[Not a Movie Review] Dhoom 3: Nobody can cancel the Apocalypse, not even Aamir Khan!

To,
The Writer/Director,
Dhoom 3: The Movie.

Date: 20^th December, 2013

Subject: Some of us still have brains.

Sir,
With due respect, let us assume, we overcome the overly preposterous notion of penning “Bank waalon tumhari aisi ki taisi!” on the walls of an international bank whose top management can’t even fathom Hindi; But how can a sane person shut his eye for the lack of competency of Chicago Police Department to not hire a language translator; and then to put icing on the cake, deciding to call two clumsy ham-fisted cops back from India? I’m flabbergasted.

Frankly speaking, I don’t think Uday Chopra cares much for his reputation or else he would have quit acting a long time ago. But sir, what was the dreadful need for those nincompoop facial expressions you made him do, which reminded me of those half-witted blockheaded apes back from my National Geographic days! Wait, was that his natural way of feinting acting? Damn, sorry!

It’s not that I did not try! I did made an effort to clap or hoot out loud, but then, a small voice quivered inside me, “Haven’t I seen this all before?” But no offense to your ingenious imagination as you definitely haven’t seen The Prestige (2006) or else you would have known that the master architect of modern cinema, Christopher Nolan, had also bamboozled the audience with the exact same twist seven years back.

One ten minutes chase, Ok. Two ten minutes chase, still, Ok. Third ten minutes chase, have you gone bananas or what? But yeah, I do understand your hardships as you had to make a selling point out of those stunt pieces as one can’t totally rely on an intelligent script now, right? And well, clearly, cerebral conversations are not your forte as the exchange between Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan at one point of the movie made me crave for congenital deafness!

Why was there such an all-out blatant assault on our commonsense? How can such a monstrously hog headed paper thin plot got passed right under the noses of the producers? But truth be told, amid all these catastrophic blunders, you found redemption in Aamir Khan. Taking nothing away from him, he gave it all to save this ship from the wreckage it was heading to, but well, you can’t cancel the apocalypse!

Thanking you for annihilating rationality,
With due regards,
A movie enthusiast. 

[Not a Movie Review] Man of Steel: Supermeh’s Soul Sold for Gold!

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon 

Director: Zack Snyder
Producer: Christopher Nolan
Music: Hans Zimmer

There comes a point amidst the rumble of the structures, slaughter of humanity and the deafening roar of a city turning into barren ruins where suddenly our caped crusader realized that three lives are at stake and conveniently, he twitched General Zod’s neck in one smooth motion of his hand. If it was that meek, that pretentious; why didn’t he do the honors in the first 120 minutes of Man of Steel? God Damned!

From a director who is totally into blood bathing (Remember 300!), an actor you have barely seen before (Who remembers Immortals?), a villain with a fixation for mass destruction (Been there, done that) and a producer who turned down the offer to produce the next in this series; comes Superman’s reboot featuring a hard gel that holds your hair while traversing at light speed and a dress that somehow never loses its luster, Man of Steel.

Man of Steel did raise some gargantuan expectations in the first hour with the inside struggles of an adolescent trying to come to terms of his own existence in this grand scheme of universe. And then I reached the underlying conclusion of Superman’s fascination with wrecking a city which is Superman’s parenting. It is a glorious example of “How not to raise a child?” with his father and mother all cool about him letting others die around him just so to shield his identity.

Henry Cavill, the man chosen to wear the symbol ‘S’, did live up to the expectation of being corny as he delivered the most atrociously lame dialogue after kissing his lady love with a graveyard of a city lying in the background. And then we have Amy Adams whose face doesn’t know how to change that appalling expression of awe she wore throughout the movie but well, that comes as a pass as she is reportedly dating Superman and getting carried away by Kryptonians for no possible reasons. Meh!

Christopher Nolan knew better and Zack Snyder saw it coming; Superman alone could not have lift this franchise into the clouds they have imagined for it. Zack, thus roped in Batman for the next movie and maybe the ‘S’ in the Superman costume may now just stand for ‘subordinate’ rather than hope in times to come.

[Movie Review] Before Midnight

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
Director: Richard Linklater
Genre: Drama, Romance

Well, that pained and hurt came down like a heavy downpour. All illusions of eternal love, sacrifices and affection come to a standstill, when a simple hotel room conversation between a couple in Before Midnight rained havoc on your fairy tale believes and leaves you with unforgiving and cold reality.

I adored Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) for their genuinely creative outlook towards relationships and what sails the boat in troubled rivers. And for a statement, I agree to have a zenith of emotions while watching Before Midnight (2013), the third in the series, for witnessing such a grander sense of maturity and scrupulousness while depicting love’s longevity.

It was never an easy watch, on the contrary, the moments from past came like waves of nostalgia when you least anticipated and left you teetering on the verge of a heartbreak on several occasions. If you think that misery and grief when love just vanishes between two people was agonizingly scrutinized in Blue Valentine, then this will leave you breathless for its intensity and brutality.

All hopes are not crushed for you know that there was romance; in an eccentric, bizarre, masked sort of a way; but romance there was in Before Midnight. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy shines yet again with natural flow of conversation and long shots from director Richard Linklater sets the bar high for the actors to deliver. Watch Julie Delpy in a scene when she says, “I used to sing, play guitar and write songs, I don’t get time to do it now”, and you will witness the astonishing commitment of the persons involved in making the moment sound so resonating and powerful.

One might feel this trilogy is an unprecedented ode to the power love has and how beautiful life can be, but Before Midnight in all its essence exposed how fruitless it is to capture the ephemeral, fleeting nature of love. Mature, poignant and heartbreaking, Before Midnight raises the bar of indie cinema.

Trailer of Before Midnight on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euOJkb0U8vE
Before Midnight on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2209418/

Top 15 Movies of 2012

15. Les Miserables

14. The  Beasts of Southern Wild

13. Zero Dark Thirty

Link to the review of Zero Dark Thirty: 
http://kalpit-tandon.blogspot.in/2013/02/movie-review-zero-dark-thirty-thorny.html

12. Silver Linings Playbook

11. Cloud Atlas

Link to the review of Cloud Atlas: http://kalpit-tandon.blogspot.in/2012/10/movie-review-cloud-atlas-indeed.html

10. Gangs of Wasseypur

9. Skyfall

8. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

7. Life of Pi

6. Perks of Being a Wallflower

5. The Dark Knight Rises

Link to the review of The Dark Knight Rises:http://kalpit-tandon.blogspot.in/2012/07/the-dark-knight-rises-boom-bang-legend.html

4. Lincoln

3. Django Unchained

Link to the review of Django Unchained:
http://kalpit-tandon.blogspot.in/2013/03/movie-review-django-unchained-good-old.html

2. Argo

1. The Master

Link to the review of The Master:
http://kalpit-tandon.blogspot.in/2013/04/movie-reviewthe-master.html