way.

In a word, the movie wins massively with casting to prop up a cliched and vacuous plot. You have to suspend your belief significantly when you see the Cullens (a vampire family) introduced in the movie, pale white goth-looking teens who look like vampires from a mile away keeping to themselves in a small town and nowhere to be seen when there’s sunlight. Of course Bella, the new girl, takes no time in figuring out that Edward and his family are vampires (though the entire town is oblivious for years).

What drives the movie is Bella’s romance with Edward because both the actors do such a great job at portraying an uneasy teenage love affair that you’re willing to forget the flimsy plot and sappy vows of eternal love.

Having said that, a lot of these vampire romances just leaves your head scratching. This is somehting that Twilight has in common with Vampire Diaries. Just to name a few:

• Your boyfriend is pale white and brooding with strange colored eyes
• He has zero social skills and is only interested in you
• Said boyfriend may sometimes be hovering over you at night watching you sleep
• Shows up at your house or in front of you at the oddest of moments
• Not to mention he would really like to eat you
• Prone to mood swings and other inexplicable behavior because they need to do or avoid “vampire type stuff”
• Just the general notion that these are men who are a couple hundred years old preying on teenage girls

Any artistic achievement of this genre probably began and ended with the original Dracula, but the themes introduced will always be universal and it seems to combine well with teenage angst.

Michael Jackson’s death was definitely an unexpected shocker. Even though his life has long degraded into a media circus of scandal and freakish behavior, his final demise ironically allowed us to see the man behind the mask for his true artistry and talent. Michael Jackson created the MTV era. He was the first artist to offer the most complete package of visuals and artistry: gorgeous good looks, innovative dance moves, off the hook melodies, and a sweet voice not to mention creating the whole music video phenomenon with “Thriller”. Overnight people were wearing Michael Jackson jackets and moonwalking in school hallways.

What seemed like a picture perfect transition from child prodigy, to teen heart throb, to super stardom turned into a personal tragedy of excesses. Once he hit his thirties his eccentricities seemed to catch up with him whether it was his frequently changing physical appearances or strange lifestyle. He was no longer the shockingly handsome, wildly talented yet painfully shy young man but a middle-aged freak trapped in a missed childhood coasting on a cocktail of drugs.

Yet the world was fascinated with Michael more as a train wreck as the years went by. Still, the strange thing is that when you look at all his recent work after his death, you can’t help but be touched by the fact that he was and still is a super star in the truest sense of the word. Listening back to his hits I can’t help but be amazed by the breadth of songs he created from classic dance numbers, rock heavy songs to current R&B flavored tracks. His lyrics are poignant and vocal abilities highly under-appreciated for the breadth of expression that it possessed.

When you look at other superstars from the same generation such as Prince and Madonna who’ve managed to keep aging as much at bay without wrecking their looks or health you can’t help but wish that Michael could have taken a similar path instead of ruining himself. Still, there’s no arguing that despite all that passed he was one of the most gentle and sensitive superstars of this era and that nobody including himself could have saved him from his fragility.

It’s the sadness of humanity that some people can be given everything and yet be killed by the temptation of excesses. Now that he’s gone we can separate the myth and listen to his songs for artistry and the messages he left for the world. Rest in peace Michael.

I really can’t say much for this film other than the fact that it was an excellent vehicle for Will Smith to make a major breakthrough as an actor and to be taken seriously for his talents. His physical transformation in itself is an awe-inspiring feat. However, the film itself leaves much to be desired. You can’t capture the man and the myth that is Muhammad Ali in two hours, no matter how dramatically rich his life may be. Life is messy and complex, it just doesn’t make a good film in most cases.

Maybe Will Smith did too good a job impersonating Ali but most of his lines were delivered without really connecting. He also seems to suddenly evolve into a womanizer or suddenly convert to Islam, it was hard to feel what Ali was going through that made him what he was. I honestly couldn’t view this film in one sitting and sort of went through it piecemeal.

Ali

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a Woody Allen film from his Scarlett Johansson phase. Two American girls visit Barcelona. Vicky is a practical girl engaged to a successful businessman and finishing her masters degree in Catalan identity. Cristina is aspiring visual artist that just finished filming a short that will get her no where. In Barcelona they meet a flamboyant, mysterious Spanish painter with a disastrous and dysfunctional relationship with his ex-wife. Cristina takes an instant liking to the painter while Vicky tries to protect Cristina in vain only to fall for the painter herself. Cristina gets drawn into the dysfunctional relationship until everything simply comes apart.

The chemistry of this film is just amazing. Javier does such a masterful turn as a sexually-charged middle-aged artist who’s a magnet for women trouble. Of course, the show stealer of this film is the Academy Award winning performance from Penelope Cruz who does such a wonderful job as Javier’s mentally unstable ex-wife. Her Spanish tirades delivered with just the right mix of malice and ferocity in her eyes, the way she smiles without smiling while delivering slurs and extreme volatility is really amazing and well worth the price of admission.

It’s a funny and engaging film from beginning to end. Barcelona is an excellent backdrop full of rich scenery and the sonic backdrop of Spanish guitars makes it all the more exquisite. The film is rich with themes about relationships and the nature of love.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

The film opens in an Indian interrogation room. Jamal who’s on the verge of becoming an instant millionaire is being tortured by the police on the suspicion of cheating the popular TV show, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?”. “How can a slumdog like you know the answers?” asks the inspector to which he spits out blood and simply says, “I knew all the answers.”

It’s a riveting movie that takes you through the life of Jamal, his older brother and an orphan girl who becomes the object of Jamal’s lifelong quest and love. Every question has a dramatic back story connected to Jamal’s life of hardships coming up in the slums, losing his parents to muslim-hindi riots, growing up on wits alone. Life on the streets eventually consume his older brother as an up-and-coming gangster while the orphan girl becomes a kept woman to a prominent gang leader.

Jamal instead becomes a tea boy servicing an offshore call center.

The beauty of this film is the heart-wrenching story of life in the slums of Mumbai. It’s a world of child prostitutes and street children blinded by gangsters to be pimped out as singing beggars. Jamal rises above it all, untouched and pure, still in love with the girl of his childhood. It was a thoroughly amazing movie without a minute of boredom and a happy but bittersweet ending.

Slumdog Millionaire

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tells the story of a man born old and aging backwards, living a peculiar life of hardship that gradually blossoms into success and youth but also loss of his loves. One thing that stands out is the amazing computer graphics for their under-stated effects on the story (mainly allowing the actors to age backwards in a realistic way).

The story is loosely based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald so it’s more or less just the plot idea that makes it into this adaptation. The acting performances by both Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were excellent and low key. I found it a bit odd that the mind of a man born old would age chronologically and I think that took a lot away from the story (and this is a large departure from the short story as well), however the film makes you think about the reality of aging and its unavoidable place in humanity. I think the film could have benefitted for more torment and inner conflict on the difficulties of growing old backwards.

Although it’s a wonderful film I don’t really think it quite deserves the slew of Oscar nominations it’s garnered. I can only question the quality of films in recent years.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A girl from the streets with attitude problems and troubles at home gets one shot at making things good by enrolling in a prestigious arts academy on the strength of her potential as a dancer. The school’s most popular hunk and scion of the sponsoring family takes an interest in the girl as the girl gets pulled away from her streets “family” and frictions mount as they feel she “sold out”. The girl’s need to escape from the suffocating school atmosphere resonates with other students in the school who have never really rebelled against anything and together they take on the street dancers with a team of their own.

It’s one of those movies you’ve seen over and over again, usually geared towards teens. Same themes and plots, yet I loved this movie. Maybe it’s because they stuck to the formula but all the elements were there, the typical conflicts, attractive cast, and excellent dance sequences. The acting was solid too.

If you don’t like the genre, you probably wont like the movie but I really enjoyed it.

Adam Sevani was probably the best supporting actor in this film as the token “nerd” who happens to be a super bad dancer.

Step Up 2: The Streets

As a fan of the TV series, all I can say is that the film is bitter sweet. I was seriously disappointed in the first half of the film and actually stopped watching it to go to sleep, it didn’t feel worth staying up beyond late for. The movie picks up during the high drama point where the girls rally around Carrie in the time of her crisis. That was when the movie was the most emotional and poignant.

Watching the trailers I was annoyed by Jennifer Hudson getting a supporting role as Carrie’s assistant because it just seemed like a blatant power play to bring in “hot” talent to spice the movie up. The sad reality is Jennifer really spiced up the second half of the film with her presence, she brought fire to the performance that was oddly reminiscent of how I remember the original series when the girls were more vibrant and outgoing.

You could argue that the film was true to form in following the characters evolution but the 4 years following the show’s finale, unfortunately nothing’s changed. I felt like the entire film was trapped between the spirit of the original series and the reality that the characters were all settled down and approaching a more settled stage of their lives. The problem with the whole set up that made the series finale so brilliant was that the girls had shed their original hangups and inhibitions to approach a new stage in their lives. In sacrificing what made the TV series so attractive, they made a picture perfect ending. However, all that has to be undone when they try to pick up the ball with a big screen movie.

I’m sure age was a limiting factor for the cast, they can’t exactly move back into a prequel when the main cast looks visible older. They can’t pretend the TV finale didn’t happen. I just felt that in staying true to the plot’s continuity from the TV show, they sacrificed the spirit of what made Sex and the City what it was. It would have been much better if they trashed most of the elements that made the finale so gorgeous and shook it up a bit or introduced something more challenging.

Instead of a sequel, I wouldn’t mind seeing a reboot of the franchise starting with a new cast of girls, I think Jennifer Hudson’s part showed a lot of potential as the original concept of SATC is still strong and relative today because it’s about relationships before they find “the one”.

Sex and the City (film)

Wanted is about an anxiety-ridden failure of an accountant, the every man Wesley Gibson played by James McAvoy, with his life completely out of control stuck in a dead end job and an unfulfilling relationship.  McAvoy does a great job portraying a highly wound up flunky.  His life suddenly takes a turn for the dramatic when he is initiated into a secret society of assassins carrying out pre-emptive hits to rid the world of evil.  It is a society his father was once a part of and the anxiety attacks are actually the side effects of high adrenaline which allows him to see fast moving objects in slow motion.

It has all the elements of a formula movie but McAvoy puts in quite an edgy and convincing performance and Angelina does a great job playing Angelina.  The thing that shocked me is how aged Angelina Jolie looked with her sunken cheeks and hallowed eyes.  Maybe it’s post-birth malnutrition or something but she needs to do something about that.  I think Brad Pitt and Angelina look a lot older since they’ve gotten together.  I tend to think of Mr. and Mrs. Smith as their prime (at least looking good as a couple).

The action sequences are nothing innovative, the typical slow motion close ups of bullets flying through the air and cars dancing in the sky as the usual mayhem unfolds.  The plot twist near the end was interesting.  All in all an entertainment flick.