Rio 2

I am at the outset going to make a candid confession.  I didn’t like Rio too much.  I found it to be too much of an avian fantasy.  It seemed force fitted into one of the most gorgeous places on earth and that didn’t go too well with me.  I found a lot of characters to be over the top and frankly the concept was nowhere close to animations like Lion King or Finding Nemo or even Shrek (not one of my favourites).

Now You See Me

The dictionary defines magic as the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature. Now if that doesn’t confuse you then you have a tremendous command over the language.

To Rome With Love

Another screenplay nomination for Woody Allen? Probably yes. If the academy is used to and will continue to endorse his eccentric but totally hilarious style of script writing. Woody Allen – to my knowledge has got the maximum awards for screenplay to date – 4 (none of which have been collected by him because of his commitment to jazz – or the story goes). I personally would not be surprised if this is a 5th. What I am surprised about – and pleasantly at that – is the braveheart distributor in India who decided to release the movie in line with the US Markets – a phenomenon that hasn’t been seen to date with most of his other movies. Good for us I say.

To Rome With Love is, as the name suggests, an ode from the master writer to the city of Rome and the nuances that come from being there. It traces 4 stories through the length of the movie – 2 of which are in Italian and 2 in English. Probably an experiment from Woody – I don’t remember having seen such a combination before. However, unlike our funny Indian film makers, the Italian parts are in – guess what – Italian!!!! Not like a Hindi hero talking to an American or of late Australian cop in pure Hindi

Nevertheless, we have Jerry (Woody) and Phyllis (Judy Davis) who have to make a trip down to Rome because their daughter Hayley (Alison Pill) has fallen for an Italian lawyer called Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti). The name is Michel – not Michael. Mind it. Michel works pro bono (free) most of the time for the oppressed classes and has strong views on stuff like unionism – almost Communist in nature. Jerry is a retired Music Producer and Phyllis a psychiatrist.

In another part of Rome, we have John (Alec Baldwin) who has returned to the Rome that was home to him around 30 years back. He relives the entire time in Rome through the character of Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) who is currently seeing Sally (Greta Gerwig). But is soon to find himself torn between Sally and her best friend Monica (Ellen Paige) who visits the couple to get over a break up with a gay man who she hoped to change.

If you don’t think this is funny then there is the comedy of errors story of a newly married couple – Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) & Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi). The former is in Rome to network with his uncles who are extremely well known in the business fraternity. Milly is a demure, naïve school teacher from a village in Italy. When Milly goes off to get her hair done, Antonio’s friends decide to send in a high class call girl – Anna (Penelope Cruz) to make his day. This story is truly funny.

And if all this fails to excite you about the movie then I suggest you skip the 2 hours because you are not going to be too excited about the prospect of the extremely funny and quirky Roberto Benigni essaying the role of Leopoldo – an ordinary office worker whose life gets thrown into fame thanks to the Italian media who makes him into a larger than life character.

If there is one thing I would love to learn from Woody Allen it would be his capability to bring to life so many characters. Even the most insignificant traffic policeman who begins the movie is fleshed out in a matter of seconds. If you are a Woody Allen fan then this one you cannot miss. If you are not then this one may just about get you to fall for this genre of alternate humour – I love Woody Allen – and let me assure you that it is not because I should love him or it is a very cool thing to say. I think you will enjoy To Rome With Love. 8 on 10. Don’t miss it. Potential Oscar nomination for Penelope Cruz - Best Actress in a supporting role.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3170738201/

Rio

And we finally get to one of the more expected animation movies of the year. Phew!!! That was one long wait. Over 4 months since I saw the trailer for the first time, Rio hit screens in India last weekend (pardon me for the delay in putting up the review but it has seriously been super hectic). And I almost lost all hope that it would get there in the first place. I mean, what is with production houses that release the trailer some 6 months before the movie and then keep you waiting for time immemorial. After a while it gets to your nerves a bit too much and does nothing to build up the excitement in anyways. I would hazard a guess that anything more than 3 months and it gets to be really boring. Trailer Life Cycle hypothesis is what I would like to call it.


Lets move onto the more relevant point of discussion - the 7th release in the Animation genre from movie power house Twentieth Century Fox (TCF). That they have released only 7 to date should give TCF a good enough indication that they are not really cut out best to play around much in this genre. Other than the Ice Age series, the rest of the lot have been quite average and in fact not worth mentioning. Rio probably makes it to the list that can just about claim to have made the cut with nothing terribly brilliant about it nor was it horrendously made to say it wasn’t worth a dekko. TCFs favourite animation director would have to be Carlos Saldanah who has given them their most successful franchise to date. But somehow the namesake of the Jackal isn’t able to re-create the magic of Ice Age. One may argue that it is unfair to compare previous works and treat this in isolation. On both counts, Rio falls just that tad bit short of being a superb animation movie in the league of Up or Finding Nemo or for that matter even Cars. Pixar needn’t quite worry for now with the quality of work that they are giving us.

Rio is the story of Blue (Jesse Eisenberg) who finds himself caught by a trapper in the jungles right outside the famed Samba City and then traded as an exotic species of bird – the Blue Macaw. And that too when the poor baby is just about excited about the concept of flying. Pretty soon he finds himself in the other hemisphere in the extremely cold state of Milwaukee. By chance, he is found by Linda (Leslie Mann) who takes care of him like her best friend. A few years later, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) arrives at Linda’s doorstep and gives her the news that Blue is the last of its species (do macaws live upto 15-20 years coz that’s the amount of time that seems to have passed between Linda finding Blue and today). Now here’s a nerdy girl who has probably not been on a date and a Macaw who doesn’t know how to fly and find themselves travelling to Rio where their little adventure sees Blue trying to make an impression on Jewel (Anne Hathaway). In between all of that is an avian villain, a parakeet who goes by the name of Nigel (Jemaine Clement) and some avian friends – a Toucan called Rafael (George Lopez). Keeping them company are Pedro (Will i Am ) and Nico (Jamie Foxx). A reasonable adventure but a bit short of being really good. The Animation is not outstanding in anyways. 3D and the music are quite weak with nothing to get too excited about. The voice overs are quite well done though. Overall a 6 on 10. The kids will definitely love it. But not meant for all ages.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi470260249/

The Social Network

My First Look @ Social Network was in July. It was by far one of the best trailers I have seen in modern cinema. I had in fact written about it as well. Superb utilization of audio and visual cues to create an impact that leaves you asking, “I WANT to see this one”. When I walked into the theatre late last night, I was only hoping that I would not be let down. Add to that the rave reviews given by people who saw it the previous evening @ a paid preview and the pressure for “The Social Network” to deliver was immense to say the least. Thankfully I was not let down at all.


One would think that everyone knows or has at least heard of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). But not too many would know about the grime behind the entire success story and how things really built up between Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), Dustin Moskovitz (Joseph Mazzello) & Chris Hughes (Patrick Mapel) on one side and the team of Cameron Winklevoss (Arnie Hammer), Tyler Winklevoss (Josh Pence) & Divya Narendra (Max Minghella) on the other. And where the hell is Mark in all this? Mark is stuck in the middle and getting chewed for borrowing and idea that was supposedly the Winklevoss’. But who was responsible for actually making it the biggest mega trend in recent times? No points for guessing that.

The Social Network takes a really close look at the build up of the facebook story from the really early days on the Harvard Campus. Starting with the night that Mark manages to really piss off one Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) over dinner and then goes onto blog about her. He then in a fit a rage starts putting together “Face Mash” which gets 20K hits in 2 hours and crashes the Harvard server by 4 am. Following this, he is put on 6 months academic suspension when the Winklevoss’ get in touch with him for a social network called harvardconnection.com (later called ConnectU.com). Mark agrees to work on it but knows that he is onto something really big out here and spends the next 7 weeks building the first version of www.thefacebook.com which he goes onto announce. Obviously the trio of the Winklevoss’ and Divya Narendra are not at all pleased but do not want to behave like gentlemen of Harvard and so don’t take him to court. But once the juggernaut starts rolling, there is no stopping it and we are know that FB now has more than 500 million active users.

The Social Network is in line for a nomination for the best movie @ the Oscars next year. It will not win the Oscar thanks to one Christopher Nolan but will definitely earn itself a nomination. In what is probably the 2nd best movie made this year, David Fincher gives us yet another fabulous 2 hours. Fincher is best known for starting his movie career in 1995 with Seven. 15 years and 5 more huge movies later, he has given us yet another reason to cheer about. Superb direction and awesome editing are the stand out features of the movie. It takes a while to get used to the cuts in between nearly 6 parallel story lines. And be forewarned that it is a severely dialogue intensive movie with loads of internet jargon thrown in. But also watch out for the slick humour thrown in as garnish.

I could not have thought of anyone else to play the part of Mark Zuckerberg than Jesse Eisenberg. Not that he has any movies where his acting talent has been on display but then again, he never had the likes of David Fincher to work with. Jesse does a wonderful job with the portrayal of Mark and so does the rest of the cast. Stand out performances from Andrew Garfield as Eduardo Saverin & surprise surprise Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker (Napster fame). Performances all through are very intense.

Must watch movie folks – 8 on 10 clearly.