Movie Review: Avatar

Avatar is Cameron's first film in 10 years, after the abysmal blockbuster "Titanic". The story was something he concieved first in 1994. So what's the result of 15 years of Cameron's genius added to enough money to bail out the US economy? Well, Avatar is a game changer, a movie that will change film making, and for this reason it deserves to be compared with epics like "Star Wars" and "Superman" and yes, "Titanic". Writing wise though, Cameron has hit a note far below the triumphs of his great action movies from the "Terminator" and "Aliens" days.

The concept centers around humans on a planet named Pandora, a gigantic wilderness. inhabited by giant pterosaurs, reptilian wild dogs and shovel-headed triceratops. The air on the planet is unbreathable by humans, but the planet carries huge deposits of 'unobtainium', which is worth a fortune for some reason. The mining colony on the planet is policed by Marines on hire, and all activities require gas masks. The people here are at a big disadvantage from Pandora's natives, the Na'vi, who can breathe the air and telepathically tame its various beasts, are 15 feet tall and super-agile and live on a gigantic tree. To facilitate negotiations and understanding (A euphemism for "get them off their land as there's a deposit on it"), a team of scientists figure out a way to project their consciousness remotely on Na'vi bodies genetically engineered for the process. These are the 'Avatars', of whom newcomer Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Dr. Augutine (Sigourney Weaver) are of note. Sully volunteers for the process as he's a cripple in real life, and upon waking in his Avatar, finds himself mobile and in a rush. He then has himself an accident and gets lost in the forest and runs into the daughter of the Na'vi chief.

It took about half an hour to come up with the above summary, which speaks volumes about the detail and texture of this world Cameron created. From Avatar-Sully's meeting with the daughter (why a daughter and never a son?) though, the movie proceeds on a course easily visible to anyone who's ever watched a movie. She trains him in the ways of the Force.. sorry Eywha, they fall visibly (note the use of the word) in love, he tames a giant flying beast and eventually sympathises enough with the natives to defend them against the evil corporation and eviler mercenary Marine. They have them some amazing battles, and in the end, the evil Empire (the Merchant-Military one) is defeated and Sully transitions permanently into Avatar-Sully, setting the stage for a sequel.

The 3D thing that Cameron pulled off is amazing, as is the detail put to the world of Pandora. In that respect this movie is a milestone ushering in a new style of movie making, the way Superman ushered in special effects, Star Wars brought in space opera and Titanic opened up squealing teenage girls as a viable fanbase. It's also to Cameron's credit that despite all the flaws of the second half, one is riveted to the screen till the end credits roll. But on the count of stortelling, Cameron seems to distance his present work from his previous work of the 80's and 90's, wherein explosions and special effects were only the cherry on top to well-defined character sketches and a rock-solid story.

Verdict: A Must See, but could have been far better

Review: London Dreams

The Cast:

1. Ajay Devgan as Arjun. A struggling “young” musician, Arjun is a London School of Music (??) graduate who forms a band and stocks it with the first two people he meets, a dancer he’s simply got the hots for and his childhood friend from Bhatinda. He’s then surprised when these decisions bite him on his clenched-throughout-the-movie ass.
2. Salman Khan as Mannu: The love child of every over-exuberant Surd stereotype you came across, Sallu Bhai plays his man-child character with shades of Raja Babu and Coolie No.1 to boot. This is quite apt when you notice his puffed cheeks and sagging chin, causing him to resemble his Dhawan-partner of yore. He’s Arjun’s childhood friend. He joins the bend fresh off the flight from Bhatinda, walks through the movie wearing a kurta-sweater ensemble, and steals the lime light from Arjun till the latter “hooks him on drugs”, making you wonder what the hell he was on before joining the band.
3. Asin(gam) Thottamkal as Priya: Like every Tamil girl who’s grown up in London, Priya’s been raised in a “caaunsuruwaytiew Iyer family” as a result of which she’s an amazing Bharatnatyam dancer, has a bald father who wears vaeshttis all the time, and secretly pines to grind away on something to tune of “Smack That”, “Promiscuous Girl” or something. Upon entering movie/band, her job is to recite dialogues with varying Tamil accents (She’s just-Mylapore-returned one scene, accent-less 5 minutes later and puts on some Palakkad at one point), sway her hips sinuously every five minutes, fall in love with Sallu Bhai (shudder) and get her heart broken through the most insidious scheme ever.
4. Two Arbit guys as players for the band: That’s all you need to know
5. Every gora in London: Hit hard by the recession, spare cash was doubtless why this mélange of extras dance spontaneously – if surprisingly well organized, almost… choreographed – to every song that plays in this movie. They also play the news people, who amazingly speak Bob Christo-accented Hindi, the band manager who threatens to walk out of the audition just to test their desperation, some women who come onto Devgan himself after his first performance at a Trafalgar Square corner (YUCK!!) and Sallu later on (DOUBLE YUCK!!) and the huge crowds gyrating at Wembley Stadium, and Paris, Florence and Amsterdam (which curiously all look the same, as though the director took one long shot and simply slapped on titles to tell you the city)
6. Om Puri as the sort of chacha who, upon seeing a long-lost nephew who ran way 10 years ago, comes up, smiles and pats him on the arm. He then dispenses sage advice through the film.
   

The plot:

Arjun’s family has a special hatred of music, as much as he loves it. Apparently his granddad was hit with stage fright when performing at Wembley, and committed suicide afterwards. He prays for some way to be able to continue learning, and gets his chance when his dad drops dead of a heart attack. Flying to London (his uncle runs a kabab stand there), he runs away from his uncle right off customs, and somehow dodging every security officer in Heathrow, finds himself in the heart of London, which we all know is right next to the airport. He then plays the flute in street corners and makes enough to enroll himself at the London School of Music, which evidently does not look for any ID amidst its pupils. He then promises God he will never lose focus till he has avenged his granddad at Wembley in exchange for success. Growing up to resemble Ajay Devgan with his hair slicked back, the guy plays one fine afternoon at Trafalgar Square, drawing spontaneous dances that look oddly choreographed, the arbit guys to play in his band and the lecherous looks of a gori raand (apologies to any women reading) who, like all women there says “Your place or mine?” first.

When they have another audition, Arjun also ropes in Tamil stereotype mentioned above. There’s a cut to her life, with her Tamil Dad walking about with lit Tamil flames on a Tamil plate as she Tamil dances and he waves the Tamil smoke towards her Tamil saris and speaks 5 Tamil words. They all do amazingly well and hang out to some song. The girl hugs Arjun at one point, upon which he gets the sort of rapturous look an Engineering student would get if Asin hugged him. He louwes her. But, seeing as he’s promised God (No distractions) he has to relieve himself by – no joke – whipping himself with his belt. One wonders if V.A. Shah is making some sort of oblique point about maaring (click link if you don’t get it). If so, he seriously beats about the bush.

Anyway, enter Mannu, fresh off the flight from Bhatinda. He’s specially gifted at making an ass of himself. Joining the band as he’s Arjun’s friend, he proceeds to steal the spotlight from him, AND come on successfully to Asin, whom he fondly calls “Chennai Express”. All this causes Arjun to clench his face tighter and tighter till you want to point out to him:

• Mannu’s about as talented as Rakhi Sawant, in that his singing’s nothing special. He’s just a thick-skinned media-friendly moron
• There are very good Isabgols available on the market, some Ayurvedic even
  

When his prayers have no effect, Arjun then plots to ruin Mannu by hooking him on “marijuana, coke and methane” and positions Priya at the correct angle so that a fan touching Mannu’s feet looks like she’s about to (gasp) perform fellatio (un-gasp) on him. All this before a grand performance at Wembley where despite Arjun doing his darndest, the audience screams for Mannu. Seeing as about two hours have passed, you’d think Vipul Shah would end the film here, with a sort of Twilight Zone twist. But no, he has Arjun describe to the audience all he has done to perform (the hook and the crook, just in case there are cops in the audience) and walks off stage. An Om Puri lecture later, he repents and goes back to Bhatinda where Mannu is. They all come back to Wembley and perform. It being midnight, we all walk out of the theater and I curse heartily the absent boyfriend of a friend of mine who recommended this movie.

Verdict: What do you think?

Oh, and if the plot seems familiar to you, it’s because you either saw Milos Forman’s 1984 classic “Amadeus” or Suneel Darshan’s 2007 desecration of the same named Shakalaka Boom Boom (!!!) featuring Bobby Deol, Upen Patel and more Himesh music than you’d care to hear. Amadeus was about devout Vienna court composer (Salieri) who realizes upon the arrival of Mozart that his skills are nothing compared to Mozart’s, who is blessed with infinitely more talent despite his boorish behavior. Distraught at God seeming to favor the irreligious and libertine Mozart, Salieri vows to destroy him. The voice over narrating, the anguished close ups, the plotting and backstabbing and even a sort of God confrontation – in the original, Salieri burns a crucifix, here Devgan stares menacingly at a church altar (you’d think he’d be Hindu) – are all ripped off Forman’s movie. Even Sallu’s behavior is ever so slightly reminiscent of Tom Hulce’s Mozart in that film. Poor Forman, Schaffer, Hulce and Abraham.

Slumdog Millionaire: Why So Serious

Like The White Tiger is a great serious book, Slumdog Millionaire is a great serious film. By great, I mean raved about by just about every film critic in the West (see here). By serious, I mean you do not just go to this film hoping to be entertained for a couple of hours - go see "Harold and Kumar" or "Singh is King" for that. You go see this film so as to uplift yourself and be lost in a masterpiece that captures the real India in a Dickensian fairytale of life and love. Having seen this oh-so-awesome film I wanted, as the title suggests, to ask Danny Boyle, Vikas Swarup and Co. "Why so goddamned serious?".

The movie, we are told, takes a Dickensian approach to depicting the real India. What it does is present the West with every known stereotype of the Third World - swap India for Congo, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso or Papua New Guinea and the movie would be unchanged save for some Hindi at the beginning. The real [Insert country here] is found in slums, amidst filth unimaginable that the camera sort of luxuriates in. Slum children are shooed away by teachers, other parents, policemen (in the middle of a riot) and beaten mercilessly at every turn (Something else the camera will focus on). Any stranger who shows kindness inevitably turns out to be some sort of pervert. All policemen are corrupt props for the eevull rich. Placed in this hell, the hero fulfils the most pressing concern a struggling slumdweller can have - he tracks down his one true love, a girl he has met perhaps twice since he and she were pre-teens. Gangsters, cops, a condescending quiz show host and his own evil brother stand in the way, but true love must triumph in the end.

Well, films are supposed to be fantastic and heaven knows you can find plot holes in "The Dark Knight". The problem with this film is its tone. If this film were meant to be a masala romance in the vein of "Kuch Kuch Hota Hain", "Taal" or "Only You", not to be taken seriously, where was the need for throwing in the slums of Bombay as a backdrop? And if we are to take "Slumdog Millionaire" as great serious filmmaking, well, here are a few problems:

(1) The usage of English in the film is inexplicable, especially given that the protagonist and his brother did not go to school – something the movie repeatedly reminds them and the audience. Nevertheless, they speak fluent English with British accents. English in India is used amongst the educated, its usage often a class distinction. For an otherwise illiterate boy to speak English, confidently addressing Westerners when posing as tour guides and using phrases such as “don’t give a shit” and “plenty of pussy for XYZ” is absurd.

(2) The host of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is repeatedly shown to mock the protagonist’s profession and background, calling him a chaiwalla (tea-bringer) and marveling at his luck. Mocking people for being poor on live television in India is as big a faux pas as using racial slurs on live television in the US, something no game show host wishing to keep his job would do. Equally unrealistic and distasteful are the repeated reminders by the news channels that the protagonist is illiterate. No mention is made of where he lives or works, simply that he is an illiterate slum-dweller.

(3) The police are shown to arrest the protagonist on the word of the game show host alone, who is never seen to so much as sign a First Information Report. They beat and electrocute him on the basis that an illiterate “slumdog” could not know what he did. Nevertheless, they suspect a smuggled microchip as a possible modus operandi. How could an illiterate slumdog use a microchip? The scenes serve no purpose than to show people how inhumane foreign police forces are.

(4) Whether it is in Bombay or Agra (location of the Taj Mahal), the protagonist remains surrounded by filth unimaginable. Especially cringe-worthy was the scene where the protagonist leaps into a pool of excreta to get to the movie star. Slum-dwellers are as concerned about hygiene and cleanliness as everyone else and for a person to do that is absurd. While much of India lacks development, it is offensive that a director repeatedly present such stereotypical images.

(5) Similarly cringe-worthy were the scenes where a passenger attempts to yank the two children off a moving train, and where a chauffeur mercilessly stomps the fallen child on the head. Again, the lot of street children in India is not a pleasant one. They are regarded with suspicion and hatred by a lot of people. It is absurd however that every member of the middle or servant class treat them with utter disregard for their lives.

We all have this yearning for India to be looked upon as great by the West, and SM has been

hailed as the best thing since bread came sliced by such greats as Shashi Tharoor, Chidanand

Rajghatta and Raja Sen. Like White Tiger, it is simply an attempt to pigeon hole us under

poverty, misery and call centers.