Punishment’s crimes

Breaking and Entering
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, Robin Wright Penn, Martin Freeman

Anthony Minghella is a genius. No doubt about it. Who can ever forget The English Patient (1996)? Only Minghella could bring out the passion and intensity of Michael Ondaatje rhapsodic novel. After that he seemed to have lost his winning touch, though made two more films based on novels, the brilliant The Talented Mr Ripley (1999), and longwinded Cold Mountain (2003). Both movies, starring Jude Law, failed to survive at the box office through garnered some rave reviews.
That is why a new Minghella film is an occasion you look forward to. The news is that this time around he has directed his own screenplay, and he has focused on the present time, here and now. He has a top-order star cast, Jude Law, Juliet Binoche (whom he directed in The English Patient for which she received an Oscar) and Robin Wright Penn at his disposal and he gives the film a postmodern title Breaking and Entering. You expect a winner, and somehow, Minghella fails to live up to expectation. It’s a good movie, one of the best films released last year, but somewhere, like his previous Cold Mountain, the premises on which the film is built is lost, and it ends up looking like another mismatched love story, that you have see hundredth time on the screen.
The film tageline reads: Love is no ordinary crime and we take on the face value. But the activities of breaking and entering into something or someone does not end in love alone, it has a far deeper meaning. Theft has a different meaning here. You can persecute a thief who breaks into your house. But what do you do when the thief breaks into you heart and disrupts your life and forces you to make choices, which not only will change your life but the life of those around you.
Will Francis (Jude Law) is a young landscape architect living a cold, routine-based life with his girlfriend Liv (Robin Wright Penn) and her behaviourally challenged daughter Bea in London. Recently, Will has observed that his state-of-the-office in King’s Cross has been repeatedly burgled. Soon he spots a teenager. Will peruses the thief, which lead him to mysterious Amira (Juliette Binoche), a Bosnian refugee, the thief Miro’s (Rafi Gavron) mother. Soon Will breaks and enters into the emotional world of Amira. Will is looking for the comforts of a home he never had while Amira harbours him in order to protect her son. So ensues the drama of love’s loses and gains, choices and redemption.
The first thing that attracts you to the film is the performance. French actress Binoche is extraordinary as usual. She has a knack of playing vulnerable characters to perfection and here her act of Bosnian woman is perfect to the tilt of her voice. Law gives a restrained, impeccable performance. But it’s Penn’s presence that makes you sit tight and watch, especially towards the end of the film.
Like all Minghella movies, it is beautifully shot, offering the audience the glimpses of London as it is today, a melting pot of the clash of cultures. This is the highlight of the film and the film achieves in bringing home the idea.

Rating *** (Good)

Who’s Afraid of Harry Potter?

After the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the magical saga of J K Rowling comes to an end. Nothing would be same any more. What follows? But before that, would it be possible to recreate the magic of ‘Pottermania?’ Dibyajyoti Sarma seeks the answers

I remember reading a Harold Bloom article that cut J K Rowling’s literary credential into pieces, calling her a mediocre writer, saying that she used the same expressions over and over again and all her ‘imagination’ was borrowed from other fantasy writers, J R R Tolkien et al. It was this article that prompted me to check out who this Harry Potter guy was, even thought the first Harry Potter film was already out, and the ‘pottermania’ was already brimming. I finished the first book in the span of a single night and the next day brought the next three Harry Potter books, pirated copies, of course.



You agree with literary critic Bloom at most places, but did you mark a tinge of jealously somewhere? Rowling is, after all, a bestseller, every writer’s passionate dream.
The question is not why Harry Potter is so popular. The question is, what after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released and done with? The question is who have the potentials to replace Harry, if such a thing is possible, especially when Harry Potter seems to be the epitome of what bestsellers mean, a publishing phenomenon. Who can recreate the magic of Harry?
“What magic?” Asks Raguveer Pathak, a self-confessed fantasy junky, which includes books, movies and video games. “Tolkien is the supreme fantasy that ever was,” he continues, stocking a hardbound copy of The Children of Hurin. Everything after Tolkien is the copy of the master, in one form or other. Harry Potter included. Probably, the best after Tolkien is Philip Pullman and His Dark Materials.”
Pathak’s argument is sound. If you look closely, Rowling did not say anything new. Her world of magic and magical creatures is all borrowed from other fantasy literature, from Beowulf to Ursula Le Guin to Tolkien. The parallel world of the wizards in Harry Potter is not a new concept. All fantasy writing begins with the concept of a parallel universe, like Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
Yet you have to give it to Rowling what she deserves. What she adds to the existing world of fantasy was a modern outlook, combining 21st century with the realm of utmost fantasy.
Ursula K Le Guin of the Earthsea series argued that fantasy literature should use archaic language so as to establish the credibility to the plot. JKR ignores this completely and writes in a language which is very urban and very modern. This is one of the main reasons why she connects to her reader, young and old. Apart from that, everything is ‘old wine in a new bottle.’ Even the dynamism between Harry and Voldemort is the classic struggle between dark and light employed in all forms of art, from novels like Night Watch and to films like Matrix.
Then why everyone’s after Harry, not the others? “Tolkien was unlucky,” Pathak rues. He had to wait for more than ten years before the public accepted his little hobbits. But it was the Peter Jackson movies that sealed Tolkien’s popularity.
JKR was lucky. She chose to tell her stories in a media-driven, publicity-frenzy world. Everything about Harry Potter and Rowling, including her wealth, worth of a queen, made news. The Werner Brothers movie franchises also helped. You are stuffed by Harry to such an extent that you do not have any options other than to love him. Rowling brought fantasy closer home.
Despite all these, it’s surprising how a book for the children caught the fancy of the reading public of all ages. Why is Potter so popular among people who may not have even heard of Enid Blyton and other books for children?
The answer is little tricky. It’s dangerous to place Harry as pure children’s literature, the way Famous Five is. Deepak Dalal, a write of children’s fiction himself, argues: “Harry Potter was pure children’s literature for the first 3 books.” Then things began to change, as the protagonist grew older. “What you are getting now is fiction for older children — what with all the deaths and the dark episodes. The new books are not your typical sunny children’s books, but in a sense, because of the school setting and also the youthful characters, they are still children’s books.”
So, it’s for the teen protagonists that we can say the books are for children, or, shall we say, young adults. But it was the adults that made Harry Potter a success. Dalal reasons: “The books have a universal appeal because of sheer power of narrative. Also, it is a fallacy to say that adults don’t read children’s books. Deep inside adults want to and Harry Potter is the opportunity for them to relive their youth.”
Take a close look and you’ll see that the recent books are targeted to the adult readers, not the children — look at the sheer bulk, more than 800 pages and an obscene price, more than thousand rupees. (With every Harry Potter book, the length is increasing, to such an extent that you wonder if the books were edited at all. The point is, the fatter the book, the more expensive it becomes, and there are fans who are ready to pay any sum of money. It’s a very good business equation.)
Despite everything, Harry Potter is a publishing wonder. Can any future book replace this kind frenzy? Dalal doubts: “The frenzy has been fuelled by astute marketing and a fair amount of hype. I somehow doubt that this kind of hoopla will ever be generated again. There are so many other brilliant children’s authors — Eoin Colfer, Eva Ibbutson — but very little is known about them. It sounds highly unlikely.”
One reason may be, the other books remain children’s literature. The adults have not taken them as their own and hence the popularity quotient is less.
The other issue is, there is no logical explanation as to why Harry Potter became so popular. Hence we can’t follow a systematic method of popularising a work of art. But one thing is sure, another story of wizards is not going to work. Take the example of the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini. The first book, Eragon was made into a film, which sank ingloriously. The series also deals with a parallel universe involving a dragon. But readers were not enthusiastic of another dragon saga. Same goes to Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy, a story of another magician Nathaniel, also set in London.
So what after Harry Potter? Are we going to windup our book reading habits and revert back to television and Internet, or someone else is coming to fill our imagination? But, one thing you have to agree, JKR brought reading back into fashion. Dalal agrees: “Rowling’s books have certainly brought millions of readers back into reading. There is certainly a rub off effect and many of these kids discover reading to be a pleasurable pastime. In a sense her brilliance helps to sell other children’s books too, so yes she has increased the audience for children’s literature.”
But what are the options after JKR? There are quite a few names making the rounds — Cornelia Funke (The Thief Lord), Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Michael Scott (The Alchemyst) — all fantasy for young adults. There are other non-fantasy authors like Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) or Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries). Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time series was always there. There’s also Pullman and His Dark Materials.
But who’ll take the mantle from Harry? No one can be sure, not even the publishers and booksellers. “No one knows why a particular book sells,” says the young man at a roadside bookshop in Deccan. But he sells at least two copies of Harry Potter each week, which according to him is a very good number.

But what do the fans read in the interim period, between one Potter book and the other. “I enjoyed Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia, both the book and the film,” says Nandini Nayak, an avid potter fan. But most fans don’t read anything. They return back to their TV and video games. And those who read, a very few of them are interested in fantasy, and would not go out of their way to find one. Yet few writers are thieving.


“Pullman has potential,” says Pathak, “provided the film on the first book, The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig proves its mettle.
The point is, you cannot copy Harry Potter and expect to winner again. The next bestseller has to be something else, something with a very good story. That’s the key.
But what about our own children’s literature? Deepak Dalal has a series of novels that trail the adventures two young boys Aditya and Vikram. But they aren’t fantasy, but deals with hardcore reality. His books are quite popular, but we haven’t reached that stage yet: “Indian children’s literature is still in a very infant stage. For us to have a vibrant Indian children’s market we need more Indian children’s authors. The Harry Potter books have fascinated a whole generation of Indian kids... maybe these kids will be inspired into writing their own stories... then we might have a viable body of Indian children’s literature...but that is way in the future.” Yes, there’s hope.
No doubt, Harry’s popularity has boosted the nascent market in a big way. Scholastics, the American publisher of Rowling’s books has made their presence felt in India with an assorted lineup of books for children. There’s Navneet Publications. Another publishing house contributing to children’s literature is Tulika books. And there are several others as well.
The rise of Harry Potter was just magical, and we sure do not know if there’s someone else waiting in the wings to wear his big shoes. But one thing is sure, Potter’s party will continues, and if nothing else, it’s good news for the book lovers everywhere.

Return of the Japanese Ghosts

The Grudge 2



Directed by: Takashi Shimizu
Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Amber Tamblyn, Edison Chen, Arielle Kebbel, Jennifer Beals, Teresa Palmer

Good news. Here’s another sequel. Bad news. Here’s another sequel. You could not care less. After braving the shower of sequels this summer you wouldn’t probably even react. And promise, we wouldn’t broach the subject again.
Instead, let’s ask a GK question: “What’s unique about Japanese horror movies?” Not sure? The answer would be, mindless deaths, in most improbable situations. Yeah, sure, death too is an art, especially for the horror junkies who like their pictures of death raw and unadulterated. Here begins the problem for The Grudge 2.
Here’s a Japanese horror film rehashed in Hollywood with the original Japanese director at the helm, who made the original Japanese film Ju-On, which was later remade into English as The Grudge. But this sequel is not the copy of Takashi Shimizu’s Japanese sequel to Ju-On. This one is an original sequel for the English-speaking world, haunted by a family of Japanese ghosts.
It was probably a good idea to try an original sequel (written by Stephen Susco), but the end product looks like ‘been there seen that.’ Remember the 2002 movie The Ring. That was wonderful. The Grudge in 2004 offered a heighten version of the horror mythology of Japan and it was an instant hit (judged by the popularity of its video game version). But the new film offers nothing new.
If for some weird reasons you haven’t seen those aforementioned films, this one is worth a try, it might just be scary for you. But then, if you haven’t seen the original, you might find this movie trifle difficult to understand, with three different stories set in different time zones going on at the same time, all haunted by the ghost of Kayako Saeki, her son, his cat and her husband, who killed them all at the first place.
That story was told in the first film and this one follows the trail of Aubrey Davis (Amber Tamblyn), who arrived at Tokyo to find her sister all going mad (Sarah Michelle Gellar, the only survivor of the first film). After much haunting visuals and creepy soundtracks, Aubrey is dead, so are two of the three school-going girls, who happened to visit the haunted house, till the ghosts decide to visit Chicago and kill an all American family, except for one survivor, Jack. Why? Because The Grudge 3 is already in pipeline.
If you dig horrific deaths in screen, the film is still worth a try, because of its slick production design, and the Japanese imagination — the ghosts look fantastic.

Rating ** ½ (Good, well almost)

Heart firmly in place

Kanyadaan, The Giving of a Daughter



Directed by: Litette Dubey
Starring: Rajendra Gupta, Lillete Dubey, Joy Sengupta, Radhika Apte and Raghav Chanana
Preformed at Nehru Memorial on July 7, 2007

How are you supposed to react when a character in a play screams in English that he is a Dalit and hence does not know the ways of the cultured people, and then goes to prove his point by kicking his upper-cast pregnant wife (who married him at the first place knowing fully well who he is)? Very biased indeed, especially when most of the audience may not even understand the complexities of being a Dalit.
This is the major problem of Lilette Dubey’s adaptation of Vijay Tendulakar’s play Kanyadaan. Tendulkar’s play was written in Marathi and in a Marathi milieu, the story of the clash of ideologies work. But when you trans-create the milieu in English, the language demands much more than literal translation. This is why instead of being politicised statements, Arun Athavale’s dialogues sound crude and over-the-top in English. And, Joy Sengupata’s dramatic body language does not help the cause.
Other than this Kanyadaan, the Giving of a Daughter, directed by Lilette Dubey and presented by Entre Nous at the Nehru Memorial Hall last Saturday was a treat for the city theatre aficionados. You don’t get to see such heart-warming human drama often in English theatre. The Dalit issue apart, the main problem of the play is the clash of ideologies between those who preach what they practice and those who does not, the relationship between a father and a daughter and the conflict between reality and ideology.
Jyoti (Radhika Apte), daughter of an idealist politician Nath Devlalikar (Rajendra Gupta) decides to marry a Dalit boy Arun just because he writes brilliant poetry. Despite her mother Seva (Lilette Dubey) and brother Jayprakash (Raaghav Chanana) opposing the alliance, her father encourages her saying that if casteism has to end, somebody has to take initiative for inter-cast alliances and, why not Jyoti! Conflict begins when Arun begins to treat Jyoti badly, yet the family can’t do anything for their daughter’s sake.
Despite being verbose at some points, the play has its moments of poignancy, and it touches a chord with the audiences. For this the credit must go to the acting. And the scene-stealer is Rajendra Gupta. Those who have grown up watching him in Doordarshan serials, his acting skills are just getting better. How he plays a doting father and an idealist with equal aplomb, how he combines comic and passionate moments together! His dialogues elicit maximum laughter from the audience, and it is the who moves you to tears at the end. Radhika Apte is competent and at most places matches her skills with Gupta, especially at the final confrontation. Litette Dubey is regal as usual, and that’s about it.
At a time when theater means mostly comedies, a play with a heart firmly in its place is a welcome change and a good introduction to Tenkulkar’s work to the English speaking public.

Rating *** out for *****

He’s still charming, but…

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix



Directed by: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ralph Fiennes, Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Robert Hardy, Imelda Staunton, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter

It seems the new director of the Harry Potter franchise, David Yates has taken it for granted that whatever he does, Potter fans will throng the theatres and the producers would get their money’s worth. Otherwise, how do you account for the half-hearted production of the new Harry Potter film, Order of the Phoenix? Or is it because this reviewer has read the book and hence is disappointed to see half of the book’s stories missing, such as Hermione’s movement of free the elves, and the political complexities of the wizard world. The book in question is perhaps the most complex of Rowling’s series and it’s impossible to include everything from the book in the movie. Yet, you expect the film to tell an engaging story and, you are disappointed.
The film begins brilliantly, juxtaposing the wizard world with the muggle world, very much like the parallel universe stories, a Night Watch or a Blade: Harry is attacked by two dementors in broad daylight, a ‘howler’ comes visiting the Dursley household, wizards fly on their broomsticks over the London bridge, all brilliantly photographed. Then the plot begins to meander for the whole length of the film until Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) face each other at the ministry of magic office.
What happens in between is the regular stuff, which actually fails to move you, despite its tremendous potential. The new teacher, ministry of magic right hand, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) takes over the administration of the school for the fear that Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) is gathering an army to fight the might of Voldemort (Actually he is, and it’s the Order of the Phoenix). Umbridge soon bans everything that is potential dangerous and discourages students from using magic. A group of defiant students, including Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), along with Jenny and Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) and a new girl called Luna (Evanna Lynch, no acting!) begins to learn magic on their own, secretly. Meanwhile Harry has started seeing visions of Voldemort and he begins to take training under Snipe to block his mind. So much happening, but somehow nothing comes to fruition.
Harry is just worried that he may be turning evil, nothing more. He finds out that father was not actually all that good, but he fails to react. His godfather Sirius Blake dies, still he fails to react. This Harry has grown up and something is wrong with his emotional equilibrium. Only thing he does is to experience his first kiss, with Cho Chang (Katie Leung).
All the young actors now are in their teens and their awkwardness shows. To make the matter worse, this time round the focus is entirely on Harry, sidelining all the other characters, including Hermione and Ron. And this does not work. After all, the story is about all the three friends.
You still care about Harry; yet after a point whatever is happening on the screen fails to invite you to Harry’s world, blame it to a sloppy screenplay and equally sloppy editing. Things just happen without coming to any coherent conclusion. A few new characters are introduced, but they hardly have any roles to play.
The young actors passes muster, but it’s the grown-up ones that steals the show, Oldman as Sirius, Rickman as Snipe and Gambon as Dumbledore and finally Fiennes as the arch villain, still without his nose petals.
A Harry Potter movie means magic, means SFX and, at least you are not disappointed in that department. Another fantastical new creature is introduced, the centaurs return, and there’s also a giant.
And the final showdown is something that you haven’t seen in the Harry Potter movies before, if that can be a consolation.
No, it’s not the best Harry Potter film. That position is held by Prisoner of Azkaban closely followed by Goblet of Fire. This film will come third and it’s better than the first two movies.
And with two more films to come, you may consider Order of the Phoenix as a good starter but not the main course.

Rating *** 1/2

A walk in lord’s footsteps

As Sant Dnyaneshwar and Sant Tukaram palkhis came visiting the city on Monday, Dibyajyoti Sarma joined the revellers to welcome the congregation and tried to find out what it means to be a part of the palkhi

Vitthala, Vitthala, Vitthala… The chanting resonates the crowded street. When it halts for a brief while, the sound of drums fills the atmosphere. And even if there’s no sound, the sight before you is just staggering. The length and breath of the road, till your eyes could see, is a sea of humanity - men and women, young and old alike - men carrying the saffron flags, men carrying their tanpuras and ektaras and cymbals, men carrying their meagre belonging for the road ahead, and women with the pot of basil plants, or statues of Vitthala and Rukumini on their heads. As the procession progresses, for once, the big bad traffic of the city comes to a standstill. And you are humbled by the passionate sight of walking devotion.
The Palkhi has arrived in the city.
“It was an experience of a lifetime,” says Naresh Chaturvedi, a native of Bihar who has made Pune his home for some years now. “The day I arrived in Pune, it was the day of the palkhi. I was staying at Deccan, in a lodge. It was drizzling and at afternoon, the busy street was suddenly converted into something else. I had never seen so many people together on the street, that too for a peaceful procession. Later, I saw the Ganapati festivals. They are colourful, noisy and fun. But the palkhi procession was something else. There was more a sense of duty than fun, more a sense of reverence than festivity.”
Since then Naresh has made it a point to attend the palkhi, even if as a spectator. The event is just too spectacular to miss.
Spectacular? Certainly not. “It’s a part of our lives,” says 76 years old Rukmaji Thakur from a village in Ahmedngar district. “For us warkaris, the year begins with this event, and when it’s over, we wait for the next year. This is the part of our duty.”
“I couldn’t come last year,” another old man with a pair of small cymbals hanging around his neck reveals. “And I was so sad throughout the year. I hope I don’t miss it again till I live.”
The highlight of the journey from Dehu and Alandi to Pandharpur is not the crowd which is of course enormous, and growing by the year, but the sheer journey of 22 days on foot. Isn’t it tiresome? For many city-bred people who just cannot move without their wheels, the idea of the journey is not just amazing, but also unthinkable. “It is not religious fanaticism. When the tradition dates back to thousand years, you don’t ask for reasons. Instead you accept it as it is,” comments a bystander who has come to see the wari. Refusing to divulge his name, he explains: “It is said that you can reach your god only through penance, in a hard physical way. That’s why most of the temples are built on hilltops. This trekking is also a kind of penance.”
Not so much of penance, as it is bhakti. You have read about the bhakti movement in textbooks. But what you see here is something entirely different. Here spirituality is not a revelation to be separated from other worldly existence. It’s a part of it. “You can’t be here unless Mauli wills it.” This is what Shantabai Muley believes. She has been the part of the congregation for several years now and intends to continue it if that’s be Mauli’s will.
And when Vitthala is on your heart where is the time to think about physical hardship? “When you are among the devotees, with the chanting and kirtan going on day and night, there’s no time to worry whether your legs are in pain or your body is aching. And once you reach his abode, you forget everything else,” Shantabai clarifies.



And this time, Mauli is especially kind, as far as the rains are concerned.
The crowd is enormous, yet what you see are people from villages, that too mostly older men and women. “Not really true,” a 30-something Gajanan Patil begs to differ. He is young, he says, and points out to a group of young men clad in trousers and kurtas. As he finishes answering a call from home on his mobile, he explains: “My grandfather is not well. But he insisted on coming. So I am accompanying him.” But the journey is not without bonus. He gets to see Pune, which he had never visited before. As his mobile rings again, you see another old man fiddling with his cell phone. “For the people at home,” the warkari answers meekly.
As you witness the congregation is still flowing, you really do not know how to react, other than feel a sense of awe, and a realisation that with belief anything is possible.

Lord’s footsteps

The palkhi is a 1000-year-old tradition followed by the warkaris. People collectively go singing and dancing, chanting in what are called as Dindis (organised group of warkaris) to the holy town of Pandharpur. The whole process of palkhi lasts for a total of 22 days. Every year on the eleventh day of the first half of the month of Ashadh, the Palkhi reaches Pandharpur.
In the year 1685, Narayan baba, the youngest son of Tukaram decided to bring about a change in the dindi-wari tradition by introducing the palkhi. He put the silver padukas (footwear) of Tukaram in the palkhi and proceeded with his dindi to Alandi where he put the padukas of Dnyaneshwar in the same palkhi. This tradition of twin palkhis went on every year, but in 1830 there were some disputes. Following this, it was decided to break-up the tradition of twin palkhis, and organise thereafter, two separate palkhis - Tukaram Palkhi from Dehu and the Dnyaneshwar Palkhi from Alandi.
From that time till date, both the palkhis meet in Pune for a brief halt and then diverge at Hadapsar to meet again at Wakhri, a village near Pandharpur.

Mom is the word, even for the Bhais

Bhais are back in business. At least, that’s the verdict by those who saw and liked Shootout at Lokhandwala. For those who saw and did not like the film (I for one), bhais were always there. They had gone nowhere, and they will continue to haunt your entertainment scene as long as Bollywood exists, that is forever. Never mind if it’s presented in Ram Gopal Varma style or Sanjay Gupta style.
But one thing that kept me hooked in the movie, even if I did not like it (and I am not going to give you the reasons, there are too many), was the character of Maya’s mother, played by Amrita Singh.
It was a pleasant surprise to see the goody-goody mothers of Bollywood turning an evil leaf. I nearly fell off my chair when the mom tells her wayward son to take a panga with the don in Dubai, and mouths the classic line: “Even he became a don by ousting someone else (so go ahead, kill your boss and be the supreme don).”
Wow. What’s wrong with Bollywood? It was the stepmothers who were supposed to be cruel, scheming and wicked. And moms were supposed to be simple souls, whose husbands had left them and they fought to fend off lecherous villains to bring up her two sons, both of whom will soon grow up, after singing some love songs, to find themselves on the both sides of the law. The poor mom’s elder son would turn out to be a good guy, a Rajendra Kumar, a Shashi Kapoor, a Jackie Shroff while her charismatic younger son would take up the law in his own hands, may be out of frustration, or out of need, or just to get his mother’s gold bangles from the villain, a Sunil Dutt, an Amitabh Bachchan, an Anil Kapoor.
In the Bollywood manufacturing of scripts, the mother had grown weaker while her sons turned into superstars. And trust me, they did so with the help of their moms. It was after Nargis killed Sunil Dutt in Mother India that Shashi Kapoor dared to say, mere paas ma hai, in Deewar meaning, don’t dare to mess with me, if you remember Mother India. But Nirupa Roy was not Nargis and when we came to Rakhi in Ram Lakhan, she was plain pathetic. She could not just decide about anything.
Therefore, Maya’s mom is a welcome change. Pray, why you need to be so-called ‘good.’ Be bad for a while and trust me, being bad is beautiful. Imagine what would have happened if instead of killing him, Rima Lagoo had protected Sanjay Dutt in Vastav.
After all our poor heroes go to their outlaw ways to please their mothers, to begin with, at least. So it’s time the mothers took some responsibilities. And protect their sons. Or at least support them.
After all, we Indian men are all mammas’ boys.

Just a Spoof!

Epic Movie



Directed by: Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer
Starring: Kal Penn, Adam Campbell, Jennifer Coolidge, Jayma Mays, Faune Chambers

If they can make successful spoofs of Hollywood movies in the Scary Movie series and even make a spoof of romantic comedies in Date Movie, why can’t they make spoof of fantasy and epic movies? Yes, why not, indeed, even if the product looks sick and hardly funny?
Welcome to Epic Movie, a royal spoof on the films you saw last year, from The Da Vinci Code to Pirates of the Caribbean, from Casino Royale to 300, everything at one place. What more do you want? Even if you want more you won’t get it, so be satisfied with what you have.
The film is the story of four orphans who meet their adventures in unlikely places. While Lucy falls into the world of The Da Vinci Code, Edward gets a chance to visit Willy Wanka while yet another, Susan is being adopted to the family of warring Mr and Mrs Smith and the last orphan Peter finds himself among the X-Men.
What follows are a crazy plot twists that make you revisit all the major Hollywood blockbusters you have seen in recent times. And unfortunately you haven’t seen them you may find it hard to appreciate the film.
That happens with the parodies. If relies so heavily on the original that if you do not have any idea of it, then you may miss the whole point.
So here’s it is. You can go to Epic Movie just to check how much you know about the movies. It can be quite funny to just to spot the original film in the spoof. And just that!

Rating **

Horror, horror, kate is at it again

Vacancy



Directed by: Nimród Antal
Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry, Scott Anderson

Looks like Kate Beckinsale is seriously vying for the unofficial ‘Horror Queen of Hollywood’ title. What other explanation could there possibly be for her recent choice of roles. Remember the demure nurse in Pearl Harbor, the object of affection for both Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. Yes, she was Kate Beckinsale. She also wooed the audience as Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. In between she seemed to have developed an uncanny fascination for vampires. In Van Helsing she played Anna the vampire slayer and then graduated to be a vampire herself in Underworld and its sequel Underworld: Evolution.
Now, she is Amy Fox in another insipid horror drama, so vacant in content and imagination that it is rightly called Vacancy. Beckinsale is, however, not on the side of dark powers this time. She is a victim, a beautiful victim especially when the villains of the piece like to film their acts of carnage.
Here begins the horror tale, to the horror of the audience. The basic requirement for a classic horror film is innovation and imagination. Setting the film in a Psycho-type motel and adding a The Ring-type twist does not make a film worth all its horror.
There is a vacancy in a decrepit motel where a bickering couple David (Luke Wilson) and Amy Fox (Kate Beckinsale) takes shelter for the night as their car breaks down. A classic horror situation, add to that a creepy manager and a gothic setting. The stage is set and the couple continues to fight till they realise that the slasher movie they are watching on the TV was actually shot in the same room where the couple are staying.
Horror, horror! Are you scared yet? If not wait till our warring couple joins hands to fight the creeps together.
Where Kate Beckinsale is concerned you can expect some cool action sequence a la Selene of Underworld, and you are not disappointed. Actually, it is she who saves the day, not her well-intentioned husband.
Overall it’s an okay fare, a typical horror fare, nothing new to offer. But the creep continues.

Rating ** 1/2

Royalty Check

The Queen



Directed by: Stephen Frears
Starring: Helen Mirren, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings, Roger Allam, Michael Sheen, Helen McCrory

Making a biopic is a tricky business. For one, you deal with a real-life personality and your job is to highlight the so-called ‘good’ qualities of the character while discreetly glossing over the so-called ‘bad’ qualities. While doing so, most of the biopics turn into a black and white affair, a story of extraordinary achievements of an ordinary person.
It becomes trickier when you deal with a personality very much alive and kicking and attempt to tell a story, which the personality in question would rather wipe it out from the public memory, is she could.
It is this aspect of filmmaking that makes The Queen stand out. You have to give it to director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan for dramatising the story which is very much part of the public memory and which involves the royal family of Great Britain. While doing so, both Morgan and Frears refuse to take a stand either to support or oppose what was happening. This is a rare achievement and one of the reasons what makes The Queen one of the outstanding movies released last year.
The year was 1997. Tony Blair became the youngest Prime Minister of Britain and he promises to ‘modernise’ the conservative outlook of the country. Here begins the first clash between monarchy and democracy. Whatever he may do, Blair cannot undermine the royal family.
Then occurs the tragic death of Princess Diana. As her body is flown from Paris to London, public expects a royal burial. Blair rides on the public support and terms Diana a people’s princess. But Queen Elizabeth would hear nothing about it. According to her, since Diana was no longer a member of the royal family (since her divorce) she cannot be given a royal burial. As public throng to Birmingham Palace to pay tribute to the late princess, the royal family goes for a holiday in Scotland.
Here ensues the royal drama between the monarch and the democratic, modern prime minister. The queen stands by her decision while Blair would go to any extend to appease the public.
The story is real. It happened exactly the same way in the week following Lady Diana’s death. But what we knew was what the newspaper would tell us. The film is the behind-the-scenes events, how the royal family reacted at Diana’s death.
Most of us haven’t seen the queen in her private life, and Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth takes us to a royal trip. Her body language, her voice modulations, her emotional outbursts all make us believe what Queen Elizabeth must have gone through those volatile days. Mirren adds such exuberance to her role that you cannot imagine any one else in that role. Last year Mirren took home all the major acting awards for the role, and she deserves every bit of it. She gives the character a rare dignity which otherwise could have been a crude caricature (like the character of Prince Charles, which ends up being a caricature.)
Both Michael Sheen and Helen McCrory look uncannily like Tony and Cherie Blair respectively and lends to the authenticity of the drama.
However, the highlight is Stephen Frears fearless directorial skills. He does not even attempt to positivise the actions of his characters and let the audience decide. And hence, through the film begins as a criticism to the royal family you end up supporting Queen Elizabeth for what she is.
And for that the credit must go to Helen Mirren. She is the queen personified.

Rating ****