Finding Nemo 3D

For those who came in late, Finding Nemo (Alexander Gould) is the story of Marlin (Albert Brooks) – Nemo’s father – who is a single father of a single fish thanks to a shark attack that leaves only one egg and takes Nemo’s mother away. He is over protective about Nemo to the point of suffocation. But on the 1st day of school, it takes a silly challenge for Nemo to leave his natural habitat and swim out into the open sea. His excitement is short lived thanks to P Sherman who lives @ 42 Wallaby Way in Sydney. He is a dentist who is on a diving trip and promptly picks up the clown fish for his monster niece – Darla.

Marlin isn’t one to give up easily. He decides to chase after Nemo. He meets a the forgetful Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) who offers to help in his search. And the adventure takes you from the Great Barrier Reef – Nemo’s habitat – all the way to Sydney. En Route they make friends with 3 “Vegetarian” Sharks, some really old turtles, ride the East Australian Current aka the EAC and manage to spend sometime inside a whale. All in a day’s work for the typical Aussie I am quite certain .

Nemo, in the meantime, finds himself in a fish tank with 5 other fish who are characters in themselves. Together, under the passionate leadership of Gill (Willem Dafoe), they hatch a daring plot to escape from the tank and more importantly save themselves from the deadly Darla.

Finding Nemo is the kind of movie that makes your scream out at the Academy and demand that voice overs should be nominated along with regular actors and actresses for mainstream awards. Performances from Willem Dafoe and Ellen DeGeneres will leave you spell bound to say the least. Finding Nemo is the kind of movie that should have made it to the Best Movie category in 2004 and I can only say that it is a travesty that animation is not treated at par with regular feature film.

Andrew Stanton must be an extremely talented person. Not only has he co-directed what is arguably in the top 5 animation movies of all time but he also lends his voice to one of the characters – Crush. Dig a bit deeper and you will find that this is the 6th time he is doing the voice over in a mainstream animation movie and has been part of quite a few good ones. Finding Nemo – undoubtedly – was and will probably be his best attempt. Because, in my books, there can only be 2 movies better – The Lion King and Jungle Book. Emulating them in itself would be asking too much from Stanton leave along beating them.

When Finding Nemo released a couple of weeks back – or should I say re-released in 3D – I was quite certain to be in line for the tickets. Took me till the Sunday of release to get around to finally watching it unfortunately. Now while the movie in itself was and has been an 8.5 on 10 in my books for nearly the decade since its release, I must say that the technology used in movie houses in India probably did not do justice to the 3D version. It is a damp squib at best. The saving grace is that the movie on its own will keep you riveted to the screen. Watchable – Now and Forever

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2687214105/

Rango

It is inexplicable how movie houses fail to see the magic that a movie creates and move it off the screen within the blink of an eyelid. Just when I thought that I would take the opportunity to add another movie to my “must make everyone see” list, Rango moved out of screens this week. It’s a sad but true story of how quality work will never get enough critical mass in this country. In the same breath, an average animation movie such as Rio – and I tip my hat to 20th Century Fox’s marketing team on timing – is ringing in the cash across the country for over a month now. I say fantastic timing because it coincided with the kids vacations and every parent that I see at the box office counters is going nuts. Thank God for small mercies that there is no merchandise that has yet hit the stores. Is TCF missing a point here? I would guess so. But this write up is more to do with probably the best Animation movie released since Toy Story. An I would not be incorrect if I were to say that Rango moved out sooner than it should have because people just did not get it – because it is not a kids animation movie. It is one, for the more cerebrally evolved.

Lars (Johnny Depp) is a chameleon who has been relegated to the position of a pet. Yep – a pet chameleon who stays in a glass box with a few inanimate objects. A decapitated miniature doll, a plastic toy fish, lots of gravel, a bowl of water amongst other not so exciting things. And I can only assume that the family is shifting or doesn’t want to leave home without their darling chameleon – which explains why Lars is in the back of the car under the hatch. He is biding his time here by honing his acting skills – he believes that he is God’s gift to acting in the chameleon world. However, in between a skillful rendition of a romantic hero, an unexpected bump on the road and a near accident finds him ejected from his comfort into the desert – a place that he has never been in. After saving himself from an eagle on his way to a town called Dirt, he finds himself with Beans (Isla Fisher), a lizard who helps him to the town. He gets there only to find out water is as good as gold. But Lars’s survival instincts get the better of him and using his passion for acting he weaves a story about how he single handedly killed seven notorious brothers and how he is close pals with Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) the most dreaded animal other than the Chihuahuan Raven. He then begins his conquest, along with the Mayor John (Ned Beatty), a desert tortoise to find out where the water has disappeared.

I would have to agree with my good friend Vinay Zende on this one (not that we agree too much these days). Rango is not an animation movie. It’s a western. And I strongly recommend that you watch it like you would if you were watching a classic Clint Eastwood – who is by the way the inspiration for the character of The Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant). The quality of animation is lifelike – almost alive – as good as Clint from TGTBATU – and if u don’t know what that ridiculous abbreviation means I suggest you have a relook at your status as a lover of Western Movies. The voice overs especially the ones by Bill Nighy for Rattlesnake Jake send a cold shiver down your spine. The narration by the four Burrowing Owls is amazingly amusing and yet so creative. I honestly cannot find fault with Rango in too many places, but there are a few consistency errors which can be noticed by probably the seasoned movie watcher only. The Gore Verbinksi and Johnny Depp combination has done it again I say!!!! Don’t miss Rango – its definitely a 7.5 on 10 if not an 8. My first pick for the nominations from 2011 for the Academy awards.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2047646233/

Office Space

This one is an ode to all of my programmer / IT friends. Surely you would have in your times in the country or outside it, experienced several of the points that have been shown in Office Space. Experiences that are gut wrenchingly frustrating and makes your want to really beat someone up – especially if that someone is your project manager or one of your several bosses. And that too for matters that are excruciatingly insignificant but would be portrayed as the most important thing that has ever happened in the history of the organization. We are talking about the pain, that people who are otherwise known as “cubicle dwellers” or are known to indulge in what is called as “prarier dogging”, go through on a daily basis.


Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is one such programmer for a small firm that goes by the name of Initech. His life is being converted into a living nightmare thanks to one of his 8 bosses Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole). Bill is designated as the Vice President of Operations or something to that extent, the primary benefit for which is an exclusive parking lot with his name on it. And then there is the aspect of Peter’s anorexic and extremely irritating girlfriend Anne (Alexandra Wentworth) who Peter believes is cheating on him but is desperate to make it work – haven’t we seen that before. As a last ditch effort, Peter agrees to accompany Anne to a occupational hypnotherapist who can probably help him out. But as the shrink is performing his hypnosis, he suffers a massive heart attack and just dies right in front of Peter. Peter, although not hypnotized feels something snapping inside his head and decides to do exactly what he wants to do going forward starting with dumping Anne and then not reporting for work on the weekend.

Simultaneously, Initech has recruited a couple of “consultants” Bob Slydell (John C McGinley) and Bob Porter (Paul Wilson) whose job is to assess what each one of the people @ Initech are upto – in short, they are here to fire people. In the process they decide to move out Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu – no IT movie can be complete without an Indian right), Michael Bolton (David Herman – yes his name is Michael Bolton but he doesn’t like any of his songs) and Tom Smykowski (Richard Riehle – an employee of 30 years) amongst several other not so significant characters. Peter though, thanks to his care a damn attitude, gets portrayed as the next big senior manager by the Bobs much to the surprise of Peter’s bosses. Thanks to his movement, he gets to know of that Samit and Michael are being fired. Together they hatch a plan to load a virus into the organization payroll that takes away a fraction of a cent for every transaction and puts it into an account which would over a period of 2 years get them a reasonable sum of money. As good as stealing. But will they be able to get away with it?

Office Space is based on the animated short series titled “Milton” by the director Mike Judge who is primarily known for his Beavis and Butt-head series that created a minor rage in the second half of the 90s. Hot on its heels is where Mike Judge released Office Space – smart move which would probably indicate why it is rated @ nearly 8 stars on imdb which is way too high for a movie of this quality. There is not much acting on display. Surprisingly it is not a slapstick comedy like a Beavis & Butt-head and truly tries to portray what our programmer friends go through. Entertaining in parts but not really too great. But, considering that the only semblance of a know actor would be Jennifer Aniston who plays the part of furniture, quite a decent effort. I would go no where close to the 8 stars that imdb calls out. 5 on 10 from my end.

Watch the trailer on http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4159963929/