Imitation Game

The toughest movies to review are those that leave you enamoured.  I saw Imitation Game last Saturday and over the past 6 days I have been thinking about whether I was blown away by the person called Alan Turing or the actor called Benedict Cumberbatch or was it the story and the narrative that eventually turned into an end product called The Imitation Game.

Penguins of Madagascar

When you have Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Private (Christopher Knights) and Rico (Conrad Vernon) as the lead characters in a movie, you can be assured that there will be no shortage of excitement.  The cute looking but aggressive Penguins from the Madagascar series finally get an entire movie to themselves. Long awaited and well deserved indeed.

The Fifth Estate

And the world of exasperating Biopics was as prevalent at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) as anywhere else.  With the amount of publicity and talk about Julian Assange over the years, one would have expected a movie that was as good as David Fincher’s Social Network.  While there is every attempt made to look like Social Network, at the end of it all, one is left wondering what could have been instead of celebrating what was.

12 Years A Slave

My first experience with Steve McQueen (the director not the actor) was with a movie titled Shame that I saw nearly 2 years back during my trip down under.  I was a novice at reviewing (marginally better now) and didn’t quite take too kindly to the bold moves that McQueen confronted us with (http://kartikr.blogspot.in/2012/02/shame.html) and of course his favourite actor – Michael Fassbender.

Star Trek – Into Darkness

If it weren’t for Star Trek – Into Darkness, my entire weekend would have been gipped (all pun intended).  I am only sorry that I saw Star Trek first and then landed up ruining the rest of my day with some crap that Bollywood decided to dish out as its summer bonanza of sorts.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Did you know that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (with commas) was a 1979 TV Series starring Alec Guiness? It ran for a full 7 episodes it would seem. I tried my best to get my hands on the book before I saw the movie but sadly could not find it . Will keep the search on for a while – not just for academic interest but because the movie is so heavy and slow that ironically you find it difficult to keep pace with it. Funny right. But one has to read the book before you can understand the movie completely. I guess you will experience it when you watch it. It is difficult to explain it in words. I will now add the mini-series search to the list of must watches as well.

Tomas Alfredson peels out the story layer by layer by layer and that too in a very disjointed manner. That’s what I would call giving exceptional credit to the audience’s intelligence. Sometimes it backfires like it did with Tree of Life. At other times it comes out exceptionally well like in the case of Pulp Fiction. And then there are really good movies such as TTSS which kind of lose it in an attempt to increase the intrigue.

TTSS is an espionage movie that forces you to concentrate. Despite its slow pace, you could actually miss the plot if you miss a few seconds – like I did. The good news though is that it allows you to catch up unlike a lot of other movies which don’t. It traces the story of British Intelligence which suspects a Russian mole in its highest ranks. The task of unearthing the same is given to George Smiley (Gary Oldman) who builds his own mini team of sorts and starts the arduous task of figuring out who is the actual culprit – Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) OR Bill Haydon (Colin Firth) OR Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) OR Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds). They are code named – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier and Spy – not respectively.

TTSS has some really solid performances by the entire cast. Little known names such as David Dencik and the vastly under-rated Ciarán Hinds have come up with really solid performances. The movie has some outstanding editing and cinematography which is apparent within the first few frames. The use of light and colour is quite stunning. The only thing, if any, which could have been in doubt were the costumes. Not sure if there were some errors on that count – pardon me for not being familiar with the kind of clothes which were worn in the 70s. Cannot comment on the screenplay either because I haven’t read the book. However, independent of the book, the screenplay would be OK in my books. Overall, one of the better movies of the year. 7 on 10. Must watch again to be totally sure of the concept – willing to do it too.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3394673689/

Atonement

I had to finish Valentines Day with a movie that epitomizes true love. There are enough and more romantic comedies that were aired all through the day; some really good ones also. But what about the truest of love stores? The ones that are gut wrenchingly, excruciatingly painful but represent the concept of a long lasting love better than any other? I reviewed The English Patient yesterday and it was a sub conscious choice without giving much thought to the fact that it was actually a great build up to V Day. But picking up Atonement from my collection was not only a choice driven by the fact that I hadn’t seen it (the previous copy I had picked up was a DVD released by Big Videos and didn’t have subtitles and so was promptly returned) but also because I was looking at a love story and not a RomCom to finish off the day. I had my share of RomComs before Atonement with Hitch and Hope Springs. So a Golden Globe Winner and one with 7 Oscar nominations (one win) seemed to be a great choice.


What would be the emotions you could possibly go through if you are about 13 years old (a very peculiar and impressionable age) and you walked into the library of your massive house and found your sister having sex with the man that she loves who is coincidentally the one that you have a massive crush on. 13 year old - Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan – pronounced SEER sha); Sister – Cecilia Tallis (Kiera Knightley); Lover – Robbie Turner (James McAvoy). The embarrassed couple straightens their clothes and walk away.

The Tallises have their cousins from the north staying with them due some domestic problems – The Twins – Pierrot Quincey (Felix von Simson) and Jackson Quincey (Charlie von Simson) along with their elder sister Lola (Juno Temple). The twins don’t want to stay with their cousins and decide to run away that evening. Obviously the family panics and a search party is sent out. During the search, Briony stumbles upon someone molesting Lola and is shocked even further. Neither Lola nor Briony is sure about who the person was. But using this as an opportunity to get back @ Robbie, the naïve 13 year old gets him arrested as a prime witness. The fledgling romance between Robbie and Cecilia is smashed to smithereens. Robbie goes to prison and then to the war. Cecilia, leaves home and becomes a nurse. They keep their relationship alive through the years despite the frequency of meetings and the distances.

Atonement as the title suggests is a story of a girl’s search for retribution as she comes of age and understands the gravity of her actions. And how she tries to set things right. Yet another adapted screenplay, this one is based on Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name. I haven’t read the book but can only assume that it did deal with the aspect of Briony’s struggle to come to terms with her actions a bit more in detail. As aspect that was not given as much justice in the movie. The movie focused more on the love story between the protagonists who have done a very good job of bringing to fore the emotions that the lovers go through in sustaining their relationship through the years that build up to the war. Somehow, Joe Wright doesn’t seem to have done justice to the entire concept. Maybe it was in an attempt to keep the movie to under 2 hours. I would have risked extending it by about 30 minutes because the pace is quite solid and doesn’t really drop through the movie. The first thing that does hit you about the movie is the music which seems to be made with a typewriter and one which got the movie its only Oscar. Great cinematography. Some obvious slips on attention to detail – like Kiera Knightley’s luscious red lips in a nurse’s uniform. But Beautiful love story overall. Put this on your must watch list. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3836805401/