Some of you might know I am a avid film watcher. I enjoy good movies. Movies are a great art form, almost the most complex art form. It is so difficult to get it right since there are so many variables that affect the experience of watching a movie. It is no wonder good movies are hard to come by. Given that a lot of cost is involved in making a movie, there is a strong urge to make it profitable at the expense of one or more mediocre (or at the least, formulaic) mechanisms to make it easy for the audience to consume. A bunch of predictable gags, plot twists, mundane music etc…

Film festivals are an opportunity  for people to showcase experimental works or try different ideas and experiment with the audience. Sometimes they work and other times they fall flat on the face. And that is the risk of watching shows in festivals. I have had pretty bad experiences before and have suffered very substandard (pseudo art) and have been generally disappointed. So much so that I avoid watching unknown shows – Couple that with the fact that local festival movies are priced much higher (10 bucks a pop compared to a 7.50 for a regularly distributed show).

But I decided to watch a couple of shown in the recent Animation Nation. I needed to watch at least 2 to increase my chances of catching a good show. Well the outcome was neutral but I am happy that one of the shows was really spectacular and the other was bordering on down right crap (though it had some really awesome sequence that made it reasonable to sit through). So what were the shows:

Musashi: This was the first one I watched. The synopsis mentioned Great music, and ‘inventive’ animation. I should say that the music was great in bits, especially the traditional japanese bits. The rest was rubbish. The animation was superb during the Samurai sequences and utter crap in the rest of the movie. The bits that were great were handled by the same guy who did the O-ren Ishii sequence in Kill Bill, Vol 1. The style shows through. But apart from the 20 minutes of those sequence, dispersed in bits and pieces throughout the movie, the rest was absolutely annoying. If I can extract out those 20 minutes, I could watch that without any audio and just enjoy the beautiful animation. Overall, not recommended to spend time on the show though.

Mary and Max: This, on the other hand, was a brilliant show. Stop motion animation with a lot of attention to detail almost in the cadre of Aadvark Animation shows (recall Wallace and Gromit). The movie is great, a very gentle movie dealing with lonely people becoming pen pals. The voice acting was great especially Max (I found out it was Philip Seymour Hoffman), the music was brilliant, sets were nice and the story incredible. I guess makes me start looking for the next film festival Watch it if you get the chance.

I guess the gamble paid off this time though I should look to increase my chances by careful scrutiny next time.

I have been a fan of Studio Ghibli’s animation since I watched Spirited away several years ago. Since then, I have made a good collection of their art books and comics and have made an attempt to watch all their new releases and catching up on the older ones on Video.

Of late, Disney has been re-releasing English dubs of the original shows and I cannot stand to watch them. I think the Japanese voice talent in these shows are so unique and I cannot imagine watching them any other way. the movies are so nicely paced that you actually do not need any subtitles to enjoy the show, however if you want to understand the complex plot lines, then multiple watchings with subtitles will be needed and I would prefer that more than a dubbed version.

So I have been hunting for these animations whenever I get to a DVD shop and most often I end up disappointed. I finally discovered a Box set for about a dozen of their classics including Totoro, POm poko, Pocco Roso, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Naussica and the really awesome Princess Mononoke. It also included takahata’s movies like Only Yesterday, Ocean Waves etc… I was Extremely happy with the collection but the video / audio quality left much to be desired. Well something was better than nothing and I enjoyed the shows whenever I had time.

recently, I found a couple of their other shows including Grave of fireflies, also in pretty low quality video. When I had the opportunity in japan, I decided against buying the DVD’s there due to the exorbitant cost (each cost > 50 SGD). So I had to wait. Until Now.

A Singaporean firm is releasing a bunch of the Ghibli movies in nice collectible Tin boxes for a decent 20 SGD. I am guessing it is in part due to the release of the DVD for Ponyo. I bought a few, a friend funded some too and tried to keep my expectation level low. But I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. Both Audio and Video were good when playing out of the PS3. It could be due to the up sampling but it is nice none the less. Great Success.

Now, I will have to restrain myself from duplicating my collection, I am tempted but I will resist. If anyone is in the market, head to the local Blue Max / Laser Flair, I am sure Gramophone would also stock it. Not so sure about HMV / That CD Shop. Have fun hunting.

Great Animation, I should stop saying that… Pixar sets the bar and exceeds them each year and the quality does not surprise me anymore.

Good Movie. Good, not Great. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the movie – a lot. But I am just starting to wear from the bubblegum cartoons that are starting to represent more of Disney and less of the Pixar I loved in Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille and Wall E. I am not sure if it is the director or the studio that results in creating streamlined one-dimensional characters that are designed for children.

American animation studios are generally stuck in making formulaic movies, having simple single dimensional characters that are easy for kids to relate to, have enough visual gags and some toilet humor for the kids amusement, have adult in-jokes, puns, gags and references to keep the adult parents happy and have a moral at the end. It sells tickets and that is a good business plan when investing millions. But Pixar has stood out of this crowd. On top of the formula, the Pixar directors managed to weave good and sometimes complex plots and characters. Think of Wall-E, the robot, Mr. Incredible, Sully from Monsters Inc. and Mr. Carl Fredrickson from Up. No other American Animation studio has a repertoire of such characters in their films ans that is Pixar’s strength.

But Pixar has its failings. They are built on top of the formula and the foundation is their Achilles heel. The movies fail to travel too far from the formula. Many characters are kept intentionally simple, this is true especially of the Villains. Syndrome was a confused kid in the Incredibles but since the focus was on the family, they made him almost purely evil. They did the same to the Axiom central computer in Wall-E and almost did it to the chef Skinner in Ratatouille. Up has a similar failing with Explorer Charles Muntz. He is not really a bad guy. He has been living in the wild with dogs for 60 odd years and is eager to clear his name in the ‘civilized’ world. He is eccentric and pissed off in his pursuit of the ‘Bird’. But I am not sure that would make him such a straightforward evil guy. I’d wish that he was more confused and eccentric rather than a bad character. Probably that is just me.

The beginning of the movie was awesome. The first 10 minutes were perfect. Great music and a bit fast paced, but I will take it. Elley was a real complex character, I wanted to see more of her, but I was left out as was Carl. You don’t see that often in animation, forget animation, you don’t see that often in most movies. The dogs were awesome and probably the most complete characters – So fickle minded, they lose focus with  the slightest distraction. I wished Charles Muntz was like that too. That would have been great. Carl was great as a grumpy old man and he was like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino without the foul mouth and the guns . It would have been fun if he did have a foul mouth though. I am guess it may never happen. Animations cannot recover cost if they have a R rating. Damn.

There is a lot of emphasis on spectacle in Animated movies. More so for Up, I am guessing it is because it was made for 3D and they needed to ‘Wow’ the viewer. I didnt care much for that. Overall the movie was impressive, and lot better than most of the other animations this year. I have not watched Coraline and that seems impressive and extremely creative from the trailers. Need to get hold of a DVD. Previews of ‘9′ seem impressive. I am intrigued and waiting to watch.

It would seem that I am not totally ‘wowed’ by Up. That is not true. The movie is awesome. I am just having extremely high expectations when heading to a Pixar Movie and end up focusing on the flaws. It is also likely that I am ever more strongly attracted to the slow pacing and dry wit in Ghibli style movies that bubble gummy gags don’t tickle my fancy much. Pixar seems to walk the tight rope between these two styles and slip a little either way. I am not complaining but wary of their future movies. Toy story 3? Monsters Inc 2? Not sure how these are going to pan out…

You know I write about movies now and then, especially when I watch one that catches my fancy. I watched Gran Torino Recently and it is one fine movie that I think most of us should watch.

The more I watch Clint Eastwood’s movies, the more I realize movies are an epitome of art medium and sometimes the most restrained art strikes the best chord. The more I realize the whiz bang high budget Hollywood show biz is not art but entertainment and should be consumed as such. But when great movies come along, one should savor the moment (or the show) and hope more of such movies should be available for general consumption.

I want to watch Gran Torino expecting Clint Eastwood would be at his bad ass best since his spaghetti westerns and in a manner of speaking, he was at his bad ass best. But in line with his relatively mellow and personal movies like Mystic River, this movie ambles along at a very comfortable pace until the final showdown. There are relatively few movies that talk about the end of life issues of old farts (as a figure of speech). A couple come to mind, About Schmidt, Million Dollar Baby are really fine movies. it is difficult to keep attention when our ‘Hero’ is a septuagenarian with all the irritability that comes along with age and even more difficult to keep us interested in their future, but these movies do a good job.

Getting to the point, Walt (clint eastwood) is a tough old man with issues and is increasingly living in an alien neighborhood. His neighbors slowly befriend him and over time he gets closer to them than he ever got to his own kids. He takes care of the kids in his neighborhood in his personal style and when one of them is brutally assaulted, he takes the fight back to the gangs (also in his own style). It is difficult to say much more in terms of the story line. What is really nice is the building up of the drama till the final ’showdown’. In his directorial style, the movie is very restrained in terms of the music and also the minimalist lighting and pace. But they come together well to build to the ‘climax’.

What was a let down was the acting, the kids were pretty shoddy unlike the supporting cast in Million Dollar Baby or About Schmidt. Well, I didnt really care much, the young girl was cute and dont give a damn if she can act or not, heh.

To me the best part of the movie was the meditative pace in which he builds up to the ’showdown’. Cleaning out the guns, pausing for a smoke, a nice chat with his dog etc… It is like stretching a rubber band slowly until it snaps, it is pretty brilliant.

Another ‘Old-Farts’ movie I watched recently (I recall on in-flight shows) was the Bucket list, which incidentally had some brilliant actors with a shoddy ‘Hollywoodean’ premise and was something I don’t bother talking about. But in this case, it was a brilliant movie with some shoddy acting. I don’t mind that at all and think along with the Reader, is probably one of the best movies I would watch this year.

I know he watched this too, and if I guess right, this is probably his kind of movie too. Wonder what he thought of it.

*Spoiler Alert*

Firstly, look out for an excellent comment on the film from number-nine. Much of my sentiments about the movie is expressed well there.

The movie is filled with ideas that one should take sides with but it is difficult to figure out which side one would be on. For instance,

1. An older woman is having an affair with a 15 year old kid. Today, the legal implications are clear but I am sure it is every teen’s dream to be in the position anyway The situation calls for cringe worthy viewing and it would have been if it was the older  Michael Berg having an affair with the younger Hannah. The morality of the situation is ambiguous.
2. During the trial, we witness the once lovable Hannah in the courtroom accused of murder during WWII. When we know some person’s secrets (and the skeletons in their closet) does it change the fact that we liked (or even loved) the person once? Should knowledge of history (or lack there of) affect the way we relate to people? I don’t think it is easy to take a stand here either. The story takes an extreme case of a literally hundreds of skeletons in the closet but that is just a tease to see if the extent of crime affects how we react. Like Hannah says at some point “No I did not think about the war until the trial”, essentially claiming it it was done in the line of duty.
3. I suppose posing such dilemma is critical to involve the audience into the story and I recently watched a couple of very different movies that pose moral dilemmas too.
   1. In Dogville, honest, hard working folks start to bare teeth when they find an opportunity to oppress. When in the boots of the characters, it is difficult to realize the consequence of the actions. One can make a stretch to see that Hannah in the Reader probably could not make the right judgment during times of war. But as Grace from Dogville muses, sometimes, the best efforts put by a person is not good enough. It is likely that Michael thought during the trial that Hannah deserves the punishment.
   2. In another, not a particularly thought provoking film, Gone baby gone, a private detective is confronted with the question of letting a little girl stay with a loving family that kidnapped her or to return her to her drug addicted, alcoholic mother. He chooses to return the kid to her mother but pays the price of losing his girlfriend and finds that the kid does not get the care and attention she deserves. I guess this is a similar dilemma faced by Michael when he chose to withhold information that could lessen the sentence on Hannah and suffers the rest of his life in silence.
4. Toward the end of the movie, when Michael decides to visit Hannah, there is a sequence where he wants to get a sense of righteousness for his actions (of hiding information during the trial).
   • Michael: “So, Did you think about the past when you were in here?”
   • Hannah: With happiness, “About Us?”
   • Michael: “No, about what you did during the War.”
   • Hannah: “I never thought about it until the trial.”

   The movie tries so hard not to take sides on the issue, and is very successful in doing that.

I guess in the end Michael has to live through the consequences of choices / decisions he made. He tries to ease his guilt by sending Hannah, numerous tapes of books he used to read to her, following up on her last wishes and sharing her story with his daughter. But I guessing there is no simple cure to standing on any side of the fence.

Rarely do movies strike an emotional chord in me. I love watching movies and have set up a good collection of movies over the years. I can summarize my need for watching movies under three umbrellas, entertainment, technical / artistic merit and lastly to tickle the emotions. A number of movies are able to satisfy the first 2 aspects for me but rarely do they indulge my emotions. It could partly be because I couldn’t care less for on screen emotions when there is shit going on around in the real world.

But then there are movies like “Nights of Cabiria” or “The Bicycle Thief” that are simple in their premise but extremely poignant. I suppose it is because they revolve around events in one character’s life while the world goes on as usual around them. I guess the normalcy of the environment keeps the distractions away and gets me more involved with the story at hand. Rarely do movies achieve this. To achieve dramatic effect, people tend to push the surroundings selectively to conspire for or against the story being told. This distances me from the story and I merely become an observer unwilling to believe the situation the characters are in. Drama is good some times, I am not arguing against it, it is just that I don’t get involved when things are dramatic for the sake of being so.

Recently, I watched Hotaru no Haka (Grave of the Fireflies), it blew my mind.

Some spoilers in the following passages: The movie deals with the side effect of war and focuses on the life of two kids. As a result of the war and frequent air raids, the kids lose their home and family and consequently suffer for the basic needs of food and shelter. Nii-Chan the brother is the strong one. He faces up to the adversities and does everything possible to protect his sister. When their mother dies, he keeps it to himself and tells tall tales to keep his sister amused (she is a little girl and want to go back to her mother). But he cannot restrain himself when Setsuko casually remarks, while clearing bugs (fireflies) from their shelter, how their mother is in a similar grave. The movie jumps from such a strongly emotional moment to a very light poetry like passage full of giggles and laughter – they are still kids after all…

At times, the background turns entirely transparent, we get so used to the war in the background that we become de-sensitized. Much like how I feel when watching footage of bombings and murders and deaths on news networks. After the opening sequence, the war never bothers you any more, it is the story of the kids that draws you in. The animation is not spectacular (at-least not by today’s standard), but that is really not the point, it hits home when it matters. I nearly cried watching the movie (and I don’t mind admitting that) and I am glad I watched the show.

I first heard about the Bicycle thief (ladri di biciclette, 1948) when I read about satyajit ray, the Indian film maker. It was referenced in the context of inspiring Ray to take the camera and shoot out in the open – which eventually fueled his vision in making pather panchali.

I happened to get hold of a copy of the movie at one of the local stores selling at a really good price (5 SGD = 3 USD) and I immediately picked it up. However, I managed to watch the show only recently but am really glad I did so.

One can guess the direction of this review – it is positive all the way and the movie deserves it well. First off, the movie deserves credit for making the action sequences dynamic. Of course they are pretty silly by today’s standards but looking at some of the shots and imagining it in context of 1948, it feels surreal.

The real oomph in the movie is actually the simplistic linear storyline that taks us through the entire gamut of human emotions. The character that guides us through the movie is Ricci, a poor, unemployed person who gets an opportunity to make a decent living when he gets a decent paying job. The catch is that he needs a bicycle to accept the job. After he manages to retrieve his bike from the pawn shop, he starts his journey in high hopes of giving his wife and son a good life. Then starts the roller coaster – He manages to lose his bike in the city and goes through a number of emotional stares – desperation, frustration, depression, skepticism, faith, rage, denial, jealousy, resentment, and finally shame, embarrassment and realization. It is amazing how such a simple story can take the audience through so many emotions and not feel overly engineered in plot.

The movie works due to its simplicity and realism in the way the characters are portrayed. There are various times in the movie when you think the problem will be resolved but the life as we all know is not always fair and whatever Ricci tries – either good or bad ends up blowing right in his face. The movie gets to a close with Ricci holding on tightly to what is most valuable to him and contemplating on his losses both physical and moral. The last shot of the characters disappearing into a maddening crowd is truly inspired and makes the problems that we have been witnessing as one that is experienced by all of us at situations that are uniquely or own.

It is a great movie that definitely calls for repeated watching.

Well most of us (who have intrest in or forced to study physics) have come across terms that are almost philosophical in the way they sound. Relativity, duality of particles, uncertainty principle etc… Most of these fuzzy concepts either led to or helped in building up quantum mechanics. For those not in the know, Quantum mechanics is the new theory that explains very accutately (today) about the workings of the universe at all scales. The problem with classical physics was that at very small scale (atomic particles), it is unable to explain some funny observations but this was compensated by Quantum mechanics. But the problem was that the theory behind Quantum mechanics is not easy to explain as it hides under multiple layers of complicated mathematics and to fully comprehend what is going on, pne has to be a trained mathematician and physicist.

The consequence was that as the theories gained popularity among the scientific cmmunity, the rest of us keep hearing these fuzzy terms and gave these scientific terms mythical status. One of these terms is UNCERTAINTY.

It was based on purely mathematical mumbo-jumbo but so was a lot of other theories until thought experiments and real experiments show the reality of these theories. Anyway, the uncertinty principle (as it is called) was found by Werner heisenberg – a german mathematician – physicist during the 30’s when was an apprentice to Neils Bhor – an eminent dutch physicist – who proposed the theory of the structure of the atom. Anyway, Heisenberg came to Bohr after the 1st World war in 1921 and they became great friends and very close. At some point, Heisenberg decided to be part of the German Physics academy. When the Nazi’s were getting into power, they drove all the Jewish physicists away (majority of Theoritical physicists in germany were jewish) who went off to England and USA. Heisenberg was german and he decided to stay with the academy. Now this made a lot of his colleagues around the world uncomfortable as he is an atomic physicist – a really good one – in the payroll of a maniac. Everyone knew at this time that the atomic energy is a reality and it is just a matter of time before someone makes an “atomic bomb”.

The year was 1941, World War II was in its full swing, America was pushing a lot of resources into atomic research and some of the best minds in business were at Los Alamos – figuring out how to make a bomb. And Heisenberg calls Neils Bohr to meet up. Now, Bohr was half jewish and almost fleeing denmark (He did flee in 1943) and everyone knew that he was abreast of the latest developments in atomic physics in England and America. And the question is why does Heisenberg – the leader of german Atomic research want to meet Neils Bhor – an old and trusted friend (and someone who knows about the allied forces atomic research) in the middle of a war?

What is known is that after the meeting, Bohr was extremely angry and the friendship between the two scientists came to an end. There are numerus speculations on what the conversation between these two guys was. There are some who think Heisenberg came with a proposition that turned Bohr sick while others think Bohr might not have understood what Heisenberg had to say – due to his situation may be.

The movie Copenhagen is an exploration of the relationshops between these scientists and an attempt at decipherig the events of the fateful meeting. The movie is adapted from a play and feels very much like theater – very dramatic in presentation and has only 3 characters in total. Neils Bohr, his wife and Werner Heisenberg. But is very well written and true to the way scientists dissect problems, the plot is disected and even plays in multiple “Drafts” each time, clarifyinf the intentions of each of the characters. We see that each of them acts in the best way possible under the circumstances and everyone has good intention.

But staying in sync with Uncertainty theme, the story never resolves itself. There is a closure if you are looking for one but not an emphatic statement of what exactly happened during the fateful night in 1941. I guess that will always be a mystery.

Great movie if you want to watch one. But beware that if you are unaware of quantum physics, penetrating the dialogues may be a chore.

Copenhagen is a PBS production and there is lot more information on the PBS site.