One of the
secrets / essentials of making the sequel better than its predecessor would be
to first retain the director. Nothing
spurs a director (or so I would assume) more than the desire to better her/his
previous work. Of course, this may not
be a guarantee but it is definitely a key to raising the probability of success. Marc Webb sure comes from the earlier school
of thought in this part of The Amazing Spiderman. Amazing indeed.
Showing posts with label Marc Webb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marc Webb. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 May 2014
Monday, 2 July 2012
The Amazing Spider Man
Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is back. One can choose to go “What the hell???? Don’t these guys get enough of making the same movie again and again and again and then when you think its all done they get one more just for posterity”. One can also choose to go, “Wow!!! Lets see what Spiderman is upto this time around”. Fortunately, I fall in the latter category and went to the screen expecting a good show. The good news – I was not disappointed. The not so good news – I wasn’t half as excited when I exited the movie as I was when I left the hall after say, The Avengers.
A better part of the movie goes through the same old rigmarole of how Peter Parker allows curiosity to get the better of him only to get bitten by a mutant spider of some kind and then turns into Spiderman. The difference however – in each one of the movies – is how he lands up being Spiderman. This time around it is by one which is being used to test gene therapy of some kind which will allow human beings to lose all of their weaknesses.
Leading the project is Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans – remember the nerdy character who doesn’t have a bath and is Hugh Grant’s room mate in Notting Hill – I couldn’t believe it either) who used to be Peter’s old man’s best mate. Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) suddenly disappeared under circumstances that can best be described as mysterious. Doc stops keeping in touch with the Parkers. Period. Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) both find this quite weird but have done nothing to reach out to Connors either. Connors is now heading research @ Oscorp and is charged with the responsibility of keeping Osborne alive – a job that Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) knows how to do.
The Amazing Spiderman – thankfully doesn’t not stop in its differences with the name. It goes onto give a different story and therefore can keep the audiences engaged if they have seen the trilogy that preceded it. If they haven’t then this is one will be a good entertainer. The 3D effects are far superior to any of the previous ones. And Marc Webb – who has only one full length feature to his credit prior to this one – comes up with the goods for sure.
It’s a super hero movie so don’t look for acting as such but the performances are definitely above the expected level. The disappointing part for us Indians is that we would have expected our own Irrfan Chacha to have a meatier role. His screen time is restricted to about 2 minutes and 38.91 seconds. I give the movie 7 on 10 and I guess you will enjoy it. But honestly – not as good as the previous ones.
Watch the movie on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBfk0MqD67s
A better part of the movie goes through the same old rigmarole of how Peter Parker allows curiosity to get the better of him only to get bitten by a mutant spider of some kind and then turns into Spiderman. The difference however – in each one of the movies – is how he lands up being Spiderman. This time around it is by one which is being used to test gene therapy of some kind which will allow human beings to lose all of their weaknesses.
Leading the project is Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans – remember the nerdy character who doesn’t have a bath and is Hugh Grant’s room mate in Notting Hill – I couldn’t believe it either) who used to be Peter’s old man’s best mate. Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) suddenly disappeared under circumstances that can best be described as mysterious. Doc stops keeping in touch with the Parkers. Period. Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field) both find this quite weird but have done nothing to reach out to Connors either. Connors is now heading research @ Oscorp and is charged with the responsibility of keeping Osborne alive – a job that Rajit Ratha (Irrfan Khan) knows how to do.
The Amazing Spiderman – thankfully doesn’t not stop in its differences with the name. It goes onto give a different story and therefore can keep the audiences engaged if they have seen the trilogy that preceded it. If they haven’t then this is one will be a good entertainer. The 3D effects are far superior to any of the previous ones. And Marc Webb – who has only one full length feature to his credit prior to this one – comes up with the goods for sure.
It’s a super hero movie so don’t look for acting as such but the performances are definitely above the expected level. The disappointing part for us Indians is that we would have expected our own Irrfan Chacha to have a meatier role. His screen time is restricted to about 2 minutes and 38.91 seconds. I give the movie 7 on 10 and I guess you will enjoy it. But honestly – not as good as the previous ones.
Watch the movie on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBfk0MqD67s
Monday, 27 September 2010
500 Days of Summer
YEAH!!!! 50 REVIEWS AND COUNTING!!!!!
“This is a story about boy meets girl. But this is not a love story”. 500 Days of Summer starts with this claim. But when your cast includes the boy faced Joseph Gordon Levitt and the even more sweet looking Zooey Deschanel, that’s a tall claim to make. Nevertheless, around 90 minutes later, one has no other choice but to agree with this claim. 500 Days of Summer is definitely not your run of the mill love story. In fact it isn’t a love story.
Tom Hansen (JG Levitt) is a greeting card writer. He is a qualified architect. But it doesn’t quite work out and now he finds himself writing cards. His life revolves around his 2 best friends, McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler). And his little but not so little sister Rachel (Chloe Moretz). He believes that there is “The One” for every person in the world. He is your regular Romeo in search for his Juliet. Summer Finn (Zoey Deschanel) – yes the movie isn’t about the season – joins the organization as an assistant to Vance (Clark Gregg). Tom is instantly smitten. But he is too scared to make any moves. But he does manage to make some small conversation. First when Summer tells him about her love for the band “Smiths” and then at a small office get together.
Things however start building up only when they get together at a Karaoke session where they have their first real conversation. Turns out Summer is not one to believe in “Love”. What does it mean anyways. Life is too short. Best have as much fun and not get into any sort of commitments. “I don’t want to be known as anybody’s somebody” is the motto that she lives by. But there’s something about Tom that she finds attractive. She is not able to put a finger on it but one thing leads to another and the 2 just hit it off. But at no point of time does she want to solidify the relationship by taking it to the next level. She just wants to be best friends – with benefits of course. However, she does go on behaving like a girl friend would.
500 days of Summer is made in a non-chronological fashion. A method of movie making which one Quentin Tarantino is a complete expert. But director Marc Webb does full justice to the style of movie making. There is very little use of music. Webb has made great use of the term “pregnant pauses” and also flirts with being an arty kind of movie as well. The movies deals with a topic that is not been explored too often – in fact I cannot quite remember any movie that has dealt with the pain of a break up. The process of healing after you have been hit really hard squarely on the face with the fact that all the effort has come to naught. The pain of playing back every little scene in an “endless loop” just to figure out if there is a little moment that you missed out. All this in a relationship that you have put everything you had into and left no stone unturned whatsoever.
Joseph Gordon Levitt has for the better part of his life been associated with teeny bopper movies. But of late, I must say, he has come of age. With Inception and 500 days of Summer, he has probably taken a step in the right direction of maximizing his potential. Zooey Deschanel is one of the prettiest (not gorgeous – pretty) faces you can see in Hollywood. Totally girl next door. And quite a decent actress. In her role of Summer Finn I think she was very good to say the least. She looked most comfortable as a mid twenties girl who is comfortable without giving a relationship any status or name. Not the happiest of movies to watch but a very different topic. Peppered with decent performances from the support cast. Definitely worth a dekko. 6 on 10.
“This is a story about boy meets girl. But this is not a love story”. 500 Days of Summer starts with this claim. But when your cast includes the boy faced Joseph Gordon Levitt and the even more sweet looking Zooey Deschanel, that’s a tall claim to make. Nevertheless, around 90 minutes later, one has no other choice but to agree with this claim. 500 Days of Summer is definitely not your run of the mill love story. In fact it isn’t a love story.
Tom Hansen (JG Levitt) is a greeting card writer. He is a qualified architect. But it doesn’t quite work out and now he finds himself writing cards. His life revolves around his 2 best friends, McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler). And his little but not so little sister Rachel (Chloe Moretz). He believes that there is “The One” for every person in the world. He is your regular Romeo in search for his Juliet. Summer Finn (Zoey Deschanel) – yes the movie isn’t about the season – joins the organization as an assistant to Vance (Clark Gregg). Tom is instantly smitten. But he is too scared to make any moves. But he does manage to make some small conversation. First when Summer tells him about her love for the band “Smiths” and then at a small office get together.
Things however start building up only when they get together at a Karaoke session where they have their first real conversation. Turns out Summer is not one to believe in “Love”. What does it mean anyways. Life is too short. Best have as much fun and not get into any sort of commitments. “I don’t want to be known as anybody’s somebody” is the motto that she lives by. But there’s something about Tom that she finds attractive. She is not able to put a finger on it but one thing leads to another and the 2 just hit it off. But at no point of time does she want to solidify the relationship by taking it to the next level. She just wants to be best friends – with benefits of course. However, she does go on behaving like a girl friend would.
500 days of Summer is made in a non-chronological fashion. A method of movie making which one Quentin Tarantino is a complete expert. But director Marc Webb does full justice to the style of movie making. There is very little use of music. Webb has made great use of the term “pregnant pauses” and also flirts with being an arty kind of movie as well. The movies deals with a topic that is not been explored too often – in fact I cannot quite remember any movie that has dealt with the pain of a break up. The process of healing after you have been hit really hard squarely on the face with the fact that all the effort has come to naught. The pain of playing back every little scene in an “endless loop” just to figure out if there is a little moment that you missed out. All this in a relationship that you have put everything you had into and left no stone unturned whatsoever.
Joseph Gordon Levitt has for the better part of his life been associated with teeny bopper movies. But of late, I must say, he has come of age. With Inception and 500 days of Summer, he has probably taken a step in the right direction of maximizing his potential. Zooey Deschanel is one of the prettiest (not gorgeous – pretty) faces you can see in Hollywood. Totally girl next door. And quite a decent actress. In her role of Summer Finn I think she was very good to say the least. She looked most comfortable as a mid twenties girl who is comfortable without giving a relationship any status or name. Not the happiest of movies to watch but a very different topic. Peppered with decent performances from the support cast. Definitely worth a dekko. 6 on 10.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)