I’m a huge Matt Damon fan. Have been since Good Will Hunting. I’ve seen all the Bourne films, and Jason Bourne is a decent sequel. I even have a family connection to Jason Bourne — the character is supposed to have been born in Nixa, Missouri which is my dad’s hometown.
Matt Damon wouldn’t return to the franchise unless director Paul Greengrass also returned. It’s just fun to see their partnership again. The first film was so groundbreaking with the shaky handheld camera visceral action scenes.
Evidently Jason Bourne has been earning a living doing illegal boxing matches. No complaints here for the excuse for a shirtless scene.
Julia Stiles is back, separated from the CIA and hacking into their files to help Bourne. I appreciated that they introduced us to a new female cyber CIA expert played by Oscar winner Alica Virkander. Virkander had an amazing 2015 with Ex Machina, which I loved, and The Danish Girl. She should have won the Oscar for Ex Machina, but I’m just glad she won, becaue she’s fantastic. So, happy for her that she gets to do a fun action movie, too. Plus, she’s taking over as the next Lara Croft in 2018.
Bourne has two main enemies in the film, Tommy Lee Jones (he’s so craggy looking!) as the head of the CIA and the always great Vincent Cassel as the assassin out to get him.
There’s just not that much there to the plot. Bourne is trying to find just a bit more about his past, and the CIA is convinced he’s out to get them. The interesting little twist to the movie that updates it from the book is that there’s a tech company, a stand-in for Google or Facebook and Riz Ahmed plays the head of the company, secretly in cahoots with the CIA. There’s discussion of Snowden, and privacy rights online.
The only quibble I have with Greengrass’s direction of the film is the constant shaky motion of the camera. I love it in the action scenes. It makes me feel like I’m right there feeling the impact. But in some quieter scenes when Damon is looking at a computer or what have you, I want the camera to not be shaking around. (Yes, I’m old. Get off my lawn.)
It’s an enjoyable timepass of a movie, but my sons had zero interest in seeing it. I have the nostalgia of the other movies, but they don’t. It’s not a movie you have to run to catch in theaters. Worth catching on cable or renting.
Over and over, I’ve had the 2015 Malayalam film Ennu Ninte Moideen (Yours Truly Moideen) recommended to me. It’s an incredible love story starring PrithViraj and Parvarthy. And it is so incredible because it is a real life story of Moideen and Kanchanamala.
In 2006, director R.S. Vimal interviewed the real Kanchanamala and people who knew Moideen in the half hour long documentary Jalam Kond Murivetaval(or) One Who Was Wounded By Water
Kanchanamal wanted Prithviraj to play Moideen because she thought looked very much like him.
Ennu Ninte Moideen is the tragic love story of an interfaith couple who were kept separate by their families for years. Moideen and Kanchanamala’s fathers were friends and each were land owners in Mukkam, Kerala. Moideen’s father was a renowned Muslim leader, and Kanchanamala’s family were Hindu. Kanchanamala and Moideen went to school together as children, but later Kanchanamala went away from her home to attend college.
As she was returning to college from a school vacation, the family car broke down and she was allowed to take the bus back to the college town (something she was normally not allowed to do). On that bus, Moideen and Kanchanamala’s eyes met, and they fell in love. It’s an adorable scene in the film. Moideen sends a book of poetry to Kanchanamala and then they exchange secret letters.
She steals away from the college, and there is a beautiful love song in the rain.
In their courtship, Moideen and Kanchanamala never even touch once. When their families learn of their romance Moideen’s father throws him out of the house when he won’t go along with an arranged marriage. Kanchanamala’s brothers and uncles react even more cruelly, and lock her up in the house. She’s barely allowed to even leave her bedroom.
They sneak letters to each other, and even come up with their own private language to communicate with each other.
Moideen becomes a political activist, in opposition to his father’s politics. He uses the campaign speaker car to speak his love to Kanchanamala. Moideen’s father attacks him with a sword in the heat of an argument over Kanchanamala, and Kanchanamala’s relatives beat her to try to break her bond with Moideen.
The decades long devotion of Moideen and Kanchanamala would seem impossible to believe and like a fairy tale if it were not based on a real life story.
Finally, they decide to emigrate to America, but then a tragic accident happens. I thought the director had hyped up what happened for dramatic effect, but the documentary showed the newspaper clippings!
Moideen’s mother has left Moideen’s rigid father in disgust after the sword attack, and she takes Kanchanamala into her home as Moideen’s widow.
Ennu Ninte Moideen is an extraordinary love story. Tragic and very sad in the end, but still inspiring. The acting is wondrous both from Prithviraj and Parvarthy. Luminous soundtrack as well.
The real Kanchanamala criticized the director for changing parts of the story, but for a biopic, I think he was maybe almost too slavish to the true events and could have tightened up the narrative a bit. Still, a magical romantic film about love that transcends religious and cultural barriers.
Slow West was my favorite narrative film of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. This past weekend there were two things that made me think back to this excellent film. I was visiting with someone at a party who asked me about my favorite films at Sundance, and I read an old article in EW about Rogue One.
I had no idea before I saw this picture that Ben Mendelsohn who was the villain in Slow West is the Empire evil general of Rogue One.
Ben Mendelsohn had two films at the 2015 Sundance. Slow West and the not quite as good gambling drama Mississippi Grind with Ryan Reynolds. I’ll never forget that he wore the huge bearskin coat from Slow West to the premiere.
Slow West is a Western, the debut feature film of English director John Maclean. It was filmed in New Zealand to stand in for the American West of the late 19th century. The scenery is drop dead gorgeous. (Seriously, if you ever have the opportunity, GO to New Zealand. The mountain range near Queenstown is called The Incredibles for a reason.)
Of course, the taciturn Michael Fassbender is perfect to play Silas, a loner bounty hunter in the old West, He has the presence to express much while saying nothing, like the perfect Western hero.
Kodi Smit-McPhee (who I saw in the futuristic set Western Young Ones at the 2014 Sundance fest) plays Jay, a young nobleman on the search for his lost love. He is fresh off the boat from Scotland, and Silas rescues him , and then offers his services as protector for a steep fee.
The movie moves at a measured pace as they travel together, punctuated with startling action scenes — all the more startling coming suddenly out of the slow quiet we have been lulled into. I really liked the relationship that develops between the green romantic Jay and the reserved jaded Silas.
Along their journey, they run into the gang of another bounty hunter, played by Ben Mendelsohn in an outrageous big bearskin coat,. (The actor wore the very coat to the premiere). We find out that there is a huge bounty on the girl that Jay is infatuated with, and her father, and there are many bounty hunters looking for the pair. Silas is among them, although he hides that fact from young Jay.
What I loved about Slow West is how it took the audience expectations of what happens in the Western genre, and turned them on their head. The final climax shoot out scene, which we all see coming, goes nothing like what I expected, and I loved the movie for it. I won’t spoil it by listing in detail what surprised me, but I especially loved that Rose (the object of Jay’s infatuation) was quite simply kick ass and no damsel in distress. Rose is played by Caren Pistorius, who will appear again with Fassbender later this year in The Light Between Oceans.
While you could complain that Slow West was too slow in parts, I felt like it just added to the impact of the action scenes and the New Zealand scenery was gorgeously shot. It’s hard to believe that this is the debut feature of director/writer John Maclean. It well deserved the World Cinema Dramatic Jury prize it won at Sundance. I’m a huge Michael Fassbender fan, and this is one of my all time favorite Fassbender films, and he’s been in so many good ones.
Slow West is available now for rental on Amazon Video (it’s free with Amazon Prime) and on Google Play.
I had almost forgotten that a friend had organized a group outing to see BadMoms at our local theater that has waiters to take food orders (and alcohol!). The waitress told me there were 150 women and ONE man in the audience. One poor husband had come along (and he was in line behind us!). It was a raucous crowd. I laughed SO HARD partly because I was in an audience full of moms. (And the dirty martini helped, too!) I’m not sure the movie will be nearly as funny to wider audiences. Mila Kunis is the lead and a mom with two middle schoolers (supposedly she got pregnant in the film at 20.) I know she’s a mom in real life, but she still seemed too young an actress for kids that age.
Mila discovers her husband masturbating to a woman on the internet and kicks him out. She’s trying to handle single motherhood of a son and a daughter, while being harrassed by the bully PTA president (Christina Applegate in a delicious turn, with Jada Pinkett Smith as one of her posse.)
After a blowup at an interminable PTA meeting on a bake sale (boy, have I sat through those!), she becomes friends with moms played by Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn.
My favorite scene had them going on a drunken rampage through a supermarket. They mix mudslides in a milk jug, and flip one dollar bills to the teenage boy clerk. I was practically on the floor laughing at that point.
Of course Mila runs for PTA President, dates the hot widower, and somehow supports her family with a three day a week part time job. Yep. It’s a fantasy film.
It was a great girls night out film to see together. I just don’t know if it would be quite as funny to non-moms. For me, a mother for 24 years, I was laughing so hard I practically peed my pants. But my sons would have zero interest in this film. Still, it’s nice to have a comedy for adults. All the actresses were great and very funny, and thank you filmmakers for that hot widower sex scene.
Interesting that the film was written and directed by two men. The end credits showed each actress with their own real mom, talking about embarrassing badmom moments.
Aagadu (He Will Not Halt) is a 2014 action comedy starring Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu as a super cop, the Indian superhero genre. On Friday night I was glued to news of the military coup in Turkey, but I just couldn’t take all the bad news with that chaos on top of the massacre in Nice. It was too much, and I needed something crazy to get my mind off it all. Telugu films are great for that, and this one was particularly crazy. Aagadu is not the greatest movie in the world, and it’s certainly not the best Mahesh Babu film, but it made me laugh. Evidently it was not his most successful film, but it was an enjoyable watch. The director, Srinu Vaitla, had previously made the hit film Dookuduwith Mahesh Babu (which I really liked.) And, I’ll admit it, I just like Mahesh Babu in a cop uniform.
Aagadu mixes the comedy with some more serious drama of an orphan boy adopted by a policeman, who takes the blame for a fatal accident for his adopted older brother. He’s sent to reform school, but his only goal is to become a cop like his estranged adopted father. Telugu action films I expect to be over the top in their violent action scenes, but the director and Mahesh seemed to delight in taking it even more over the top, for the amusement value. Mahesh even references many of his past films, and there’s a running gag of him conning the crooks that they’re just like his long lost brother, who…..insert plot of Dookudu, Okkadu, etc. I was glad I’d seen a number of Mahesh Babu films so I was in on the joke, but the subtitles also pointed out which movie he was referencing.
I recently watched the Malayalam film Neram, and the language play comedy in the film went right over my head. This film veered towards slapstick comedy, but it made me laugh out loud.
Sonu Sood is the mustache twirling villain. I took a picture of this scene where he’s intimidating a local and explaining that Sonu’s power plant project cannot be stopped. His examples of what ELSE couldn’t be stopped cracked me up! “I didn’t like Abishek Bachan [sic] marrying Aishwarya Rai. Could we stop it?” LOL
Tamannaah is the love interest. Mahesh thinks she’s sweet and innocent when he sees her handing out sweets to children, but comes to find out she’s a strident sweets shop owner. She’s about to marry an NRI just to be able to open new sweet shops in the US. Mahesh cons her, and her family, too, in a very amusing way, to stop the engagement to the NRI. Tamannaah catches on, but enjoys the manipulation of Mahesh — she sees she’s met her match in scheming.
The songs are completely over the top and crazy, too. For no apparent reason this one is filled with what look like Thai dancers. This song compares Tamannaah to Bhel Puri, the spicy street food – and all sorts of other foods. I’m sure I’ve never, ever heard a girl compared to tomato soup.
Eat me like a Dhoodh peda (Milk sweet)
There is Sweetness in your words, cuteness in your deeds, Lassi (Butter milk) in your smile, there is coconut water too in it!
Aagudu was welcome escapist fair. Mahesh seems to delight in mocking his past film personas, but at the same time, acts super cool in the action sequences. After a huge one at an oil refinery (big explosions! crooks covered with oil!) he strides off and says — “My bladder is full with useless discussions with fools. Where’s the toilet?” And interval. Bwhahaha!
The romantic plot is not the main thrust of the film. It’s mostly Mahesh the cop, tricking and catching each crook in turn, as he works his way up the criminal empire to Sonu Sood at the top. And of course avenging his adopted family, and making his adoptive father proud. Sonu Sood is reliably great as the villain, even if most of his dialogue is obviously dubbed. Nasser plays a bumbling corrupt cop, none too pleased to have Mahesh as his new boss. Shruti Hasaan has a nice item number, too.
Aagudu is not my favorite Mahesh Babu film, but it was an enjoyable timepass. I’m sure there were tons more Telugu movie line references I missed, but it was still funny to this non-Desi. It took me away from the darkness around us for a few hours. I’m glad I own it, in case I need something silly again.
Three stars out of five. Aagudu is available for rental on Amazon video or iTunes, but it’s free with subtitles on Youtube! (Love that about Telugu films!)
Captain Fantastic may have been my favorite film of Sundance 2016. Viggo Mortenson is a home schooling father with six children in the wilderness forest somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, completely off the grid. The film opens with him teaching his oldest son to hunt a deer by making him kill it with only a knife and wrestling it to the ground.
(l to r) George MacKay stars as Bo, Charlie Shotwell as Nai, Nicholas Hamilton as Rellian and Samantha Isler as Kielyr in CAPTAIN FANTASTIC
The young actor, Brit George MacKay, who plays the oldest son, Bo, was amazing. The family must leave their forest home to attend a funeral, and the children come to realize how isolated they are from the real material world, and how they may have book knowledge, but they don’t know how to interact with other people outside the family. In one of my favorite scenes a young girl flirts with him at a campsite on route. They kiss, and then he falls to his knees to propose and ask her mother for her permission to marry her daughter. They both laugh and think he’s just kidding, but he’s acting just as he’s read about in all the classic novels he’s read. He afterwards confronts his father, “I don’t know anything!” The oldest son wants to go away to college, but fears his father’s reaction.
Viggo is the only person I can imagine in this role. He is exceptional, and this may be the finest role of his career. (And that’s really saying something, after Aragorn, Eastern Promises and A History of Violence) He has the intelligence and the screen presence that makes you believe this is a charismatic father who could raise his children to be philosopher kings. And that he could take it all too far. He doesn’t let the kids believe in Christmas, but they celebrate Noam Chomsky Day!
Writer/Director Matt Ross premiered Captain Fantastic at Sundance in January. He’s known more for his work as an actor in series like HBO’s Big Love and Silicon Valley. Matt Ross talked at the Q&A about how he grew up in communes himself in California. He shows us the simple pleasures of this life, singing around the campfire together in the evening — but also how isolating it is.
All the kids are terrific, and have great chemistry together and with Viggo. You could see the rapport they still have with him at the Q&A. I was stunned at the performances Matt Ross and Viggo got out of these very young child actors.
Frank Langhella (always excellent) plays Viggo’s father-in-law, and they have a confrontation over the way he is raising the children. After one of the kids has an accident, Langhella wants to take the children away and sue for custody. You need someone as powerful and imposing on screen as Langhella to be a worthy antagonist for Viggo Mortenson.
This film is quirky and heartfelt like Little Miss Sunshine. I got teary eyed, and it has a very satisfying hopeful ending.
Captain Fantastic released today in a limited number of theaters. It’s playing in downtown Chicago, and I hope it will move out to suburban theaters in the coming weeks. I’m hoping Viggo gets an Oscar nomination for this role.
Five stars out of five. Cannot recommend highly enough.
I purchased the Telugu film Yamadonga [God of death thief or Thief Yama] on DVD months ago because it was highly recommended by a friend. I kept picking it up, and putting it back down. Frankly, the cover image doesn’t do anything for me. But I forgot that I bought it because it is by director S. S. Rajamouli (of Baahubali fame!) Yamadonga came out in 2007 (between Chatrapathi (2005) and Magadheera (2009)). Yamadonga was my first Jr. NTR film, but his third collaboration with Rajamouli.
Chatrapathi has that amazing CGI shark fight with Prabhas, and Magadheera anticipates Baahubali with its lengthy past life fantasy flashback. And then of course, Rajamouli made the hero reincarnate as a FLY in Eega. His imagination has no bounds, and continues to amaze me with every film. I was blown away by Baahubali, which I saw four times in the theater alone, and cannot wait for part 2 next year. Yamadonga is a delightful flight of fantasy as a thief insults Yama (the God of Death) and is sent to hell before his time.
Jr. NTR is no Prabhas (my favorite Telugu actor), but he definitely has an impish charm. I was trying to think what Hollywood actor he reminds me of. He’s sort of like Chris Pratt – looks cool in the action sequences, but has that charm and sense of comedy silliness about him.
Jr NTR in Janatha Garage
I know this is shallow of me, but I hated NTR’s hair in this film. It just looked awful. There were a few music numbers where his hair was much shorter, and he looked a thousand times better. He has that same look in the poster for his next film Janatha Garage (with Mohanlal) coming out next month.
As children, the thief Raja (Jr. NTR) meets Mahi. She gives him an amulet necklace that had been blessed in a temple. He can’t pawn it, and throws it away, but over his life, it keeps turning up.
Mahi (Priyamani) grows up and is an orphan treated as a servant in her family’s household. She’s sort of a Cinderella waiting for her prince. (Isn’t it handy NTR is named Raja?) NTR rescues her but then tries to ransom her to her family when he sees a TV report that she is a wealthy heiress (which she doesn’t know.)
For the first time, Mahi who had been treated as a servant, is waited on like a princess by Raja. Raja has cursed Yama (the God of Death) to the heavens, and Yama vows revenge on this human. Raja is killed before his time by goons sent by Mahi’s family and then half the movie is set in the fantasty realm of hell. Raja is a thief by nature, and tricks Yama and steals his rope of death, becoming the ruler of hell himself.
The modern day parts of Yamadonga aren’t that different in plot than any other Telugu action romantic film, although the action scenes are great. But the film takes off in the fantasy hell sequence and in a scene in heaven with all the gods. The sets are glorious. Mohan Babu is fantastic as the insulted god Yama. The comedy uncle of pretty much every Telugu film, Brahmanandam, is Yama’s sort of clerk Chatragupta keeping track of the book of deeds of the human sinners.
Raja proposes an election to have the demons of hell pick their new ruler between Yama and Raja. Yama brings three goddesses to dance, but then NTR as Raja dances with them and brings out the spirit of his grandfather. Jr. NTR is the grandson of the famous actor and (then politician) NTR. Rajamouli uses CGI to have Jr. NTR and NTR talk and dance together onscreen (like Dhoom Taana in Om Shanti Om). This Young Yama song reminded me of the song Manohari in Baahubali with NTR dancing with the three women.
NTR is a great dancer (he’s accomplished in Kuchipudi dance), and this sequence was one of my favorites in the film.
Raja returns to earth, but if he sins again, he will be returned to hell. He’s about to marry Mahi, when Yama decides to trick Raja into sinning. Yama takes the form of a woman to tempt Raja – Raja’s former partner in crime and money lender.
Mamta Mohandas as Dhanalakshmi
Mamta Mohandas is Dhanalakshmi (Yama in disguise), and I loved her portrayal. She’s seductive, but she has the air of Yama’s arrogance and swagger at the same time.
That’s the thing about this film. Not only is NTR great, but so many of the supporting actors are simply fantastic. Priyamani‘s performance is just okay as the innocent naive Mahi. She has some great dance numbers with NTR, but her acting was not on the same level with the others.
I had so much fun watching this movie. Rajamouli never disappoints, and NTR provides a lot of comedy, great dancing and cool action scenes. I have never seen a Ramayana TV serial, and I’m sure the hell scenes reference some of those, or Ram-Leela pageant plays. But you don’t need that background, or even an understanding of the Indian gods to enjoy this film.
Srimanthudu [Wealthy Man] is one of the better Telugu Mahesh Babu movies I have seen. I downloaded it from Google Play and watched it on a flight (and finished up at the hotel.) It’s about a wealthy young man who goes to his ancestral village and saves the town from the evil goons running the place, as well as donating his millions to rebuild the village. It reminded me very much of Mirchi, one of my favorite Prabhas movies, and there’s a reason why. When I looked up Srimanthudu, I discovered that Mirchi and Srimanthudu have the same writer/director: Koratala Siva. Mirchi, amazingly, was Siva’s debut directorial feature film. Srimanthudu was also a major hit, and with good reason.
Mahesh Babu is Harsha, son of a super wealthy business tycoon played by Jagapathi Babu, who was absolutely fantastic in the role (he won a best supporting actor award for the role.) Mahesh Babu won the Filmfare South best actor award for his leading role in Srimanthudu. Mahesh’s love interest in the film is Charuseela – Shruti Haasan, master actor Kamal Haasan’s daughter. I was much more impressed with her here than in the Hindi film Gabbar Is Back.
If we didn’t catch from the get go that this princely son of a business king wants to live as a common man, his opening number is Rama Rama. His father won’t deign to celebrate at the festival with the company employees, but Harsha (Mahesh) makes a point of making an appearance and dancing along. He also gives money to a long time employee struggling to get his daughter married, and admonishes his father for not doing it himself. His father despairs for him ever taking the reins of the business empire. Harsha has no interest and mostly rejects his father’s Rolls Royce lifestyle by traveling by his eco-friendly bicycle.
One of the strong points of the movie is the first half romance between Mahesh and Shruti. He first spots her painting a Rangoli in her courtyard as he is driving his mother, aunt and sister to a temple early in the morning in the dark. He keeps driving around the block to catch more glimpses of her until his aunt complains that they’ll never make it on time. He then meets her at his friend’s birthday party, and sees that she is a kindred spirit because she takes the cake being delivered and gives it to some street children. What really intrigues him is that Charu is in a Rural Development course following her MBA. He’s never heard of such a thing, but it appeals to him immediately.
This is where Mahesh Babu’s inherent sweetness in romantic scenes shines through. He can really pull off going from sweet shy young guy around the girl he really likes, to a tough action fighter and commanding presence against bad guys all in the same movie with ease. Their falling in love song sequence I absolutely adored as it shows how they slowly hung around together more and more at school and it’s just adorable from start to finish as their romance deepens naturally and organically.
But the twist is that Harsha has never told her exactly who he is. Her roommates show her an article that reveals he is actually a super wealthy son of a tycoon, and she then rejects him utterly when he proposes. His father is from her same village, the one that she is studying how to save and develop. And with all Harsha’s father’s millions, Harsha’s family has done nothing. “Do you even know your village? You have no roots.”
Harsha just tells his family he will be traveling, but he goes straight to his ancestral village – by bike and bus. His traveling montage song is the title track Srimanthuda, and it is my second favorite song in the movie. The music in this film is really catchy and great.
Conditions in the village are horrible when he arrives. He doesn’t let anyone in the village know who he is, either, including the village leader, Charuseela’s father. But when he sees that they need a new school, he offers to donate the money needed. And then he sees more and more projects that need doing. He puts to use all he has learned in the rural development course.
As you can imagine, this does not sit well with the corrupt politician and his evil brother the enforcer who have run this town into the ground. Stealing even the water needed by the farmers for their liquor factory. There are some great action sequences as Harsha takes on all the bad guys single handedly.
Just like in Mirchi, when you go up against the rural village goons, be ready for a machete fight. Unlike most regional films, our hero actually gets injured enough to have to be hospitalized. Good thing he built that new hospital! But it’s a plot point to get his father back to the village, and for Charu to admit she still loves him.
Does he make his father proud? Does he get the girl? Does he save the village and vanquish the bad guys? I told you this was a Telugu film at the beginning, so you know the answers, but it sure is fun to watch it all unfold. And as an added bonus. Mahesh in a lungi! Hubba hubba.
Srimanthudu is a thoroughly enjoyable all around entertainer. Great family drama, truly evil substantial bad guys to fight, exciting action fight sequences and a terrific romance. It’s a four star out of five, and I’ve already rewatched it. It has a leg up on Mirchi in one way in that I really liked that there was only one romance, rather than the fake out first one we had in Mirchi.
My husband was walking through and he noted one of the irritating things about the film. I expect lots of slow-mo in my regional films, but this had tracking shots so many times when characters were speaking. “The camera is always moving!”, my husband noticed. It got distracting, especially on the rewatch. And the subtitle translations are just not the best sometimes for these Telugu films. I have a feeling what is being literally translated to English sounds very cool and slang in Telugu, but the subtitles end up ridiculous. “Return the money you stole or you will end up obese.” Wha??? Lost in translation there a bit.
I was intrigued to read in the wikipedia article the impact this movie had — people started adopting rural villages after seeing the film, including several celebrities and Mahesh himself. I really liked the message of the film, that it is the responsibility of the wealthy to give back, and to bring development to these backwater rural villages.
I’m now really looking forward to the director, Koratala Siva’s next film with Mohanlal and NTR, Janatha Garage, due out mid-August.
I’m not a huge sports movie fan, but 1983 was touching and enjoyable. I also don’t know anything about cricket, but that is no hindrance in watching Nivin Pauly’s love of the game.
The first half of the film shows us Rameshan (Nivin Pauly) as a child obsessed by cricket. There’s one TV in their small Kerala village and he and his friends are forever changed by India winning its first Cricket World Cup in 1983. They sneak away from chores and skip homework and studying for tests to play cricket together.
Nivin hits a girl in the head with an errant cricket ball, and has a wonderful childhood romance. But she’s good in school and moves on to university, while he is left behind in the village working for his father. He marries another girl in an arranged marriage, and horrors, she doesn’t even recognize a picture of Sachin!
In the second half, Nivin still plays club cricket with his old pals, and sees the glimmer of talent in his son. To the disgust of Nivin’s father, who still thinks cricket is a waste of time, Nivin seeks out coaching for his son. They take a bus hours away every weekend to the next big town to try for a spot in a sports school.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nivin Pauly play a father, and that was some of my favorite parts of the film. I also liked his relationship with his wife. She supports him and stands up for him with his parents. They don’t have a grand passion, but they work together as a couple.
This movie has the leisurely pace of Malayalam films. Maybe a little too leisurely at times. It’s not a surprise that this is the debut feature of the director, fashion photographer Abrid Shine. But it’s still an enjoyable watch, and Nivin Pauly, as usual is great. 1983 is beautifully shot, and even though I’m a no-nothing with cricket, I could follow the exciting parts of the cricket games. It wasn’t confusing to me as it sometimes is. Sometimes cricket games are filmed in Indian films expecting you to know what is happening, but here I could tell Nivin was good and the way the games were shot highlighted that.
Three and a half stars out of five. 1983 is available for rental on Amazon Video.
I saw Udta Punjab on my birthday which may not have been the best idea. Because it’s a very dark film. It’s taken me some time to process it and mull it over. I’m really impressed with the film making of writer/director Abhishek Chaubey. I enjoyed his film Ishquiya, and he was also a writer on Kaminey and Omkara. This film straddles the issue of drugs in the Punjab (the title means Punjab’s High or Punjab’s Flying) by telling the stories of four people affected by it.
Alia Bhatt is a field worker who comes across a packet of drugs from Pakistan. Shahid Kapoor is a coke addicted rapper rock star who sings about drugs. Kareena Kapoor is a saintly doctor who runs a drug clinic, hands out needles and speaks out against the drug problem. And then there’s Diljit Dosanjh who plays a cop, complicit in looking the other way and taking bribes until he realizes that his younger brother is an addict.
This reminded me immediately of the Hollywood film Traffic that told the story of how the Mexican drug cartels impact four people. I actually have not seen that Oscar winning film, but I did see the BBC series it was based on, Traffik which dealt with drugs from Pakistan in the UK, and it’s a British politician’s daughter who is the addict. The story of Traffic/Traffik and Udta Punjab are not the exact same plot, but the intention is the same — show the impact through four different characters involved in the drug crisis in different levels. And show how the problem is very political. That is overt in Udta Punjab, and that’s why the Indian Censor Board demanded 89 cuts.
Abhishek Chaubey fought back, with the backing of other filmmakers and took it to the High Court. In the end, the only cut and change was re-editing a scene where Shahid’s rock star urinates all over his audience at a concert. Which we saw in the trailer!! I’m so glad this film was released on time and that it is basically exactly what the filmmakers wanted to show us. There was such a rush that the subtitles on the copy I saw still had some copy errors – when characters sang the subtitles were supposed to be italicized, but we saw typed out <i>.
I don’t want to spoiler the movie. The performances were amazing. Kareena Kapoor was well cast as the cool, collected doctor. I wasn’t surprised that she was good. After the bomb of Shaandaar (which I did enjoy parts of), Alia and Shahid are back with a bang. Shahid in Udta Punjab is acting at the levels he reached in Kaminey and Haider. His character is a rock star. He’s larger than life at nearly every moment, but he’s not just a comic caricature – Shahid manages to find some nuance and depth in the quiet moments, like when he’s arrested for lewd behavior and is thrown into a cell filled with criminals.
Alia Bhatt just keeps getting better and better. I thought she was a lightweight when I first saw her in Student of the Year, and she is very good in romantic comedy roles. But when she’s in a drama like Highway, she can really pull out the stops with some amazing scenes. And there are even more show stoppers in Udta Punjab. Horrible things happen to her in this movie, and it is her indomitable spirit that carries us through. I was stunned at what happens to her and how she just perseveres to the end.
But Diljit Dosanjh’s humble policeman was the revelation of the film to me. Diljit is big star in Punjabi films, but I have not seen him before Udta Punjab. I have had Jatt and Juliet recommended to me, and I’m definitely going to seek it out now. He was adorable in his timid romance with Kareena Kapoor’s doctor. He wants to be the hero, and show her he can make a difference. He’s trying to save his drug addict younger brother, as their father has died and he is the head of the house. He has amazing quiet everyman screen presence and then can be explosive when an action scene calls for it.
This is a film that left me stunned, as it has realism like you rarely see in Hindi cinema. It gives you a lot to think about. And it lays bare just how big the drug problem apparently is in Punjab. Udta Punjab already garnered a lot of press and talk just because of the censor fight. I hope now that everyone can see for themselves the content of the film, that it will spur conversations about the issues raised in the film.
I’m a huge Matt Damon fan. Have been since Good Will Hunting. I’ve seen all the Bourne films, and Jason Bourne is a decent sequel. I even have a family connection to Jason Bourne — the character is supposed to have been born in Nixa, Missouri which is my dad’s hometown.
Slow West was my favorite narrative film of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. This past weekend there were two things that made me think back to this excellent film. I was visiting with someone at a party who asked me about my favorite films at Sundance, and I read 
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