the oscar challenge – The Popcorn Waltz

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

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

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

The Martian: Thanks for not killing anyone, not even Sean Bean!

Adi’s TL;DR We’ll have to write the shit out of this!

Sahil’s TL;DR Don’t forget duct tape when you go to space.

When you think of sci-fi films, let me be more specific ‘outer space’ sci-fi films, what comes to mind? Aliens, alien worlds, most obviously, space exploration (all Star Trek fans say Yay!), and everything in the middle from philosophy (think Interstellar) to outlandish drama (think Armageddon) to horror (you thought we wouldn’t remember Event Horizon!). Among these our celestial neighbor (not the moon, the other one) has a special place with 29 films to its name, if you go by this Wiki article. Some worthwhile and some better in space than on your hard drive!

The Martian is somewhat of a formula ‘outer space’ sci-fi movie, giving sci-fi buffs a healthy dose of all things they dig, but with a twist. A first for this genre, The Martian practices reckless optimism, way more positive than any other space movies made before. There are no crazed aliens out to get you, or robots cut loose, or scientists with dark ulterior motives and even the planet is not out to kill you, at least for most sols! So you may wonder what’s in the movie when all these rich plots of the past have been dropped? Well don’t go losing all hope so soon! The Martian is the story of an astronaut beating all odds with his unconventional survival tactics, peppered with a healthy dose of wit and humour.

Here’s some basic dope on The Martian. The movie is based on a book by Andrew Weir, that was never supposed to be a book in the first place. The Martian was a hobby project, where regular episodes were posted on a blog. Andrew Weir put together the book on public demand and published it as a PDF on Amazon at an attractive price of 99c. Within a couple of weeks, Andrew Weir had a publisher and a movie deal with Ridley Scott! If that’s not an american fairy tale, what is?! The Martian is another one of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi fantasies, backed by bigger, brighter visuals than ever before. The long spanning shots of Mars’s surface (Wadi Rum in Jordan) are absolutely fabulous and for that the credit goes to the cinematographer, Dariusz Wolski.

The Martian’s won a bunch of awards already this season, including the Best Actor in a comedy or musical for Matt Damon and Best Picture comedy or musical at the Golden Globes. Whether it’s really a comedy or not can be debated – but the film has undeniable humor and some seriously funny one liners, that we’re sure will enter the ‘movie quoters’ lexicon. After all, who can resist the urge to say – ‘In your face, Neil Armstrong’! Drew Goddard can take a bow for this and many such brainwaves through the film. The Martian has 7 Academy nominations including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay – all of which points at it’s fantastic reception with the Academy. Interestingly it did not change Ridley Scott’s luck with the Academy, who did not win a nomination for Best Director. Clearly, Ridley Scott is to directing what Leonardo Di Caprio is to acting, if you go by the Oscars!

‘Mainly starring’ Matt Damon and one helluva ensemble cast, Jessica Chastain, who should be named Murph forever, Jeff Daniels (Harry for life), Sean Bean (Boromir – appearing to be shady, but ultimately good guy), Chiwetel Ejiofor (stoic Solomon), The Martian should have won all outstanding cast awards this year. But that wasn’t to be, because all the screen time and Ridley Scott’s off screen time was spent on building Matt Damon’s character. This is evident with nearly all good lines going to – you guessed it – Matt Damon! Way to go, Scott & Goddard. And this is perhaps the biggest problem with The Martian. It’s funny, it’s got great lines, Matt Damon really holds your attention, but the supporting cast is literally the wallpaper in the room that no one’s paid any attention to and that kinda sucks, given how awesome it could have been.

The movie begins with a not-so-novel plot, with a space mission gone awry (like Gravity, Apollo 13, Sunshine) and an astronaut left behind in space. Just when you’re thinking, ‘I’ve seen this before’, Matt Damon makes you sit up by performing an intestinal surgery and kicks off things with a round of laughs. And suddenly this seemingly tragic film turns into the tale of a character who is talking to cameras, trying to grow potatoes, romping around a planet all by himself and cracking one liners like ‘I’ll have to science the shit out of this’ and ‘Mars will come to fear my botany powers’! The movie isn’t a laugh riot but it definitely has it’s funny moments sprinkled rather generously.

The science in the movie, although dubious in places, like flying ‘Iron Man’ style in space, or crazy storms on Mars or having gyms in impractically large and luxurious space ships, is pretty tight for the rest of it, making it fairly plausible. Counting and rationing food supply, hacking plant growth, making water, are all reasonably realistic and thought through. But honestly, the science isn’t as important as the attitude in The Martian, which is summed up by what Mark Whatney says towards the end of the movie to a batch of students, ‘You do the math, you solve one problem…Then you solve the next one. And then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home’.

NASA was consulted every step of the way in the making of the film and it’s featured prominently throughout, with The Martian’s release date closely coinciding with NASA’s announcement of water on Mars (no coincidence according to us). Interestingly, reputation management is a noticeable theme in the movie, where the PR head (played by Kristen Wiig) of NASA is shown in most discussions surrounding the ‘retrieval’ of Mark Whatney. Not what you’d expect in sci-fi films, but suggestive of how everyone needs strong image management in today’s world and a rather amusing injection of realism in the movie.

Abba, David Bowie (RIP), Donna Summers, Thelma Houston – all make an appearance in The Martian. Considering this film is based in 2035, all this music is pretty darn old and no wonder Mark Whatney feels the way he does about it! Watching him dance along to Donna Summer’s ‘Hot Stuff’, right after he figures how to keep himself warm in the truck is one fun scene. The film ends with Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’, which should have been Matt Damon’s mantra in the film! It totally sums up his survival tale and the song captures the euphoria of the film, leaving you with a sense of elation.

Here’s our ‘one standout moment’ from The Martian. It wasn’t easy to pick one for both of us, so we picked two instead. First for the love of LOTR, the Elrond scene is pretty damn cool, especially making Boromir/Sean Bean explain what it was to the ‘non-nerdy PR girl’, and losing his cool like he did in the actual ‘council of elrond’! Our second pick is perhaps the closest the film gets to sentimentality when Mark Whatney is finally rescued by Murph and the first thing he says to her is ‘It’s good to see you…You have terrible taste in music’. The Martian ain’t a hyperbolic tale of heroic survival but a practical, scientific and witty one.

Our final take on the film

Let us know what were your favorite moments in The Martian, in comments below or tweet us @ThePopcornWaltz.

Until next time, keep the popcorn tub handy.

Adi & Sahil

P.S.Interested in more science in The Martian, watch this amazing Screen Junkies video and subscribe to them for more awesome movie magic!

Not your Siskel and Ebert.

Hey there! Thanks for stopping by and welcome to The Popcorn Waltz 🙂

Whether you love going to the movies or bringing them home, the experience is like nothing else. They take you to another world, captivate your imagination for a brief but exciting period of time, and then leave you with the feeling ‘this ride could’ve gone on for just a bit longer’. Well, not all movies make you feel that way, but you get the drift. Not every performance stays with you like Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, or Al Pacino as Lt. Col. Frank Slade and unfortunately you can never unsee Adam Sandler in ‘You don’t mess with the Zohan’! So as they say, you can love’em or hate’em, but you can hardly ignore them.

The Popcorn Waltz is our take on movies, what we love about them and what we don’t. Are we a movie review site? Perhaps not. Think of this as a conversation between friends, over coffee or beers, whichever you like, about the last movie you saw. We’re no Siskel and Ebert, because one, we don’t know as much about cinema, two, we don’t talk their language and three, we don’t hate each other! We’re no experts, just two people who love watching films and talking about them.

And of course, an ‘About Us’ section is seldom complete without a little something about the founders (we like the sound of that!) so here’s a quick flashback. We’ve been best friends for years, also happen to be a couple and we dig movies! We studied Literature together in college, so if you see Shakespeare or Jane Austen make an appearance, don’t be alarmed! Other than movies, we’re also crazy about tech (think Google, YouTube), books, music (more Metallica, less Bieber), food and traveling but that’s for another time. We believe in two things, first you can never watch a movie without a tub of popcorn, and, second it’s never too late in the day (or night) to watch another film!

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