The Invisible (2007)

Genre: Fantasy/Thriller/Drama/Crime

Starring: Justin Chatwin, Margarita Levieva, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Marquette

Nick Powell (Chatwin) is a high-school smart and rich boy. A school street gang leader Annie (Levieva) steals some jewelry but gets busted later on. She doubts Pete (Marquette) Nick's best friend, for going to the cops and telling them about her. Pete puts the blame on Nick, thinking that Nick is on his way to London but he is actually not. The gang finds Nick and beats him up in which Annie accidentally kills him. Nick's ghost comes alive and he sees the true faces of many people. He also realises that if his body is found, he can still live. Annie's conscious starts getting the better of her and she also realises that Nick was not guilty of turning her to the cops. She repents her doings and wants to undo her mistakes. The movie goes quite well until half-time. The logic behind recovering his body and coming back to life is not convincing and a bit awkward. Annie's ability to suddenly start taking orders from Nick's ghost also is also not explained for. These niggles make the movie a bit far-fetched even for a fantasy movie. It lacks the entertainment factor in any possible movie genre.

Thumbs up: An otherwise decent story
Thumbs down: Unexplained logic

Rating: 4.8/10

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Do Knot Disturb (2009)

Genre: Comedy/Drama

Starring: Govinda, Lara Dutta, Ritesh Deshmukh, Sushmita Sen, Ranbir Shorey, Rajpal Yadav, Sohail Khan

Does David Dhawan intentionally make such mindless comedies or is that he is incapable of churning out something better? Govinda, the very person who pioneered this particular genre, features in this leave-your-brains-at-home comedy as Raj, an industrialist married to Kiran (Sen). Kiran dominates over him and he starts two-timing her by dating supermodel Dolly (Dutta). Mangu (Yadav) spots the two-love birds at it and takes a photograph. Co-incidentally, Govardhan (Deshmukh) gets in the picture frame. Raj must now convince his wife that Govardhan is Dolly's boyfriend and not him. The usual mess up takes place with an apparently dead detective Nunu (Shorey) at a Dubai hotel which tries to pass off as a Delhi location. You cant really expect good laughable humour from Govinda or Ritesh Deshmukh, however, certain one-liners would occasionally tickle your funny-bone. Lara Dutt seems to have worn clothes just because she was forced to and for a change Govinda looked sober. He seems to have swapped dressing sense with Sushmita Sen whose ugly dresses only made her look even more old and out of place. Its definitely an improvement from what we have been seeing since so long but still a long way to go.

Thumbs up: Govinda for his serious attempts at laughter
Thumbs down: Sushmita Sen

Rating: 5.4/10

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Shortbus (2006)

Genre: Drama/Romance

Starring: Sook Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Jay Brannan

I don't know what made me watch this movie and what is the bigger thing that is making me write this review. I thought The Dreamers was the closest one could get to seeing high levels of sexuality in an openly released movie. I was wrong. Shortbus surpasses all levels of expectations. Gay, lesbian, threesomes, you name it and this movie has it. Many would get simply grossed out after watching the first few minutes itself. Its more like a porno with a story. Sofia (Lee) is a sex therapist and is disappointed about the fact that she cant reach an orgasm and feels singled out from society. Jamie (DeBoy) and James (Dawson) are gay partners. Jamie is disappointed with life and feels lost and alone. They meet Ceth (Brannan) and very soon their duo becomes a group of three. Severin (Beamish) is a prostitute who is under depression because of what she is doing. Eveyones life in this movie seems to be a mess right now and they all meet at a sex bar called Shortbus. They all end up finding sanctuary in someone else and relieve their sexual tension and become better beings. I simply don't understand why such high and detailed levels of sexuality were required to portray this story. Even if it was, some utterly gross scenes could be avoided. The movie doesn't actually create an impact and the motivational feel that it tried to bring out. A very avoidable movie even in the censored version (I doubt if there is even one).

Thumbs up: The star casts' guts to perform those scenes on camera
Thumbs down: Everything else

Rating: 2.2/10

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COCO AVANT CHANEL

Written by Anne Fontaine and Camille Fontaine
Directed by Anne Fontaine
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Benoit Poelvoorde and Alessandro Nivola


Everyone loves to know who people were before they became famous. Were they serving up fries with that or were they offering towels to the well to do after they washed their hands in the rest room? We certainly enjoy these back stories as they offer a glimmer of hope that if these people made it somewhere when it seemed at one time that their lives were going nowhere, then we might one day accomplish the same. It may even give us a little insight into what made those we admire. That said, if their rise to the top is as tame as fashionista, Coco Chanel’s, as told in COCO AVANT CHANEL, it isn’t as easy to get all that excited.


It’s not that Chanel didn’t have humble beginnings to overcome, obstacles to tackle or brave paths to forge. It’s just that the manner in which French director, Anne Fontaine, tells them is not terribly compelling. Chanel, played by Audrey Tautou, was abandoned by her father as a girl after her mother died. She was placed in an orphanage with her sister and when she grew up, she longed to perform on the stage. When that didn’t pan out as she had hoped, she basically finagled her way into the home of millionaire, Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde), and stayed there until she had figured out what she wanted to do with herself. What she wanted was to turn her hat-making hobby into a career in fashion. What she accomplished instead was the creation of an empire.


Chanel’s story is one that deserves telling but it doesn’t make for a very engaging film. She stands apart as a fashion icon because she always held true to her own vision and she stands alone as a human being because she refused to compromise herself for love and security. Fontaine paints her as a tragically unhappy figure and Tautou follows suit with a near-permanent scowl on her face. There is never any moment where her success is celebrated or where her journey is so dire that any success at all is championed by the audience. Without any visual transformation, COCO AVANT CHANEL never comes anywhere near the elegance that made Chanel what it was.

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CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY

Written and Directed by Michael Moore


Michael Moore: I did find one guy on Wall Street who wasn’t a film critic.

“Documentary” filmmaker, Michael Moore, has a knack for making movies about timely subjects. One could argue that he makes the movies he does when he does because he wants to affect change, therefore making him a hero. One could also argue though that he picks a topic he knows will hit all the right buttons to get people talking and to get them into the theaters. He wears his “Man of the Masses” hat and puts average Americans up on the screen to prove his points and then gets his following to come see them, led gallantly by himself, of course. Using the people to make money off the people is essentially everything he denounces in CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY but Moore can’t see past his ego to see that.


It’s easy to be a hater when it comes to Moore. I don’t want to be one but when each of his movies is seemingly more about him at times than anything else (did you know he wanted to be a priest when he was a kid?), it is almost impossible not to criticize or question his intentions. Like his previous works, CAPITALISM is pieced together like a university term paper. Moore knows the point he wants to make and he finds a bunch of examples to prove that point while conveniently discarding any facts that might make his argument actually well rounded. He throws in random archival footage taken out of context to make fun of the bad guys and keeps the yuks coming with his own smug narration. When the situation is as bad as these crippling economic times though, Moore’s sarcasm is hardly necessary and barely welcome.


CAPITALISM does tell some frightening tales. Moore’s examples are extremes but it is the extremes that are threatening the demise of capitalism after all. In Pennsylvania, for instance, a corporate owned juvenile detention center was opened to take the burden off the government and the taxpayer but eventually did far worse to the community. The company bought off judges and kids were incarcerated for minor offences with lengthy, lucrative stays. If that’s not bad enough for you, there are also companies out there taking life insurance policies out on their employees without their knowledge. When the employee dies, not to suggest that companies are killing their employees or anything, the already rich company collects and the surviving family struggles with funeral costs. Perhaps if Moore would allow more of these atrocities to speak for themselves, his voice would be better heard.


You know Moore’s ego is somewhat out of control when he claims that he warned us about this collapse over twenty years ago when he put out his first film, ROGER AND ME. How could we not have heeded his cautionary counsel? If we had, perhaps all of this economic calamity could have been avoided. Herein lies the trouble with CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY; sarcasm begets more of the same, not change. And while it is amusing from a popular culture standpoint to see Moore being refused entry to the General Motors headquarters in Detroit yet again, it only really serves as confirmation that Moore matters more to Moore than anything he supposedly stands for.

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Best of Black Sheep: ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED

When most people think of Roman Polanski, they immediately remember his legal troubles over a sexual encounter with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, when he was 44. To counterbalance this common instant reaction, Marina Zenovich’s new HBO documentary, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, does as much as it can to remind you about the other great hardships of Polanski’s life. There have been plenty, that’s for sure. He lost his mother and father during the Second World War, his mother losing her life in Auschwitz. He survived somehow and eventually made his way to London, where he pursued a career in filmmaking, something he always knew he wanted to do. It was there that he met his future wife, actress, Sharon Tate. They made a life for themselves in Los Angeles and for a while, they were happy. Then Tate, eight months pregnant at the time with Polanski’s child, was murdered in her home along with four others in a horrific fashion at the hands of Charles Manson and his “family”. Still Polanski soldiered on and he did so by producing some of Holywood’s greatest classics, like ROSEMARY’S BABY and CHINATOWN. Polanski has had incredible highs and horrendous lows and while he should be both commended and consoled, he still slept with a minor and that can’t be forgotten.


With so many dramatic experiences to choose from, it isn’t difficult for Zenovich to string her piece together. Despite its straightforward approach, it is never quite clear where she stands on Polanski’s behaviour. She does focus her documentary to show how no matter how many other things have happened in Polanski’s life that this one particular mistake is the event that defines it all. However, she never questions his judgment and leaves the opinion forming to her audience. This would ordinarily be a respectable decision but Zenovich’s intentions may not be as noble as they appear. She presents us with a very well balanced argument regarding whether Polanski received a fair trial or not. Lead legal counsel for both the defense and the prosecution are interviewed and, lending volumes of weight to the film, they both present relatively similar accounts of the trial and what went on behind the scenes. It is the behind the scenes material that puts the issue of fairness into question. The proceedings were overseen by Judge Lawrence Rittenband, a judge notorious for his attraction toward celebrity and the idea of being one himself. Rittenband essentially orchestrated the proceedings of his court as though he were directing a film and the intended audience was the press. Zenovich has shown us the charade and while this is all horribly unjust, it still does not negate what Polanski did.


The next question is whether what Polanski did thirty years ago even matters now. Samantha Geimer, the plaintiff in the case, who also appears in the film, has forgiven Polanski publicly. The judge now responsible for the case has stated for the record that Polanski would not serve any jail time if he were to reenter the United States. The man even won an Oscar for directing THE PIANIST in 2002. Clearly the world has moved on but Zenovich has brought us back. Her approach is well-rounded; her style is formulaic but solid. The only thing missing is a genuine satisfaction that her efforts have been fully realized. ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED alludes to Polanski being wanted in one country and desired in others but does nothing to suggest what the wants and desires mean about those feeling them. So all we’re truly left with is another reminder of what he did.

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Snatch (2000)

Genre: Comedy/Crime/Drama

Starring: Jason Statham, Brad Pitt, Alan Ford, Benicio Del Toro, Stephen Graham, Dennis Farina, Rade Serbedzija, Lenni James, Vinnie Jones, Robby Gee

I had to see this movie the second time just in order to post a review for it here. A long cock and bull story all for an 84-carat diamond. A very typical Guy Ritchie movie with black humour, sarcasm and one-liners. Every character has their own funny accent to talk in and the movie is best understood with subtitles, especially if you wanna get past what Brad Pitt is trying to say. Franky Four Fingers (Toro) stole a diamond and brought it to London. He informs Cousin Avi (Farina) and in the course of time, a bit too many people get informed. It now becomes a wild goose chase to reach the diamond first. Somewhere else, Turkish (Statham) the boxing promoter named after an airline and his associate Tommy (Graham) not named after a gun but in fact a ballet dancer, go out caravan shopping to some gypsies. They end up losing their best fighter who has a match coming up and decide to replace him with Mickey (Pitt) the gypsy who knocked him out. Brick Top (Ford) the boxing event organiser and a gangster notorious for feeding people to the pigs, has the event rigged and wants Mickey out in the fourth round. Boris the Bullet Dodger (Serbedzija) sends Franky to Brick Top's bookies to put up a bet for that very boxing match. He sends Sol (James) and Vinny (Gee) behind him to steal the case carrying the diamonds. Avi learns about Boris' scheme and hires Bullet-Tooth Tony (Jones) to go look for the sneaky f****** Russian and retrieve the diamond which now is in his possession. It's one whole big mess which also involves a dog who swallowed half a shoe, a squeaky toy and an 84-carat diamond. Might not be a laugh out loud comedy, but definitely worth a watch, if not two.

Thumbs up: Everything
Thumbs down: Nothing

Rating: 8.4/10

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