If Ritesh Batra's debut feature, The Lunchbox, is any indication of what his future work will be like, I have strong hopes for this filmmaker. A delightful story which fully engages you in the everyday life of Mumbai, The Lunchbox recalls themes from the like of You've Got Mail, plus lunch services and minus the actual physical interactions between characters.
Nimrat Kaur plays Ila, a lonely housewife who can feel her husband slipping away from her, and Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire, The Namesake, Life of Pi) plays Saajan a man on the verge of retirement at his desk job, with nothing much to look forward to and an attitude that rivals that of Ebenezer Scrooge. Ila and Saajan's paths cross when, one day, Ila prepares an especially delicious lunch to send to her husband through Mumbai's famous lunchbox system, hoping to reach his heart through his stomach. However, despite declarations that the lunchbox couriers never deliver to the wrong address, Saajan ends up with Ila's lunch. When Ila discovers that a mistake has been made, but also realizes that the stranger she fed actually ate ALL of the food (something that apparently her husband never had the decency to do), she sends another delicious meal with a note thanking him for returning the lunchbox empty. So begins a daily correspondence between the two.
At first they write about simple things, like their day, or about friends they have (the film closely follows Saajan's relationship with the man who he is meant to train to replace him once he retires, and Ila's upstairs neighbor makes her vocal presence known throughout the movie). But, as is usual with relationships in which the majority of their identity is still hidden, they are able to get deep and confide in each other fairly quickly, and their fantasies about a better life begin to get the best of them.
Batra craftfully builds the tension of whether our two main characters will ever meet, peppering scenes with both quiet and laugh-out-loud comic relief, and boiling the whole concoction together with tender insights into melancholy. And though Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur barely share any screen time, their chemistry resonates throughout the entire film. Ila's earnest hopefulness and Saajan's reserved demeanor seem to blend wonderfully as they pour their hearts into their letters. The film ends at a beginning, circumventing the typical "happily ever after" cliche in a way that leaves you wondering what happens next and yet is still satisfactory.
This will be a film you do not want to miss... come see The Lunchbox this week at the Midtown Cinema!
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Sam's Blog - Under The Skin
We begin with a prick of light, which grows and grows until suddenly, we are in a darkened highway in Scotland, following a biker. We watch as he stops, goes into the bushes, and retrieves the body of a woman, tossing it into a van parked on the side of the road. The scene then cuts to an endless stretch of bright light (seemingly the inside of the van), in which a naked woman (Scarlett Johansson) methodically removes the clothing of the previous woman's body and dresses herself, eerily focused on the task at hand. This new woman, who later calls herself Laura, is our protagonist.
This initial scene is a great glimpse of what the rest of the film will be like, because director Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Sexy Beast) has given us a relentless dose of dark, bizarre abstraction with this very loose adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name. A chilling musical score eases us into the plot as Laura begins driving her van around Glasgow, stopping time after time to ask for directions, and chatting up the men that give them to her. She asks where they're from, if they have family in the area, if they have a girlfriend... her flirtatious conversation immediately entices the men, especially after she invites them to come home with her. But something is not quite right with Laura, as our first encounter with her can attest... when the conversations end, her face drops back to a cold, blank slate, void of any sort of emotion; and when she lures the men back to her house for what they believe is a chance to have sex with her, she leads them straight into some sort of strange, black pool, trapping them inside -- all with that same, emotionless face. We quickly realize that Laura is involved in some sort of alien scheme (and very possibly alien herself).
The Biker serves as a sort of protector, cleaning up after the messes that invariably arise from her encounters, covering her tracks and looking after her -- there is a scene in which he inspects Laura, giving the sense that he is checking to make sure everything's okay. It is still unclear what exactly is happening -- it appears that they are harvesting organs in this pool, but it is never laid out for you, and you are never sure where exactly Laura and the Biker have come from -- but you get the idea that Laura has been created, and strictly for a purpose.
But as Laura continues to ensnare men, she begins to feel empathy for them, an emotion that becomes all too real for her when she looks in the mirror and realizes that she looks like them. As the plot progresses, Laura evolves from cold, calculating bad-guy to a sort of childlike protagonist; this film is in some way a coming-of-age story... a very dark, very disturbing, and very different coming-of-age story, wrought with an abstract study of gender roles. Scarlett Johansson's nuanced performance is perhaps her best yet: never have I seen a role so tailored for this actress, putting to use her infamous sensuality and her signature blank expressions and combining them in a creatively different way than we've seen before (it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger being a perfect fit for his role as the Terminator). But even at her most stone cold, Laura's emotions seep through, tangling you up in her character.
The film is also a great snapshot of Scottish life. You get a varied mix of the different types of people and personalities, and the stunning views of the countryside. Many of the men that Laura picks up were not actors at all, but simply real people caught on a hidden camera, unwittingly engaging in conversation with Scarlett Johansson. This was a brilliant move by Glazer, making the landscape of the film feel so vivid and real.
With beautiful cinematography, a chilling score, and an amazing character sketch of a story, Under The Skin is a film you should be sure to catch... just make sure you give it your full attention. This is not a film to let your mind drift... if you do, the film will just be frustrating. Come see it this week at the Midtown Cinema!
This initial scene is a great glimpse of what the rest of the film will be like, because director Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Sexy Beast) has given us a relentless dose of dark, bizarre abstraction with this very loose adaptation of Michel Faber's novel of the same name. A chilling musical score eases us into the plot as Laura begins driving her van around Glasgow, stopping time after time to ask for directions, and chatting up the men that give them to her. She asks where they're from, if they have family in the area, if they have a girlfriend... her flirtatious conversation immediately entices the men, especially after she invites them to come home with her. But something is not quite right with Laura, as our first encounter with her can attest... when the conversations end, her face drops back to a cold, blank slate, void of any sort of emotion; and when she lures the men back to her house for what they believe is a chance to have sex with her, she leads them straight into some sort of strange, black pool, trapping them inside -- all with that same, emotionless face. We quickly realize that Laura is involved in some sort of alien scheme (and very possibly alien herself).
The Biker serves as a sort of protector, cleaning up after the messes that invariably arise from her encounters, covering her tracks and looking after her -- there is a scene in which he inspects Laura, giving the sense that he is checking to make sure everything's okay. It is still unclear what exactly is happening -- it appears that they are harvesting organs in this pool, but it is never laid out for you, and you are never sure where exactly Laura and the Biker have come from -- but you get the idea that Laura has been created, and strictly for a purpose.
But as Laura continues to ensnare men, she begins to feel empathy for them, an emotion that becomes all too real for her when she looks in the mirror and realizes that she looks like them. As the plot progresses, Laura evolves from cold, calculating bad-guy to a sort of childlike protagonist; this film is in some way a coming-of-age story... a very dark, very disturbing, and very different coming-of-age story, wrought with an abstract study of gender roles. Scarlett Johansson's nuanced performance is perhaps her best yet: never have I seen a role so tailored for this actress, putting to use her infamous sensuality and her signature blank expressions and combining them in a creatively different way than we've seen before (it's like Arnold Schwarzenegger being a perfect fit for his role as the Terminator). But even at her most stone cold, Laura's emotions seep through, tangling you up in her character.
The film is also a great snapshot of Scottish life. You get a varied mix of the different types of people and personalities, and the stunning views of the countryside. Many of the men that Laura picks up were not actors at all, but simply real people caught on a hidden camera, unwittingly engaging in conversation with Scarlett Johansson. This was a brilliant move by Glazer, making the landscape of the film feel so vivid and real.
With beautiful cinematography, a chilling score, and an amazing character sketch of a story, Under The Skin is a film you should be sure to catch... just make sure you give it your full attention. This is not a film to let your mind drift... if you do, the film will just be frustrating. Come see it this week at the Midtown Cinema!
Sam's Blog - The Raid 2: Berendal
For those who saw The Raid 1, you may be pleased to know that our protagonist, Rama, is back in all his glory. You may also be pleased to know that director Gareth Evans' follow-up film has a little more plot (convoluted though it may be), without skimping on the action.
Rama (Iko Uwais) returns from the raid in the film's predecessor, only to find that he has been assigned to another mission: to go undercover and expose the corrupt cops who are being paid off by a nearby gang. He does this by being thrown in jail for two years with the gang leader's son, Ucok (Arifin Putra), who takes him in after they are released. Ucok's greed and pride rears its head as he tries to gain more power within the gang and gets resistance from his father, Bangun. The gang has a peace agreement with a local Japanese family, but when a mishap with a friend of the family occurs by this family's hands, Ucok begins to play his own game, secretly meeting with Bejo, another crimelord who is willing to give Ucok the time of day. Amidst this mess, Rama must keep his cover while helping Ucok and Bangun out at the same time.
There are a few minor details reflecting poorly on The Raid 2 -- like the fact that Rama's wife and child are, again, simply plot devices to make you sympathize with Rama, or the fact that many scenes could have been trimmed down, and characters eliminated, to create a 2-hour film instead of 2.5 hours. But overall, The Raid 2 is meant to be fun and action packed, and it delivers in that regard. Focusing more on hand-to-hand combat than The Raid 1 did (nearly every character had a machete in the predecessor), the film boasts phenomenal Silat fight choreography, and some really creative fight scenarios as well (I never thought I'd see martial arts in the back of a car). We see some old faces with Uwais and with Yayan Ruhian, probably my favorite callback who plays an assassin just trying to see his kid. We also meet some new, kick-ass baddies: Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl (played by Very Tri Yulisman and Julie Estelle). I'm just going to let those names sink in and let you see for yourself.
This film is not for the faint of heart: Evans even said that the beauty of the violence in this film is that it does make you cringe, instead of some action films that make death seem like a video game... the violence in The Raid 2 is brutal, and that's the point. But that still doesn't hinder you from appreciating the techniques and artistry that flows through the mass destruction that occurs on screen.
Definitely worth the watch for martial arts fans young and old. Come check it out this week at the Midtown Cinema!
Rama (Iko Uwais) returns from the raid in the film's predecessor, only to find that he has been assigned to another mission: to go undercover and expose the corrupt cops who are being paid off by a nearby gang. He does this by being thrown in jail for two years with the gang leader's son, Ucok (Arifin Putra), who takes him in after they are released. Ucok's greed and pride rears its head as he tries to gain more power within the gang and gets resistance from his father, Bangun. The gang has a peace agreement with a local Japanese family, but when a mishap with a friend of the family occurs by this family's hands, Ucok begins to play his own game, secretly meeting with Bejo, another crimelord who is willing to give Ucok the time of day. Amidst this mess, Rama must keep his cover while helping Ucok and Bangun out at the same time.
There are a few minor details reflecting poorly on The Raid 2 -- like the fact that Rama's wife and child are, again, simply plot devices to make you sympathize with Rama, or the fact that many scenes could have been trimmed down, and characters eliminated, to create a 2-hour film instead of 2.5 hours. But overall, The Raid 2 is meant to be fun and action packed, and it delivers in that regard. Focusing more on hand-to-hand combat than The Raid 1 did (nearly every character had a machete in the predecessor), the film boasts phenomenal Silat fight choreography, and some really creative fight scenarios as well (I never thought I'd see martial arts in the back of a car). We see some old faces with Uwais and with Yayan Ruhian, probably my favorite callback who plays an assassin just trying to see his kid. We also meet some new, kick-ass baddies: Baseball Bat Man and Hammer Girl (played by Very Tri Yulisman and Julie Estelle). I'm just going to let those names sink in and let you see for yourself.
This film is not for the faint of heart: Evans even said that the beauty of the violence in this film is that it does make you cringe, instead of some action films that make death seem like a video game... the violence in The Raid 2 is brutal, and that's the point. But that still doesn't hinder you from appreciating the techniques and artistry that flows through the mass destruction that occurs on screen.
Definitely worth the watch for martial arts fans young and old. Come check it out this week at the Midtown Cinema!
Sam's Blog - Le Week-End
"What a great thing... to be so attuned to your own unhappiness." This quote, spoken by a man interested in an unhappily married woman, is the hinge of this film's plot... because the first step of solving a problem is recognizing that it exists. Perhaps this is exactly what Birmingham couple Nick and Meg need as they return to Paris to recapture the feeling of their honeymoon 30 years prior. Roger Michel (Notting Hill, Morning Glory) helms a delightful yet tumultuous picture of a weekend of petty bickering, brutal honesty, and romantic cynicism through these two characters, who force themselves to indulge in a vacation they can't afford to rehash the passion of their youth -- but ultimately stirring up trouble that has been brewing long under the surface of their relationship.
Initially returning to the same hotel they had previously stayed in, Meg (Lindsay Duncan) decides she doesn't like the change in decor, and forces Nick (Jim Broadbent) to follow her to a ritzier hotel with a grand view of the Eiffel Tower. This becomes a trend throughout the film: Meg decides something, and Nick succumbs to her wishes, and the pair ruffle feathers as they carry out their weekend going to museums, seeing the sites, and eating at restaurants that cost too much for their dwindling budget.
What a fascinating pair these two are. Meg has reached the point in her life where she wants to try things she's never done before, start afresh and drop everything -- her job, her hobbies, and we come to find, even her current love life, as she has grown to resist her husband's touch, and continually complains about how attached he's become to her. But she does tease her husband with moments of intimacy, before hurriedly hiding herself away just in time. She seems finicky, but you can see the occasional panicked look in her eyes that says, "Where has my life gone?"
Nick, on the other hand, doesn't want anything to change... but if it'll keep Meg around, then change is a sacrifice he's willing to make. His wife is slipping away, and he will do anything to keep her there with him. He's already lost his job, so keeping her at bay with a sense of security is out the window... and so he is doing his darnedest to satisfy her during this weekend in Paris.
A chance run-in with Morgan, Nick's odd college friend (Jeff Goldblum), serves as a conduit of hope for the unstable couple. They agree to come to a dinner party that Morgan is throwing, Nick seeing it as a chance to give his wife some fun, and Meg seeing it as a chance to not be alone with her husband. Unfortunately, situations arise, and by the end of the party, all cards are laid out on the table in Nick's tense dinner table speech to perplexed guests.
The beauty of this film is the honesty that Meg and Nick have with each other, brutal though it may sometimes be. They may be struggling through their marriage, but at least they both know it, and at least it is clear that they both still care about each other, whether they want to stay together or not... their bickering and joking around reveals that despite their difficulty with romance, they still find some kind of comfort in each other's presence. But will that be enough to save their marriage?
The cast is nothing short of phenomenal, and the emotions run true; Le Week-End is well worth a watch! Come see it this week at the Midtown Cinema.
Initially returning to the same hotel they had previously stayed in, Meg (Lindsay Duncan) decides she doesn't like the change in decor, and forces Nick (Jim Broadbent) to follow her to a ritzier hotel with a grand view of the Eiffel Tower. This becomes a trend throughout the film: Meg decides something, and Nick succumbs to her wishes, and the pair ruffle feathers as they carry out their weekend going to museums, seeing the sites, and eating at restaurants that cost too much for their dwindling budget.
What a fascinating pair these two are. Meg has reached the point in her life where she wants to try things she's never done before, start afresh and drop everything -- her job, her hobbies, and we come to find, even her current love life, as she has grown to resist her husband's touch, and continually complains about how attached he's become to her. But she does tease her husband with moments of intimacy, before hurriedly hiding herself away just in time. She seems finicky, but you can see the occasional panicked look in her eyes that says, "Where has my life gone?"
Nick, on the other hand, doesn't want anything to change... but if it'll keep Meg around, then change is a sacrifice he's willing to make. His wife is slipping away, and he will do anything to keep her there with him. He's already lost his job, so keeping her at bay with a sense of security is out the window... and so he is doing his darnedest to satisfy her during this weekend in Paris.
A chance run-in with Morgan, Nick's odd college friend (Jeff Goldblum), serves as a conduit of hope for the unstable couple. They agree to come to a dinner party that Morgan is throwing, Nick seeing it as a chance to give his wife some fun, and Meg seeing it as a chance to not be alone with her husband. Unfortunately, situations arise, and by the end of the party, all cards are laid out on the table in Nick's tense dinner table speech to perplexed guests.
The beauty of this film is the honesty that Meg and Nick have with each other, brutal though it may sometimes be. They may be struggling through their marriage, but at least they both know it, and at least it is clear that they both still care about each other, whether they want to stay together or not... their bickering and joking around reveals that despite their difficulty with romance, they still find some kind of comfort in each other's presence. But will that be enough to save their marriage?
The cast is nothing short of phenomenal, and the emotions run true; Le Week-End is well worth a watch! Come see it this week at the Midtown Cinema.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Sam's Blog - Particle Fever
We discovered matter. We discovered what that matter was made up of. But we still have that age old question: what created the matter in the first place? Physicists of all cultures have been working for years on trying to decipher this mystery of the universe, and their work has accumulated to create the Large Hadron Collider, a miles-long particle accelerator which essentially recreates the events of the Big Bang in a controlled environment.
When initiated, the LHC sends two beams of protons in opposite directions and moves their paths to collide. In 2012, physicists tested the Hadron Collider for the first time, unsure of what the results would be but knowing that they would make or break the study of physics. Their hope was to find the Higgs boson, the theorized "god particle" that holds all life together... And depending on what they discovered about the Higgs boson from these tests, everything humankind has ever known about physics could be turned on its head. Particle Fever immerses us into the experience right alongside these hardworking men and women as they put the Hadron Collider into action.
I, for one, am not a scientist. I did not do very well with physics in school, and I can grasp basic concepts, but the details are lost on me. The beauty of this documentary is that you don't need to be a scientist to understand the energy that has been captured here on camera. We are navigated through the process by a selection of theoretical physicists and experimental physicists who describe the excitement of the event as it unfolds, not unlike "a room full of six-year-olds whose birthday is next week". These interviews are paired with animated sketches and diagrams which help explain the nature of the testing, and allow the main bulk of the documentary to focus on the physicists' experiences, and not just a mess of scientific jargon that would be lost on the lay. You feel their excitement, their agitation when something goes wrong... their anticipation for just exactly what they will discover.
The benefits of conducting this experiment are quite simple. As David Kaplan, a theoretical physicist from John Hopkins University, explains, there is no realized economic gain in carrying out this experiment. Finding the Higgs boson may not save lives or make everyday life easier -- in fact, potentially nothing could come from this project, "other than understanding everything." No, these physicists are here for the pursuit of knowledge, and nothing less.
Come check out Particle Fever this week at the Midtown Cinema!
When initiated, the LHC sends two beams of protons in opposite directions and moves their paths to collide. In 2012, physicists tested the Hadron Collider for the first time, unsure of what the results would be but knowing that they would make or break the study of physics. Their hope was to find the Higgs boson, the theorized "god particle" that holds all life together... And depending on what they discovered about the Higgs boson from these tests, everything humankind has ever known about physics could be turned on its head. Particle Fever immerses us into the experience right alongside these hardworking men and women as they put the Hadron Collider into action.
I, for one, am not a scientist. I did not do very well with physics in school, and I can grasp basic concepts, but the details are lost on me. The beauty of this documentary is that you don't need to be a scientist to understand the energy that has been captured here on camera. We are navigated through the process by a selection of theoretical physicists and experimental physicists who describe the excitement of the event as it unfolds, not unlike "a room full of six-year-olds whose birthday is next week". These interviews are paired with animated sketches and diagrams which help explain the nature of the testing, and allow the main bulk of the documentary to focus on the physicists' experiences, and not just a mess of scientific jargon that would be lost on the lay. You feel their excitement, their agitation when something goes wrong... their anticipation for just exactly what they will discover.
The benefits of conducting this experiment are quite simple. As David Kaplan, a theoretical physicist from John Hopkins University, explains, there is no realized economic gain in carrying out this experiment. Finding the Higgs boson may not save lives or make everyday life easier -- in fact, potentially nothing could come from this project, "other than understanding everything." No, these physicists are here for the pursuit of knowledge, and nothing less.
Come check out Particle Fever this week at the Midtown Cinema!
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