'Rango': A rare, original animation film (Film Review)

In 1995, William Blake, an Easterner, went looking for a job in the Wild Wild West only for him to become the hunted. Blessed with a strange, surreal luck, he survived one misfortune after another.

Circa 2011, and William Blake from "Dead Man" is back as a street smart chameleon Rango in an equally smart animation film. And this time Johnny Depp aka William Blake aka Rango, does not have to die.

Rango (Johnny Depp) is an extraordinary chameleon. Unlike others from his species, he has become so domesticated that he cannot blend in. However, his acting skills and luck help him befriend the townsfolk of Dirt, who believe his stories.

Yet, in trying to solve the problem of their dwindling water supply, not only will Rango be exposed, but also he will be forced to discover who he really is.

"Rango" is a film that will leave lovers of many cinematic genres on a high. It successfully blends breathtaking animation with spaghetti Westerns.

Yet, unlike many other films, it is not the animation that drives the story, but the quirky story that becomes the reason for every action in the film.

With a la Clint Eastwood from his westerns making a cameo as the spirit of the wild west, the film will endear to every lover of the Western genre.

However, despite a good dose of wit and humour, the film may not necessarily be suitable for children. And that is actually a good thing than bad.

It's a wrong notion that animation is just for kids. The creative potential of animation to suit adult needs has rarely been attempted. Though the makers of this film are perhaps not deliberating attempting it, "Rango" is indeed a step in that direction.

The film not only spoofs known clich�s of spaghetti Westerns, but also uses the best of its elements to good effect and to create a different mood. It does the same with clich�s from popular films like "Star Wars" and "Chinatown".

The metaphor of the film is against the modern notion of development. In the quest to control, human beings forget that there are other things that are dependent on that which we control.

Thus, while humans have built an oasis in the desert in the form of a city, all the characters in it, except a cameo, are small desert creatures, those that need and are thus bound by the bond of water that is perennially in a shortfall in the desert.

Johnny Depp is an actor who seems unable to make mistakes. Even when it is lending sound to a character, heavily inspired from one of his earlier films, he excels.

Combine that with imagination and creativity running amuck, a soundtrack that both spoofs and aptly uses clich� and some very creative conceptualisation, and you have in your hands an excellent, though quirky and different companion to both Dead Man and Chinatown.

Masters of the Western genres like Sergio Leone and John Ford would surely be grateful for this one for even they would be hard pressed to find a vision as original as this, either in their favourite "Western" genre, or even in animation.

And thankfully, besides excellence in animation, in terms of the story and its message, "Rango" refuses to tow the Pixar line. And that individuality in itself makes it a welcome change for many now bored with the creative predictability of Steve Jobs studio.

Scream 4 (Movie Review)

An attempt to revive a franchise that appeared to emit its last breath with 2000's stale Scream 3 had 'Scr@p' written all over it. What more could be said about the horror genre, despite the movie's enticing tagline of 'New Decade. New Rules'? Fortunately, Kevin Williamson's clever storytelling and Wes Craven's masterful direction ensures that Scre4m doesn't disappear up its post-post-postmodern posterior. Bolstered by the welcome reunion of Sidney, Dewey and Gale from the trilogy, this scary movie delivers a resoundingly enjoyable and twist-laden guessing game about the identity of the latest incarnation of Ghostface.

The most effective pre-credits sequence in the series since the slaughter of Drew Barrymore and her dodgy barnet sets up events superbly � toying playfully with the audience and subverting expectations about what we think we're watching. It revels in luring us into laughter before landing the killer blow � over and over again. This paves the way for the return of Sidney Prescott to Woodsboro, the scene of the original murders, as she embarks on a book tour to promote her successful writing career.

While in town she pays her cousin Jill (Emma Roberts) a visit, but a new spree of Ghostface murders throws her back into the company of squinty-eyed Sheriff Dewey (David Arquette) and his feisty hack of a wife Gale (Courteney Cox). It seems to be a case of history repeating as several remarkable similarities with the first Woodsboro killings are observed. Can the trio emerge from the latest stabathon with their lives intact, or could they be thwarted by the generic conventions of the horror movie reboot? As Dewey remarks � "everyone's a suspect�"

The expected cultural commentary throughout the narrative is as sharp as Ghostface's blade, with many cutting digs at the YouTube generation and the spate of formulaic horror movie remakes in recent years. Plenty of in-jokes amuse, including one scintillating stab at the real-life Cox-Arquette relationship situation! The deployment of the line "Fxxk Bruce Willis" will also never be bettered in motion picture history, but we won't be cruel and reveal the context.

Occasional lulls in the narrative's pacing fail to significantly sap the momentum thanks to the performances. Arquette, Campbell and Cox all seamlessly slip back into their characters, bolstered by the impressive casting of the Woodsboro young'uns roaming around them. Hayden Panettiere, Emma Roberts, Rory Culkin and Eric Knudsen all rattle off the witty, self-consciously ironic dialogue with aplomb, in between the tantalising sequences that require them to play the prerequisite lambs trying to evade the Ghostface slaughter.

"You forgot one rule about remakes - never fxxk with the original!" seethes one character during the revelation-filled final showdown. Scre4m manages to avoid this, functioning as both a homage to its 1996 originator and a smart reinvention of its slasher movie roots. The key lies in the script, which doesn't shy away from taking calculated risks � including an ending that is even referred to as "silly" in the dialogue. It certainly is, but like the rest of the movie, it's great fun.

Your Highness (Movie Review)

After scoring a critical and box office high with 2008 stoner comedy Pineapple Express, director David Gordon Green and players Danny McBride and James Franco quickly got to rolling on this medieval jape. But it looks as though the B-class drugs never wore off, resulting in a B-movie 'homage' that gives B-movies a bad name. No wonder it's been sat on the shelf for more than a year. Presumably, supporting actors James Franco and Natalie Portman were hoping it would stay there, given their current hot streaks. Alas, sometimes there's no fire without a smoking bomb...

Danny McBride boldly (or stupidly?) takes most of the heat in the lead role of Prince Thadeous, who is, ironically, a prodigious coward. He stands back, tutting, rolling his eyes and cussing as dashing older brother Prince Fabious (James Franco) returns from performing feats of great derring-do in a kingdom plagued by evil wizards, witches and dragons and stuff. Short of ending each line with 'dude', Franco plays it dumbly doe-eyed, evoking Keanu Reeves in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. But it's difficult to tell whether he's angling for laughs or genuinely baffled by dialogue that splices Ye Olde English with copious f-words in the assumption that it's funny.

In case you miss the joke, McBride helpfully arcs an eyebrow and cocks his head to signal the punchline. And with all the subtlety of Thor, he hammers most of his crude one-liners in the direction of Portman as the vengeful warrior chick Isabel. She joins the lads' mission to save Fabious's bride-to-be (Zooey Deschanel), but only to get within arrow's distance of the sleazy wizard Leezar (Justin Theroux), who killed her family. Like Franco, Portman plays it broad, yet she is awkward in her intensity, speaking of a fire that burns inside - just below her chastity belt. Which, along with Thadeous's one-track mind, are where most of the gags in this film are aimed.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so gratingly awful if McBride had at least one endearing bone in his body (as opposed to the minotaur's member that hangs around his neck). He doesn't perform so much as posture, exerting himself to such a degree that it's tiring to watch. In pitching the film as an affectionate send-up of '80s fantasy schlock like Conan The Barbarian, Green and McBride are partially successful, only because Schwarzenegger's tree-like turn in that film seems charming by comparison. Green is also too dependent on McBride to inject laughs where there are none.

As McBride furiously works that eyebrow, Franco appears lost as the straight man. It's as if he's caged in by the armour of the noble warrior. Pineapple Express was both ludicrous and funny because it played to each man's strengths; Franco tapping into his wacky streak while Seth Rogen grounded the story whenever he risked straying too far out. There was also a warmth between the two, which is lacking here despite scenes of male bonding around the campfire. McBride is simply unable to turn the sarcasm down below full whack. There's also a depressing waste of British talent, including Toby Jones (graphically exposed as a eunuch), Charles Dance and Damian Lewis. A stormy, CGI-laden showdown with Leezar does little to dispel the gloom clouds.

Credit : Digital Spy

Thank You (Movie Review)

Bow to the wow. Men, we are told, are dogs. They cheat on their wives. And have themselves the time of their lives. And the wives, poor creatures, are so devoted to their spouses they observe the Karva Chauth for their pati-devils even when they have no reason to do so. Such devotion in show motion.

Thank You is a kind of backhanded ode to the classic Indian wife we grew up watching in the films where the resplendent Nutan would sing Tumhi mere mandir tumhi mere pooja to her smug husband. Serene was the key them. Over-zealous is the mainstay now.

Times have changed. But mores and marital values have only shifted location. Inexplicably Thank You is shot in Canada . Caucasian girls steeped in a slutty splendour, fill up the fringes of the saturated frames. Blonde salad-dressing apart, the message at the heart of Thank You remains as desi as the Punjabi accent that Akshay Kumar doesn�t even try to conceal.

Since this is a film about the perils of skirt-chasing there are plenty of women of all shapes and sizes in skirts (including Sonam Kapoor whose dress code defies all analysis) and other designer clothes.

For that talented writer Anees Bazmi the theme of infidelity in Thank You is familiar territory. In the past he has done jokey takes on men who can�t keep their libido down with varying degrees of humour.

A certain higher level of intelligence is perceptible in the way the characters are put out for scrutiny in the light of their unfaithful characters.

Irrfan Khan as the sarcastic bully of a husband scores the highest marks in the acting department. His wry caustic responses to semi-petrified wife Rimi Sen make a mocking mark mainly for the way the lines are written and delivered. Irrfan is priceless in projecting parody. Rimi Sen, an underrated actress provides Irrfan valuable support .

Akshay Kumar plays the pied piper of the libido. He tries to teach the three womanizers how to check their carnal instincts. That is the best joke in the film.

Such selfrighteous cool roles of the social reformer are not new to Akshay. He delivers a rousing monologue at the end on the virtues of fidelity.

While his comic timing remains sharp and spot-on it is the way he tries to create an aura of suspense about his character�s motives as a man on a mission, that provides a cutting edge to the tale of three skirt-chasers.

Remarkably the dialogues remain free of innuendos. Surprising, considering how lurid films about infidelity have gotten in the past. The proceedings adhere to a sense of fun without getting cheesy. Suneil Shetty�s body language and comic timing in some sequences show his coming of age as an actor of mirthful value.

Thank You has moments that come close to illuminating the underbelly of infidelity. But fearful of forsaking the mood of a riotous farce writer-director Anees Bazmi pulls out of any serious statement to lounge languidly in his comfort zone.

As far as masala comedies go Thank You gets by on the strength of some smart writing, sassy dialogues and of course a handful of performers who try to balance out the lackluster performances of other actors who, lethally for a comedy, just don�t get it.

Memories In March (Movie Review)

Bereavement and memories are a great high for celluloid drama. Some of the most poignant and memorable films of our times have tapped into the wounds of grief for creative juices and emerged trumps at the boxoffice.

Think of Meena Kumari mourning for her impotent marriage in Guru Dutt�s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, or Supriya Choudhury�s smothered screams of protest for her wasted life in Ritwick Ghatak�s Meghe Dhaka Tara, or more recently, Nicole Kidman blaming the world around her for remaining normal while her own universe falls apart after her child�s death in The Rabbit Hole.

Strangely it is women who render themselves effectively to the cinema of loss and bereavement. Don�t men suffer when they lose someone precious? In a subtle sly way debutant director Sanjay Nag�s Memories In March poses this question on gender attititude towards loss and tragedy.

In a script tenderly and delicately crafted by Rituparno Ghosh, director Sanjay Nag has a woman and a younger man locked together in the chamber of shared grief.

Memory and its deeply-reflective recollection after death are a recurrent leitmotif in Rituparno Ghosh�s films. In Ghosh�s Sob Charitra Kalpunik Bipasha Basu got to know and fell in love with her husband Prosenjeet after his death.

In Memories In March which Ghosh has scripted, the mother discovers the dark side of her son whom she thought she was very close to after his death, quite like Jaya Bachchan in Govind Nihalani�s Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, though the thematic ramifications of Memories In March are emotional rather than political.

Aarti Mishra (Deepti Naval) a no-nonsense divorcee and mother from Delhi arrives in Kolkata after her only son�s sudden death in a car accident, to close the account of her son�s life and pick up the son�s remnants that would, perhaps, serve to sustain her for the rest of her life.

In Kolkata, the land of Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak and Rabindranath Tagore (not necessarily in that order) Aarti meets a gentle middleaged man Arnab (Rituparno Ghosh) who turns out to be a close friend of her son�much closer than she, the mother, would have liked them to be.

The sequence on a steep staircase where the mother is told by her dead son�s affable colleague (Raima Sen, as coolly and casually competent as always) that her son was in a gay relationship with Arnab, is expertly excuted to eschew tears while milking the situation for its insinuated poignancy.

Memories In March is excellent at building individual moments of crisis and catharsis between characters during a time that�s stressful beyond imagination for all concerned. However the sum-total of the moments does not quite add up to that tremendous eruption of emotions that one would accept in a film about a mother�s journey into her dead son�s secret life.

Often the narrative holds back emotions , more to appear European in spirit than to be in character with the script. As played by Deepti Naval the mother is a portrait of restraint, breaking down just once when no one is looking in an open refrigerator (a tribute to Vijay Anand�s Tere Mere Sapne where Hema Malini did a similar breakdown sequence) and that too with such furtive fury, you wonder if she�s holding back the tears for a time when the camera doesn�t pry.

The narrative�s structure and its journey from crisis to reconciliation is so tentative you wonder if this moving portrait of a mother coming-to-terms with her son�s death and dark secret about his sexuality doesn�t lose out on something vital in its effort to imbue a cosmopolitan hue to the emotions.

Having said this, the detailing of the emotions and the nuances inherent in the ambience cannot be faulted. The film creates a scintillating synthesis of suburban sounds and the intangible sound of hearts shattered by unforeseen tragedy.

Incidental sounds, such as children running down the stairs of the dead son�s apartment block, or the old-fashioned rickety lift creaking to a start at a decisive moment in the plot, lend a workaday grace to the poignant proceedings.

The time passages seem cramped uneven and, lamentably, unconvincing. The narrative crams in the mother�s bereavement, acceptance of her son�s homosexuality and her bonding with his gay lover (albeit, done in endearing shades) in a fashionably condensed one-brief-moment-of-grief weekend. Again, a European affectation.

The cinematography (Soumik Haldar) and music (Debojyoti Mishra) invite attention to themselves slightly more insistently than the characters who remain suspended in muted melancholy. At times you wish to push the proceedings to a higher octave, if for no other reason then to see if these internally-suffering characters can express their pain more forcefully.

Memories In March is a ball of impenetrable anguish that implodes once in while. When it does the little shards of pain and hurt pierce your soul. The bond between two unlikely mourners who become one in their collective grief remains with you long after the last shot of a fish tank lying bereft and a voice message unattended after an irreversible tragedy.

This is a work of bridled pathos made remarkable by Deepti Naval and Rituparno Ghosh�s delicately-drawn performances. If you enjoy cinema that provides emotional catharsis (a rarity in Bollywood today), this one is for you.

F.A.L.T.U. (Movie Review)

F.A.L.T.U? Not quite. A film that takes stinging swipes at our education system cannot live up to a title as uninspiring as that.

F.A.L.T.U turns out to be quite a pleasant surprise. Fresh, feisty, vivacious and vibrant, and with an important message on the gaping loopholes in our education system, this film gets your adrenaline all pumped for its energetic storytelling and more than a fair share of juvenile antics which stop short of being annoying because they represent the dimmed aspirations of hundreds of school drop-outs and semi-drop-outs who run adrift in the absence of the requisite marks to get into college.

The film offers a solution borrowed straight from Steve Pink's 2006 high-school comedy "Accepted" where the losers and other unlikely heroes opened their own bogus college to pacify their disgruntled parents.

Is Bollywood still doing unofficial remakes?

As in Ayan Mukerjee's vastly superior "Wake Up, Sid, " the aimless protagonist takes the earnest parents for granted until the terrible marks precipitates a domestic crisis for the academic failures.

After a point, the storytelling acquires a life of its own independent of any other films, desi or firangi. The film exudes a certain gaiety and ebullience.

Bright showy colours are used to convey the shallow life where the only thing to look forward after a party is an after-party.

Post-debutant director Remo d'Souza (he has earlier directed a Bengali film) lets the four principal characters do their own thing. A spirit of unconditional bonhomie runs through the hyper-activity of the characters, as they party, party and then party some more.

And then somewhere down the line they want to get serious about their education.

Interestingly, the bonding among the quarter of friends never goes into any emotional tangents. There isn't even a hint of a romance between Jackky Bhagnani and debutante Pooja Gupta who are the official hero and heroine.

None of the four principal characters gets to lord over the proceedings. There are no romantic duets, no attempt to create individual alcoves of emotional or dramatic interest for any of the characters.

Not one moment touches your heart. This isn't a film that encourages a slackening of narrative energy.

The performances are largely functional. Jackky Bhagnani shows a marked improvement since his last film. He gets dependable support from Chandan Roy Sanyal and to a lesser extent Angad Bedi.

Among the senior cast one is rather taken aback to see Rameshwari who once played the charming scenestealer in "Dulhan Wohi Jo Piya Man Bhaye", as Angad Bedi's South Indian mother.

Angad looks as South Indian as Bishan Singh Bedi. But then we aren't really looking for cultural specificity in these actors. These characters represent a state of mind. They live in a world of vibrant colours.They are a part of a world where poor academic performance has turned them into diehard pleasure-seekers.

To avoid thinking of what darkness lies in the future for these young losers, there's always the next party. Come, let's join the fun.

Tame bunny tale 'Hop' skips into blandness

"Hop" has one of the cutest bunnies you'll ever see and plenty of other eye candy among its computer-generated visuals, yet there's not much bounce to the story behind this interspecies buddy comedy.

Letting bad-boy Russell Brand supply the voice of the Easter bunny sounds like a promising way to add spice to a warm and fuzzy family flick. Too bad the movie winds up about as bland as carrot-flavored jelly beans.

Its gooey sentiment and hare-brained gags are likely to appeal only to very young kids. The filmmakers trip up on their scattered attempts to inject some hipness to "Hop" for older children and parents (a bit about a rabbit apparently cooked in a pot is handled so tepidly, it barely registers as a halfhearted allusion to the boiled bunny in "Fatal Attraction," while a couple of Hugh Hefner-Playboy bunny riffs are just dreary).

Directed by Tim Hill, a veteran at blending live action and digital animation on "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties," "Hop" skips and jumps between the fantasy land beneath Easter Island (clever location scouting, huh?) - where rabbits and chicks manufacture holiday candy - and the human world of Fred O'Hare (clever character name, huh?).

Fred (James Marsden) is a grown-up slacker living with his parents, who hound him to get a job and move out. As a boy, Fred caught a forbidden glimpse of the Easter bunny making his rounds, and his destiny seems tied to the rabbit realm.

He's not the only disappointment to his parents. Down under Easter Island, young E.B. (voiced by Brand) is about to take over the family business from his dad, the Easter bunny (Hugh Laurie). But E.B. dreams of becoming a rock 'n' roll drummer and runs away to Hollywood to follow his bunny bliss.

E.B. just happens to come across Fred at a mansion where he's house-sitting. Let's see, mischievous, screwy rabbit, fridge full of carrots, rooms loaded with plush, pricey bedding. Inevitably, E.B. unleashes mayhem on Fred, who seems to be the only person surprised that a talking rabbit is running loose in Hollywood (in a couple of weirdly self-referential but very unfunny scenes, David Hasselhoff is among those who take a talking bunny in stride).

Written by the "Despicable Me" team of Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio, along with Brian Lynch, "Hop" mostly is a lot of slapstick adventures between E.B. and Fred. They gradually form a kinship, find common ground and go through all the other usual things that arise when man befriends rabbit, including taking on scheming chick Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria), who wants to turn Easter into a poultry-run holiday.

The vocally dexterous Azaria brings some pep to "Hop," but most of the actors, among them Gary Cole and Elizabeth Perkins as Fred's parents, are left to doze as if they'd been up all night hiding goodies for the big Easter egg hunt.

After playing stick-in-the-mud mutant Cyclops in the first three "X-Men" movies, Marsden has gotten to show comic charm in such romps as "Enchanted" and "Hairspray." In "Hop," he comes across as a genuinely nice guy - keeping in mind that genuinely nice guys can be genuinely boring. Marsden's Fred is genuinely boring.

That leaves the movie hanging on Brand. His slightly spacy Anglo mutterings lend a strange warmth to E.B., whose adorable face could inspire an entire line of cuddly plush toys.

The animation is the movie's strong point, presenting a rainbow-colored world that should satisfy young children's cinematic sweet tooth. But Carlos' legion of chicks look like downy replicas of the yellow minions of "Despicable Me," while a trio of commando rabbits known as the Pink Berets are really annoying, down to their own dreadful theme song that plays over the end credits.

"Hop," a Universal release, is rated PG for some mild rude humor. Running time: 94 minutes. Two stars out of four. (AP)

Life Goes On (Movie Review)

One of the many pleasures of watching this supple evocative elegiac family saga is to see the timeless Sharmila Tagore share screen space with her real-life daughter Soha, who by the way, has never looked lovelier.

That inner-glow comes from the company she keeps in this gentle drama suffused in melodious whispers and mellifluent suggestions of tunes long-forgotten and yet stored in the most inviolable chambers of the heart.

Luckily for us, and the film, the Sharmila-Soha togetherness is not harped upon. There are far bigger issues and virtues to do with family ties and cultural disaffectation, secreted in the storytelling, propelling our hearts to soar in ways that modern cinema doesn't allow.

When did Indian cinema cease to be about emotions? You wonder as you watch the silken cascade of debutante director Sangeeta Dutta's family secrets and emotions gush out in an Bengali family in London, when one fine morning the mother simply drops dead on the kitchen floor.

The mother-figure, a constant and non-negotiable pivot of every family, here seems to be much more in demand than usual. All her three daughters seem to be stricken with heart problems that no cardiologist can tackle. Blessedly the mother of the family Manju is played by the gloriously imposing Sharmila Tagore. She looks like a woman who can handle the problems of three demanding extra-sensitive daughters, and then some more.

Life Goes On captures the suddenness of bereavement in snatches of sounds, visuals and dialogues done in hurried snatches. There's far more austerity in the expression of the anguish and despair after the sudden bereavement than in Mira Nair's masterly study of coming to terms with death in The Namesake. At times you long for more time between the members of the grieving family.

There are no big breakdown sequences in Life Goes On after the mother's death. Everyone gets busy with trying to pick up the threads of life through the guiding-signs of recollective silence and dialogues. Everyone is a bit selfish in this family. That's the family secret that the film doesn't get judgemental about.

A lot of the vignettes connecting the mother's memories to the present times appear predictable even pedestrian�The director, fearless in her maiden endeavour, does not shy away from making her film look familiar. In doing so she creates a comfort zone between the audience and the characters' collective and individual grief.

From the death to reconciliation, Life Goes On moves at a gentle pace creating pockets of interesting if unfinished dialogue and emotions between characters whom the dead woman touched and influenced infinitely.

The echoes and resonances of a life that lingers after death is created through a blend of sounds and visuals capturing the feeble but flamboyant light of London at dawn and dusk. The parks, bridges, two-storeyed residential areas and their incriminating quietude are ably captured in the film, as are the pain and postures of grief and mourning.

The Rabindra Sangeet in the original Bengali and a rather quaint Hindi translation suffuse a warm and endearing quality to the proceedings. The cross-cultural references resonate across the film's somber skyline with unobtrusive emphasis.

The film creates a fine balance between real-life elegies and their cinematic rendition. A lot of Sangeeta Dutta's mise en scene project a first-time director's effusive affinity to creating a defiant poetry out of the prosaic rhythms of life. But the selfconsciousness of a debutante never distracts from the film's elegantly laid-out pastiche of pain hurt and their healing�if at all the pain of loss ever goes away.

Life for the Indian Bengali family in Britain never seemed more complex.

At times you feel the director has 'Britain' more than she can chew. The sub-plot, on Islam-phobia brought in through Soha's boyfriend's character Imtiaz (Rez Kempton) and the rock band that Imtiaz and his friends put together despite Mullahs' objections, seems to go off into tangent away from the Bengali's family's bereavement.

But at the end when we see the band playing a punk version of Hemant Kumar's Ganga aaye kahan se laced with a French rap section, you smile for the cultural shifts and translocations that the plot endeavours to establish without falling off the map of the human heart.

The performances by the veterans Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore are uniformly skilled and supple. Among the younger cast members Soha Ali Khan as the youngest Cordelia-like daughter to Karnad's King Lear emerges strong and yet vulnerable. But it is the unknown young actress Neerja Naik who plays Soha's lesbian sister who proves a complete natural.

The subtle delicate tender and utterly disarming play of light and shade, of mellow memories and the hard present-reality, of the various cultural cross-generation clashes�. all these could have made any film topheavy. Not Life Goes On.

It is a gloriously polished and poised look at the chaos that rules the bereaved heart in our troubled times. This film is a triumph on many levels and layers. And you don't have to be a Sharmila Tagore fan to realize how resonant her presence can be even when she is lost to the plot.

Monica (Movie Review)

One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world.

A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the wonderfully nimble vision of the movie camera.
Alas, the camera, contrary to belief, does lie quite often.

In this interesting though flawed film about a deeply flawed woman who knows not what her body or mind wants, director Sushen Bhatnagar takes a real-life incident from the newspapers and converts it into a well-meaning cinematic treatise. It's done with much restraint but not enough of a grip to keep the slippery characters from slipping off the story board.

Frequently the characters appear on screen with very little to recommend them as mere human beings or even as flawed character-studies.

Bhatnagar's world of politicians and media persons in and around Lucknow and Delhi appears to be colonised by self-serving stereotypes, trying hard to appear subtle in their devious machinations. Failing in that endeavour, they appear more sinful than sinned against.

Frequently in the course of the narration we feel the characters are being let down more by a lack of creative and financial resources than by destiny.

The saga of the small-town girl's ambitious rise from salwar-kameez to skimpy skirts and tops has been done with far more grace in the past. Madhur Bhandarkar's "Fashion" created both the fury and passion of that journey into a hurling doom that small-town girls often undertake in implementing their big-time dreams.

Monica Jaitley, as played by Divya Dutta, comes across as a vulnerable vixen. Manipulated and manipulative Monica epitomises the strenuous gracelessness of over-pushy small-towners who topple over the brink in their pursuit of the designer-dream.

The nexus between Monica's world of journalism and the murkier milieu of politics and politicians, as represented by Ashutosh Rana's quietly conniving character, doesn't quite become the heady mix of art and 'vulture' that such cinema has often become in the past (in Ramesh Sharma's "New Delhi" and Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica").

The edges in this hard-hitting story of sex and politics are raw and uneven. The tone doesn't quite catch on the immediacy and urgency required of a docu-drama. The narrative pace sometimes slackens to a slow trot taking away considerably from the why-dunnit's cutting edge.

But the effort to recreate the life of a journalist who dared to dream is sincere. Monica is the kind of won't-tell-a-lie cinema that gets trapped in the labyrinth which separates the search for the truth from the truth itself. But the film does create an aura of doomed sensuality around the protagonist without resorting to lengthy cheesy shots of her journey into the bedroom.

The dialogues suggest deeper thrusts of anguish in Monica's life than the ones that she was apparently resorting to for self-enhancement. At the end one isn't sure what killed Monica - her ambitions or their inherently absurd nature.

For being able to bring out the contradictions in Monica Jaitley's personality, this film deserves some words of praise. The performances of Divya and Ashutosh are tuned well to the theme. But the gifted Rajit as Divya's reprehensible husband is uncharacteristically hammy.

The rest of the cast is stiff, self-conscious and unremarkable.

The authentic locations add a hue of familiar discomfort to the film's politics of sexuality. With better production values and more space for the characters to breed credibility, this could've been a remarkable political thriller rather than a film that gets lost in a maze of possibilities.

Nonetheless worth a watch for recreating an event from the proximate past that showed how closely and precariously politics is related to journalism. And sex.

Wipeout: 'Soul Surfer' lacks bite

LOS ANGELES: Sports writers invariably call any last-minute heroics or unbelievable upset a "Hollywood ending," yet in reality Hollywood usually does a poor job with sports stories based on real-life events.

Such stories force filmmakers to drastically alter the filmmaking playbook, draining away all color or quirks of personality from characters based on living people and removing any complications that might distract viewers from the "inspirational" message they're determined to convey.

Which is what happens in Soul Surfer, a true story of courage, determination and guts that deserves a more exciting approach. No doubt, the film will reach its target faith-based audience but a wider audience may elude the TriStar release. However, if the film's real-life heroine, Bethany Hamilton, promotes the film with enough personal appearances, Soul Surfer may break through to general audiences.

Her story has certainly been told repeatedly, including an autobiography and an earlier short doc, "Heart of a Soul Surfer," made by her sister-in-law. A lifelong surfer born to a family of Hawaiian surfers, she lost her left arm in a 2003 shark attack when she was 13. She returned to surfing a mere month after her harrowing ordeal and continues to compete in contests today, having perfected a one-armed surfing technique.

Few stories can be more inspiring but this one apparently didn't inspire the filmmakers to think outside the box. Director Sean McNamara and no less than seven credited writers, in additional to the three that co-authored Hamilton's book, recite the basic facts in dramatic form but give a viewer little sense of who these people -- Bethany, her family and friends -- are or what makes them tick.

The film's main actors do fill in some of the gaps, especially young AnnaSophia Robb as Bethany and Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt as her parents. Robb goes full-bore in her surfing scenes -- she is actually a beginner -- as well as the dramatic ones, giving the heroine the determination of youth broken only a couple of times by doubts or self-pity. Having been virtually born to surf, she had no real way to give it up. It goes against her entire upbringing.

With little makeup, Quaid and Hunt play people who spend as many hours as possible in the sun: Their leathery, lean skin and unadorned faces speak to a deep love for the outdoors and especially the ocean. Taken together this trio, along with Ross Thomas and Chris Brochu who play Bethany's older brothers, present a family of pro surfers whose sport has given them a competitive spirit and a commitment to excellence that see them through this terrifying ordeal.

But the filmmakers treat them with kid gloves. Put it this way, you would never create such nearly perfect, idealized characters for any fictional story. You'd bore an audience to tears.

The 10-minute episode concerning the shark attack and rush to a nearby hospital is the best sustained sequence in the film. Additionally, all the water work involving cameras mounted on surfboards and jet skis is superb as is the surfing, often performed by doubles that include Bethany herself.

On land though, the film suffers from the Hollywood-itis those sports writers so frequently invoke. A fictional villain is created in a rival surfer, played by a perennially scowling Sonya Balmores, who ridicules and cheats Bethany at every opportunity. The film uses a 2004 humanitarian aid trip to Thailand by Bethany following the devastating tsunami to give its heroine a sentimental shot in the arm to further motivate her to return to competitive surfing.

The film curiously characterizes the media that descends on the Hamilton house as a force of terror that drives Bethany and her family to cover. This is an all too common, even cliched movie portrayal of reporters, but in this instance more than a little mendacious given the countless interviews the young woman has given in the weeks following the attack up until today.

Singer Carrie Underwood makes her film debut in a superfluous role as Bethany's church young group leader while Kevin Sorbo and Lorraine Nicholson play the father and daughter who no doubt saved her life by their quick thinking and reactions in the moments following the attack.

As with all the roles throughout the movie, they perform a specific function within the known storyline but are thinly characterized.

Composer Marco Beltrami should be singled out for a score that brilliantly utilizes old Hawaiian music and songs. (Reuters)

Game (Movie Review)

�What a story!� Abhishek Bachchan, playing a cross between a fugitive and a guardian-angel, says wrily at the of this elegantly crafted whodunit.

What a story, indeed. And full marks to writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn�t be incorrect to say, they don�t make movies like this anymore.

Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot and nubile in its narrative thrust, Game is one of the most aesthetically-mounted Hindi films in recent times.

Huge efforts and resources have gone into shooting the murder mystery in places where intrigue seems infinite, escape seems undesirable and redemption appears as distant as the sound of the waves splashing against rocks that have centuries of stories to tell.

Welcome to the Greek island of Samos. Anupam Kher, looking pricey in his tycoon�s avatar invites four of the most distinguished elitist-outlaws on this side of Charles Sobhraj. Each has a past tense and a future imperfect.

Everyone has a history and a back-projection. This is a world defined by a wealth of unexpressed resentment and smothered anger waiting to erupt.

Debutant director Abhinay Deo displays a remarkable grip over the proceedings. Though the narrative moves through a number of continents and exotic cities (Istanbul jumps out at us from the James Bond movies) propelling his tortured characters forward into motions of restless salvation, there is a quietude and grace at the heart of the narration that we�ve scarcely ever seen in desi whodunits.

The crime and its denouement are worked in graphic details. But the narrative is never bogged down by over-punctuation.

For a crime thriller that pays a homage to the best traditions of the genre represented by Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and James Hadley Chase, there is a tightly-wound feel to the storytelling, as though the director were moving contrary to the dictates of the genre, without slipping up with the details.

If God lies in the details then why does the devil seem to have taken over Game? At heart Game is a love story about a high-profile gambler and his doomed lady-love�a kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the inherent desperation of the duo�s togetherness reined-in and qualified by ripples of elegant punctuation.

No hiccups, then, in Abhinay Deo�s directorial debut. Like all cinema by filmmakers who come from the ad-world Game is a visual feast. Contrary to films by other ad-turned-feature director Deo doesn�t unnecessarily abbreviate the shots in the fear of losing audiences� attention.

The characters, specially Abhishek Bachchan�s, get sufficient breathing space in a script that favours flirting with fate rather than fornicating with flamboyance.

There is a delicacy in the textures and colours used to bring forward the tensions in the plot. Shashank Tere�s art direction and Kartik Vijay�s cinematography imbue a gritty cold edge to the spill of blood and the smell of greed.

The portions shot on the Greek island are particularly hypnotic, the splashing waves creating a ripple of anxieties in the turbulence of the characters� lives without toppling the storytelling boat over into the sphere of the stormy.

Whether it is Anupam Kher as tycoon-host on the mesmeric island or Gauhar Khan as his seductive secretary, the characters never cease to appear glamorous on screen.

The performers are eminently watchable. Anupam Kher, Kangna Ranaut, Boman Irani, Shahana Goswami and the underrated Jimmy Sheirgil get the tenor of tantalizing terror right. Sarah Jane Dias is quite a find, though she needs to work on her dancing skills. Her fabulously choreographed dance number suffers from the Two Left Feet Syndrome (hint hint!).

Abhishek Bachchan proves once again a master of silences, his eyes conveying the pain of lost love, his lips curling up to convey the cynicism of a man who has seen it all and couldn�t care anymore. His two ey action key sequences are heart-stopping in their credibility.

Waltzing wickedly between the incredible and the inevitable Game succeeds in sustaining our interest right till the devilish denouement at the end.

Game is a film that never lets us forget that the whodunit attains an enticing aura only when the characters assume framed postures. Abhinay Deo�s narrative walks a fine thin bloodied balance between dread and delight.

Game is one helluva stylish knick-knack. We haven�t seen any Hindi film shot in these colours or with such an attitude of restrained resplendence.