TPW – The Popcorn Waltz

Dune 2021: Meet Neo With The Good Hair!

Dune 2021 Paul Timothee Chalamet — Paul Atreides of House Atreides, Dune 2021

Fair warning – spoilers ahead! If you’ve not seen Dune, bookmark this page, watch the movie and come back to finish your read.

Adi’s tl;dr Dune’s a spectacle, one that gets better on the second watch. And more so if you go in expecting half the story, for the time of one!

Sahil’s tl;dr Come for the science fiction, stay for the spectacle.

You can see what makes Dune an Oscar contender – a story that’s been nearly impossible to translate to screen, the technical prowess of the movie from Hans Zimmer’s inimitable music to Director and Writer Denis Villeneuve’s vision for the saga. Considered seminal to science fiction, Frank Herbert’s Dune was published in 1965 and is the story of Paul Atreides, the heir to the noble House Atreides surviving political machinations and the destruction of his House on the inhospitable desert planet Arrakis.

Dune is set in a future far, far away where humans have built a society devoid of artificial intelligence – no computers, no phones, no robots. Nothing like the future of humanity envisioned in the Star Treks and Star Wars of the world! The known universe is ruled by a feudal aristocratic empire, where planets are divided among noble houses. The stage is set for a power struggle between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, engineered by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and the Bene Gesserit (a powerful pseudo-religious cult that’s influenced the course of human history for centuries) to weaken the two strongest houses in the empire and eliminate any threats to the emperor’s rule. ‘Spice Melange’ or ‘the Spice’, a substance found only on Arrakis, fuels space travel and lengthens human life making it the most valuable substance in the galaxy, and the currency of power in the world of Dune. House Harkonnen led by Baron Vladmir has controlled the ‘Spice Desert’ for 80 years and the movie starts with the royal decree to transfer the control to Duke Leto, the leader of House Atreides. Leto worries about the political implications of this decision, but is driven by the possibility of economic growth and of forging ties with the underground tribe ‘Fremen’, the free folks of Arrakis who have resisted the emperor’s exploitation of their planet for generations.

And that brings us to Paul and Lady Jessica, his mother and Leto’s partner, who make up the other half of this narrative bringing intrigue to the story that goes beyond politics and ‘Spice’ to matters more mysterious. Lady Jessica is part of the Bene Gesserit and has trained Paul since birth in ways of this secret society of sisters, playing mind games with the mighty men of Dune. The Bene Gesserit have been awaiting ‘the one’, much like Morpheus, just not as cool as him. There’s a growing suspicion that Paul is the fabled ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, the messiah born to guide humanity to a better future. Paul, with his dual training from Leto and Jessica, makes a strong candidate, albeit with ‘Neo-esque’ reluctance and doubt. Through the course of Dune, we see Paul’s growing awareness of his powers, culminating with him setting on a journey to realize his full potential.

Adi’s Take

Dune is the first part of two movies covering half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel ‘Dune’. And one could argue that was Villeneuve’s true master stroke. The decision to split the story in two likely made the matter more manageable for creators of this epic, presenting an opportunity to do justice to a story that’s been tough to tell. But it does come in the way of fully realizing the potential of this first installment. I was left wanting more in the way of character development and world building, especially the mythology surrounding the universe of Dune and the stories of characters we are asked to get behind. This is one of those times when a pre-read (we watched this intro to Dune on YouTube!) is essential to bring you up to speed. TBH, that’s not usually what I think of as a prerequisite to movie watching!

Still, there’s a lot to love about Villeneuve’s take on this epic sci-fi tale. I’m especially partial to the immersive visuals (incredible desert-scapes, the ship emerging from underwater sequence), the musical score that heightens every scene and the eclectic casting. From Timothée Chalamet’s Paul to Oscar Isaac’s Leto to Jason Momoa’s fiercely loyal Duncan Idaho and Javier Bardem’s no-nonsense Fremen chief, Stilgar – there’s acting talent everywhere you look. But I can’t quite shake off the feeling that they are waiting for something to happen, to fully come into their own, to light up the screen. And this feeling is most acutely felt with Oscar Isaac – the powerhouse that rocked my world in Ex Machina (That dance is LEGENDARY). We are told to believe that Leto is a great ruler, a strategic leader, a warrior who commands undying loyalty but not shown what makes him tick and that’s the challenge with loving Dune in a nutshell. We’re asked to get behind characters, to fear the depths of danger that surround our heroes, to mourn their loss, to be enraged for those betrayed. How I wish we were made to feel this with narrative tools and storytelling, instead. There’s also Zendaya playing the Fremen Chani and Josh Brolin’s Gurney Halleck in the mix, whose presence is felt throughout the movie but we’re left wanting more from both to understand the role they play. One can only hope that there’s more to these characters in the second edition of Dune.

Dune’s also a fascinating take on human evolution – the lack of sentient machinery, the presence of rituals and kingdoms – it’s an interesting dichotomy of the new and the old, when we think about human history. The emotionality displayed by the men of Dune, especially the male bonding of the men of House Atreides, is a positive envisioning of human evolution. They are warriors and politicians, leaders and fathers, but none of those roles have them trapped in societal structures and expectations, inhibiting their ability to express love and loyalty for one another. The greetings between Paul and Duncan Idaho, the tenderness of Leto and Paul’s relationship is a welcome break from tropes of manhood, of toxic masculinity we have come to expect from stories of kings and wars. In one of their few scenes together, Leto and Paul talk about duty and carrying on the family legacy. Leto tells Paul that immaterial of the choices he makes, he’ll ‘always be his son’, he’ll ‘always be enough’, in a refreshing break from stereotypes. Paul’s motivated by a sense of duty to protect his family and House Atreides, and not by a crippling desire to seek his father’s approval, which brings meaning to the choices he makes. I wanted to see more of this character development, to bring the viewer into the world of Dune not just as a spectator enamored by the grand visuals, but making the world relatable at an emotional, human level, despite the eons that separate our realities.

Sahil’s Take

When you think science fiction or fantasy one of the first things that comes to mind is “world building”. Perhaps also Hans Zimmer but more on that later 😉 Dune carries the promise of a world that’ll enthrall, ensnare and entrap you but eventually fails to meet that promise. It does come close in a number of ways.

The movie opens like an epic spectacle, a story of grand proportions, of royal households fighting over a battlefield of a few thousand planets, of an enslaved, hunted, yet guerilla race, of a young savior, the result of hundreds of years of superstition, ritual and science rolled into one. The world that Villeneuve launches along with an ethereal musical score from Hans Zimmer will capture your imagination with its grandeur and scale but it lacks the oral richness you associate with world building. From it’s awe-inspiring cinematography that would look spectacular in a movie theater, to the sharp attention to detail in costumes and set design, Dune merits a couple close watches if you’re taken by the universe. Unfortunately, there isn’t as much dialogue (and I don’t mean exposition) as you’d hope to hear to go along with the visual and musical bounty. Hans Zimmer’s score has the perfect other-worldly, futuristic feel you’d expect from music in the year 10,191 AG / 23,352 AD and creates the ominous sense that chases you throughout the movie. Although oftentimes there’s too much dependence on the music and it’s left to do all the heavy lifting in a scene. The desert cinematography and futuristic feudal setup would remind you of Star Wars, The Mandolorian and Mad Max Fury Road and depending on how other movie(s) in the universe turn out perhaps as big a franchise. There’s always been strong speculation that Star Wars borrowed from the Dune universe and if you’ve seen Star Wars some of those things like a galactic empire or sandworms or a desert planet (Tatooine v Arrakis) would be immediately noticeable as you watch Dune. As to how much Star Wars ‘borrowed’ from Dune depends on your reading of the Dune books and I’ll simply have to take the internet’s word for now!

There are two tribes in Dune worth pointing out – the Bene Gesserit (more a secret society than a tribe) and the Fremen. The Bene Gesserit are a religious sect that operate in the shadows across Dune’s political, religious and social structures, posing to guide the flow of human evolution while the Fremen are the native population of Arrakis who are resisting and fighting a somewhat losing battle over the control of their planet and it’s natural resources. As you see more of these two groups play out in the movie, you can’t help notice the mix of rituals, superstitions, and at times medieval magic-like witchcraft they practice. Both of them operate in the shadows, one from a place of incredible power using subterfuge to guide the course of events in the galaxy and the other who use guerilla tactics and an Avatar-like connection with their arid planet to resist outsiders and protect themselves. A number of these superstitions and rituals, as they often do, culminate in the existence of ‘the one’ or the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’ as the Bene Gesserit know the savior or the ‘Lisan al Gaib’ according to the Fremen. The movie ends with Paul Atreides, becoming the leader or Duke of his House along with the potential Kwisatz Haderach or Lisan al Gaib and joining the Fremen. What you’ll notice as you watch the movie, especially if you do it a second time, is how Frank Herbert used a number of world religions to infuse rituals and language in the Dune universe and Denis Villeneuve does a great job of bringing these alive in the movie, often times in very subtle ways like when you see how the Sardaukar army prepares or the culture of the Fremen.

There are two scenes in the movie that sum up the vision and achievement for me. The spectacle and science fiction comes alive in a scene where a drone silently attacks Paul Atreides. While the murder attempt fails, the scene captures the ominous and poised direction of Denis Villeneuve, Hans Zimmer’s musical score and the richness of the Dune universe. There’s another scene that demonstrates the promise of the movie and how it fails to capitalize on it. As the Bene Gesserit leave after testing Paul with a deadly trial of will to see if he deserves to wield their power, Paul and his mother Lady Jessica have a conversation that’s shrouded in mist. While the cinematography is incredible, as the camera moves from the characters speaking in shadows from afar to zooming in to show a closeup of their faces clearly, the two movements break the enchanting spell the scene tries to cast. A scene with Shakespearean potential is lost due to over engineered effects and technique and not as much focus on dialogue.

We’re left with more questions than answers at the end of Dune – what happened to Josh Brolin / Gurney Halleck, what’s the Bene Gesserit’s endgame, what does Lady Jessica know, was she betrayed by the Bene Gesserit sisters, her kin and community. This is great for the filmmakers who want us on the hook for the second edition, but somewhat frustrating for viewers who have a long wait ahead to see the saga unfold without being as invested in the characters. Dune is part of a small, elite group of sci-fi movies nominated for the ‘Best Picture’ award in the history of Academy Awards. Only time will tell if Dune makes Oscars history by winning this ever elusive category, but we’re not betting on it!

The Popcorn Waltz Rating: 3.4 / 5 aka a must watch, can’t wait for part 2, but not a ‘Best Picture’ winner!

Adi & Sahil

Hell or High Water is the un-Oscar, Oscar contender

Tl;Dr If you don’t like the usual Oscar nominees, you’d like this one!

Hell or High Water is the underdog film of Oscars 2017. It’s that movie that doesn’t pick up much steam or get a ton of attention, but boy-oh-boy is it good or what! We watched Hell or High Water right after Hacksaw Ridge, on a bit of an Oscars marathon 🙂 And it was just what we needed! A not-in-your-face-classy movie that has just the right amount of entertainment, pace, story, screenplay, editing and brilliant, brilliant music! In fact the music is the first thing you notice, coming straight from Hacksaw Ridge which is completely bereft of any musicality. With Hell or High Water, you’re assured of two things – a pace that doesn’t give you a chance to be distracted and a perfect soundtrack that sets the mood that carries through the film.

We can’t help but describe Hell or High Water as a meeting of Ocean’s Eleven and Once upon a time in the west, minus the panache of Eleven and the over the top theatrics of westerns. It’s a modern day take on the western genre, where you see the dilapidated expanse of Texas that has gone under in an economic crisis. These landscape shots paired with an excellent background score define the aesthetic of the film, right off the bat. Directed by David Mackenzie and written by Taylor Sheridan, Hell or High Water is an original story and screenplay, which honestly is a welcome break in Oscars season which is so dominated by real life stories. It got it’s fair share of Academy Award nominations with Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Bridges), Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing, but came out empty hand at the end of the big Oscar night. We’re so surprised that it didn’t get a music nomination, because that is the stand out feature of the movie.

Hell or High Water is essentially a heist movie with a heart, where brothers Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster), make one final attempt to ensure the future of those who matter. The plot follows their plan to raise money to prevent the foreclosure of their family farm, which is all Toby has to give to his kids. Tanner is an ex-con who has nothing to lose and is the aggressive one in the partnership, whereas Toby is the submissive half who just wants this over with. This journey brings the two brothers together for the first time in a long long time and their relationship, the fun and games of siblings, the humor, the fight, the rebellion, the anger, the years of history together, the nostalgia of what could have been their life are all part of this equation. One of my favorite scenes is watching them sing a song together – it almost feels like the good old times, but not quite.

While Toby and Tanner make one part of Hell or High Water, the other part is made of another duo – Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham), two Texas rangers chasing the bank robbers. Jeff Bridges as a lonely ranger close to retirement, with a dry sense of humor and years and years of experience is a treat to watch. This case becomes his sole obsession, almost like a new lease of life, the kind of excitement he no longer expects so close to the end of his career. Watching him revel in the wishful fantasy to ‘dodge his retirement in a blaze of glory’, is at once disheartening and charming. His partnership with Alberto, who he relentlessly pokes and jabs at is personal and you know that the two men care for and respect each other, despite all.

Set in an economic depression where bank has become the most hated institution, Hell or high Water has undertones of Robin Hoodesque heroism in stealing from those in power to help those in need. Money is a scarce commodity and everyone is fiercely protecting whatever little they own. The film works with the backdrop of economic exploitation by the banks and in that way, Toby and Tanner stealing from them is payback. To each of the protagonists, this is personal and there’s a lot at stake. Another recurring theme is the racial tension depicted in the legendary rivalry of ‘cowboys and the indians’. This furthers the picture of Texas – the old and the new co-existing in a wasteland.

Hell or High Water captures the fantasy of the wild, wild west, after the end of its glory days. You’re not inundated with images of past glory or the stereotype of horse riding hunks. The cowboys do not strut around in cowboy hats and boots, styled to meet the archetype of rugged good looks and dangerous dark eyes! These are looked at wistfully as figments of a bygone era. Everything’s rustic, broken, dilapidated and the film is unapologetic about it. Stripped of the theatricality of a western, the movie hinges entirely on the drama and the performances of Bridges, Pine and Foster. Hell or High Water picks two of the most stylized, well known genres of Hollywood – westerns and heist films and subverts these to create something as dry as the west Texas landscapes in the movie, but just as breathtaking.

From the onset you don’t expect a and-they-lived-happily-ever- after ending, but what you get is in my opinion, as good as it gets 🙂 So if you’re a fan of good music and a no-nonsense entertaining film, without any of the pretense we’ve come to expect from many of the Oscar nominees, Hell or High Water is for you.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil

@ThePopcornWaltz

Hacksaw Ridge – Your war fix for the Oscars.

TL;DR It ain’t Hurt Locker 😛

Hacksaw Ridge is this year’s entrant in the Oscars for a war movie. While it doesn’t punch you in the guts like The Hurt Locker, it sure has it’s moments. It satisfies most of the checklist for a war film – action, drama, politics, more action, romance, patriotic rhetoric, some more action, fever pitch emotions and a final sprinkling of action. Hacksaw Ridge is based on the life of Desmond Doss, an American combat medic during World War II. The story tracks his life as a young man who enlists in the army post Pearl Harbour with a deep sense of responsibility to his country while at the same time being opposed to violence. The conflict of war and peace, violence and non-violence understood within religious subtext is the central theme of the movie.

Andrew Garfield as Desmond Doss is the highlight of the film – it’s impossible to not be charmed by his innocence and a simple view of the world that he sees through the lens of his faith. Directed by Mel Gibson and written by Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan, Hacksaw Ridge earned six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Gibson and Best Actor for Garfield. What can I say – war movies are Academy pleasers! Hacksaw Ridge surely brings two of Gibson’s passions together – religion and war, so it’s not a surprise that he broke his directing hiatus for it. The movie is designed to focus entirely on Desmond Doss which moves the rest of the cast to the background with interesting bits from Vince Vaughn and Sam Worthington. And while that ensured Garfield’s Best Actor nomination, in our opinion, that is one of the core weaknesses of the movie. Hacksaw Ridge finally went on to win the two technical awards – Editing and Sound mixing.

Doss’s character is full of boyish charm, naïveté and an incredibly optimistic view of the world. The romantic angle in the movie is introduced right in the beginning where we see Doss smitten by Dorothy Schutte, who’s a nurse by profession. Doss is interested in medicine and looks at it as an extension of the teachings of his faith – to help heal those in pain. Their fairy tale romance is full of humor and lightness and it’s interesting to see the strain of humor survive the more grim parts of the movie. Doss is not jaded by the world he lives in and that’s a feeling you take from the movie. He enlists with the intent to save lives and not take them and that puts his values at odds with the very nature of war. A large part of the movie captures the struggle of Doss to stick to his values, even when he is bullied, assaulted, prosecuted by his comrades to abandon his faith and pick up arms.

War is at the core of the times and you can’t miss noticing Doss and Dorothy’s first date was a war movie. Hacksaw Ridge is a war movie, that doesn’t glorify war. We’re shown the morbidity, the infestation, the human death and decay caused by war. It’s not sanitized for the audience. The war scenes are brutal, intense, gory but somehow not gut wrenching. There’s a stark difference in the visual aesthetics between the first and second attempts to capture the ridge. While the first attempt, felt a little amateurish, the second time when the troops return with renewed faith is anything but. We only wish that’s the aesthetic that the cinematographer had gone for from the beginning, since the war scenes make nearly all of the second half.

Religion and war are constantly at odds in the movie – not only in Doss’s conflict but in every other aspect as well. From an alcoholic father, retired from the army who resorts to domestic violence in a deeply religious household, to Doss asking for his Bible as he’s being rescued from the ridge while we see men falling all around – we’re constantly served images of religion and violence in the same frame. Doss’s faith remains undeterred through the film and it’s as much a war narrative as a story of a man’s resilience to his values under intense pressure. For a few moments, we’re shown a despondent Doss who asks ‘What is it you want of me? I don’t understand. I can’t hear you.’ But this conversation doesn’t go anywhere and you’re left with a feeling of wanting to hear that debate, that internal struggle to come to terms with his principles and the reality of war.

Hacksaw Ridge presents a simplified view of issues of faith, religion, patriotism and humanity. What could have been a complex, layered conversation is over simplified as the film adopts Doss’s simplistic view of the world. At one point Doss says, in his characteristic charming way, ‘With the world so set to tear itself apart, it doesn’t seem such a bad thing to try and put a little of it back together.’ This honest charm and compassion makes Doss endearing, but when the movie adopts the same over simplified lens, one misses the nuance of this complex conversation. Doss’s faith serves as his armour against all and gives him the strength to carry on as he rescues 75 of his comrades, while chanting, ‘Please lord help me get one more’. This moment is the crescendo of the movie. This is the moment that evokes the emotion Hacksaw Ridge intends to and this is the part that would stay with us.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil

@ThePopcornWaltz

Hey there Oscars 2017!

Hey there!

Thanks for coming back to The Popcorn Waltz! It’s that time of the year again when movie lovers go into movie watching frenzy as the award season goes into hyper drive. Blame it on the state of politics, work or travel – we didn’t really get started on the Oscars till now – which kinda put us on a clock that is racing ahead to Sunday.

So like any mature adult we decided to jump headlong into an Oscars marathon to watch and share our take on the nine Best Picture nominees (And hopefully any others we can fit in!). This year’s list of nominees is an interesting mix and we can’t wait to start our Oscars marathon just in time for the 89th Academy Awards!

Here’s the list of movies we’re looking at:

Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Loving
Jackie
Arrival
Moonlight
Lion
La La Land
Hidden Figures
Manchester by the sea
Fences

Guess we have our work cut out. Let’s watch some movies, folks! But remember ‘The Popcorn Waltz’ is a two way street, so join the conversation and tell us what you think. Thoughts, ideas, opinions and rants are all welcome 🙂

Lastly, if you like what you read, please share it with your friends, family and social circles. You can follow us on Twitter @ThePopcornWaltz for updates and more movie fun! You can also reach us through our ‘Contact Us’ page or email us at thepopcornwaltz@gmail.com.

Till next time when you refill the tub and pop in the film!

Adi & Sahil

The Italian fellas of Brooklyn!

Adi’s TL;DR Finally a romance makes it to Oscar nominations!

Sahil’s TL;DR If you can only watch one Brooklyn or The Big Short, choose the latter.

Brooklyn is beautiful and artistic. The place and the movie. For most part, Brooklyn is a light hearted, non-controversial story of a young Irish woman who moves to New York for a better life. Sounds familiar, right? So many of us have moved countries to make another home. The fear, the anticipation, the excitement, the homesickness, the novelty, the adjustment and ultimately the relief of belonging somewhere – it’s a journey ripe with emotions and this is the story of Brooklyn. In the current climate of immigrant crisis in the world, Brooklyn takes you to a place far removed from reality, a world not marred by politics or profiteering.

Here’s some dope on Brooklyn. Directed by John Crowley and screenplay by Nick Hornby, Brooklyn is another Oscar nominee based on a novel by Colm Toibin. Guess books to movies is a formula that never goes out of fashion! A historical period drama, the film stars Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson in major roles, along with an eclectic cast of characters that bring out the charm and nuances of both the countries. And can we just say what a year it’s been for Domnhall Gleeson. He (well really his agent) surely knows how to pick the right projects to be in! He’s in four Academy nominated films this year – Ex-Machina, Star Wars, Brooklyn and The Revenant and has managed to snag zero nominations for himself! If that’s not hard luck, we don’t know what is! Brooklyn has three Academy nominations including ones for Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan) and surprise surprise, Best Picture. Guess the happy ending to an immigrant’s story resonated with the Oscar voters.

Brooklyn is a coming of age story that shows the protagonist Eilis, come into her own. It’s a bildungsroman, one that charts Eilis’s journey from a young adult to a woman who’s independent, well at least in context of that time. The Eilis we meet at the beginning of the film and the one we see at the end are different in so many ways. She‘s glamorous, confident, decisive, educated, career oriented and in love! The subdued, unsure girl transforms into a woman who knows her mind and can make choices independent of her past and not petrified of her future. And none of this could have happened had it not been for one person. Eilis’s elder sister Rose (Fiona Glascott) has been a parent, a sibling and a friend to Eilis. She knows that Eilis would never be able to get out of the rut of her life in Ireland, if she didn’t go out and see the world for herself and so arranges for her move to America. There’s a stark contrast between the lives Eilis and Rose lead. From their rooms to their wardrobes, Eilis’s is full of hope and light, while Rose’s is dull and gray. Rose’s character is tragic and you can’t help but feel a pang of sadness when you think of what could’ve been, if only she had someone looking out for her, like she did for Eilis.

Representation of different immigrant groups as they rebuild home away from home is a recurring theme in Brooklyn. New York is something of a melting pot, where people from all over the world come to make a future and start rebuilding little pockets of where they came from with people from the same cultural/racial background. It’s a given that an Irish girl, would stay in a house for Irish women, run by an Irish lady, go to an Irish church, visit the Irish weekly dance to meet Irish ‘fellas’ and serve the Irish poor and homeless as part of church service. We’re creatures of habit, of familiarity and cultural stereotypes and the film really brings this out. The interesting bit is the subtle ways in which everything changes for Eilis, despite being surrounded by familiar people. At the boarding house she meets other young Irish women who are different in the way they dress, act, talk and she feels like she does not belong. The Irish in New York are nothing like the Irish in Ireland and she struggles to reconcile the two, while gradually adapting the new ways. We see a change in her wardrobe, her style, her personality as she begins to enjoy the sense of freedom and independence and develop relationships with the people she lives and works with.

The most entertaining parts in the film are the conversations at meal times. The dinner table conversations at Eilis’s boarding house have an interesting mix of flavors, portraying women in New York in the 1950’s. The gendered nature of those conversations make them hilarious and meaningful at the same time. It’s like viewing a slice of a bygone era with it’s old world charm and quirkiness. The boarding house has four other women including the matron-like landlady Madge Kehoe (Julie Walters), who feels it’s her moral responsibility to keep a check on these girls, so they don’t get too ‘giddy’, which according to her is ‘the eighth sin’! Mrs. Kehoe stands for societal notions of right and wrong, acceptable or not, but is not blinded by one school of thought. She’s capable of letting go her guard for a good laugh and be stern in her belief that the lord’s name must not be taken in vain, at the same time. From makeup tips to boyfriend stories to swimsuit discussions – the range of these conversations goes far and wide, of course always operating within the realm of ‘womanly’ topics.

You may be wondering where the romance fits in with all of this. Well how would a woman’s coming of age story ever be complete without a man or men, especially in the 1950s! So there are two men in Eilis’s world. Towards the beginning of the film, we see Eilis’s lack of interest in men of southern Ireland, who are all the same in her opinion. But that doesn’t mean that marriage ain’t for her. Marriage is a given in this world, it ain’t an option. And going to the weekly community dances is the best way to meet ‘fellas’. This is where Eilis meets Tony, a young Italian man who works as a plumber and is really ‘into’ Irish girls! With Tony, Eilis feels more in control of the situation and his honesty about his background, sets a tone of transparency in their relationship. This gives Eilis a chance to be more vocal about her thoughts, ideas and dreams, something we haven’t heard from her yet. Love becomes the light of her life and in Tony she sees the chance of a future brighter than ever before. The scene where Tony introduces Eilis to his family is so incredibly well done. Eilis is not really like them. When Tony’s mother asks her how she learnt to eat spaghetti like that? Eilis is honest to say that she took a class with her friends to learn the right way to do this. This is the Eilis we are charmed by. Honest, unassuming, down to earth and endearing.

But as we all know, when things are going too well in a film, something bad is just round the corner and Brooklyn doesn’t disappoint. In a tragic turn of events, Eilis is drawn into her past, where she has to travel back to Ireland to be with her mother and mourn Rose’s demise. Rose was Eilis’s support system and this would have broken her spirit had it not been for Tony’s love and presence. Tony stands by her and helps her grieve, but as the moment of her impending journey inches closer, his insecurities and fears start creeping in. He is scared of what might happen when Eilis goes to Ireland. The looming question of the uncertainty of her return petrifies him and he looks at marriage as an insurance for their relationship. In a moment, that’s not very well thought out by Eilis and Tony or even Crowley and Hornby, they get married without telling a soul. This episode’s a little jarring, a little cliched, since their relationship wasn’t built on stereotypes for most part and you start wondering the why’s of it. Is love not enough is a question you can’t help but ponder over.

When Eilis reaches Ireland she is sucked right back into that world, but now she feels accomplished. She is suddenly an object of desire, the center of attention in this small town. She’s in a position of power, as she is the one who’s been outside and seen the ‘real’ world. She has her own style now, her own thoughts and ideas and is not at anyone’s mercy. From a place where nothing ever happens, now everything seems to be falling in place for Eilis. She’s getting to work at a real office, she has a suitor in line who everyone thinks of as a ‘good catch’ and she has a life – the kind of life she had in New York, where things happened. And for a bit, she forgets what and who she‘s left behind. This is suddenly her idea of an idyll. But no idyll lasts. And hers is broken in one moment by Ms. Kelly who knows about Eilis’s secret marriage and threatens to tell. In this instance, she’s reminded of why she left Ireland in the first place. The small town mentality of being nosy and the lack of privacy, where people are not just happy for each other’s success and Eilis feels claustrophobic. In this moment, she knows Brooklyn is now home and that’s where she belongs.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. Emory Cohen as Tony is pretty much the sunlight in Brooklyn, even more than Eilis, TBH. The scenes at the beginning of their courtship are endearing and such an overload of cuteness. In one scene, Tony is waiting for Eilis outside her night school and Eilis is surprised and delighted to see him. Just when she is taking the final few steps towards him, Tony breaks into an explanation he’s clearly rehearsed, ‘All I want to do is travel home with you. No drink, no food, no nothing. I know you have to study, and get some sleep. I’ll take you to your house and then say goodnight. Otherwise it’s too long to wait.’ Now how do you say no to Emory Cohen saying that with all the earnestness of the world! And Eilis can’t either 🙂 Look out for Emory Cohen, his Tony is sure to impress many casting directors and we’re excited to see a lot more of him! And when you do, remember you first heard it here 😛

Eilis travels to America twice in the film, once as an amateur taking advice from a more experienced Irish woman who’s clearly done this before and once at the end when the roles switch and she finds herself giving advice to a young, scared girl making her first trip. It’s a sense of life coming full circle and one of the most heartwarming bits of an overall sweet film. A fair bit of Brooklyn’s story feels convenient and it’s almost like the narrative takes the path it chooses, without necessarily being true to one ideology or thought process. There are disconnects in the plot where you’re left wondering why now and not earlier. In that sense the film remains simplistic and perhaps that was the intent. It manages to find a happy resolution to Eilis’s life, without much heartache or strife, both things you expect to see. Brooklyn’s a well made, beautifully soothing, soft spoken, lullaby of a film that you won’t necessarily remember for long, but one that was an enjoyable viewing experience while it lasted. Its story from an independent entry at Sundance to the Academy nominations is inspiring for all independent artists and filmmakers. And hopefully we’ll see many gems of Sundance make their way to more mainstream cinema lover’s screens.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil

@ThePopcornWaltz

Our Picks for the 88th Annual Academy Awards a.k.a Oscars!

The 88th Academy Awards go live in an hour and we’re finally ready to share our picks, just in the nick of time! These are not our predictions, but rather what our choices for each of the categories. So queue the drumroll and read on:

Best Picture: Spotlight

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In a category this contested, this one resonates with us and our idea of movies as a means to tell stories. As Mike says, ‘There’s a story here and I think it’s an important story.’ And a story told spectacularly well.

Best Director: All’s not fine in idyll on this one! We couldn’t agree on one, so here are the two picks:

Adi’s Pick: George Miller for Mad Max: Fury Road

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An out an out action film overcomes Oscar snobbery to get it’s due. What a day, what a lovely day!

Sahil’s Pick: Tom McCarthy for Spotlight

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It’s a story crafter with perfection and that couldn’t have been without Tom McCarthy. The spotlight’s on you!

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant

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Leo’s revenge against the Oscars. No ifs, no buts, all the crawls and the grunts, add up to an Oscar!

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Here again we’ve different picks!

Adi’s Pick: Brie Larson for Room

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This one is Cate Blanchett’s to lose. The super depressing nature of Larson’s Room, just makes it an unforgettable film to watch and a role that required a lot from her. Rooms can get claustrophobic.

Sahil’s Pick: Cate Blanchett for Carol

Cate Blanchett as Carol is mesmerizing. That is the performance of the year, and you can’t take your eyes off her!

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Ruffalo for Spotlight

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This category is far more contested than Best Actor in a Leading Role and that is something to say about the awesomeness of each of the nominees. What a year of sterling characters, portrayed to perfection. Mark Ruffalo as Mike Rezendez is a powerhouse in Spotlight. And he is our pick!

Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl

Well she should have ideally been in the leading category, but Oscar voters went cuckoo over this one. Sorry Kate Winslet and Rooney Mara, but this goes to our Danish girl with top notch A.I. 😉

Best Original Screenplay: Spotlight

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Spotlight is storytelling at it’s very best. This one was very tricky and the right narrative was critical to tell the story. And it’s story worth telling.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Big Short

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From a pile of numbers to a story on Silver Screen! We’d give this to Charles Randolph for trying to make this simple for the average man.

Best Cinematographer: The Revenant

For making bleak look beautiful, The Revenant is an easy pick for this category. If anyone could make this happen, it was Emmanuel Lubezki and well we gotta cheer for him – he is on a hat-trick!

Now let’s see who actually wins Oscar gold!

Keep the popcorn tub handy!
Adi & Sahil
@ThePopcornWaltz

The Big Short: Road to an Oscar nomination in 5 steps

Adi’s TL;DR The real wolves of wall street!

Sahil’s TL;DR Financial crisis documentary gets a makeover Ocean’s Eleven style!

Inception, Interstellar, The Martian – they’ve got nothing on The Big Short. Congratulations, you’ve survived the most complicated film of all times, which is not a documentary 🙂 The one that does not deal with a dystopic universe or the math behind surviving on Mars or creating psychedelic dream sequences. It’s the one that deals with the biggest financial crisis in recent times that brought global economy to a scary point, but honestly didn’t change much post the bail-out using taxpayer’s money. It’s that point in recent human history that a lot of people allude to in smart sounding money conversations, but very few really understand! The Big Short attempts to illustrate the collapse of the US real estate market, in an interesting, innovative way, with sufficient spurts of entertaining moments to not completely overwhelm you with the inexplicable jargon.

Here’s some dope on The Big Short. Directed by Adam McKay, yes the same person who gave us Anchorman and Step Brothers, this one is based on a nonfiction book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis. McKay co-wrote The Big Short along with screenwriter Charles Randolph. It was released towards the end of 2015 and has had a successful run at the box office, specially for a film that complex! The film has a very interesting cast, with some unlikely names coming together with Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and even a ‘cameo-ish’ performance by Brad Pitt, who also happens to be one of the producers on the film. Guess, he wanted in on the action too 😉 The Big Short’s been the critics favorite going into this awards season and has five Academy nominations to its name including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor (Christian Bale). As far as Oscars success goes, the film has two critical things going for it – 1) It’s a true story and 2) It’s based on a book! Both of which really help in getting awards, it seems 😉

The Big Short is your Oscar nomination for sheer style. The film is an exercise in innovative filmmaking, for which it should be included in film school curriculums as prescriptive material. If you are a film student or an aspiring filmmaker, The Big Short is a must watch for you. The one most used technique in the film is ‘breaking the fourth wall’, something that happens in theatre a whole lot and even on TV, especially sitcoms from the 90s, used it a fair bit. Breaking the fourth wall, simply put, is when a performer speaks directly to the audience ignoring the fictional set up they’re in. This technique is often used to introduce the narratorial voice, to explain what’s going on or give a back story. These tiny pauses throughout The Big Short is where the film drops any pretense of being ‘real’ and reminds the viewers that it’s a fictionalised story being told by actors who are playing these parts. These are the little windows in which all pieces of this puzzle are put together, mostly by Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who’s the narrator. McKay also brings an array of celebrities ranging from Anthony Bourdain to Margot Robbie (in a bathtub!) to Selena Gomez (at a poker table) who explain the really technical aspects of the banking and finance world by using somewhat simplified analogies. It starts feeling a bit like a day in school, where multiple teachers come and talk about different subjects. Teaching the audience something about the economic crisis of 2008 is the focus of The Big Short and not a byproduct. McKay may have gone a little far in using this technique in the film, as it begins to irritate a little by constantly breaking the flow. But hey, to each his/her own!

The Big Short is based on a nonfiction book, which takes care of most of the research, but creates an altogether different problem of turning facts to a cinematic story. McKay and Randolph do a great job of bringing this story to life through acting and dialogue, ensuring that it still remains entertaining, while also being educational. The film maintains a dramatic but humorous tone which makes it a fun watch overall. They could have chosen to talk about the economic crisis from the POV of those who lost their jobs and homes, or from the POV of the banks, but instead chose a third unexplored perspective, one of the few who benefited from the crisis. They took four independent stories, running parallel to each other, where people come to the same conclusion – that this is going to be the economic ‘armageddon’. It employs some of the tropes associated with heist films, like a group of unlikely people, profiteering in a rather shady way, taking away from those who have in abundance and being really cool along the way! We were reminded of these famous lines from Gone with the Wind, that Rhett Butler says to Scarlett O’Hara, ‘I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day.’ Rhett’s words were of use to a few many decades later.

The Big Short tells its story through four parallel narratives. each from the perspective of men who did something that no one else did, they ‘looked’. Dr. Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale), a neurologist turned hedge fund manager is the one to foresee the impending fall of the housing market. He is a geek, an introvert whose awkward af in all social interactions and has an obsession with heavy metal (music). If only, they would share his playlist! We never see him leave his office, where he lives and brushes and interviews new candidates in his shorts. That’s just our idea of a really cool boss! Christian Bale is phenomenal as Dr. Burry. He is eccentric, quirky and not easy to like, but a genius who knows he’s one. He is the first one to bet against the housing market, against popular opinion. Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), apart from being the narrator, is also the one to piece together other implications of ‘shorting’ (jargon) the housing market and finds the truth about CDO’s (more jargon), which in turn becomes his big opportunity to make money. He’s slick, sexy, the wall streeter we’ve all seen in The Wolf of Wall Street, who you just can’t trust.

Mark Baum (played by Steve Carell) is the third important piece of this puzzle. Mark is angry with the world. Very angry. He is a middle tier hedge fund manager whose personal loss has left him disillusioned with everyone and everything. Vennett unknowingly tips off Mark’s team, who begin their own truth finding mission to discover how deep and wide the scam of sub-prime mortgages and bonds (even more jargon) runs. Mark has some of the most hilarious scenes in the film and would be a tragi-comic character in Shakespeare’s world. He is as much a ‘character’ as Dr. Burry and has his own eccentricities and quirks, that make him just as difficult to be socially accepted. The fourth story and perhaps the weakest is that of two upcoming brokers – Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock), who seek advice from Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) an ex-banker, who becomes their mentor and trader. In a really cool scene, we see Charlie and Jamie waiting at the JP Morgan Chase office, where they find Vennett’s brochure lying around in the lobby and immediately break the fourth wall to tell us that’s not how it happened in real life and this is only for the purpose of the film! Each of these characters represent personality stereotypes from the nerd, to the vigilante, to the opportunist to the wide eyed kids and you miss seeing flawed, well rounded characters that are just as human.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. And for a change we picked just one! There are a whole bunch of punchlines and meaningful scenes in The Big Short, from Vennett exclaiming that Mark is about to have a coronary sitting in the restaurant to the stripper telling Mark about her ‘five houses and a condo’! But the one that made us laugh the hardest was another Mark Baum scene, with his ‘numbers guy’ Vinny who tells him that the risk assessors are waiting for him. Mark asks Vinny to ‘go back in and very calmly, very politely, tell the risk assessors to fuck off’. Vinny true to his character, goes in the room, politely and calmly and says ‘Mark said to fuck off’! And leaves without another word, leaving everyone looking agape.

The Big Short is an innovative, stylized film that does justice to the subject it took. It gets points for technique and experimentation with an interesting style of storytelling. McKay and Randolph manage to create a cinematic story out of a jumble of numbers and conspiracies that is entertaining. The one big challenge with the film is that there’s an overload of information. There’s just too much to wrap your head around, and while they try and simplify it to a degree in the film, for someone without a financial bent of mind, it’s still a lot. In their focus to deliver an accurate, detailed version of the events, there is a lack of human connection with the characters and the film on the whole. You just don’t feel invested in their stories, in their highs and lows and you’re not rooting for anyone and that’s where the film loses on substance. If the Academy had a category for most stylish film of the year, it would be The Big Short no questions asked, but it ain’t our pick for Best Picture!

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!
Adi & Sahil
@ThePopcornWaltz

Bridge of Spies: The feel good Oscar film!

Adi’s TL;DR It has Tom Hanks. You can’t go wrong with that.

Sahil’s TL;DR Duck and cover spy movies!

Bridge of Spies is a wonderful film that we really enjoyed watching. We’d been waiting to say this unequivocally, with no riders, no ifs and buts for all of this Oscars challenge! There is no existential angst, no scientific illusions, no claims to change the world, just good cinema. The kind that entertains without CGI, with good acting, strong direction and effective storytelling. Bridge of Spies is not trying too hard to be different or edgy, it’s smart cinema which is so underrated at times.

Here’s some dope on Bridge of Spies. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Bridge of Spies happens to be his 31st directorial venture. That’s more films he’s done, than years we have :/ The screenplay of Bridge of Spies, comes from the writing mills of Joel and Ethan Coen along with Matt Charman. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks have worked on classics like Saving Private Ryan and Catch Me If You Can, so his casting as James B. Donovan, the protagonist of Bridge of Spies was no surprise. The film was a box office success and has been widely appreciated for its acting and production. It has six Academy nominations to its name including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Tom Hanks could’ve been in the lead actor nominees, but guess that one got a little crowded this time, leaving out some fine performances, including the ones from Will Smith (Concussion) and Michael Keaton (Spotlight).

Bridge of Spies is set in the Cold War in the 1960s and is based on a historical event. It’s a gripping drama that takes us through the story of Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), an elderly Russian spy, and James B. Donovan (Tom Hanks), an insurance lawyer appointed to defend him. Rudolf Abel is the antithesis of everything you think when you hear the word spy. He ain’t no James Bond. More like James’s uncle from that place far, far away! He is an old, frail looking, denture wearing, canvas lugging spy and yes people believe he’s a monster who deserves nothing less than ‘the chair’. Is he a spy? Yes. Just because he is old, doesn’t mean he ain’t smart, observant, loyal, brave. James Donovan played by Tom Hanks is a successful, upper middle class insurance lawyer who was part of the prosecution during the Nuremberg trials. He’s good at his job, which gets him into this politically charged situation in the first place. He’s entrusted with the task of negotiating the release of an American officer, in lieu of Abel, doing all of this, in his unique, non-combative, not heroic, matter of fact way.

Bridge of Spies methodically works to deglamorize the role of the spy in the cold war, to make it as real as possible.The act of spying is hardly shown in the film. With Abel you see a muffled attempt to pick up and hide a secret message, while Francis Gary Powers, the American is just one of the ‘drivers’ as their recruiter calls them. What you see is the trial of two ‘spies’, who are doing their jobs, devoid of action, glory and overt heroism that we typically associate with a cinema spy. This realism extends to Donovan’s character as well. Just because he has been appointed by the CIA to negotiate the exchange, he doesn’t suddenly become the ‘hero’, with annoying, over the top bravado. Donovan remains true to his character, a lawyer whose job is to make it work for ‘his guy’, who operates within a moral compass and is not jaded by the cold war rhetoric to lose his humanity. The film celebrates a humble, more heartfelt version of heroism, one that’s captured in Abel’s ‘standing man’.

Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance are the highlights of the film. They are a joy to watch as they form an unlikely relationship of trust and respect. Their repartee is just a treat for the audience. The movie has some very good dialogues, going from dramatic to emotional to even humorous in parts. In every one of their conversations, Donovan asks Abel, if he is worried or scared and Abel replies ‘Would it help?’ and the earnestness of that question never fails to evoke humor and depth all at once. It’s an endearing sequence, that you want an encore of. Abel earns your trust and sympathy almost from the word go, with his mannerisms and unassuming style. In his first interaction with Donovan, Abel tells him that ‘You have men doing the same thing for your country. You’d want them to be treated well.’ Of course, all Abel wants is paper, pencils and cigarettes, but this comment stays with Donovan.

We first meet James Donovan in the middle of a negotiation and his skill as a lawyer is established right away. Donovan is respectful but firm, open but observant. Tom Hanks uses his inimitable brand of humor to make Donovan likeable and it brings some welcome reprieve to an otherwise somber film. He diffuses a high strung scene with a couple of words, a look, without appearing cocky or like he knows it all. He gives us moments of lightheartedness, anticipation, sadness, fear, tragedy and ultimately relief. He is a ‘standing man’ as Abel puts it. He finds himself out of depth as he witnesses a world of anarchy with the partition of Berlin and the building of the Berlin wall. It’s a world where people are losing their lives for a chance at freedom. Abel at one point remarks, ‘What’s the next move, when you don’t know what the game is?’ and Donovan figures out the rules of the new game. He discovers that the whole setup was to ‘feel him out’ and that the two sides have been playing him to see when he buckles under pressure. His perseverance in the face of adversity is a character building exercise and one that Tom hanks conveys with an actor’s integrity, of course an actor of his caliber.

It’s hard to miss the similarities between James Donovan and Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird (RIP, Harper Lee). They are both well respected lawyers, who want justice for all and stand up for things they believe in. They experience animosity and ostracization from the social order, they’d been a part of because of their professional decisions. And they both find themselves in the eye of the storm as they are targeted by a faceless mob, not for what they did, but for what the mob assumed their actions implied. Donovan is at the receiving end of the coldness, the hatred of those very people who respected him. At one point he says, talking about Gary Powers, ‘that he (powers) is perhaps the most hated man in America, after Abel and me’. From turning a cold shoulder to a mob led witch hunt, the situation escalates quickly for both Atticus Finch and James Donovan. Social perception is not a theme explored in detail in the film, but it’s one worthy of dialogue. In a scene at the end of the film, we’re shown the changing attitude of people commuting with Donovan as they read reports of his involvement in bringing back an American soldier, pointing to the fickle nature of public perception. As Abel says, ‘Sometimes people think wrong. People are people.’.

Bridge of Spies does a good job of bringing out the paranoia of the cold war as well as the insensitivity of the government. It shows the irrational fear that grips people, who unequivocally brand Abel as a monster and demand death penalty for him without a fair trial, as well as a child who calls the Russians ‘reds’ and wants to know why his father is defending a communist when he isn’t one! A feature presentation on safety measures in the event of a nuclear war, ‘Duck and Cover’, is seen by Donovan’s son as it was shown across schools in the US during the 1950s. You can argue that the story of ‘Bert the turtle’ was propaganda or just disaster preparedness but the fear it instilled in young minds, making them see a nuclear attack not as a probability but rather an eventuality cannot be denied. You’re also shown the insensitivity of the American government which doesn’t care for the life of Frederic Pryor, an innocent student captured by East Germany or for that matter Gary Powers’s as Donovan points out. He’s important simply because of what he knows about the US missions and defense.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. Donovan says things in threes in the film, on at least three occasions! In his introductory scene he is arguing that it’s in fact ‘one accident’ and not five as the other lawyer wants to prove and says, ‘The guy insured by my client had one accident. One, One, One.’ He uses this when stressing to make a point. It’s these subtle quirks of characters that makes this film such a fun one to watch and just tickles your interest. Our second pick is when Abel calls Donovan ‘standing man’. Abel recounts the story of his father’s friend, who never did anything ‘remarkable’ all his life, except for the one time their house was overrun by partisan border guards. This man was beaten by the guards, but stood back up each time till the beating stopped. Abel called him ‘Stoikey Muzhik’, a standing man’. ‘Standing man’ becomes an underlying theme in the film, right till the final prisoners exchange, when Abel sees Donovan for the last time. Donovan tells Abel that he is waiting for another man to be freed. The agent in charge tersely remarks that it doesn’t matter what Donovan wants and that Abel is free to go. Instead Abel turns to look at Donovan and says ‘Stoikey Muzhik… I can wait.’ That’s the nature of this relationship – they both remember their humanity and stay loyal to each other, which is more than what you can say about most.

Bridge of Spies never stops being interesting, funny, spirited, meaningful, but doesn’t fall in the trap of taking itself too seriously. This is true of the film as a whole and the protagonists Donovan and Abel. They never lose sight of the people they are, even in these extraordinary circumstances. All Abel wants is to go home and have a Vodka and all Donovan wants is to get back to his bed. There are little doses of subtle humor, in this serious drama. And this is perhaps what makes it a deserving nominee for Best Picture at the Oscars. Will it win? No, if the pundits, the predictors, the experts are to be believed. But was it a good film? Heck yes! Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Mark Rylance give you all the feels and evoke nostalgia of a good old film, something which we can all enjoy from time to time. So if you’re wondering which Oscar nominee to watch this weekend with your choice of intoxicating beverage, our recommendation is Bridge of Spies!

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!
Adi & Sahil
@ThePopcornWaltz

Frankenstein for the ‘Smartphone’ generation: Ex_Machina

Adi’s TL;DR Oscar Isaac is the one to get down with on Saturday Night!

Sahil’s TL;DR If you’re gonna have a crazed robot at home, teach them a ‘safe word’!

Science or faff? Enough CGI or bat-shit crazy CGI? Aliens or machines? When you’re embarking on a sci-fi movie these are things this genre has to work with to keep it interesting. So when you come across a sci-fi flick that barely uses any of the above, and still gets you hooked from the word go, you sit up straight and take notice. Ex_Machina was the one film from the Oscar picks that both of us wanted to see right after we finished watching the trailers. And it didn’t disappoint! One of us (I ain’t gonna say which one) started watching after two glasses of wine but the film had such an effect, the ‘buzz’ flew out the window within the first fifteen minutes.

Here’s some dope on Ex_Machina. Believe it or not, Ex_Machina is Alex Garland’s directorial debut. Best known for his 90’s cult novel ‘The Beach’, Garland is also the screenwriter behind 28 Days Later and Sunshine. With this one, he adds directing to his list of skills too! Ex_Machina has been a fan favorite and has received a bunch of nominations for original screenplay, visual effects and supporting actors. Interestingly, all the three protagonists Alicia Vikander as Ava, Oscar Isaac as Nathan and Domhnall Gleeson as Caleb, are being looked at as supporting cast. It’s one of those films where there are no lead roles, in the traditional sense of the term. Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac have received several nominations for their stellar performances as Ava and Nathan. But when it came to Academy voters, the critical acclaim and the novelty of Ex_Machina, did not translate to nominations, keeping its tally to two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Visual Effects. Guess, that could mean three things – 1) 2015 was a great year for hollywood! 2) Ex_Machina was a beginning of the year release, not top of mind and 3) Oscar voters aren’t known for their smarts. Our best guess – all of the above!

Ex_Machina is science fiction with a difference. Garland’s work has been deeply influenced by science and existentialism and you see those same themes emerge in this one too. The film takes us to the dark recesses of the ethics in science debate. The story wastes no time in build up and straight gets to the point by introducing us to the three protagonists right at the beginning of the film and showing some of the key scenes teased in the trailer in the first 30 minutes. Clearly the people cutting the trailer knew what they were doing! Ex_Machina starts with Caleb, a nerd working at the Google-esque Blue Book, the world’s biggest search engine as a coder winning the chance to be part of something cool with the founder of Blue Book, super scientist, Nathan. Nathan’s position of power and control is established within minutes of the film starting, when we’re shown Caleb flying over his estate and the high tech man-cave he’s built as a recluse for his scientific research. This is even before we meet Nathan. The basic plot of Ex_Machina, involves Nathan conducting a Turing Test with the help of Caleb on the AI he’s built, Ava. But it quickly becomes clear that the one being tested is Caleb and the true test is for Ava to prove that ‘it’s’ just as human.

Nathan Bateman is the modern day Victor Frankenstein. You can’t help but draw comparisons to Mary Shelley’s, 19th century sci-fi, horror classic ‘Frankenstein’. Frankenstein is considered to be the first science fiction novel, written by Shelly when she was 18. So to everyone who believes men get science better than women – In your face, men! The film is using several of the tropes created by Mary Shelley, but what makes Ex_Machina unique are the ways in which it’s making the story of Frankenstein contemporary. In the novel, Victor Frankenstein’s creation remains unnamed, referred to as ‘creature’ or ‘monster’ or ‘it’ and there is no clear gender assigned, though it’s safe to assume that it’s a man. The creation is also scary to look at and Victor experiences feelings of hatred, disgust and even remorse for creating it. Ex_Machina inverts this on it’s head, when Nathan names his creation Ava (clearly a play on Eve), and gives her both gender and sexuality. Nathan is obsessed with his AI creations and clearly ‘form factor’ plays a big role! By giving Ava an identity, a personality, Ex_Machina further complicates the man vs. machine debate.

Ex_Machina is ‘a stripped to the basics’ sci-fi film that revolves around its three protagonists and the games they play, not Hunger Games just games. Of the three, Caleb is the easiest to understand and empathize with, so you’d perhaps start watching the action unfold from his perspective. You can’t help but pity Caleb as he struggles to figure out who to trust in this maze as he finds himself in the middle of a tug of war between Ava and Nathan. Add to that his own insecurities as he compares himself to Nathan who’s a superior both physically and mentally and you have a highly vulnerable character, open to manipulation. And this brings us to Ava. She is Nathan’s ‘almost human’ AI. She’s attractive, she’s smart and she is aware of her growing influence on Caleb. She has a read on him that’s accurate to the T, as she analyses his ‘microexpressions’ and plays up her sexuality to draw him in. But it’s Oscar Isaac’s Nathan, the mad scientist who has tipped over, that has your complete attention. Nathan is the Alpha Male, the one who’s in control, for at least most of the film. He is at the heart of the ethical debate ‘should you take the next step, just because you can’? He has come unhinged, but there is no confusion, no clutter in his mind. It’s the kind of focus, the kind of obsession that’s all consuming. His life is stripped to the basics – minus the distractions of luxury and excesses. Towards the end of Ex_Machina, it’s him you want to see more than Caleb or even Ava! From all his conversations with Caleb where he’s trying to be a friend and a ‘bro’ but can’t hide his sense of superiority in every way to the perfectly choreographed dance with his other android Kyoko, this is one cuckoo genius we’re willing to watch again!

Nathan creates Ava in his own reflection and by giving her gender and sexuality, you have an alpha-female in the room. These two dominant characters play with the mouse, Caleb, in this homemade experiment. While Nathan uses raw physicality and brute mental force to overpower Caleb, Ava uses demure submission and latent sexuality to draw Caleb towards her. In this voyeuristic power-play the audience is the one that’s manipulated from the start of the film where we can’t trust any of the three characters. All three are putting on an act at one time or another and as viewers you can’t fully align with either of them. Power centers in the film shift rapidly with Nathan literally running this experiment from his control room as the film begins, only to be outsmarted by the mouse Caleb who’s ultimately taken for a ride by Ava. Gender adds another dimension to this already charged situation. Between session 3 and 4, when Caleb asks Nathan about why he gave Ava sexuality, Nathan replies ‘Can you give an example of consciousness at any level, human or animal, that exists without a sexual dimension’. Gender is clearly established as another rung of power politics in the film. Nathan gives his AI creations feminine form but uses them without a care for their individuality. Ava and Jade are kept under restraint both desiring freedom, with Jade destroying herself. Kyoko who is used by Nathan as his slave and fuck-toy, is kept outside the cage but denied language and the ability to communicate verbally. For Nathan they’re nothing but experiments to be used and discarded as he deems fit. Ava on the other hand uses her sexual awareness effectively to tame Caleb and deploys him as a means of escape. For her sexuality is a mere tool for survival where the two males represent a threat to her freedom.

Ex_Machina is engaging, interesting cinema. It’s a well made, well thought out film for most parts and that’s perhaps why the ending sticks out as a weak link, leaving a lot to be desired. Clearly they wanted to leave things as open ended as possible to start where they left off in the sequel! From Caleb drugging Nathan to steal his keys, which is such a cliched trick to Nathan resorting to simple violence instead of relying on his intellect, the ending appears too simplistic and almost out of character. Why and how do Kyoko and Ava come together? How does Ava communicate with Kyoko who’s clearly not been given language? Why didn’t Nathan have a backup plan? For all these reasons, the ending feels a little rushed and not well planned. The kicker though comes with Ava walking out, leaving Caleb stranded, reminding everyone that she’s an AI, devoid of human ethics and judgement.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. And for a change it’s just one! Both of us couldn’t help but pick the crazed ‘non sequitur’ (as Oscar Isaac put it) dance sequence with Nathan and Kyoko dancing to Oliver Cheatham’s 1983 disco song ‘Get down Saturday Night’. It comes totally out of the blue in a moment, that’s super intense. From Kyoko starting to strip to Nathan standing in the corner watching (as usual), you simply don’t know where this is going and then all of a sudden you find yourself in the eeriest dance club ever! This one is going in the book for legendary dance scenes. It almost has the same thrill as watching John Travolta and Uma Thurman in the famous Pulp Fiction dance. Except it’s just two decades later and way crazier. When Ex_Machina 2 happens (there’s no question of if in our minds!), Oscar Isaac better have a dance sequence in it 😉 It’s the one scene in the film that totally has you and was our pick too!

Alex Garland has done some rather interesting jazz with Ex_Machina. He takes a fairly well used trope, Artificial Intelligence, but plays with it a lot more intelligently than most. Create an android completely at par with humans with an instinct for survival, throw in a mad scientist, who obviously thinks he’s nothing short of god, and, a budding fella out to make his mark, who’d take praise from a caged robot, with a fair bit of gender and power play and you have a powder keg ready to blow! For once you see more movie and less CGI which these days is such a welcome break. Sci-fi films are busy with hordes of people and machines but Garland strips the movie to its bare basics giving you three unstable characters and a looming ethical debate. The plausibility of this happening in the near future gives this part sci-fi part psychological thriller a totally different edge. At the end of the film the lines between right and wrong, and good and evil are so blurred, that you find yourself incapable of hating either the manipulative Ava, the gullible Caleb, or the insolent Nathan.

P.S. Frankenstein is the inventor not the monster; Name’s a bit misleading but you can blame Mary Shelley for that ;D

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil
@ThePopcornWaltz

The Portrait of a Lady: The Danish Girl

Adi’s TL;DR The curious case of Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar nominations!

Sahil’s TL;DR The path to womanhood is through silk scarves and hand gestures. I think not.

Remember Carol? We called it the ‘artsiest’ of all Oscar nominees this year. Well we hadn’t seen The Danish Girl till then, which could be a serious contender to that title! The Danish Girl is a beautifully made film about the story (somewhat) of a transgender and her struggles to become the person she always desired to be. Based in early 20th century, the film captures the life of a married couple where gender roles get complicated. So you may wonder, is it a film about transgender rights? No, not really, at least not according to us. This is a subdued, melodrama which happens to have a transgender character, but not one that forwards the narrative of transgender history and rights. Our first impression of The Danish Girl was that it’s a moving film, with top of the line performances from Eddie Redmayne and Alicia Vikander, but with an entirely simplistic, unidimensional and in many ways a stereotypical reading of gendered identities and sexual orientation.

Here’s some dope on The Danish Girl. Directed by Tom Hooper (of The King’s Speech, Les Misérables fame) with a screenplay by Lucinda Coxon, the film is based on David Ebershoff’s novel by the same name. Guess this is the year when no one wanted to waste any time with naming – aka The Martian, Steve Jobs, Spotlight, Carol, Room?! The film was first released at the Venice Film Festival and TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) and saw a limited release in the US last November before expanding to more screens. The film saw steady box office performance, on a smaller scale budget as compared to it’s Oscar nominated peers. The Danish Girl has been well received through the awards season and has landed four Academy nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. Though with Mad Max: Fury Road in the race, the last two are kinda taken!

The highlight of The Danish Girl is undoubtedly the performances from Eddie Redmayne who plays Einar Wegener and Lili Elbe, and Alicia Vikander who plays Gerda Wegener. Eddie Redmayne’s transformation to Lili is incredibly convincing. From her mannerisms to her style, Redmayne captures the nuances with immaculate poise and grace. Vikander on the other hand is intensely evocative as Gerda. For some strange reason, Vikander has been nominated as a supporting actress by most award organizations, which honestly doesn’t make any sense. The Danish Girl is as much Gerda’s story as Lili’s. In fact, at the end of the film you know Gerda way more than Lili. We’re shown Gerda’s tragedy as a wife whose marriage is falling apart, her dilemma as an artist who doesn’t know if her muse is real or a figment of their fantasy, a woman who desires a man’s presence in her life but is bound by loyalty and perhaps mostly as a person whose loved someone, who may have never existed. We see the confusion, the stress, the struggle, the desire to make it right and to not know what right is anymore, in Vikander’s Gerda. In her we see the courage to love, to be loyal and the idea, that you could love someone for whoever they are and not only for who you want them to be. She doesn’t stop loving Einar and Lili through the course of the transition. Maybe to show, that gender is just one aspect of a person’s identity, it doesn’t change who you are entirely.

This very idea of gender being just one aspect of your being, is challenged in Lili’s desire to be nothing like Einar. Metaphorically speaking, she wants to ‘kill Einar’ and feels that to be her only way of becoming Lili. From giving up on her talent as an artist to giving up on the person she supposedly loves, to not being able to think beyond herself, Lili’s transformation is in many ways over-simplified in the narrative. As viewers we wanted to see a lot more of Lili, and to understand what goes on in her mind. Unfortunately, we’re not taken inside Lili’s mind, we’re not a witness to her sexual dilemma, to her confusion as a person about her identity and that in our opinion is the biggest flaw with The Danish Girl. We miss seeing the process of Lili’s transition, her struggles of losing the only identity she’s known thus far and stepping into the unknown. The conflict between Einar and Lili is presented in Gerda, while Lili is shown to glide into her character. There’s over-simplification every step of the way – gender roles, sexual identities, societal expectations. By eliminating social acceptance and familial pressures as factors, we’re shown a cocooned journey from Einar to Lili, where the only thing to deal with is within the confines of their home, within the confines of their relationship. This is hardly ever the story in real life and perhaps in this the film does not give the trials and tribulations of the transgender movement it’s due.

This brings us to the portrayal of gender roles and how Lili’s transformation appears to be mostly superficial, with the film’s entire focus on behavior and mannerisms, v/s internal dilemma and change. We see Einar’s fascination with stockings, silks, frocks, gestures, movements, body language which are a gamut of socially accepted ideas of being a woman. A woman is defined by her outer appearance; the clothes she wears, the way she does her hair, the makeup, the gestures, the looks, the way she walks and talks, but not the way she thinks. Women are shown to be nothing but creatures of vanity, the purpose of whose existence is to look pretty for the sake of men. Lili only speaks of clothes, silk scarves, bright lip colors, falling in love with a man, having kids – all things that match social expectations from a woman. In one telling scene, Gerda asks Lili if she misses art, and she is quick to say that was part of Einar’s life and not her’s. Gerda doesn’t mince words when she says, ‘People have been known to be both’. You can be a woman and a human being with talents. It’s not a binary! This is just one of the many ways in which socially defined gender roles from that era overpower any progressive thought in The Danish Girl. Why should someone forsake their skills and talents to be who they want to be? Why does she have to choose between being a woman or being an artist? It’s not a question the film asks, but it’s something that surely bothered us.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. The first one is towards the beginning of the film when Gerda is making the portrait of a man and tells him, ‘It’s hard for a man to be looked at by a woman. Women are used to it of course, but for a man to submit to a woman’s gaze. It’s unsettling although I believe there’s some pleasure to be had from it. Once you… yield!’ This is one scene where a woman’s shown to kick some serious ass! You have a man who can barely utter a word in front of this woman who doesn’t conform to any of the well known gender stereotypes and is enjoying the reversal of roles from being gazed on to being the gazer. The second one is when Einar goes to a brothel to observe a woman and tries to copy this woman’s gestures. As he starts touching himself she sees him and he immediately stops. The woman encourages him to carry on by posing like him until he’s comfortable acting out her gestures again. The scene is a powerful one where you see acceptance for Lili come from someone who also lives on the fringes of society as well as her confusion regarding her own gender. How is she supposed to behave and act when she’s really a woman inside a man’s body. It captures the dilemma of gender as assigned by society vs. gender as your biological anatomy.

Coxon apparently worked on the screenplay of The Danish Girl for ten years before she could take it to production houses and directors. It’s somewhat similar to Phyllis Nagy’s story with Carol, where again the project became one where the screenwriter was personally invested. But alas the similarity between the two ends there, while Carol is a well rounded plot, The Danish Girl does not do justice to it’s theme. It’s like a half baked cake, it had the ingredients, but not the best recipe. The film takes a lot of liberty in terms of the portrayal of the real Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener and glosses over the hardships these two tragic painters experienced in real life. The film ends on a poetic, almost cathartic note for Gerda who gets to experience the one place Einar thought fondly of and in the visual of the flying scarf you finally see Lili set free.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!
Adi & Sahil
@ThePopcornWaltz

P.S. We’d love to hear from you! Let’s talk in the comments here or on our twitter, whatever you prefer 🙂