RIP Director Curtis Hanson. News of his passing from natural causes at age 71 greeted me this morning, and I’ve been thinking about him all day.
I never did see The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, his breakout film, or the entirety of River Wild with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon. (I’ve only seen bits and pieces of that film.)
My first Curtis Hanson film was the fantastic L.A. Confidential, for which Kim Basinger won an Oscar, and Hanson won a writing Oscar. Oh, my goodness, what a great film. We can thank Curtis Hanson for giving two Aussie actors their Hollywood debuts: Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. These are two of my favorite scenes:
I enjoyed the quirky character study films Wonder Boys and In Her Shoes, but 8 Mile goes down as another of my all time favorite films. Who knew Enimem could act, and be so riveting on screen even when he wasn’t rapping? Curtis Hanson took a chance and wow, what a film. (I totally forgot Michael Shannon was in 8 Mile!)
Hanson’s final film is Chasing Mavericks with Gerard Butler. I missed it in theaters, but I think I need to find it. RIP Curtis Hanson and thank you for some fantastic films.
I was excited that Prithviraj’s Onam Malayalam release Oozham [Turn] was coming to Chicago, but I was forewarned that it wasn’t his best film. I didn’t care. I was still excited to see Prithviraj on the big screen for the first time. I have not yet seen writer director Jeethu Joseph‘s previous films Drishyam (Mohanlal) or Memories (Prithviraj). From the reviews I’ve read, and especially this savage 1/2 star take down by Anna Vetticad, the disappointment in Oozham is particularly acute because Jeethu Joseph’s previous films have been so great.
I didn’t hate Oozham like Anna, but I certainly don’t love it either. It’s okay — and with Prithviraj, I also would expect better than okay. The man has made what, 100 films? I’ve only been watching the cream of the crop, and they can’t all be at the level of Mumbai Police.
Spoilers ahead warning –
The set up of this revenge film is fantastic. Oozham means turn — and Prithviraj turns the tables on the man who had his family killed, because he has special skills. Not a particular set of skills like Liam Neeson in Taken.
One special skill — Prithviraj’s job in the US is as an explosives expert engineer (building demolition and such.) And it’s super handy that his adopted brother is a white hat hacker! That is a hook that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, in Hollywood or Indian cinema, having the good guy be an expert in plastic explosives.
The film starts with a van full of bad guys with guns (almost a clown car level amount) who are in search of someone, and there is a small explosion when they try to open an apartment door. Prithviraj is behind that door! The film cuts between this action sequence of Prithviraj on the run, and fighting with groups of these chasers, throughout the happy family scenes, the setup, and most of the film, frankly. Our director is too clever by half, as he uses a visual transition every blinkin’ time – focusing on a shoe in the chase, and then a shoe in the happy family scene, etc. Every. Single. Transition.
Prithviraj is visiting his family for a few weeks for his sister’s engagement. He’s the oldest, and besides his sister is an adopted Muslim brother (who lived next door, and who lost both parents.) Prithviraj’s dad is a health inspector, and very busy with some sort of virus outbreak and always rushing off looking worried. He has a police officer friend who drops by for dinner with his younger sister to set her up with Prithviraj.
The happy family scenes dragged quite a bit, but I really liked the relationship Prithviraj had with his younger sister. Prithviraj was, of course, the best actor in the whole film. I liked how flustered he got being set up with Divya Pillai as Gayathri. And in the physical fights he looked like a guy who wasn’t necessarily an expert fighter, but you can totally believe he is clever enough for all the plans that follow the family tragedy.
Once back in the US after the engagement, he’s Skyping with his sister, when he witnesses her murder and the murder of his parents. The bad guys look right into the computer screen, but don’t know they are on camera as she had minimized the Skype window. Prithviraj makes you feel his horror and helplessness as he is thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.
The cop friend is killed the same day by a “terrorist attack”. Prithviraj, his adopted brother and the sister of the cop think that coincidence very strange, and they get into their father’s email and piece together who had a reason to kill him. The villain is head of a big pharmaceutical company that the father suspected was putting a virus into drinking water (this part was very vague and not explained.)
Watching the revenge plot unfold was the best part of the film. They do try to approach the police, but of course one of the killers is a rogue corrupt cop. There were some very clever sequences, as they pick off the conspirators one by one, using controlled explosions.
The villain (Jayprakash) to be honest wasn’t that scary, and he has two lines in English that Anna Vetticad calls out as inexcusable. He hires his own explosives expert, Captain, to protect him and find out who his adversary is. Captain (Pasupathy, who was the rebel terrorist leader in the Tamil Kannathil Muthamittal – A Peck on the Cheek) has failed to protect someone close to Jayprakash and he says “How Dare!” and the subtitles say How Dare You both times. One time I could excuse that they didn’t have time to reshoot an emotional scene, but twice? The subtitles were pretty bad, but the English sprinkled throughout the film wasn’t good either.
My main issue with the film is the pacing. I can give a slow buildup in the first half. The inter-cutting with the chase/action fight scenes was pretty good. But the film should have moved at a swift pace in the second half as the action heated up, and it lagged. I really did like the ending, except for one thing.
My beef is that the villains are of course killed — but the virus that they spread in the water or what have you? That issue is completely ignored in the conclusion. You had a hacker for cripes sake! He hacks all their emails to track the villains’ movements — how about sending all the incriminating emails to the press or the authorities? In a Hollywood film, I think that would have been a major part of the revenge plot.
So, I wouldn’t necessarily run to a theater to see this film but it would be worth a rental.
If you don’t live in the US, the movie is available for rental and purchase on iTunes.
Charles Brice, the lead actor, did a fun interview yesterday on BET Facebook Live.
My husband and I were the first investors in director Tahir Jetter’s debut feature film. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and it’s just a fun modern romantic comedy set in Brooklyn.
Devasuram [The God Demon] was recommended as a classic must watch Malayalam film from 1993 — one of the best of Mohanlal’s career. It’s also considered one of the finest of director I. V. Sasi. The film was written by Ranjith who based the character of Mangalassery Neelakantan (Mohanlal) on his friend Mullasserry Rajagopal. Rajagopal, bedridden for years, had a passion for music, and his wife was devoted to him. He evidently joked that “Ranjith had not managed to show even half of what he did in his life.”
Mohanlal is Neelan, running through his inheritance from his father, a bit of a rowdy and a womanizer, but known for his love for music and the arts. He has a devoted land manager/servant who is really a father figure to him, and a small group of rowdy friends. The rowdy friends try to be loyal to him, but end up getting him into touchy situations.
This film really has it all. Mohanlal is this macho manly figure, not afraid to leap into a fight, but who has the soul of an artist. He has a feud with a rival family that is revenge after revenge back and forth. There’s a fantastic hate-to-love romance with Revathi, a young woman who is ready to start a career in professional classical dance. (And we have established how much I LOVE the hate-to-love trope.) Revathi is off the charts amazing as Bhanumathi, daughter of a feckless drunkard father. She is so arrogant and proud, and she explodes at Mohanlal’s rowdies, who have come to ask her to dance at a temple event Mohanlal is sponsoring and help her fall down drunk father home after they find him in a ditch outside the house. She assumes they are the ones who got him drunk in the first place, and yells at them to leave her property.
That sets up the whole course of events to follow. Mohanlal seems to apologize to the father and make peace, but instead tricks them and the performance is to be for him and his friends at his house. Her first dance performance should have been an auspicious event at a temple, and he treats her like a courtesan. Her father cannot pay back the performance money, so she must dance. This scene I have watched over and over and over again. It is simply amazing.
Revathi’s classical dance performance is full of fire and anger. The expressions she gives! I’ve just started taking an Indian dance class, and while I’m no expert judge I think Revathi is an exceptional classical dancer. The whole dance is a battle of wills. He winks at the accompanying singer to try to trip her up, then he sends one of his friends to offer alcohol to Revathi’s father in the middle of the dance, and Revathi just glares and shakes her belled foot. Then at the end Mohanlal motions to a cymbal player and another drummer to increase the tempo faster and faster, but nothing fazes Revathi and she just swirls and pounds her feet like a whirling dervish by the end. She finishes the dance to acclaim, as she is left pouring with sweat and panting for breath.
The clip above has no subs, but she says to him, “You think you’ve won?” He replies, “I always win.”
“You are not worth my dancing bells. You’re an insult to my art.” And then she takes off her bells from her ankles and throws them at him, vowing to never dance again.
She has cursed him, and suddenly all sorts of horrible things happen to Mohanlal. Revathi and her family don’t fare much better. They lose their home, and still she is too proud to take Mohanlal’s servant’s offer for help. But when she is almost sexually assaulted at the home they are staying in, she finally gives in and they move into Mohanlal’s huge mansion house.
Devasuram Movie Stills-Mohanlal-Revathi-Classic Malayalam Movies
Mohanlal and Revathi avoid each other, but she can’t help see the depression and changes he undergoes at the death of his mother (and she overhears him rage in the rain one night, learning that he discovered he is a bastard at his mother’s deathbed.) He tries to get her to dance again, and take up her career, but to her that would be losing and letting him win. She is so full of pride!
One night he is beaten horribly by his rival and his goons, and he ends up paralyzed on one side. Mohanlal’s character goes through so much in this film! Revathi is chastened, and feels that it was her harsh words that did curse him, so she prays at the temple for him to recover.
The romance grows slowly. As he reforms, he’s a redeemed rake that doesn’t think he is worthy of Revathi. He is determined to see her dance again, and to give her the career she should have had. She retains her pride for a long time, not wanting to “lose” to him again. Once he is nearly bedridden, he begs her, “You said you would only dance again when I was dead. I’m nearly dead, please let me repent this one sin before I die.” She dances joyfully for him to give him a moment of happiness, and that’s what starts his recovery. Both characters are so full of charisma, each with their own deep flaws. They both need their own redemption, it’s not the usual one-sided story.
The film ends with an absolutely riveting confrontation between Mohanlal and his rival Shekaran. If he fights back, they will harm Revathi who has been kidnapped. So Mohanlan takes blow after blow until he sees she is safely rescued. Then, this man who had been handicapped, comes roaring back like a lion.
I don’t know which actor I loved more. Revathi was such a little spitfire in Mani Ratnam’s Tamil film Mouna Ragam. But here, she was even better, plus she got to show off her classical dance training. Mohanlal is the heart and soul of the whole film. It is his master performance. The supporting characters are particularly good, too, especially Innocent as Mohanlal’s father figure servant and Nedumudi Venu as Appu, Revathi’s (Bhanumati’s) father. Napoleon, who plays Shekaran, is quite the villain — with a notable scene pinning down the paralyzed Mohanlal on the floor with his foot — “Get well so I can cut you into pieces next time!”
I’m so glad I bought this one on DVD so I could watch it with subtitles. This is a movie I’ve already rewatched multiple times, and just that dance sequence alone many times. Each time, I see something I didn’t see before.
This is justifiably a true classic, not just of Malayalam film, but of all Indian cinema.
The whole film is available on Youtube, but without subs (but you can overlay a subtitle file through a Chrome extension.)
Michael Fassbender stars as Tom Sherbourne and Alicia Vikander as his wife Isabel in DreamWorks Pictures poignant drama THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS, written and directed by Derek Cianfrance based on the acclaimed novel by M.L. Stedman.
I learned something about myself in watching the melodrama The Light Between Oceans, and that is that my perspective watching Western movies has changed after watching so many Indian films. I only got a little misty at the very ending. It was meant to tug at my heartstrings, but it didn’t affect me very strongly. (Meanwhile, the friend with me who has an adopted son, cried through most of the second half.) The film is beautifully shot. It’s gorgeous scenery, and I can’t find fault with the excellent acting of Michael Fassbender and Alicia Virkander. It just felt a little flat to me.
Michael Fassbender plays Tom Sherbourne, a veteran of WWI who thinks spending months alone working on an island as the lighthouse keeper sounds wonderful. He’s looking forward to peace and quiet. Just before he leaves for the island of Janus, he meets the vivacious Isabel. Isabel has lost both her brothers to the war, and there’s a quick reference to the lack of available men.
Tom and Isabel write to each other, and after knowing each other hardly at all, decide to get married. The only way she could even visit the Island of Janus is as the wife of the lighthouse keeper. I liked the romance portion at the beginning of the film. Tom is reserved and numb from the war, and Isabel brings joy and life back to Tom.
They arrive at the island after their wedding at night, and her first time seeing the beautiful small stark island is the next morning. I read a really cool way that the director, Derek Cianfrance, captured that initial wonder. He blindfolded Alicia Virkander and so she didn’t see the island herself until she came out of the little house. The awe and amazement at her surroundings is completely real.
Isabel suffers two miscarriages, made all the more difficult in that they are completely alone on the island when they happen. The look on her face when she realizes she’s about to lose the second baby is really wrenching.
Isabel is in deep depression, when Tom spots a boat off the island containing the dead body of a man, and a wailing infant. Isabel convinces Tom to let them keep the baby, and present it to everyone on the mainland as their own.
The melodrama comes when on a visit to the mainland, Tom comes across the mother of the baby. He can’t live with himself that Rachel Weisz thinks her baby died with her husband.
All the actors here were great. Rachel Weisz plays the bereaved mother stricken with grief, and it was nice to see Australian actor Bryan Brown as her father. Veteran Australian actor Jack Thompson also has a nice small role as Tom’s boss.
Michael Fassbender and Alicia Virkander are two Oscar caliber actors who completely give their all to these parts. The acting in this film is top notch, and the cinematography is gorgeous. It’s that the plot is maybe too slight. My friend called it an extended Hallmark card — although it did make her cry. It’s based on a popular book, that I could see would make an excellent book group discussion book. Would you go to live on an island where you’ll be alone with a husband you barely know? Would you keep a baby that isn’t yours the way they did? Who is a real mother — the biological mother, or the mother who has raised a child for 4 years?
I loved the director, Derek Cianfrance‘s first film Blue Valentine with Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. I haven’t seen his second film, also with Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond the Pines, but he excels at wrenching dramas about characters that feel like real people. I can’t put my finger exactly on why this melodrama, The Light Between Oceans, didn’t completely satisfy me. And again, I wonder if it’s because I’m used to so much more story and wrenching emotions in the Indian melodramas I’ve been watching. But, glancing at the Rotten Tomatoes score and top critics’ views on the film, I’m not alone in my dissatisfaction.
Still, I love both actors, and I loved seeing them literally fall in love on screen. The couple are now together in real life.
Four stars out of five for the stellar acting and beautiful cinematography and score.
Alicia Virkander won the Oscar for The Danish Girl, but run, don’t walk, to see her in the excellent Sci-fi film Ex Machina. Now THAT is a fantastic film.
This has been a long summer of disappointing super hero movies and so on. Finally, in August, we get a movie for adults. A nearly perfect movie, in fact. Hell or High Water has a 98 rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and near universal acclaim from the top critics. And with good reason. From the very first moments, you’re sucked right in.
Chris Pine (Toby) and Ben Foster (Tanner) are brothers. They rob a small bank in a beaten down little Texas town in the morning right as the bank is being opened. But strangely, they only want the loose money in the drawer, and have no interest in bundled money or opening the main safe.
The brothers drive back to a farm and bury the car in a pit dug by a backhoe. While the robbery seems amateurish, this is obviously carefully planned. And they hit more small bank branches. Tanner (Foster) is the more impulsive brother and we learn that he’s recently come out of prison. Their mother has died, leaving the land to the two brothers.
Jeff Bridges is Marcus Hamilton, a Texas Ranger about to retire. His deputy is Alberto (Gil Birmingham), half Comanche and half of Mexican heritage. Jeff Bridges was brilliant in this. He’s old and crotchety, not looking forward to retirement at all. The robbers aren’t stealing enough money to interest the FBI, but Marcus is intrigued with the puzzle of the multiple robberies, and takes his deputy on the road to track them down.
Bridges as Marcus constantly teases and torments his deputy Alberto as they’re driving and as they stay overnight in motels. He reminded me so much of my elderly uncles from Oklahoma and Missouri. Not malicious, but decidedly not politically correct, and not realizing when the racist “jokes” can really hurt deeply. This is Alberto’s boss, and his long time friend, but Marcus can be a bit much to take at times.
Ben Foster as Tanner is the wild card. He makes some impulsive decisions that escalate matters considerably. Chris Pine was so fantastic in this. His pretty boy looks led to roles like Princess Diaries 2 and Prince Charming himself in Into The Woods (he was so good in that!). But I think, at heart, like Brad Pitt, he really wants the character roles.
I won’t spoiler any more of the plan, but Chris Pine is playing a divorced father of two sons. Bridges as the Texas Ranger figures the robberies are to get enough money for a particular goal. He just can’t figure out for what. There’s a fantastic scene where Pine and Bridges go head to head towards the end.
Can’t recommend this film highly enough. It’s a caper movie crossed with a Western. Bridges, Foster and Pine at the top of their acting games. I hope Jeff Bridges gets a supporting Oscar nomination for this one. He’s that great.
Four and a half stars out of five.
Chris Pine also had a really interesting part in the post-apocalyptic movie Z for Zachariah with Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejiofor. It was at Sundance last year, and it’s worth a watch. It’s included with Amazon Prime Video currently.
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag [My Veil is Stained] is an old fashioned type of melodrama, and I ate it up with a spoon. I hadn’t had a good cry watching a movie in quite awhile, and there’s nothing I love more than Ranishek. There’s something about their jodi that I just adore. I don’t know if it’s how tiny she is, and how tall he is, and how he looms over her protectively. Abhishek Bachchan is just swoony paired with Rani Mukerji, and especially so in this film.
This film also passes the Bechdel test spectacularly. Rani plays the older of two sisters who grow up in Benares on the banks of the Ganges. They live in a big ramshackle old house with a father who is too ill to work (Anupam Kher) and a mother who’s struggling to keep the family afloat financially (Jaya Bachchan). Konkona Sen Sharma is Chutki and is still in school, whil Rani Mukerji as Badki realizes she needs to find work to take the pressure off her mother.
Rani goes to Mumbai, and since she had not finished school and cannot speak English, she has trouble finding, and keeping any job. When her father is hospitalized and she calls home, Jaya in exasperation quarrels with her on the phone and tells her she can’t come home. In desperate straits, she becomes a high class escort with the name Natasha.
Okay, this part was a bit far-fetched as while she is duped into losing her virginity, she somehow easily becomes a high-fashion wearing high class escort with the help of a friend. She sends money home to her family to pay for her father’s medicine as well as to put her sister through college.
She is the mistress of an executive who makes her an “event planner” or some made up position and travels to Zurich with him on a conference. That’s where she meets Rohan, an attorney, and they have a magical day together.
Away from her normal life as a courtesan, she can imagine that she’s just a girl on a date, but reality calls her back.
Her sister surprises her by just showing up at her apartment as she has a new job in Mumbai after completing her MBA. Konkona has her own romantic storyline with the creative director at her office played by Kunal Kapoor. (I do love Kunal and Konkona together. They were great in Aaja Nachle, too.) Rani has done everything she can to hide her true profession, but her sister’s wedding brings everything to a head. Jaya, her mother doesn’t want her to come home as people will talk.
What I loved was that when Rani’s sister learns the truth, she realizes the sacrifices she made on the family’s behalf. She doesn’t judge Rani at all, and insists she come home for the wedding. And that’s when Rani finally gets her happy ending with Abhishek. It’s so wonderful, because she’s so afraid what he would think if he knew, but he knew all along and loved her anyway. The tears started when Rani’s sister accepted her, and just poured down my cheeks in the final scenes.
There’s also a fantastic cameo in the film by Hema Malini who plays a famous courtesan in Benares.
Yes, it’s a big melodrama, but it’s a Yash Raj Aditya Chopra produced melodrama so I loved it. And Ranishek. You just can’t beat swoony Ranishek.
I absolutely adored the romance in the classic 1994 Malayalam film Thenmavin Kombath (At the Top of Sweet Mango Tree). It was my very first Mohanlal film, and came highly recommended by Margaret at Don’t Call It Bollywood.
I was confused at the beginning of the movie exactly what Mohanlal’s relationship was to the man he was traveling back from market with, and the woman he both referred to as sister and mother. I finally figured out that Mohanlal was the key servant retainer of this farm owned by Sreekrishnan Thampuran and his sister, and had lived at the farm since he was 4 years old, away from his own family. The relationship lines were blurred, as Mohnalal viewed the sister like his own sister, and as the woman who raised him. Sreekishnan is like a brother to him. The unclear lines of the relationships and the confusion is very pertinent to the plot and the misunderstandings that follow.
On one of their trips to take their farm produce to sell in town, Sreekrishnan agrees to let a singer performer and her older uncle have a ride on their cart. But Mohanlal doesn’t know that, and gets into an argument with the spitfire young woman (Shobhana). It’s a total hate-to-love romance, which is my catnip! On the way home, they are separated from the others and get lost together in the cart in a forest. They’ve traveled so far that they’ve crossed a border and Mohanlal can’t speak the language of the inhabitants, but Shobhana can. She is able to get directions, and agrees to help Mohanlal if he gives her a kiss, but she says that in the language he doesn’t understand. He keeps asking all the villagers that phrase to try to figure out what she is saying to him, and gets into big trouble!
Later, as they’re on their way home, he overhears a woman asking her young child for a kiss with the same phrase, and my absolute favorite scene of the whole movie happens. It’s like a lightning bolt hits Mohanlal!
The first half is just wonderful as their romance develops, but the second half deals with the drama of what happens when they return to the farm and the insular village. The problem is that Sreekrishnan wants to marry Shobhana, so Mohanlal backs away.
It was great to see Sreenivasan (who I have seen in Traffic) as the villainous servant that sets in motion all the horrible things that befall Mohanlal.
Mohanlal was very good in this, but he didn’t blow me away. I know this isn’t his most famous role. I saw him in Janatha Garage in the theater opening night, even if he was dubbed for the Telugu. I really loved Shobhana in this film. She’s such a spitfire!
RIP Director Curtis Hanson. News of his passing from natural causes at age 71 greeted me this morning, and I’ve been thinking about him all day.
They arrive at the island after their wedding at night, and her first time seeing the beautiful small stark island is the next morning. I read a really cool way that the director, 
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag [My Veil is Stained] is an old fashioned type of melodrama, and I ate it up with a spoon. I hadn’t had a good cry watching a movie in quite awhile, and there’s nothing I love more than Ranishek. There’s something about their jodi that I just adore. I don’t know if it’s how tiny she is, and how tall he is, and how he looms over her protectively. Abhishek Bachchan is just swoony paired with Rani Mukerji, and especially so in this film.
Rani goes to Mumbai, and since she had not finished school and cannot speak English, she has trouble finding, and keeping any job. When her father is hospitalized and she calls home, Jaya in exasperation quarrels with her on the phone and tells her she can’t come home. In desperate straits, she becomes a high class escort with the name Natasha.
Pardesi Reviews 