88th academy awards – The Popcorn Waltz

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 🙂

Steve Jobs: So close and yet so far!

Adi’s TL;DR We wrote this post on our MacBooks. Thanks Steve!
Sahil’s TL;DR Steve and I have something in common. We hate the stylus!

Famous, controversial, genius, revolutionary, ferocious, passionate – now isn’t that just the kind of person whom you’d like to put on the silver screen?! Ladies and gentlemen, (welcome to the stage) Steve Jobs! With three-movies made on him between 2013 – 15, perhaps Jobs now also holds the Guinness record for being the person on whom most films have been made in less than five years of his death. Or you could say one real movie after two rather forgettable portrayals :/ Ironically enough, Steve Jobs, the movie bears a striking similarity to Apple, as both were built on the charisma of one individual with help from one helluva supporting cast. With two mainstream Hollywood flicks, both bombing at the box office, it appears this very popular techie and entrepreneur just can’t be successfully brought to life on celluloid.

Here’s some dope on Steve Jobs (not the man, only the movie). With this film, Danny Boyle adds another one to his eclectic list of movies, a ‘near biopic’ on Jobs. Steve Jobs comes after Trance and 127 hours, Boyle’s last two directorial ventures. According to Boyle, the one thing constant in his films is showing stories of characters who ‘are facing impossible odds and overcoming them’. With Jobs, struggles and successes came in abundance, making him a fitting subject for Boyle’s films. Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay is based on Walter Isaacson’s biography with the same name. So basically this story is at least twice removed, which might explain some of the discrepancies with the real life of Jobs! The film had a miserable run at Box Office, barely recovering the investment, on a mid scale budget. It just couldn’t win over the audiences, who saw Jobs’s portrayal to be too negative and/or not true.

Despite poor box office performance, the film has received critical acclaim for acting and screenplay, from nominations across SAG, Critics Choice, Golden Globes, BAFTA, all the way to the Academy Awards. Sorkin has consistently won in the adapted screenplay category for Steve Jobs, maybe because of the sheer number of words, but failed to make the cut for the Oscars top 5! With Facebook and Apple off his tech list, guess it’s safe to guess who Sorkin is Googling next 😉 With just two Academy Nominations for Best Actor in a leading role and Best Supporting Actress, Steve Jobs clearly couldn’t impress the Oscars voters as much as other films from 2015 did. And this is a perfect segway to talk about what works in Steve Jobs- Acting.

Our first reaction after watching the film was that it had some incredible performances. There’s copious amounts of dialogue and it’s delivered with utmost conviction. Steve Jobs played by Michael Fassbender is the highlight of the film. Fassbender captures Jobs eccentricities, nuances, habits, style, appearance to a degree that offers his screen presence credibility. The film starts with Fassbender looking anything like the Jobs we remember, but ends with his inimitable mock turtleneck black sweater and blue jeans. In the last act of the film, Fassbender is Steve Jobs in every which way. He captures the man’s obsession, his insanity, his desire for perfection and even his inability to love. Kate Winslet is also spot on in her role as Jobs’s ‘right hand woman’, Joanna Hoffman, his ‘work wife’ as she calls herself and the connection between these two is a thing to watch. She is the only one able to hold her own with Jobs and perhaps the only one he truly respects. Their relationship is one of friendship, loyalty, trust, understanding, things that Jobs (at least in this movie) experiences nowhere else. Between these two they cover majority of the spoken lines in the film!

The supporting cast is also very impressive with Seth Rogen playing Steve Wozniak, Jobs’s friend, cofounder and the brain behind Apple I & II. There are several very powerful scenes between them where you’re shown the tumultuous nature of their relationship. It also highlights how Jobs was the alpha male between the two, while Wozniak was the mind. It’s a love – hate relationship, like most of Jobs’s other relationships. There is one scene where Wozniak tells Jobs, ‘It’s not a binary. You can be decent and gifted’. It’s a rare moment in the film where something strikes home with Jobs and one of the only times where he shows raw emotions because he knows Woz meant it. John Sculley is another one on the long list of strained relationships in Jobs’s life. Jeff Daniels plays this part father figure/part mentor as Apple’s CEO. He’s the one to forewarn Jobs of what’s to come with the failure of Macintosh. John’s a pitiable character in some ways, as his career takes a fall for letting Steve Jobs go, even when it was hardly his doing. There are several scenes where you see Jobs go into the details of his adoption with Sculley and those are the only times you hear about Steve’s parentage. The other interesting character is Andy Hertzfeld, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. Andy and Jobs have some of the most hilarious, intense and tragic scenes in the film. These three emerge almost like the ‘ghosts of christmas past’, with pieces from Jobs’s history that he may not want to remember, but cannot forget. Their conversations before each of the launches, change color, but the tension runs throughout.

The film is shown in three acts, each opening about an hour before a major product launch, where Steve Jobs spends time talking to the same five characters. His head of marketing, Joanna Hoffman, CEO of Apple, John Sculley, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, a member on the Mac team Andy Hertzfeld and his daughter Lisa Brennan Jobs. While clearly this did not happen in real life, for a cinematic experience this is the structure Aaron Sorkin creates. Steve Jobs has a compelling outline, focusing on Jobs’s tumultuous years wrought with failure, rather than picking his major successes (which would’ve been easier!) and showcases him as a sum of his relationships, rather than the genius he’s imagined to be. Sorkin picks up five of Jobs’s relationships that may have moved him the most and shows his evolution through each of these interactions.

This structure created by Sorkin and Boyle, appears to be both a strength and a shortcoming of the film, when you see the final product. While you watch a side to Jobs which is rarely shown, the movie gets caught up in this rather mean portrayal. You don’t see the Apple born in the garage nor do you see the slew of products Jobs launched to make Apple successful again that he is most well known for. You see an attempt to create a ‘more human’ Steve Jobs with his flaws, but unfortunately the film gets lost in this somewhat unidimensional portrayal. With a fair bit of fictionalization, like extending Joanna Hoffman’s role in Steve’s life to eliminating his real wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, Sorkin and Boyle take quite a bit of artistic license (to put it mildly!). In trying to make him ‘human’, we’re shown Jobs as a vengeful, mean, disrespectful, illusionist and trickster who cared for very few around him. You see a couple of brief scenes about the young Steve Jobs and the passion he has but you’re left asking for more since the film simply gleans over that period.

The portrayal of Steve Jobs in the film has earned it a fair amount of flack from the fans of Jobs as well as some of his closest associates including Tim Cook and his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs. Guess that’s one of the biggest disappointments in the film for us too. With this cast, it was possible to show the many facets of Steve Jobs and not just the terror he was known to be in tech circles. He was the man who revolutionized personal computing and gave the world the most successful, coveted devices and that couldn’t have been possible simply by being a ‘trickster’, an ‘illusionist’. There had to be more to this person. The film sidelines his genius and intelligence to show a selfish, obsessive individual which doesn’t do justice to the complexity of his life or being. And that makes the ending even more hackneyed, where his relationship with his daughter, who he’s hardly shown to parent, is used in a redemptive light. The movie ends with Jobs, reconciling his differences with his daughter, in an over simplified sequence, where all of a sudden he experiences love, humility and concern, none of which he is shown to possess just minutes before.

Here’s the ‘one stand out moment’ for each of us. The first comes in the first act, when there’s a problem right before the launch and the system doesn’t say ‘Hello’. The exchange between Andy Hertzfeld and Steve Jobs is one epic hilarious moment, till it turns dark. Andy tries to reason with Jobs by saying ‘We’re not a pit crew at Daytona. This can’t be fixed in seconds.’ To which Steve responds in the only way he knows, ‘You didn’t have seconds, you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.’ With the most ingenious quip of all time, Andy says, ‘Well someday you’ll just have to tell us how you did it’. This one’s going in the movie quoters guide for sure! The second one is when in the third act, Jobs meets Sculley and as they shake hands, moving on, in another moment of reconciliation, Jobs says ‘It was the stylus. I killed the Newton because of the stylus. If you’re holding a stylus you can’t use the other five that are attached to your wrist.’ It reminded us of the simplistic design philosophy Jobs upheld and it totally jived with us, since we just don’t get the point of the stylus either! Perhaps this is what led to some of the design ideas for the first iPhone.

This screenplay is undoubtedly better suited for Broadway. All you take away from the film is Steve Jobs as a rather narcissistic individual, Michael Fassbender’s brilliant performance and three acts which mirror each other but show a character’s evolution as the story moves. This is fitting for theatre. Artistic liberty, an individual’s fascination with Jobs’s eccentricities and obsessions make this a somewhat interesting film but not there yet! Celluloid success will perhaps elude Steve Jobs just like real success eluded him for a bit after his first astounding opening at Silicon Valley when he was twenty-four. Steve Jobs is a classic example of a film that had all the right elements, but doesn’t make a lasting impression.

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

Spotlight: Extended Cut

Thanks for coming over! Here’s the main post, in case you missed it.

Cardinal Bernard Law: A little gift Marty. Think of it as a cardinal’s guide to the city of Boston.

Robby: This is how it happens, isn’t it Pete.
Peter Conley: What’s that?
Robby: A guy leans on a guy and suddenly the whole town just looks the other way.
Peter Conley: Robby, look. Marty Baron is just trying to make his mark. He’ll be here for a couple years and he’s gonna move on. Just like he did in New York and Miami. Where you gonna go?

These are two very interesting sequences in the movie – when Marty meets Cardinal Law for the first time and when Peter who works for Lake Street tries to tell Robby not to print this story. In the second one you can’t mistake the veiled threat Peter makes ‘Where you gonna go?’.’ Robby faces not just ostracism in the town he’s grown up in but also stands to lose all the respect he’s earned. To me though, the first scene appears more threatening than the second one. Take away the collar and the cross from Law and this scene totally reminds me of the ‘new person in town’ who’s been asked to come pay his respects to the local mafia don. The condescension with which Law speaks to Marty, telling him how best to function in the city, giving him a book on the ‘Christian catechisms’ as a guide to Boston is a rather ominous gesture and a warning asking him to not meddle in a place where he doesn’t belong.

Garabedian: Look how they treat their children. Mark my words, Mr. Rezendes, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.

The film has some beautiful dialogues. Without any excess drama, you see a repertoire of impactful lines delivered with impressive acting. The above lines that Mitch says about the whole town hiding this dirty secret is a jolt for Mike in the scene and for us in the audience. Between Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James and John Slattery, you see both absolutely spot on acting and lines that leave you speechless. This is one cast, that’s totally outperformed as a sum of their actions! The right lines in the hands of the right actors and director makes for a potent combination.

Language, gestures and tonality are tools preferred rather than over-dramatization. Like Sacha Pfeiffer tells Joe Crowley when she’s interviewing him for the first time, ‘Joe, I think the language here is going to be very important. We can’t sanitize this, just saying molest isn’t enough. People need to know what actually happened.’ This statement is very telling for the film as well as its audiences where you’re told that they’ll explore the events in depth and detail but without becoming either very graphic or sensationalizing the matter.

Sensationalism and over-dramatization are two tropes common to both cinema and to news reporting. Spotlight doesn’t employ either and yet manages to hold your attention every second of the way. Our first reaction when we stepped out of the theatre was how this movie was so totally understated. There is no over-dramatization of what the team of journalists are trying to accomplish in the film, and there is no demonization of the church despite the discoveries they make as they go from one to seventy priests who’ve preyed on kids in Boston.

As someone who loves color, it’s glaring that spotlight is made in monotones. There are only grays and blues and blacks in Spotlight and like the performances even the colors are understated. It’s a limited color palette – maybe to ensure that nothing takes your attention away from the story or distracts you from the dialogue. And there is a lot of dialogue in Spotlight. A lot is being said, but no one’s really talking about the things that matter, in an unspoken code of secrecy.

The movie is like a controlled explosion exercising a lot of restraint on it’s actors to not make this larger than life. We’re shown real people who’re just doing their job, a very thorough one at that. They’re not superheroes or saviors but shown to be as real as any of us which is a testament to the direction by Tom McCarthy.

Spotlight 04

Richard Sipe: The Church is an institution, Mike, made of men. It’s passing. My faith is in the eternal. I try to separate the two.

Faith and religion are different things – faith is what you believe in, it’s internal, inward looking, while religion is an external, social classification. It’s possible to have faith and no religion, but what’s religion without faith. In Spotlight, we’re taken to Boston where religion is a critical determiner of your identity. Faith and religion are no longer separate ideas, where the Church is not just preaching the religion but trying to control people’s faith. The pedestalization of the church is pervasive to a degree that makes it unquestionable and distances it from the very people that the institution was built to serve. And when institutions become gatekeepers, beholders and protectors of religion, there is reason to be scared, because then those institutions assume the power to influence thought and action to benefit their own agendas. Through the movie there are numerous references to the church and its powers. From Ben’s reaction about suing the church, to Garabedian’s assertion that the church controls everything – the church is clearly the seat of power in Boston. There is a also a fair bit of emphasis on each character’s relationship with faith and religion. When Phil Saviano meets the team for the first time, he asks if any of them were catholic, almost assuming that his audience’s religious orientation would determine their extent of understanding his story. It’s interesting that all four of them were raised catholic, but now have their own unique relationship with religion which may not be what the institution demands. The unholy union of abuse and religion, only makes it harder for the victims to grapple with it all. Where do they look for answers, for solace, when they are robbed of their faith, of their spirituality.

Jim Sullivan: You’re right, Robby, we all knew something was going on. So where were you? What took you so long?

The whole village knew and no one did a thing, a guy leans on a guy and the whole town just looks the other way. That’s the story of Spotlight. The undertone of guilt and blame, runs throughout Spotlight and you know there’s more than one to blame. There is no simple black and white, right and wrong, good and evil in the film. Just like real life, most characters are treading the line between right and wrong, living in grey areas. It’s also interesting to see how everyone deals with guilt differently. The church’s rhetoric of doing a ton of good, makes up for a ‘few bad apples’, or Ben’s defensive argument that the story needed Spotlight, or Robby’s introspective guilt of skipping this story when he could have done more years ago – suddenly a light gets turned on, and there’s fair share of blame to go around.

Spotlight is not like a loud, visible, smack across your face, it’s more like a low punch in your gut that hurts. It’s a film that leaves you with a shared burden of guilt, of knowing that we all know of something that ain’t right and we choose to look away. The film makes us feel like we failed at protecting those, that need to be protected. Our shared burden of guilt is the overarching reality of Spotlight. There is no catharsis in Spotlight – it’s simply not structured that way as a narrative and that’s hardly the objective of the story.

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

A ‘Spotlight’ on 2015’s best film!

Adi’s TL;DR From comic book superheroes to real men… Here’s to growing up!

Sahil’s TL;DR This one is for the ‘classics’ rack on the movie library you’re building!

How many times can you see a movie and still find it riveting? We don’t necessarily know of a scientific way to answer that question, but having seen Spotlight thrice, in about two months, tells me that we’re going to watch this one many, many times. If that’s how you spot a great film, then this one’s surely on that list. Spotlight is intense, it’s evocative, but not provocative. It doesn’t want to rile you up, there isn’t outrage for the sake of outrage. It holds your attention, it holds your thoughts and it constantly reminds you this is for real. The one word that comes to mind when we think about Spotlight is – gripping. It’s gripping cinema, minus any over-the-top drama, emotion or action and that in itself is such a rarity.

Here’s some dope on Spotlight. Directed by Tom McCarthy and written by him and Josh Singer, Spotlight is McCarthy’s fifth directorial outing in Hollywood. And by all means the most successful one. It’s a relatively low budget ($20M, compared to over $100M for The Revenant / The Martian), independent film, with none of the big production companies to back it. Despite that, it has snagged nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and four other categories at the Academy awards this year. This is testament to the brilliance of the film and it’s surely our pick for Best Picture!

Spotlight’s a work of editorial integrity in every sense of the word. The subject of the movie – child abuse by priests, is one that evokes intense emotions, but it’s dealt both sensitively and sensibly in the film. Spotlight is made from the perspective of the team of journalists at The Boston Globe that investigated and published the findings about the systemic nature of this abuse in January 2002, just a few months after 9/11. The two Toms, McCarthy (Director) and McArdle (Editor), ensured that the film’s narrative remained true to the story, understated and tightly knit, with acute clarity of thought and no excesses whatsoever. This makes Spotlight a movie to watch over and over again. The music by Howard Shore complements the intense storytelling and makes the silences more poignant. It’s distinct, paces well with the film, emphasises the highs, the lows, but at no point draws any unnecessary attention, or takes away from the core narrative and that’s so important to ensure you don’t miss a beat in Spotlight.

Spotlight sucks you right in with the opening sequence, where we’re shown a sketchy interaction at a police station in the middle of the night, that you don’t know what to make of. And with that moment the tone of the film is set – you will traverse night and day, dark and light, with the hope that there is some light at the end of this dark, dreary tunnel. In the very next moment, we’re taken to a regular day at a newspaper office. The office banter, the familiar faces, the farewell, the dry humor, the working environment, the cake that some eat and some don’t, provide a backdrop to the film that’s real, believable and mundane. And this realism, runs across the movie, and that’s one of the primary contributors to the intensity of Spotlight. It’s also an introduction to the film’s conversational style and we catch a glimpse of the characters. In one particularly (and rare) funny moment, Robby (played by Michael Keaton) asks his retiring colleague ‘I find the timing of your departure a bit disconcerting. The corner office sits empty, the new editor arrives on Monday, so forgive me, buddy, but I gotta ask… what the hell do you know?’ Now we make sure we laugh extra hard every time we come to this scene, because laughter is a scarce commodity in Spotlight.

It’s a convoluted world in Spotlight, where the ones who hide the truth are the ones who belong, who have an air of righteousness, and the ones who choose to speak out, face the fear of ostracization and are looked at as ‘meddling outsiders’. The city of Boston is as much a character as any other. From ‘The Curse of the Bambino’ that Marty Baron (played by Liev Schreiber) is reading to get a feel of the city, to the constant reminder of how everyone is ‘born and brought up’ in Boston, to Cardinal Law (played by Len Cariou) calling it ‘a small town in many ways’, Boston is the very fabric of the film. Each character is being evaluated in context to their relationship with the city. Either you are ‘them’ or you are ‘us’. Baron is a visual reminder of the outsider in Spotlight and he is at the receiving end of a lot of this sentiment. A jewish man from Miami, who is not married, who does not play baseball, who doesn’t enjoy socializing with the who’s who of Boston is the very definition of an outsider and one that makes everyone uncomfortable. It’s assumed he has an ‘agenda’, partly because he is not from here and partly because of his religion. Tension between the ‘insiders’ and the ‘outsiders’ is omnipresent in Spotlight and those perceived as outsiders are treated with skepticism, with their intentions and agendas being questioned forever. You can’t help but wonder if such rampant abuse could have been kept under wraps, if some of this skepticism was inward looking.

Journalism is not the background in Spotlight, it’s the very action in the film. The film takes you through aisles of paperwork, dingy record rooms, copious note taking, hours and hours of research, lengthy interviews, meeting deadlines – the act of journalism is front and center in Spotlight. You’re taken on this investigative ride along with the characters, where stories criss-cross and you start putting the pieces together. Spotlight has the edginess of a thriller, without the usual tropes associated with one, which adds to the novelty of what’s to come. The tension in the film rises in crescendo and you experience the intensity all along. Doing the right thing, the ethical debate, the political consequences, the readership’s reaction, will it bring about change, is the timing right, what’s the big picture, what if it all blows up in our faces – the movie is rife with all these questions, contradictions and more and you see there are no easy answers. Part of the success of the film lies in the characters navigating this swarm of questions and arriving at answers, that are not simplistic and often incomplete or unsatisfactory, pretty much like real life.

Spotlight reminded us of a text we read, ‘Le Père Goriot’ by Honoré de Balzac as part of our second year paper on French & Russian writing in college. Balzac would focus on minute details for his characters to make them as realistic as possible. Their idiosyncrasies, eccentricities and habits are what separated them from one another making them real (something our professor who taught Balzac pointed out to us). Tom McCarthy applies this style of realism in the film where every character is fleshed out in great detail and are personas you’d meet in real life. You can’t help but notice how McCarthy has used dialogue, body language and tonality to build such well rounded characters. From the soft spoken yet firm Marty Baron to the passionate and driven Mike Rezendes (played by Mark Ruffalo) to the witty and perceptive Robby Robinson, to the voice of reason Sacha Pfeiffer (played by Rachel McAdams), to the nerd who’s writing a horror novel to help him sleep Matt Carroll (played by Brian d’Arcy James), to the cranky Armenian Mitchell Garabedian (played by Stanley Tucci) you’re literally marvelling at how these personalities come to life. Even when the characters aren’t talking, the looks, the gestures speak volumes which is another highlight of the film. Spotlight is replete with moments where looks and body language communicate so much about the person. For instance, when Marty asks Robby ‘Would you consider picking this one’ when he wants the Spotlight team to scrub the ‘Geoghan case’, or the look Matt gives his team when he walks Phil Saviano, a survivor to the bathroom, each shows the details you can highlight as a director, when you have a bevy of fantastic actors to work with.

Here’s the ‘one stand-out moment’ in the film for each of us. Towards the end of the film Marty says ‘Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we spend most of our time stumbling around in the dark. Suddenly a light gets turned on, and there’s fair share of blame to go around. I can’t speak to what happened before I arrived but all of you have done some very good reporting here, reporting that I believe is going to have an immediate and considerable impact on our readers. For me, this kind of story is why we do this.’ This comes at the moment when the team discovers how they had some pieces to the story earlier but didn’t put it together. There’s fair share of guilt in the room but Marty in his little speech points out how it’s never easy in life to find the big picture but they’ve now managed to right a wrong and are going to present a story that’ll have real impact. The wisdom and maturity in these lines and the humility with which they’re spoken, leave you in awe of the moment.

The second is actually the ending of the film. The last sequence in Spotlight takes us back to where it all started, their office in the basement. As Mike and Robby run in, they find the room abuzz – phones ringing, people talking, taking notes as they hear stories after stories from victims who are contacting the tip line. You can’t miss the shock on their faces. Mike jumps right in to pick up a call, while Robby is seen walking down in a haze. There’s disbelief, wonder, relief – written all over his face. He skips a beat. And he knows this is a once in a lifetime moment – in his life, in the life of a journalist, when something they do makes a difference, makes a real, tangible difference. Maybe there are second chances, maybe you can make it right, at least you can try and try they did. The film leaves you with Robby picking up a call and speaking in the phone, ‘Spotlight’.

A powerful story depicted with ‘horribly good’ realism, backed by fantastic dialogues and acting, make Spotlight the best movie to come out this year, in our opinion. One that you can’t help but stand up and applaud for its gritty storytelling, told without any demonization of the church or glorification of its heroes but with a maturity that’s so refreshing. True story – when we saw the movie for the first time, it received a standing ovation from the entire theatre – something you don’t see happen everyday! So if you haven’t seen this masterpiece just yet, book your tickets or grab a copy as soon as it’s out. This one is for the movie library you’re building!

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

P.S. We had some more to say about Spotlight (sheepish grin) in the Extended Cut 🙂

Mad Max: Fury Road – Extended Cut

Thanks for coming to the Extended Cut! Hope you enjoyed our take on Mad Max: Fury Road here 🙂

Mad Max: Fury Road

Fury Road, although primarily an action film, touches upon a number of themes which we explore in our extended cut here. Read on to see what we found out between the sparse lines said in the film and the madness of monster cars exploding all around!

Toast: ‘What are you doing?’
The Dag: ‘Praying’
Toast: ‘To who?’
The Dag: ‘Anyone that’s listening’

Religion and faith are two interesting themes raised in the film. Immortan Joe is both a religious figurehead and an autocrat, who uses religion the same way as it’s used today – an opium for the masses. ‘Valhalla’, a piece of pagan mythology originally meant for soldiers who died in combat finds its way into the religious fabric of the film. Immortan Joe uses it as a promise of a glorious afterlife for his slave ‘war boys’ who die on the fury road. Nux, the war boy is perhaps the key to understand this dystopic world and you can see how blind the faith runs among his kind indoctrinated by Immortan Joe, who in the beginning says ‘I’m gonna die historic on the Fury Road’ and ends his half-life with ‘Witness me’. You also have the war boys screaming ‘V8, V8, V8’ with a temple-like structure built of steering wheels with cars nearly worshipped in the film. From the ‘gates of Valhalla’ to ‘you will ride eternal shiny and chrome’, an alternate discourse of religion has been created by the people in this wasteland.

In contrast, you see the faith of Furiosa in ‘The Green Place’ and ‘The Many Mothers’ of the Vuvalani to find redemption for herself and a home for the five wives. Towards the end of the movie we see, The Dag one of the wives praying to ‘anyone that’s listening’, while the concept of praying has survived, god is lost.

‘Who killed the world? We are not things’

Painted on the walls in the vault where Immortan Joe keeps his five wives/prized breeders, these comments highlight the objectification of human beings in this society. People have been reduced to things in the movie, another resource to be consumed piecemeal and in whole and then thrown into the wasteland. From blood to mother’s milk both are considered precious commodities prized more than the life of a human being. The gates to the citadel itself are operated by a horde of slaves pedaling like cattle, part of the machinery that runs it. Immortan’s war boys with their shaved heads and painted white bodies look like skeletons trained to do his bidding wiped of all humanity. Everyone in the colony is branded with Immortan Joe’s stamp, owned by him like the war rigs and pursuit vehicles they run.

The characters in the film have rather (un)characteristic names (pun intended!), another theme that brings out the dystopia and objectification in the film. From Furiosa to Rictus Erectus to Immortan Joe’s wives Splendid, Capable, Fragile, Toast, and The Dag, all names are based on some attribute the person displays. The two somewhat familiar names you hear are Joe and Max which are also transformed with an adjective in the beginning. Larry and Barry are the most benign names in the film, but alas they’re the tumors on Nux’s neck that he’s named. Funnily enough the chaperone and nursemaid Immortan Joe has is called ‘Miss Giddy’ another character named after an adjective but given the title of ‘Miss’ as you would in Victorian times!

Splendid: ‘It hurts!’
Furiosa: ‘Out here everything hurts.’

Gender is complicated in Fury Road. Gender roles are both reinforced and inverted through the course of the narrative. There is objectification of both men and women and it’s hard to say who’s representation is worse in Miller’s story. The half-life war boys and war pups, with no real names, are slaves to Immortan Joe’s (played by Hugh Keays Byrne) demands, from picking him up to dressing his ulcers and are falling over themselves for his slightest approval, because in this broken world he holds the key to Valhalla. All men are shown helplessly following orders from one tyrannical leader, weak, incapable of standing for themselves, succumbing to his irrational demands. Nux and Max are the only men to have human shades in their character and experience hope, fear, solidarity and the desire for redemption.

On the other hand, women in Fury Road are bound by ties of kinship and shared histories of oppression. They are fighting for their common goals of survival as a race and not as individuals driven by power and politics. Women are shown to have the last vestiges of humanity, who don’t kill for pleasure or play. Despite their despicable treatment at the hands of men, they are capable of love, compassion, solidarity and forgiveness and they can extend this to women and men alike. In this film women are resilient, courageous, survivors and the true heroes of the film. They are not afraid to jump right in and take charge when needed, they are not scared of rolling their sleeves and getting things done. From tallying ammunition to driving vehicles to fighting men in one on one combat – women are shown to be just as badass and that’s a great statement against any kind of stereotyping of women as the ‘weaker sex’. They are scared because they are human, but that also makes them capable of love. Women are shown to hold in them life and hope, and, birth and motherhood. In a poignant moment, towards the film’s climax we see a mother of an older generation pass on the last remaining ‘seeds’, her heirlooms, to a younger mother. In this their is hope of life and growth and rebuilding the idyll – the Green place.

Immortan Joe’s world – his citadel is free of women for most parts, no roles are assigned to women except for breeding and lactating. He keeps specially chosen women, called Breeders in his harem with chastity belts to reproduce his alpha male progeny. These women are all physically attractive and young, making them the easiest targets in this patriarchal world, with an excess of testosterone. The other set of women are much older who are being raised like cattle to produce milk for Immortan Joe, his war boys and even for trade with Gas Town and Bullet Farm. Mother’s Milk is some sort of an elevated ‘energy drink’ and is even in their chant. Did we tell you that this is the mother of all dystopic worlds you’ve ever seen? If not, you’ve now been told.

In this world where women are treated in the worst way possible, we’re introduced to Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) who is the only female Imperator in Immortan Joe’s army. Fury Road begins with her leading a war rig (which is a big deal) to get ‘guzzoline’ and bullets. How Furiosa survived the fate of other attractive women in this world remains a mystery. Our best guess is her physical deformity – she doesn’t have a hand, which makes her ‘imperfect’ and not suited for Immortan Joe’s breeding plans. One could build an entire film on Furiosa’s back story and how she fought her way to the top of the army and became an Imperator. Fury Road is primarily her story of defiance, of her fighting the patriarchal order to make a world that’s fair to the weak and the strong, with everyone else, Max (Tom Hardy), Nux (Nicholas Hoult), Splendid, Toast, Capable, playing supporting cast. At the climax, Furiosa is the one to put an end to Immortan Joe, and not Max, further reinforcing Miller’s vision of this being her tale.

And this is the perfect segway to talk about Max and what is Tom Hardy doing in Fury Road. For one, he is in the title of the film and it’s through him that we’re taken to Immortan Joe’s world and introduced to the awesomeness of Furiosa. He is also the narratorial voice, even though sparingly used in the movie. But mainly he is seen as Furiosa’s partner in crime and by the end of Fury Road, you see a sense of partnership between them, that’s new to both loners. Thankfully at no point does this become something cheesy or overly sentimental and they both stay true to their characters – Furiosa as the leader of the oppressed and Max as the weary traveler moving from one adventure to another. Max convinces Furiosa to go back to the citadel and fix what’s broken, instead of going on a wild hunt for a better world which may or may not exist. And by doing this with her, he sees redemption for both of them. Towards the end of the film, we see Max choosing to move on instead of staying back. He appears to be scared of being tied down to anything or anyone. He values his freedom and his solitude and wants to protect that fiercely.

Of all characters in Fury Road, Nux was the most interesting and in a way he holds the key to many layers of the film. It’s through him that the war boys get a voice, a representation that makes them appear more human and not just faceless suicide warriors owned by Immortan Joe. It’s also through Nux that we are taken into the deep recesses of the ideology of this dystopic universe. We’re shown how his only desire is to go to Valhalla – his final destination and dying on the fury road is the chosen route. His blind faith in Immortan Joe, his belief that death is the only way to Valhalla, his constant doubt of being awaited, the certainty in his mind of his death – Nux lives everyday with the desire to die and in this he captures the extent of dystopia. Sitting amidst wildfires, sandstorms, gore and blood is his idea of a ‘lovely day’. So when his last bid to reach the gates of Valhalla fails, his disappointment is just as intense. He feels broken and hopeless. And in that moment he experiences compassion and empathy and care all at once with Capable’s gentle touch. Capable’s trust in Nux gets him included in Furiosa’s band of survivors and for once he experiences hope. Redemption is an important theme in Fury Road and perhaps Nux is the only one to attain it. He dies for a cause, a free agent, or at least as free as he had ever been. He dies in glory and is witnessed in that moment by the one person who cared for him, with whom he’s seen a glimmer of love and life. In Nux, we see that there is hope to switch over, to change course, to experience happiness, to take control of a life that’s seemingly uncontrollable, even if it’s for a little while.

Andy Dufresne really knew what he was talking about when he said ‘Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.’

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil

This decade’s prescription for action: Mad Max: Fury Road

Adi’s TL;DR Proposed title – Mad Max: The awesomeness of Furiosa!

Sahil’s TL;DR Don’t name your kids Rictus Erectus or Capable!

Every once in awhile (or decade) an action movie is made that you know will spark off a thousand heated debates, rip-offs, parodies, sequels, prequels, one-liners and more! Films like Enter The Dragon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, First Blood, Die Hard, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Matrix have gained cult following and are all classics in their own right. Is Mad Max: Fury Road on its way to this hall of fame, only time will tell! Meanwhile, here’s a review from The Popcorn Waltz, who coincidentally hadn’t been exposed to Max and his antics before and will talk about their first ride with the madness unleashed by George Miller.

Here’s some dope on Mad Max: Fury Road. Fury Road is the fourth edition in the Mad Max franchise. It’s been directed by George Miller, who also happens to be the director behind Babe and Happy Feet. We’re glad that turned out alright for our animal friends 😉 The screenplay is written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris. Miller is also amongst the producers of Fury Road, which would explain how the ginormous action sequence budgets were approved! Since we haven’t seen the earlier Mad Max films, we don’t have a comparative theory on where it falls in the Mad Max universe, which in a way ensured we enjoyed the film for itself, with no legacy concerns.

They say, you can only have one – box office success (Read: people’s money) or recognition from the Academy (Read: licence to charge producers more money). Fury Road is one of those few lucky films to have both. If we look at Academy history with action films, there haven’t been too many that got the stamp of Oscar recognition, barring The Hurt Locker (if you consider it an action flick) in the last decade and Gladiator and Raiders of the Lost Ark much earlier. Believe it or not, The Matrix did not win any of the top honours at the Academy Awards! With a staggering 10 Oscar nominations including the top ones for Best Picture and Director, Fury Road is second only to The Revenant, which has 12, making it a serious contender across the board this year. If nothing else, Fury Road has confirmed its place in the Oscar hall of fame!

Watching this movie was like dodging bullets (literally and figuratively) with high-octane action sequences crafted to perfection and very limited CGI use. It was like sitting in a car, hurtling down a mountain at breakneck speed, and yet on a trajectory which wavers not one bit! For its action alone and the way it’s orchestrated, George Miller deserves multiple awards. The film uses a very oft-repeated trope from action flicks, one of a car chase, making it the mainstay of the film with shots that’ll leave you agape with shock and awe. As a viewer, the action was overwhelming on the senses but at no time do you lose sight of what’s happening in every shot. One could possibly go on and on about the action in Fury Road, the way it’s shot, the intense camerawork, but suffice to say this movie is a milestone in technical prowess.

The plot of Fury Road is simple enough to describe; a religious cult leader who has gone off his rocker, a man on the go caught by the wrong men, a woman with anger issues who’s kicking some serious ass and then an epic chase. The movie is based in a dystopic wasteland, where fresh water and ‘guzzoline’ is the currency used to rule by Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne), the tyrannical leader. Death and decay permeates all levels of this universe. Under Immortan Joe’s dictatorship there are three kinds of people – his war boys that do all his bidding, his prize breeders, the few chosen women of ‘worth’, and everyone else whose existence the tyrant ignores for most part. The dystopia creates sufficient distance to make it believable which is reinforced in the language and cultural fabric of the film. Loose, broken, half-pieced information from the world known before the thermo-nuclear war has creeped in. From ‘McFeasting in Valhalla’ to ‘Aqua Cola’ to ‘Blood Bag’, all reinforce the dystopian world they live in. The war boys use ‘Mediocre’ to highlight a great job, while Immortan Joe later uses it aptly, knowing its real meaning, withholding knowledge from the masses.

Even though the film is titled Mad Max: Fury Road, Max (played by Tom Hardy) is hardly the focus of the story. Fury Road is more Furiosa’s (played by Charlize Theron) tale of defiance and survival. In this world, where women are treated as objects to fulfill specific needs like producing milk and giving birth to the perfect progeny, Imperator Furiosa is an exception to the rule. She stands her own ground and is respected and feared by men. She undertakes the task of rescuing the women kept in captivity by Immortan Joe and she meets Max while on the run. They become an unlikely partnership and Max realizes how both of them are looking for redemption. They are both characterized as loners and working as a team doesn’t come naturally to them, but you see them fall into a rhythm of mutual respect and trust through the course of Fury Road.

Here’s the ‘one stand-out moment’ in the film for each of us. The first one is when the Buzzards start chasing Furiosa’s war rig and Morsov, one of the war boys, jumps on it in a dying moment. He picks the homemade spears, screaming ‘Witness me’ with his face painted ‘shiny and chrome’ and jumps from the war rig blowing the car up on impact. The entire sequence especially the jump captured in slow motion is what the action is all about! This happens within the first twenty minutes and you know here’s an action film you won’t forget in a hurry! The second one is when Nux (played by Nicholas Hoult) in the middle of a wild sandstorm driving his pursuit vehicle, with bodies flying all around, on a suicide mission exclaims ‘What a day! What a lovely day!’. This is literally the film in a capsule. That moment symbolizes everything crazy and scary and freaky about Mad Max: Fury Road and gave us goosebumps.

Fury Road definitely shaves off important plot points and dialogue to keep the action rolling and keep audiences at the edge of their seats. While this goes to show Miller’s incredible skill at keeping the action tight and not letting it overtake the film in a way that renders it meaningless, it’s also a critique of how he’s let go of building what could have been an intense storyline that cuts through lines of gender, politics, power and ultimately survival. One would imagine Miller didn’t want his audiences to be ‘Nolan-ized’! For it’s epic action, cinematography and visual direction, Fury Road will go into both film annals and fan history, while also giving you just enough fodder to chew on philosophical questions about religion, faith, gender and power. The cool part is that you can choose to watch Fury Road just as an epic action film or also as a socio-political commentary on our world and both make it a great film to watch.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy!

Adi & Sahil

P.S. Want some more? Here’s our Extended Cut.