Her

The sheer ingenuity of the concept of someone falling in love with his Operating System should be enough to draw you to watch HER.  If that is not sufficient then I am hoping that by the end of this review, you will be compelled to at least consider a watch.  Because if you don’t catch up with the movie, you are missing some really great cinema.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

And it is turning out to be a great start to Hollywood in India for 2014 – much like last year.  But I guess that’s what happens when you release movies made in 2013 in the first month of the year.  So to that extent it doesn’t count.  What counts however is that for the first time I have seen Ben Stiller executing a role that doesn’t involve any slapstick comedy.

Bridesmaids

If you look at the nominations for best original screenplay in this year’s Academy awards you will find that Bridesmaids shares space with the likes of Margin Call, The Artist, Midnight in Paris and A Separation (foreign film). Makes me sit back and wonder why actually. I mean, it was a good fun storyline but had too much of crappy scenes and over the top segments for it to be called really up there. I thought the likes of Rango for e.g. was much better. What stuns me even more is that Bridesmaids has been included in the Best Screenplay for even the BAFTAs. Now I think I need a serious relook at my understanding of screenplay. It was just a simple straightforward regular semi slapstick comedy with some decent dialogues thrown in. I personally believed that it was nowhere close to being Oscar league.
Lets then go onto the performance of one Melissa McCarthy. This one for my money’s worth takes the cake yet again. She shares the space with stunning performances from Bérénice Bejo (Artist), Jessica Chastain & Octavia Spencer (Help) & Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs). Am I seriously missing a point here? So we are saying that the over the top slapstick antics of McCarthy are superior to the sincere solid performances from the likes of Chloë Grace Moretz (Hugo) or Shailene Woodley (The Descendants). Both performances far superseded McCarthy and were from less than 18 year olds – which cannot be the reason for the Oscars ignoring them. Need to get my fundas cleared.

Bridesmaids is definitely a very enjoyably flick. So don’t get me wrong on that count. Just that it is too tacky for Oscar nominations. There are truck loads of consistency errors. The performances are honestly quite average. There are moments in the movie which make you laugh out loud due to the simplicity of humour which is yet so well spoken that one cannot help but acknowledge the effort. However, several movies through the year have done a much better job than Bridesmaids and it is disappointing to not see their names on the list.

Director Paul Fieg hasn’t directed too many features other than the reasonably well known Unaccompanied Minors. He hasn’t exceeded himself or raised the bar significantly. If anyone stood out for my money’s worth they were Kristen Wiig in the lead role and Rose Byrne who for my money’s worth was much better than McCarthy. One need not have looked too far to find a performance that was better. Nevertheless, worth a DVD Rental. Enjoyable definitely. 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi4215119129/