Transcendence

Transcendence - trɑːnˈsɛnd(ə)ns,tranˈsɛnd(ə)ns noun – existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level

Synonyms       superiority, supremacy, predominance, pre-eminence, ascendancy, incomparability, matchlessness, peerlessness, excellence, greatness, magnificence, sublimity, importance, rareparamountcy

In Time

It is the year 2026 and the global currency is not longer dollars or euros or pounds or dinars or rupees. It is time. In seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. So if you want to travel by bus for a journey that takes 2 hours to walk, then you need to pay 2 hours as the fare for your ticket. Interesting right? You are born with a time frame of 25 years in your bank. Beyond 25 you don’t age a day. But you start eating away into the 1 hour that is provided for you in your account. For anything more, you need to work. And work really hard. Needless to say, you are paid in time. All of this is recorded in a chip that is built into your left arm which starts counting down from the instance that you complete 25 years of age. It is as if a bolt of energy passes through you and your clock suddenly starts counting down from 1 year.


In all of this, there are the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys are of course poor and stay in Zone 12 and have to work their way upwards to the Greenwich Zone or something like that. Those are the rich guys and ergo the bad guys. Sounds familiar right? Same old story really. Just that the currency has been changed to time and the standard policeman has been replaced by a time keeper. No points for really guessing the story and how it will finish in about 15 minutes into the movie. So I am not really going to waste my time or your time in describing the rest of the story.

Directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca / Lord of War), In Time is probably a serious waste of precious time – as ironic as it may seem. It lacks anything innovative despite a track record that Niccol has of giving us reasonably interesting movies. He does give us some interesting chase sequences but nothing which is brilliant and makes you want to sit upright in your seat. Just the same old boring stuff.

He doesn’t have much of support from the cast either. Never been a Justin Timberlake fan. Guess he is a director’s actor only. Been a fan of Amanda Seyfried but she surprisingly fails miserably in this one. I wonder if this years Razzies had these 2 performances which are outstandingly bad very honestly. The support cast including the otherwise decent Cillian Murphy is significantly below par.

Overall quite a disaster of a movie which would explain why it didn’t do too well across the board. I for one managed to sit through it. But couldn’t find anything great. Therefore 4 on 10. One doesn’t need to push for an opportunity to watch it – seriously.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi775265305/

Batman Begins

I could not have missed the opportunity to kick start my movies for the weekend with a Saturday nite show of Batman Begins. And it obviously helped that on a Saturday I had been movie free!!! Sacrilegious I say!!! So I wasn’t going to let this pass. And my respect for Christopher Nolan keeps going up every time I see a movie. I wasn’t watching Batman Begins for the first time mind you. But each time I see it, I build a deeper sense of respect for Nolan who is not just one of the finest directors of our time but also one of the visionaries of cinema. Bob Kane couldn’t have asked for a better director to bring to life “Batman” – the way it was supposed to be.

People must have been doggone bored with Batman by the time this one released. 4 Batman movies had preceded Batman Begins – none of which had told the story of Batman, the way it was supposed to be told. More importantly, there were 3 Batmans in 4 movies. And 3 directors. With the exception of the Tim Burton / Michael Keaton combination, the other 2 not only failed to excite the audiences but also left them with a distaste for Batman movies like never before. Thankfully, Batman Begins came in after a hiatus of 8 years and audiences had probably forgotten the trauma that they went through with Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. One of the few movies on imdb that has a score of below 4 (from what I have seen). Thankfully Catwoman (2004) didn’t feature Batman and so people were fine with another Batman movie.

They wouldn’t have regretted spending the better part of nearly 2.5 hours watching the saga of Batman unfold from Bruce Wayne’s “scaredy cat” days as a child with fear of bats to his nerdy looking days when he is studying at college to a point in time where he decides to really follow best friend Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) advise and decides to really do something about the grime around him rather than just claim to be a good man below his façade. Batman Begins sees the introduction of Ra’s Al Ghul and The Scarecrow aka Dr. Johnathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) both of whom are portrayed brilliantly by Nolan. It kind of sets the tone for the sequels to come where very clearly, the villain would have as much screen time & content of role if not more than Batman himself. A fact that had till then been vastly underplayed with the exception of the first Batman where Jack Nicholson played the role of The Joker.

Batman Begins is the truest and the most sincere representation of the Batman Story that I have seen so far. It was no surprise that the movie closes with the introduction of the “calling card” and sets things up beautifully for Dark Knight. Must watch. 8 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2743468569/

Inception

In our day to day lives (especially if you are a B School student), we are always asked to raise the benchmark. Well if we need to look for inspiration to do this, there is one person who has since 1997 been raising the bar each time. He goes by the name of Christopher Nolan. Yes, the guy who probably shot to fame in India with Dark Knight but the journey started over 13 years back with a movie called Doodlebug. His 9th movie, INCEPTION, is yet another masterpiece that makes his previous efforts look slightly pale in comparison. Yes my dears, we have one of the strongest contenders for the Oscars this year.


Dom Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) along with his trusted aide, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) specialize in a technique of entering your mind to figure out your ideas. He does this by getting into your dreams i.e. your sub conscious mind which is where the best of ideas are hidden. He can, by doing this, also reveal your deepest darkest secrets. The concept is called Deception.

In his current role, Cobb is working for an organization to get into the mind of Saito (Ken Watanabe) a Japanese entrepreneur whose organization is one of the world leaders in energy. However, Cobb is not successful in his attempt and therefore has to face the consequences which could even be death. However, Saito, realizing Cobb’s expertise offers him a trade off. He is also aware that Cobb is on the run and cannot make it back to the US because he allegedly killed is wife, Mal (the ever so beautiful Marion Cotillard). Saito wants Cobb to take reverse the idea of Deception i.e. plant an idea in the mind of his biggest competitor Robert Fischer Jr. (Cilian Murphy) heir to the largest energy company in the world owned by Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlewaithe – Usual Suspects – Kobayashi). Maurice Fischer is on his deathbed. Saito wants Cobb to plant an idea into Robert’s mind that he has disappointed Maurice and that he should dissolve the company and start all over again – INCEPTION.

Tempted by the possibility of being back with his children Phillipa and James, Cobb takes up the assignment and sets about building his team. He first approaches his father, Miles (Michael Caine) in Paris who puts him through to the first person in the sequence – the architect – the person who creates the dream/s as required. This is Ariadne (Ellen Page – She looks all of 16 but is actually 23!!!!!). Two more people join the team – Eames (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) a chemist who is required to create chemicals that can keep the subjects sedated for over 10 hours and that too in a stable manner.

Now that the plot is clear, fasten your seat belts for what I believe is definitely the most exciting roller coaster ride of the year if not the decade. Nolan weaves a complete maze to keep the audience riveted to their seats and continuously wondering – what next? And if you were to curse Nolan in the end to leave the interpretation entirely to yourself – I would not be surprised at all. But then, that my friend is the magic of the movies and the magic created by Christopher Nolan.

I would like to see Inception once again. That it’s a brilliant movie kept aside, I would really really like to try and look for some mistake. Inception, at first look seems to be brilliant in probably every department. The only place that I could think of some chinks seem to be in the acting department. I say this because I have seen all these actors render roles that were far superior than their performances in Inception. However, I cant help but be fair to them and say that they all gave what was expected of them. The editing is picture perfect. The screenplay brilliant. Cinematography – oh so amazing. Special Effects superb. OK not I seem like a very easy man to please. Have a look at it yourself. This one is a collectible. This one is 9 on 10. Right up there in the list of movies that are absolutely must own and must watch. Christopher Nolan – Take a Bow.