Zambezia

There is great Animation (Turbo) and there is good animation (Epic) and there is just about average animation.  Zambezia is unfortunately part of the last of the 3.  Just about average. Sometimes, I guess movie houses get it right by not releasing a movie in this part of the world.  But then, why go through the effort in the middle of year after the release? I wonder.

The Iron Lady

Two dialogues which completely personify the spirit of The Baroness Thatcher’s biopic would be, “It used to be about trying to DO SOMETHING but nowadays it is about trying to BE SOMEONE”. That is what the young baroness stated when she was contemplating running for Parliament way back in the 1950s. The basic desire to make a difference i.e. stop fussing and if you CAN do something about the issue then DO IT and not keep sitting on your backsides personifies the reason why The Baroness got the pseudonym of The Iron Lady. The other one being, "The sad part about today is the people are more concerned about "feelings" and not as much concerned about "thoughts"".
Shown as a flashback of her life, The Iron Lady, shows the Baroness as someone who is a really old and forgotten figure today striving to come to terms with her husband’s death. Dennis Thatcher (Jim Broadbent) who is vastly believed to be one of the few men “behind a successful woman” (understatement of the millennium) continues to hound The Baroness – she still believes that he is around her; hallucinations of sort. And as she is trying to get him out of her life for good, she reminisces about how it all started as Margaret Hilda Roberts in the 1940s where she drew inspiration from her father to join politics. Never been one to walk the beaten path, she fights her way through to being elected into parliament and then eventually goes on to become the first woman Prime Minister of The United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland). The movie traverses, her life from being the MP of Finchley in 1959 to the Secretary of Education where she earned the name “Milk Snatcher”, Leader of the Conservative Party, the Prime Minister, The Falklands War, The IRA Attacks during her time as PM, sorting out the cold war, falling out of favour of her loyalists and eventually her resignation from office in late 1990 to make way for John Major.

While I haven’t seen Albert Nobbs, My Week with Marilyn & The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and while I have a lot of respect for Glen Close, Michelle Williams and Rooney Mara respectively, I think the Oscars this time around are a 2 horse race only. Meryl Streep OR Viola Davis. Knowing the academy, they would give it to Viola Davis. But in my books, Meryl Streep has once again proved why she is probably the best actress after Katherine Hepburn and why she is probably best placed to beat Hepburn and go onto win 5 Oscars. Her ability to portray a variety of characters is quite unparalleled. Leo DiCaprio could learn a thing or 2 about getting into characters and more importantly selecting character roles from her. For my money’s worth, she should have got 5 by now. Regretably, she has only 2 out of the 16 nominations ( record in itself).

However, take nothing away from director Phyllida Lloyd and the support cast led Jim Broadbent who have do equally well in executing their respective roles. Lloyd in her 2nd movie leaves quite a solid impression and while she doesn’t get a nomination @ the Oscars, she has definitely done enough to give us a movie that is not only well made but is worth watching as well. I am going to go out on a limb as say this - A much better job than Eastwood did with J Edgar. A very watchable biopic – like a documentary in parts and could have lost a few minutes in between but still very good. A nomination in make up was just too logical. 7.5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1047305753/

The Nutcracker 3D

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky created a ballet called The Nutcracker way back in 1892. Since then there have been a few zillion movies and an equal number of plays have been made with the same name and definitely the same or similar stories. This time around a director with an equally complicated sounding name as the creator has decided to give us the first 3D version of this famed ballet. He goes by the name of Andrey Konchalovskiy. Have we heard of this guy before? Yep. He would be the same guy who gave us those epic movies that we grew up with called “Homer and Eddie” and “Tango and Cash”. He has just added an “i” to his name which hasn’t really helped much. Surely he must go back to the numerologist who advised him to add this to his name to get his money back (Do they have money back guarantees on numerology?)


For those who are unfamiliar with the story of the Nutcracker it is about this teenage girl called Mary (Elle Fanning – yep she is Dakota’s younger sister who is a bit grown up) who is tormented most of the time by her younger brother Max (Aaron Michael Drozin) who breaks up most of her toys. Her parents (Richard E. Grant & Yuliya Vysotskaya – whats with all these tongue twisters???) don’t spend too much time with the kids really parenting. But they care a lot about their children to ensure that the kids have all the comforts in the world including a huge house replete with butlers and a nanny Frau Eva (Frances de la Tour). All seems to be well at the household till one evening around Christmas the children’s godfather, Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane) – an Albert Einstein look alike with an accent that would put most German’s to shame – comes over to give the kids Christmas gifts. He gives Mary a special wooden toy called the Nutcracker whose basic utility as the name suggests is to crack nuts. But it turns out that the toy is a very special one and is actually a Prince (Charlie Rowe) whose country has been taken over by the evil Rat King (John Turturro) and his mother, the Rat Queen (Frances de la Tour – again) who want to “RATtify” the whole world. It is now upto Mary to save the country from being converted to Rats.

The Nutcracker 3D is a fantasy. You must be aware of the love that I have for fantasies as a genre of movies but this one is very honestly not too well executed. I am sure it had the capabilities of becoming a huge hit but the 3D effects are bad and the acting very average. The special effects without the 3D seem to be quite good and the tongue twister director is able to generate excitement about the concept. However, fantasies are expected to be significantly larger than life and that doesn’t quite come through in the final product. Having said that, it would go well with kids because of the entire concept of fairies and flying and talking chimpanzees and jokers and Christmas trees that grow huge overnight etc. etc. etc. Watch it for your kids if you must. 5 on 10 is my verdict. Have seen many better fantasy movies.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3906472217/