Interstellar - Must watch after a quick reading of Resnick Halliday

For the students who did not opt for Science during High School, understanding Interstellar could be a bit difficult, as for the others who did not take their Physics lessons seriously. I would recommend a 30 minute Google crash course on Relativity, Black Holes and Quantum Physics before heading for this one, because this is a movie that needs to be watched if you love sci-fi, since this could end up as one of the most creative movies in this genre.

Chrsitopher Nolan always has a grand vision and it is evident in the way the entire concept has been thought of. He has the capability of taking average movie goers out of their comfort zones and make them think and comprehend concepts they normally would not.

Somewhere in the future, there has been a "crop blight" that has reduced humanity to an existence where most people understand that the earth would soon be inhabitable, signaling the end of the human race. Among them is former astronaut, scientist and engineer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) who now leads the life of a farmer with his son, daughter and father-in-law. The daughter played admirably by Mackenzie Foy, regularly witnesses certain activities in the small library in her room and says that there is a ghost in there, which she is not afraid of, since the ghost seems to be telling her something. Initially Cooper does not take her seriously, but later realizes that that signals from the book shelves provide them some coordinates.

These coordinates lead them to a secret NASA location, with a much cut down workforce, headed by Professor Brand(Michael Caine), who is known to Cooper. Brand says that since the earth would end in a few decades, there have been missions to check other planets, where the human beings could survive. They have been guided by some "alien information" to a wormhole that takes them to these planets that orbit around a black hole. Three of these planets have been found to be potentially habitable as per signals received from astronauts that went there 10 years back. 

There is a Plan A where if a planet is actually habitable, Brand would send the entire remaining human race there, through giant space shuttles that would move through gravity, the theory for which he is working on through a complex equation involving quantum physics, gravity and the speed of light. In case Plan A does not succeed, since the equation is not solved, Plan B is to plant freezed human fetuses into the habitable planet, through surrogacy and ensure that the human race lives on.

Cooper agrees to be the pilot for the spaceship Endurance along with Brand's daughter Amelia, two robots TARS and CASE and two more scientists. They soon realize that there is a huge time dilation in these planets and a few days or even hours spent in these planets would mean many years on the earth, so they stand a chance of never being able to meet their loved ones again and worse get back to the earth when the human race is already finished, that is if they ever go back to the earth, braving the severe challenges that lay ahead. 

The rest of the movie is a gripping account of travel to these planets, through worm holes and then through a black hole fused with very real human emotions on the spacecraft and back on earth. Owing to time dilation, Cooper's daughter Murphy has grown up and become an excellent scientist and joined Brand at NASA, yearning for her father to return. The climax is especially unexpected and incredible and if one is able to understand, one would be "Physics-cally" overwhelmed. Ever imagined how a multi-dimensional space-time curve would look?

The best thing about Hollywood movies is they are not overwhelmed by a great sci-fi script, they pay equal attention to other aspects of film making, including acting and human emotions as well. The acting of the main characters is excellent, neither hyper not understated, exactly how it should be, in a dying planet, in a spacecraft and so on. The emotional bond between father and daughter, the camaraderie of the astronauts is also very well depicted. Even the characters of the witty robots CASE and TARS have been so well developed, that one feels bad when TARS has to sacrifice itself to reduce weight in the spaceship. It however connects to Cooper during the climax.

The special effects are excellent. All the scenes, the spacecraft, the scenes in outer space, inside a black hole or other planets look very real. Though they look similar to another excellent movie off late, Gravity. At times some of the concepts also sound similar to other movies I have watched in this genre. 

I felt the movie at 169 minutes running time, was a bit long for a Hollywood movie, however except a few scenes you would never feel that it has been unnecessarily stretched. If you really understand Relativity, Black Holes and Quantum mechanics, there could be many question asked. For example, we see time dilation, but why is there no mass defect at speeds of light? Or for that matter, even light cannot escape a black hole, can a space craft and human beings inside really survive?

However this much "cinematic liberty" has to be given, especially since this is a well-made movie otherwise.

I would strongly recommend watching, and give it 4 stars out of 5.

 

Haider

First things first, "Haider" is among the best till now from the multi talented Vishal Bhardwaj, if not the best. And I say this knowing fully well that he has created other gems like "Omkara", "Ishqiya" and "Maqbool".

Technical things come later, for me the movie stands apart for its intensity, narrative and extremely good performances from almost all its main characters. Kay Kay Menon who would probably end up with the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher and Om Puri by the time he hangs his boots, delivers yet another flawless performance as the antagonist.

Ambitous and slimy, lecherous and political, highly unethical, but with an excellent gift of the gab and warmth that convinces most people, Menon got under the skin of Bhardwaj's Claudius. There are very few people who can exactly play the director's character more than him. Just think of the other characters he played, Rudra Pratap Singh(Shaurya), Dukey Bana(Gulaal), Rakesh Maria(Black Friday) and you would know. Kay Kay is the most under rated actor of Bollywood and deserves much more recognition and respect.

And one of the most under rated actresses (since non actresses have hogged the limelight) is Tabu! It is sad that Bollywood has not been able to get more from her. Her character is of a woman who slipped, but has been misunderstood a lot more, who loves her son dearly, wants everything in life, but loses all.

The myriad thoughts, the conflicts of emotions in various situations, have been flawlessly portrayed by the peerless actress. Her different gazes and face expressions in difference situations is testimony to her prowess.

Tabu and Kay Kay have given many such great performances in the past, but as far as Shahid Kapoor is concerned, this is his best performance till date.

The character is very challenging and I think his hard work and his great father's genes helped him live up to the role with aplomb. He is very clam in the first half as is the demand of the character, with some burts of anger here and there, but he just owns the second half and matches up to acting powerhouses like Menon and Tabu.

The mood swings, the acting within the acting at times, the sarcastic one liners to his mother, all are superlative. The scene at a chowk as a satire on the establishment and the dialogues with Tabu and Menon stand out.

Television actor Narendra Jha plays the important part of Shahid Kapoor's father and a doctor very effectively. Shraddha Kapoor also tries sincerely and does her best as the protagonist's love interest. I thought one of the best actors of Bollywood, Irfan, was not required to play the role of "Roohgaar", but even in a special appearance he proves his mettle. Maybe Bhardwaj cannot do without him these days.

All other actors, play their parts competently. The two Salmans, based on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of Shakespeare's Hamlet, provide comic relief in an otherwise poignant and tragic storyline.

Macbeth, Othello and now Hamlet, Vishal Bhardwaj could get a PhD on Shakespeare now! :)

The character building has to be appreciated which many directors fail to do. Things are not black and white, all of us have shades of grey and all the characters are consistent with this fact and do what seems right from each one's point of view. The script takes up the Kashmir issue and juxtaposes it with the Hamlet storyline very successfully. Like the characters, the Kashmir issue too has many points of view and lines blur when one honestly sits to decide right and wrong.

There have been many movies on Kashmir. As Indians we must support the Indian cause and our army and we do so. The Kashmir issue however in totality is very complex and as film maker one needs to capture it in its entirety, as per his honest understanding.

So when the army man says, "No terrorist dead or alive is worth my soldier's life", it is a very genuine feeling of a commanding officer, when a soldier from some part of India dies fighting terrorists in Kashmir to protect India's sovereignty. In the same way, innocent civilians who accidentally die in the cross fire of army and terrorists, or are arrested and tortured, also have their own painful stories and their families rightly feel aggrieved.

Though the Kashmir issue is only a sub plot, I think this is one movie which has been able to show things as is, without giving any judgement. Bhardwaj deserves credit for this too.

The cinematography, the picturesque Kashmir, the red blood on white snow for example, the unusual camera angles, the time given to the viewer for some of the scenes to sink in, together give the movie the look of an all time classic.

What may work against the movie though, are couple of songs at the wrong time, which were not required actually. I also felt that some sequences could have been shorter and overall the movie should have been 20 minutes shorter. We shall see whether this ends up as an all time classic.

For now, the movie gets 4.5 out of 5 from me!



 

The Chennai Express Phenomenon!

Not writing a formal review on "Chennai Express" because the movie is unbelievably crass and horrible, far worse than I thought.

Rohit Shetty is not known for making quality movies anyway, but at least his earlier movies had some form of comedy and entertainment. In this one there is not one scene that one could appreciate as real comedy and would remember. The intended humourous scenes fall flat on your face and are plain irritating. Stereotyping one community and overacting unnecessarily, really do not fall under any kind of comedy.

Shah Rukh Khan hams, overacts miserably and probably delivers his worst performance till date. After a horrible Ra One, an average Jab Tak Hai Jaan and then this one, SRK might be still earning money, but his standing as an actor and the quality of movies he stands for takes a severe beating. When he looks back, he would probably regret that with all the money and power he wielded, at this stage of his career, he could have made some real world class cinema that could have made Bollywood international in the true sense and taken Indian cinema to the next level.

Though nothing exceptional, Deepika Padukone tries her best and does deliver in her role of a Tamil girl, to an extent. The other actors, Deepika's "Don" father, rowdy cousins, fiance, are well cast, but they become a part of the terrible cacophony masquerading as cinema. The cinematography is good and Shetty is very good in showing long convoys of cars and then blowing them up!

Having said this there are two things we need to consider.

The first point is Shah Rukh Khan's business model.

So marketing and hype renders quality and content of cinema optional and unnecessary. The reviews are amazingly guarded during the first week and though no one says the movie is a class apart for obvious reasons, they also do not say that movie is pure garbage. By this time the marketing, the long Eid weekend among other things, ensures an earning of 150 crores at the box office. After the film has earned, the reviews now are pretty scathing.

So SRK's network and strategy has to be appreciated from a purely business point of view and he cannot be really blamed if it works for him.

The second point is on the Indian movie goer and his choice of films.

I can understand different people may like different genres and kinds of movies, all directors cannot be Satyajit Rays and some movies would be made just for entertainment and/or comedy. So for me "Munnabhai" was an example of pure entertainment and "Hera Pheri" was pure comedy. Does the Indian audience really not understand the difference between these and horrible cinema like Chennai Express?

How can Indians pay 150 crores for a movie like this, while quality cinema routinely bombs at the box office?  The saving grace is that movies like "Paan Singh Tomar", "Kahaani" and "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" are also doing well, so there is some hope. The ideal situation would be when these movies make much more money than mindless movies like Chennai Express, but for that, the Indian movie goer has to mature big time!

I can be accused of being "cinematically snobbish" and then one can say something like "If the people accept something, it is good and successful." However the same logic is given by Indian politicians, after all it is again the people who choose them too, but can we be really be proud of the people who run our nation?

The larger problem is that success of movies like these, redefines the definition of "good cinema", so other film makers would follow this model since it is much easier to make a movie without a good script, direction and quality acting. So we can expect much more garbage to flow out of Bollywood.

So while India would remain a nation of corrupt politicians, it would also maintain its status of being a nation that makes the most movies, but very few that can take on the best in the world.