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 Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (English)

Obviously by now, you would have already read the book. For those who haven’t, you have about 10 more days to do so coz this one is going to hit the screens in India on the 10th Feb 2012 (hopefully). PVR has started advance booking for the same. You can pre-book your tickets on the PVR Cinemas website. For those who are unaware, here is the link. http://www.pvrcinemas.com/movie/pre-book-form.aspx?pid=8N/SGuOj9j8=&movieid=rDJnnCx7F1KWUI4/ffc0hg==

This is the review for the English version. Just happened to catch up with it in Adelaide. Could not have waited till I got back to India because the damn teasing was getting too much to handle. It was to be released about 2 months back and I have no clue why the distributors were taking so long. Plus, how could I have missed an opportunity to post a review a full 10 days before my primary audience can watch it. Will post the link again a couple of days before the actual release in India if you would like me to that is.

David Fincher has been one of my favourite directors of all time. Starting from the spine chilling Se7en (not including Alien3) all the way to the exceptionally well directed Social Network that got him his second nomination (other than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) at the Oscars. So you could have imagined my happiness when I realized that TGWTDT was to be directed by him in English. But my happiness has been for the first time ever so slightly belied by Mr. Fincher. Through the movie, there are small instances of deviating from the actual storyline that was written by Stieg Larsson. But it keeps building up to a point where you actually get a little peeved because he changes the ending which is supposed to take Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) to Australia and closes it at London instead. Left me quite perplexed as to why he would make so many changes. And then there are consistency errors – can you believe that about Fincher. I couldn’t myself so I think I will watch the movie once again to reconfirm the same.

However, Fincher continues to score on all the other aspects. The Casting was impeccable. Rooney Mara well and truly deserves her nomination. A pity she will lose it to either Meryl Streep or Viola Davis. Craig as Blomkvist and Plummer as Henrik Vanger were brilliant. The Editing had Fincher’s direction all over it to say the least. Kirk Baxter & Angus Wall who won it for Social Network continue to give their best here as well. Great camera work especially in some scenes which are outstanding like after Lisbeth tattoos Nils Bjurman on his chest and camera moves right over her. Simply stunning.

I did however think that a lot was overdone. Like the emphasis on the physical relationship between Blomkvist and Salander. The siphoning of Wennerstorm’s funds. And the last few pages of the book which show Salander losing out on love yet again. To name a few, these were the sections which need not have been addressed at all. And therefore, important parts such as Salander’s father and the exciting build up to finding out the murderer of Harriet Vanger get compromised. To Fincher’s credit, he has given the right importance to aspects such as the relationship with Erika Berger which was downplayed in the Swedish version. Overall, not upto Fincher’s standards. But definitely well made. No surprise though that the Oscars have ignored this one. 7 on 10 is what I say.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3830160409/

The Winning Season

There are sports movies and there are sports movies that are anything but what they were intended to be.  They start out with a genuine intent of creating excitement leading to a gripping finale but a few minutes after the start, one starts wondering whether it is really a sports movie or a mere excuse.  The Winning Season is a classic example of one such movie where director James C Strouse (a veteran of 1 movie as a director and 3 as a writer) goes through the classic convoluted method of trying to build a basketball movie and lands up mixing up too many issues in the bargain.  At the end of all of it, you have the Hungarian Goulash of all movies.

Bill (Sam Rockwell) has problems.  Chief among them being a drinking habit.  He is divorced and can meet his daughter Abby (Emma Roberts) once a week. And he will let nothing come in the way of his weekly meetings.  He will get there even if he is drunk.  He is currently biding his time as a waiter at a local joint but has a strong background in Basketball coz he was part of the only team at school who went onto play the state championship. So, when an opportunity presents itself, the school principle, Terry (Rob Corddry) is only too pleased to hand out a lease of life to our hero.  However, it is not the most enviable coaching assignment that one can look at.  Bill has to take the responsibility of coaching the school’s Girls team.  After a bit of thought, he accepts the assignment – always better to have a secure job as a coach than waiting tables eh Bill?

However, when he gets to his first day as coach, he realizes that there are all of 6 girls in the team – Molly (Shana Dowdeswell), Lisa (Shareeka Epps), Tamra (Meaghan Witri), Kathy (Emily Rios), Mindy (Melanie Hinkle) and Wendy (Rooney Mara).  And to make matters worse, one of them has her foot on a cast (for those who don’t know basketball, there are 5 players a side and typically at least 7 to 10 people on the bench with a rolling substitution rule).  After a while another girl joins in – Flor (Vanessa Gordillo) taking the bench strength to all of 1!!!  Shaken, Bill takes a few seconds to compose himself and gets down to business – the uphill task of training the girls to first start thinking basketball and then go through the effort of playing it and lastly playing it well enough to get through to a respectable season finish.

I have no idea why someone as talented as Sam Rockwell chose to work in a movie like TWS.  There is really nothing much for someone to look forward to in the movie.  Probably it was Sam’s dream to act as a coach in a sports movie and his wish has finally been fulfilled!!!!  James Strouse doesn’t do much to make a name for himself.  Maybe he was interested in only making a few hundred thousand green ones and then settle down in the subcontinent by leading an inexpensive lifestyle.  The girls try and do a sincere job.  I can say for sure that they play basketball better than most of our Bollywood heroes and heroines do (Bouncing the ball in one place is not basketball – its bouncing!!!).  Probably the only good thing about TWS is the fact that the end is not really predictable.  That works well for it marginally – and pushes the rating from a 3 to a 3.5 on 10.

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.