ARRIVAL - A REVIEW - SCIFI OR SAVING A SPECIES ?

I read somewhere that this movie is based on a story by Seattle Resident Ted Chiang after watching the DVD version of the movie last night. So I had no idea what to expect when I started watching the movie!

It is about Alien life but is it also about saving a species about to become extinct? Do these spaceships represent dead whales ? What is that ending scene of the so-called 'spaceship' hovering over the misty sea at an angle, then a quick shot of half submerged 'spaceship' or is it a whale, I could not tell clearly!? An Octopus floats by Amy as she enters their zone behind the glass separator that looks remarkably like she is in a present day Aquarium !

The spaceships hanging over the 12 world cities remind me of the whales and their circular 'language' symbols on the glass screen remind me of blood emerging from a roundish wound. [Try to reverse that black ink shot in the movie as it emerges from the octopus hand and spreads to form a circle on the glass screen !!] That is how the 'aliens' communicate about their  need for help 3000 years later, i.e. the present day ! OR maybe the author is telling us that the whale and other sea creatures will need our help 3000 years from now OR he maybe telling us it is the arrival of the species starting with snails that Amy and her daughter find under the little stones in the garden as one flashback reminds her OR maybe the author is telling us, by placing the story in Montana, that cows are animals just like whales (one of the 'octopus' lifts its toe that looks like a cow's hoof and knocks on the glass like separator) OR maybe the sea creatures/aliens are telling us that want to be free from the frozen hell and want to be in the green foliage like us (they do a dance and leave dozens of footprints on the separator and there are several shots of Amy in the nature with sunlight peeping thru the thick foliage!)!I could go on....

The movie is confusing as it uses the language of flashback too often! Are they equating Amy's relationship with her child and her loss reflected in the extinction of future children of whales by using the device of flashbacks!

 May be I should take my psychiatric medication now because this is exclusively my take on the movie - don't hang me please!

KRAMER VS KRAMER!!

 This is an excellent movie specially for 'foreigners' about how marriages falls apart in US, how the kids are affected and how the legal process works. It is a somewhat romanticized because it shows parents and even lawyers being civil most of the time. The parents are shown to be very emotional about their kids in the movie. 

 I had to go thru a lengthy divorce in USA. We are Hindus from India but my daughter was born in the USA. What is shown in the movie is an abbreviated version of real life.

I would recommend  this movie to anybody who wants to learn about life in USA.

OUR GHOSTS, DEMONS AND M.NIGHT SHYAMALAN !!

Some Hollywood movies are commentaries on the social problems of the American life:

1. The Exorcist: The fowl-mouthed American kids ("f#uk" this and "f#u@k" that)with vicious rebellion against religion and hypocrisies of the adult world (mouthed by demonic possessions) only to be finally calmed by the sacrifices of the polite priests. (The demons possessing the little girl in fact are all adults!!)

2. Silence Of  The Lambs: How would you like to be eaten for lunch or breakfast or worn as a fur coat? The horrible Dr. Lecter reminds us of the everyday sins we commit and forget!

3. Sixth Sense: If the medical establishment and psychiatrists do not believe their patients they will find no relief even in after-life until they repent and make amends is the lesson from this movie (Only if this were true!). Also the movie supports psychic phenomena (sixth sense/esp. etc.) by giving its boy hero the capability of seeing 'dead people'.

Synopsis: M.night brings out unusual emotions in the fast-moving action-packed era of Hollywood movies.The movie starts when a prestigious psychologist in Philadelphia gets shot by an ex-patient in his apartment.The patient who is unhappy at not having been cured of his mental disease by the doctor then shoots himself. Six months later we see this doctor (Bruce Willis) treating a young boy in Philadelphia. The boy claims to see dead people who do not know they are dead. The case is similar to that of the dead patient who shot himself earlier. Meanwhile the doctor is separated from his wife who will not talk to him. After many emotional sessions with the boy he makes the boy comfortable with his visions of dead people. The boy does not feel scared anymore. There are many side stories in the movie. The movie finally ends when the good doctor goes to meet his wife and comes to realize that he himself is dead, he died when the patient shot him at the beginning of the movie. It was his spirit seeking redemption. The last five minutes of the movie are the flashbacks of this realization.

4. UNBREAKABLE: This seems like a comment on the strong black man who sells comics but feels broken and helpless( expressed in his aches and pains ah/ah/ah...) and a compact white man's desire to be superman (he is the only survivor of a train wreck!). That is all I got from the movie.

5. SIGNS: Another M. Night movie. The white church pastor is so scared of the multitude of thin grasshopper like "beings" who originate in the corn fields and vanish with the rains! I was half asleep during the movie and after all the loud music and suspense the rain woke me up. It was time to go home...

6. THE VILLAGE: This is a nice elegant movie from M. Night Shyamalan. There are two intertwined stories in The village.

a.. Each of  the village elders has suffered at the hands of the outside world and  so they form a commune isolated from the rest of the world. This is only revealed towards the end of the movie. However, they use a devious method to keep their kids inside the commune and keep the outsiders outside by dressing up a somewhat handicapped man in a scary dress;

b. A blind girl professes love for another young man in the commune but a jealous half-mad man knives that young man. The rest of the movie is about the brave blind girl's attempt to cross through the haunted forest to the regular world to get medications for her intended husband.

In the theater, the audience heaves a sigh of relief as you see a police car and first signs of modern life as the commune girl steps into the regular world from the paranoia created inside the compound. Once again, the director manages to get decent performances from all of the actors; a welcome departure from the sci-fi , gun-crazy Hollywood!

THE REALISTIC 'NISHANT' MOVIE

This is an Indian movie directed by Shyam Benegal from a few decades ago. A simple teacher and his wife move into a village run by a rich man and his bullying sons. The teacher's wife gets abducted and raped by these goons. The teacher runs about desperately seeking every legal means at his disposal to rescue his wife but to no avail! His pitiable condition is heartbreaking. One of the goon's son is nicer and tries to help the abducted lady who is now captive in their house! They appear to grow fond of each other. Her husband waits in the temple in the hope that he will see his wife there one day and his wish comes true. She chides him for being a coward and not using a gun to shoot the goons when she was kidnapped and then she leaves him to go back to the Rich man/ Goon's house! This is the great irony of the film.

The teacher then enlists the help of the temple priest and a crowd of religious followers advances towards the goon's house. A fight ensues, a gun is used and the movie ends with all the goons being killed along with many innocent people! The teacher's wife tries to escape with the Rich man's good son but the crowd chases them too.

This is another realistic looking movie from Shyam Benegal with good performances by all actors.

Note: It is a low-budget movie shot in an Indian village like environment and so do not compare it to 'Godfather'!

Moral: An honest man has vary little recourse as a law-abiding citizen when he gets crushed in the cruel and devious world but when he seeks the help of the religion, the fanaticism/crowd mentality devours both the good and the bad! 

COMA THE MOVIE - When Hospitals Become Dens Of Crime!

If you have heard or read about malpractice in hospitals and sale of human organs for profit in the media in the past, you will understand this movie! It is somewhat old but scary and maybe true to some extent!

A futuristic looking hospital pretends to help patients who eventually go into a coma- and there are many- by suspending them in air in a large hall - purportedly to save money. They even record the last few minutes of doctor's conversation before the patient goes into coma to make it look like a normal/legit procedure.It is the same script every time a patient goes into coma! But their real intentions are dubious - they are killing patients to auction off organs to rich patients by first putting them in a coma! The oxygen mask that is given to these patients contains poison gas hooked to a tank in a room away from the Operation room via a pipe.There are couple of innocent doctors who are trying to discover the truth but they have to fight for their own survival before they are permanently locked up in the mental ward or put into a coma like the patients they are trying to save! Sounds familiar ? (see next post)

This is a scary movie and one that might put mistrust in your mind about the medical establishment! Where profit and survival are the main motives, the oath doctors take to protect patients at all costs becomes a naive dream. Add to this, the discrimination faced by immigrants and the poor and weak you have a potent mix of circumstances and evil intentions that encourage profiteering ! Only the legal system, the media and some mentally sick people will like this kind of medicine!!

Author and Director: Michael Crichton was a Harvard trained doctor who died of cancer in 2008. He was 6 feet and 9 inches tall!

THE CHANGELING!!

Recently, I had the opportunity to view Clint Eastwood directed movie "Changeling". According to information on the DVD, the movie is based on a true story that happened in California a few decades ago. A young mother is forced by LA police to accept a boy that is not her own as her son , after she discovers that her real son is missing. The mother fights with the police to get her real son but is locked up in a mental hospital for ignoring her obligations towards her son and for being paranoid . She is rescued from the hospital by friends from her church. There is some brutality in the movie as we discover that several boys, including the lady's son, were kidnapped by a child killer. The callous and manipulating attitude of the authorities is scary for me as the viewer and as a parent experienced with the legal system in USA. Director Eastwood manages to get impressive performance from petite Angelina Jolie as she roller skates as a phone company switchboard supervisor and as a mother in shock at the loss of her son. 

KABUL EXPRESS

DVD Review. Release Year 2006.

It has finally happened. Indian movies have moved from local issues and romantic melodrama, sometimes overloaded with songs, to handling international problems. 

The movie Kabul Express is a story of three reporters, two men from India and one American lady who are in Afghanistan to report on the Taliban. The two young MALE actors from India and the LADY who plays an American reporter keep us engaged by mimicking the style of young people from their respective countries. It appears that the dialogues were done on the fly. The locale is authentic and the Afghani actors do a decent job. There is some gun violence. There are no bold statements made and the movie has the look of a documentary. That to me is its appeal. Average Indians used to the melodrama and songs may not like it but I like the divergence into a new type of film making!!

MONEY MONSTER - WALL STREET HAS NO EMOTIONS!!

People loose money all the time!! Why should we bother if a little guy working on minimum wage looses his savings in a stock that is highly recommended by the host of your favorite money show who dances like Brittany Spears while he touts the stock ?

This movie is about such a small investor who looses everything and decides to shoot the host of the show live on television just when the host has finished his Brittany dance.. And how much is the money involved - about USD 800 million which was portrayed to the investors as a loss due to the fall in stock price but in reality the entire amount has been siphoned off to a precious metal mine somewhere in Africa as we learn towards the end of the movie!!

[One more thorn on the lady liberty's crown, Mr. America and Uncle Sam!! I have wondered about such things myself over the last few years when I see all the mutual funds I had invested in go down systematically ! Can I trust the online news sources like MSN for the fund value? One mutual fund which has been highly publicized as the least expensive indexed fund even had my ex-wife's relative's name as the fund manager for some time !]

The movie turns into a hostage drama as pretty girls with lots of makeup run around like crazy trying to find the person to blame. Eventually the company's CEO is forced to  visit the show as part of the hostage negotiation and the kidnapper's gun and bomb both now point to him rather than the host. So the movie goes a little deeper into the mystery (behind the fall of the stock-price) than most hostage movies but ends like most hostage movies do when the angry victim is shot by the police!!

Well directed by Jodie Foster. George Clooney, as the host of the show, seems a little funny in the beginning but gives a decent performance during the hostage situation by keeping the acting  natural  and low-key.

MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON - Sell Me A Hot Dog And A Hamburger Too!!

M.O.T.H. is a movie from the period when being an immigrant in USA was popular, funny and profitable for  Hollywood. Popular movies in this genre included Green Card, Coming to America and others whose name I have forgotten. Hollywood also made nice family movies during that period like She Is Having A Baby and Three Men And A Baby. Then they unleashed horror and mind numbing  special effects on the innocent public where the hero was a cannibal psychiatrist (Silence Of The Lambs) or the heroine was an Animated doll (Avatar).Disaster and earthquakes and giant robots took over the role of heroes and villains and actors like Tom Cruise seem like extras in the story!! 

MOTH is a movie about a few Russian immigrants who come to visit USA while they discuss decadent moral values in America. One of them defects while shopping in a popular department store and is given asylum. He lives with a black family and finds a 'Spanish' looking co-worker as a girlfriend. There is some propaganda type material in the movie but the fact that the immigrants are shown to be in the lower strata of the society selling hot-dogs on the street etc might make it real. There is a bathtub scene which could have been dispensed with so it could be called a family film![ That is my Indian viewpoint and may or may not match with what other film going public in USA like.] So that is what we immigrants can expect in the 'decadent'  USA - a hot dog stand, another immigrant as a girlfriend and a lot of heart-ache!!