PLANES: Fire and Rescue/PLANES2

Dozens of talking, humanoid, attractive planes+hundreds of talking, humanoid vehicles of all cute shapes and sizes+lush landscapes+recurrent forest fires+zero human beings. That is the cast and locale of PLANES: Fire and Rescue, a Disneytoon production, directed by Bobs Gannaway, sequel to the 2013 PLANES, directed by Klay Hall. It is a 3D animated comedy, with morals galore and a handicapped hero who comes of age in the climax.

You might recall the earlier outing: Dusty Crophopper, a former crop-duster plane dreams of competing as a high-flying air racer. But he is not exactly built for racing—and he happens to be afraid of heights. So he turns to a seasoned naval aviator, who helps Dusty qualify to take on the defending champ of the race circuit.

Cut to 2014: When world-famous air racer Dusty returns to hometown Propwash Junction after another victorious racing season, the former crop duster revels in his new career success, until a fateful training run changes his course with a career-ending injury. He learns that his gear-box is damaged and he may never race again. Forced to shift gears, he is launched into the world of aerial firefighting. Dusty joins forces with veteran fire and rescue helicopter Blade Ranger and his team, a bunch of all-terrain vehicles known as The Smokejumpers. Together, the fearless team battles a massive wildfire, and Dusty learns what it takes to become a true hero, in 83 minutes of screen time.

Meet three other central planes. Blade Ranger, a veteran fire-and-rescue helicopter, heads up the Piston Peak Air Attack team. Haunted by a troubled past, he’s a tough and demanding air boss with a wry sense of humour, and he’s not exactly enthusiastic about his new trainee Dusty. But Blade is a pro and does everything he can to bring the new Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT) up to speed.

Outgoing and spirited super air tanker Dipper is skilled at skimming lakes, scooping up more than 1600 gallons of water and dousing angry fires. A former cargo hauler from Alaska, Dipper is an avid air racing fan with a major crush on headline racer Dusty, so she’s head-over-wheels with excitement when the new SEAT shows up at Piston Peak.

By 1978, Nick ‘Loopin’ Lopez was America's favorite helicopter cop, featured on TV’s CHoPs, a show about two California Helicopter Patrol choppers. Nick, the troublemaking macho young officer, got the nickname ‘Loopin’ from his signature inside loop, which no other helicopter could perform.

Director/co-writer Robert ‘Bobs’ Gannaway co-directed ‘Secret of the Wings,’ with Peggy Holmes. During his 19-year career with Disney, he has served as writer/producer/director on more than 300 half-hour episodes of television animation series. Prior to his work at the Disney Channel, Gannaway wrote feature screenplays for Warner Bros., Walt Disney and Paramount Pictures. He developed several projects for Disney Feature Animation, including Roald Dahl’s ‘Matilda,’ and he also co-wrote the screenplay for Turner Feature Animation’s ‘Cats Don’t Dance.’

PLANES 2, which has extensively researched over a period of four years with real fire-fighters at a base known as CalFire, has a lot of thrills and details. The jargon used in the film might not appeal to kids in the age group of 3-12, the film’s main audience. Neither will the language-based jokes and puns like Fusel Lodge (fusillage). Most likely, the no holds barred beginning, with a battery of sound and visuals will dazzle kids. So will the vehicles that use tyres as hands, lower bonnets and fenders as mouths and wind-shields as eyes. Repeated refrains of “old is better than new” would strike a chord among senior citizens, many of who mourn the phasing away of 35 mm film, radio sets, turn-tables and cassettes. But children are usually attracted to the very latest, only the very latest.

Voices are lent by, among others, Dane Cook (Dusty Crophopper), Ed Harris (Blade Ranger), Julie Bowen (Lil' Dipper), Curtis Armstrong (Maru), Hal Holbrook (Mayday), Stacy Keach (Skipper). Even at the cost of sounding older than 12, one cannot help enjoying veterans Harris, Keach and Holbrook. And Armstrong? Was he trying to sound like an existentialist Red Indian? Ha ha!

Award-winning composer Mark Mancina, who won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack Album (with Phil Collins) for his work on Disney's 1999 feature Tarzan, produced and composed the score for PLANES: Fire & Rescue. “There's a lot of orchestral percussion, French horn, strings and woodwinds,” he says. “There is added texture from other types of instruments, but the heart of the score is an orchestra.” The melodic score was recorded with a 90-piece orchestra. For Dusty's training montage, film-makers agreed it called for a bold acoustic piano that would stand out from the orchestra.

Brad Paisley performs two new songs for the film, including 'Runway Romance,' which was written by director Bobs Gannaway and Danny Jacob, and 'All In,' a song Paisley signed on to write and perform after hearing of the film's firefighting themes. 'My father's a firefighter,' says Paisley. Newcomer/singer/songwriter Spencer Lee performs 'Still I Fly,' a song he co-composed with his writing partners Windy Wagner and Michael 'Smidi' Smith. 'Still I Fly' can be heard when Dusty, after discovering that he may never race again, leaves Propwash Junction en route to Piston Peak to train as an aerial firefighter. Music add to the texture of the film.

There is little doubt that the film is being used by Disney as a marketing tool to sell plane and car models. Check out the accompanying picture from their website (the top toy plane reatils at about $30).

Rating: From my adult eyes: **1/2

From the eyes of the 6 year-old within me: ***

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XMJ1D7AXYQ

CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia diary, Singapore, June 2014 --A revisit 12 years later, to a block-buster event

Sony’s new camcorders and Ericsson’s 4K campaign

Sony released two new cameras in the XDCAM series of cameras at Broadcast Asia, Singapore, last month. The PXW-160 and 180 both feature 3 1/3"full HD Exmor CMOS sensors. A 25x zoom (26mm-650mm 35mm equivalent) G lens and a world first electronic variable Neutral Density (ND) are two of the stand out features. Full HD XAVC Intra and XAVC Long GOP recordings and MPEG HD 422 50 Mbps offer budget savings and workflow flexibility for broadcast and professional applications. Sony PXW-X160 Camcorder captures Documentary, Reality and Live Events, including handheld applications.

In contrast to the PXW-X180, the PXW-X160 does not have wireless functionality, NFC or GPS, lowering the price but keeping the same level of performance. It can record in XAVC Intra and Long GOP, enabling 10-bit sampling for HD recordings with a long tonal range, and also the MPEG HD422 at 50 Mbps format now used frequently in broadcast and production. It records in MPEG HD420 at 35 Mbps, AVCHD and DV formats as well.

The MXF file format is used for XAVC recording, compressing full-HD 1920 x 1080 resolution using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 codec. Image sampling is 4:2:2 10-bit with Intra-frame compression at 112 Mbps, or high-efficiency Long-GOP compression at 50/35/25 Mbps. As the successor of HVR-Z7 and HXR-NX5, the PXW-X160 has a lot of attractive features, including dual SxS memory card slots, and variable ND filter, that provides four conventional mechanical 4 ND filter positions or a linear switch dial for more control in changing light conditions., high resolution, high sensitivity, low noise, and wide dynamic range for enhanced shooting under severe lighting conditions and more creative freedom.

Prices are being quoted in the GBP 3,100-3,700 range.

The PXW-X180 three 1/3-inch type Exmo  CMOS sensors camcorder records Full HD XAVC Intra and XAVC Long GOP, as well as MPEG HD 422 50 Mbps, MPEG HD 420 35 Mbps, AVCHD and DV, making it ideal for a wide range of applications from education/videography to news and broadcast production. As the successor to the HVR-Z7 and HXR-NX5, the PXW-X180 has a lot of attractive features, including dual SxS memory card slots, proxy recording on SD card, a G Series fixed 25x HD zoom lens with 26mm wide angle and variable ND filter, that provides four conventional mechanical 4 ND filter positions or a linear switch dial for more control in changing light conditions.

Another new and unique feature of the camera is that it’s Sony’s first broadcast camera to feature an internal variable neutral density (ND) filter. This give it the ability to have the N/D adjusted in smooth continues levels from 1/4 to 1/128, instead of the traditional 3 setting N/D wheel. Other features:

*High resolution, high sensitivity, low noise, and wide dynamic range for enhanced shooting under severe lighting conditions and more creative freedom.

*Offers remote control via a smart-phone or tablet computer using a Wi-Fi connection, and recorded video files can be transferred from the camcorder to smart-phone in MP4 format.

*One-touch authentication is also possible with smart-phones that offer NFC connectivity.

*Wi-Fi operation cannot be guaranteed with all smart-phones and tablet computers.

Some sellers are quoting prices around £3,999.00 --£4,798.80+VAT.

Ericsson’s Vision 2020                                                           

Ericsson was a star attraction at BroadcastAsia, which attracted over 17,500 visitors from 87 countries. Its booth had attractive young ladies offering cold drinks. I jocularly asked whether they were serving Singapore’s home brewed Tiger beer. One young lady pulled out a can of Tiger and offered it to me. Since it was a joke and I had no intention of consuming that beer, I kept it, to be offered later to someone who would do justice to it. The ne3st day, I dropped into the booth again, and guess what? She was opening the cans, pouring them into glasses and only then allowing visitors to carry it with them.

After the four-day event was over, I came across a piece on the Ericsson website, written by Warren Chaisatien, Head of TV Marketing, Australia and New Zealand, Ericsson, in charge of positioning the company for market technology and thought leadership across the region. I felt it summarised the highlights of the Ericsson participation at BroadcastAsia and also outlined its vision 2020.

BroadcastAsia 2014 review: Collaboration key to success in the TV industry in APAC

Ericsson had a major presence at this year’s show, with activities ranging from on-booth demonstrations of recently launched solutions (including Ericsson Virtualised Encoding and the AVP 1000 stream processor), to thought-leadership seminars and speaker sessions alongside a number of leading TV service providers, broadcasters and industry partners. As I explained to a number of industry delegates, the future of TV lies with efficient video delivery and working towards making every network video-centric. This will be imperative as industry players drive new revenues, reduce costs and understand the most critical elements of the evolving TV landscape.

Evolving TV and video trends in Asia-Pacific

If we look at the APAC region as a whole, we can see that the expansion and availability of broadband is rapidly increasing demand for IPTV and OTT services. According to research by Media Partners Asia, APAC is set to witness a significant rise in fixed broadband subscribers, rising from 310 million in 2013 to 400 million by 2018. The 2014 Digital TV World Revenue Forecast also highlights how Pay-TV revenues are set to grow by nearly $15 billion from 2013 to 2020 – a growth of nearly 50 percent. As the BroadcastAsia tagline alludes, it’s time to ‘Discover the Right Business Model to Harness Technology and Monetise Content.’

These trends form part of Ericsson’s recently launched Media Vision 2020, which outlines our view of the future of the TV and media landscape and the necessary strategies required to deliver success in this new era. Discover more about Ericsson’s Media Vision 2020 here.

Ericsson Media Vision 2020 Roundtable

My Ericsson colleague Simon Frost, Head of TV Marketing, led a roundtable featuring a number of leading telecom operators, broadcasters and content providers from across Southeast Asia and Oceania. As one of the participants on the panel, I was keen to stress how our industry must change and embrace the opportunities and challenges of a rapidly evolving marketplace, which will be worth $750 billion in just six years’ time. By 2020, a new era will emerge, where:

•There are 9 billion people, over 8 billion mobile broadband subscriptions and 1.5 billion homes with digital television;

•OTT services account for 41 percent of the total TV viewing experience, compared to traditional broadcast channels; and

•Consumers in advanced markets will have shifted their patterns to a 50-50 split of the time spent with on-demand and time-shift vs. linear and live TV.

On the path to 2020, collaboration and flexibility will be key as the entire media value chain continues to be reshaped by fresh innovations and shifting consumer preferences. We believe that bringing together relevant industry players to make services as simple, accessible and convenient as possible for consumers to view and pay for will be key to achieving success. Technology and connectivity is enabling interplay between new players and as such, there is a clear need to bring the ecosystem together in order to monetize these new opportunities.

Popularity of true 4K UHDTV at BroadcastAsia 2014

Another of the show’s hot topics was 4K UHDTV, with the on-going World Cup offering a primary example of how the technology can be harnessed for TV audiences in the very near future. We demonstrated true 4K UHDTV end-to-end video transmissions over satellite at our booth. The transmission consisted of live sports programming, with the replayed images encoded using the Ericsson AVP 2000 Contribution encoders. The video was then transmitted from London to our show booth in Singapore, marking APAC’s first live 4K transmission! 

The future of 4K UHDTV and adoption rates will be highly dependent upon the way in which our industry presents this technology. Fundamentally, 4K UHDTV is all about the consumer experience. If true 4K UHDTV can be transformed into an immersive, cinematic television experience for the living room, we believe consumer uptake will soon follow. To enable this level of experience, the technology requires 10-bit depth data values for all content, and 50-60 frames per second for sports and other complex motion content.

In the next 18 months, we expect to see a number of highly significant developments that we believe will accelerate the growth of this technology. The emergence of a new Ultra High Definition (UHD) Serial Digital Interface (SDI) later this year and the availability of real-time videos over IP infrastructures (2015+) will see:

•Expanded colorimetry

•A continuation of the higher frame rate debate- can our industry reach 100-120 frames per second?

•The vetting of higher dynamic range proposals

It will be fascinating to see how the growth of 4K UHDTV technology develops by the time BroadcastAsia reconvenes in June 2015.

(Warren Chaisatien’s current focus areas include TV and Media, Mobile Broadband, and OSS/BSS. He is also a Networked Society Evangelist, advancing Ericsson’s vision of a world with 50 billion connected devices.

Warren has more than 15 years of international ICT industry experience in sales and marketing, as well as strategy and consulting, spanning North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Before joining Ericsson in 2010, he was a multi-award-winning telecom analyst in Canada and Australia, and has written over 100 industry papers. Warren holds a master’s degree in engineering management from Sydney's University of Technology).                                                                                                                        (continued)

James Garner: Rockford, the Maverick

James Scott Bumgarner, born on 07 April 1928 in Oklahoma, known to millions of film-buffs as James Garner, died on 19 July 2014, aged 86. Here’s a tribute to the TV and film-star.

It was a tough childhood, by any standards. James’ mother Mildred died when he was four. His father, Weldon (Bill), an alcoholic, remarried. The new mother was abusive. Soon, the Hollywood High School student James was a drop-out. He joined the merchant marines at age 16, and later, the army. He fought in Korea and was wounded. Those injuries earned him two Purple Hearts. After discharge from the army, he briefly attended the University of Oklahoma. Then followed a staggering string of odd-jobs: gas-station attendant, telephone installer, chauffeur, life-guard, grocery clerk, oil-field worker in Texas, carpet layer with his father, travelling salesman and model for swimming trunks.

A friend of his, Paul Gregory, had meanwhile turned producer at Broadway, and offered him a non-speaking role in the production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, in 1954, starring Henry Fonda. Garner held two persons in great esteem--Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando, and considers them as mentors. That was the time he started getting small roles in films and in TV (Cheyenne, 1955, directed by Richard L. Bare). In 1957, he appeared in Sayonara, starring Marlon Brando. That same year, he became a star in the TV series, Maverick, produced by Warner Bros. The character was a shy, womanising, gambler, one who tried to live by guile rather than by guns. It had comedy as well as action in equal measure, and was largely a spoof on Westerns.

Some leading roles in films followed. Darby’s Rangers was started with Charlton Heston, but when he left the film over fee issues, the role went to Garner. That became his first lead role

He later started his own production company, calling it first Maverick and then Cherokee, named after his maternal grand-father, a full-blooded Cherokee Red Indian. He invested his earnings in oil and real estate. Popular TV series were Nichols (1971-72, Garner played a reluctant Sheriff in a small town in Arizona), The Rockford Files (1974-80, for which he won an Emmy Award in 1977) and the sequel to Maverick, Bret Maverick (1981-82), The New Maverick. The Rockford Files, a crime series, had Garner playing Jim Rockford, a not too successful, smooth-talking detective who lives in a trailer with his father, and was done with a dash of humour.

He was the sixth actor to play Raymond Chandler’s legendary private eye, Marlowe, after Humphrey Bogart, George Montgomery, Dick Powell, Robert Montgomery, and Philip Carey who played the role on TV. In the 1994 version of Maverick, Mel Gibson played Maverick while Garner played a Marshall. It was directed by Richard Donner.

Garner got an Academy award nomination for Best Actor for his role in Murphy’s Romance, wherein he played a small-time druggist romancing new-in-town, divorced Mom, Sally Field. Incidentally, Garner played the legendary Wyatt Earp in two cowboy Westerns, Hour of the Gun and Sunset. His Sunset co-star was Bruce Willis, who played Tom Mix.

Viewers of that age recall the commercials he did in the late 1970s and early 1980s for Polaroid. He also promoted beef, till he had to undergo open-heart surgery, which made him a far from ideal ambassador for the meat.

More recent films of James Garner include Space Cowboys (Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and Clint Eastwood). Garner played Tank Sullivan, a Baptist preacher. Eastwood directed. Another was The Notebook, in which at a modern-day nursing home, an elderly man named Duke (James Garner) begins to read a romantic story from his notebook to a fellow patient (Gena Rowlands).

A great car and racing enthusiast, his first car was a grey 1952 Dodge coupe. “I bought it with my mustering-out pay from the army, plus the cash I won in a poker game on the ship home from Korea.” He loved his pale-blue, 1966 Mini Cooper. “After shooting The Great Escape in Germany, Steve McQueen and I both brought Minis home with us—they had to be among the first imported to the U.S. Steve was my next-door neighbor, and we’d race them up and down our street. I loved that little car and could do anything with it.” Later, he drove the Baja 1000 off-road race several times, and he drove the pace car at the Indianapolis 500 in 1975, 1978 and 1985.

Garner married Lois Clarke in 1956 and they remained together till his demise.

Quotes

*Marriage is a lot like the army, everyone complains, but you'd be surprised at the large number that re-enlist.

*She's so fresh she opens her mouth and the whole world blooms. (On Julie Andrews, his heroine in The Americanization of Emily, Garner’s favourite among all his films)

* Everybody wants blockbusters. I like to see a few pictures now and then that have to do with people and have relationships, and that's what I want to do films about. I don't want to see these sci-fi movies, and I don't want to do one of those. I don't understand it.

*I saw my wife at a pool, flipped over her, and 14 days later we were married.

*When I started working, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, in that I was just wandering around, hoping that I could succeed. Then after I got a little under my belt, it took me about 25 years to feel like I knew what I was doing.

* (Asked if he would ever do a nude scene) I don`t do horror films.

*I’m a Spencer Tracy-type actor. His idea was to be on time, know your words, hit your marks and tell the truth. Most every actor tries to make it something it isn’t (or) looks for the easy way out. I don’t think acting is that difficult if you can put yourself aside and do what the writer wrote.

*I don’t like to speak in public. It scares the devil out of me.

*They really stuck it to me. I was young and dumb. I said a couple things about being under contract that they didn’t like, like that I felt like a ham in a smokehouse. They were waiting to get back at me by laying me off. We went to court and got out of my contract. I didn’t want somebody in an office guiding my career. If I had a failure, I wanted it to be my failure. If I had a success, I wanted it to be my success. (On his conflicts with Warner Bros, in relation to his contractual obligations to the Bret Maverick TV series.

*I got into the business to put a roof over my head. I wasn’t looking for star status. I just wanted to keep working.

*About everything I ever have done, in the way of lawsuits against studios, I’ve won them all, because I was right every time.

Selected filmography

Toward the Unknown, The Girl He Left Behind 1956

Shoot-out at Medicine Bend, Sayonara 1957

Darby’s Rangers 1958 (First lead role)

Up Periscope 1959

Boys’ Night Out 1962

The Great Escape, The Thrill of it All, Move Over Darling, The Wheeler Dealers 1963

The Americanization of Emily 1964

36 Hours 1965

Grand Prix 1966

Hour of the Gun 1967

Marlowe, Support Your Local Sheriff 1969

A Man Called Sledge 1970

The Fan 1981

Victor/Victoria 1982

Heartsounds 1984

Murphy’s Romance 1985

Sunset 1987

Fire in the Sky 1993

Maverick 1994

My Fellow Americans 1996

Twilight 1998

Space Cowboys 2000

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood 2002

The Notebook 2004

The Grand Budapest Hotel

Wes Anderson’s 8th feature film is inspired by the writings of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (he admits to having “directly stolen” many ideas from Zweig’s works, as well as from his life). He pays tribute to Zweig in the credits, though he then takes co-credit for the film script. In terms of detail, scenic splendour, costumes, make-up and free-wheeling narrative, The Grand Budapest Hotel is an exciting experience. As a comedy, it falls short of expectations, the humour being too little to sustain. By the time you start going with the gags, the film is over. It works as a satire too. Here again, knowledgeable viewers might read different metaphors and parodies: war, migration, the funny/sexy British costume dramas of the late 60s-early 70s, the James Bond style chases on snowy peaks, ode to decadence, Agatha Christie (Zero’s love interest, Saoirse Ronan, is even named Agatha), Charlie Chaplin’s silent films, TV, rich v/s poor, and more. At the end of it all, are too many metaphors to assimilate and too little to laugh off.

TGBH begins in 1985 with the aged author (Tom Wilkinson) recounting how he came to write the story, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Flash-back to August 1968, to the Republic of Zubrówka, a European alpine state (ŻZubrówka, incidentally, is a real-life brand of Polish vodka). The young author (Jude Law) has sought out the infamous and remote mountainside hotel to get over a bout of a scribe’s disease (writer’s block, anyone?). It is there that he meets Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham), the owner of the hotel, a multi-millionaire who prefers to sleep in a room the size of a large elevator.

The real story of Mr. Moustafa begins in 1932, when he was known as Zero (Tony Revolori) and was the lobby boy and personal assistant to Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel’s concierge, who has managed to keep the hotel bustling by providing pleasures to wealthy, old women. One of the women, 84 year-old Madame Desgoffe-und-Taxis (Tilda Swinton—Angela Lansbury was the original choice), name abbreviated to Madame D., is particularly smitten. Her love proves to be a problem when she is found dead in her mansion, under mysterious circumstances. Accusations of murder are directed at Gustave H., who is sent to jail, while Madame D.’s son Dmitri (Adrien Brody) and his henchman Jopling (Willem Dafoe) get rid of anyone who stands in the way of a handsome inheritance. But Gustave has an ace up his sleeve: the Secret Society of the Crossed Keys (Freemasons?)

TGBH was shot entirely in Germany, in Berlin, and on location in Görlitz, a city on the German-Polish border. Shot by Robert Yeoman, TGBH is very much a film in keeping with his previous collaborations with director Wes Anderson: a storybook tale with complex narratives and first-person narrators, captured in an illustrative style that’s both theatrical and cinematic. Yeoman deserves due credit and photography is one element that stays with you after the show.

Sequences set in the late 1970s, when the author addresses the camera from behind a desk (a painfully long voice-over), were filmed in 1.85:1, and scenes set in the 1960s were filmed in 2.40:1 anamorphic. Watching the film, one can guess the logic for this shifting of image dimensions, but is detracts from the viewing experience, instead of adding to it. Principal photography was strictly a single-camera affair, and Yeoman used an Arricam Studio.

Anderson constantly encouraged Yeoman and key grip Sanjay Sami to find new ways to accomplish shots. A new addition to their toolkit was the Towercam, a telescoping camera platform from MAT in Berlin. The Towercam was occasionally used in place of a crane or to boom the camera between floors, as in the sequence where an incarcerated Gustave and his fellow inmates stage a prison break. When the lantern dropped through a hole in the jail-cell floor to the basement, they suspended the Towercam upside down so the camera could descend all the way to the ground.

The Grand Budapest is first shown in a shabby state, its crumbling façade (a combination of locations in Görlitz, Germany, and miniatures shot at Babelsberg Studios) concealing an interior decked in flat shades of nicotine, with low ceilings and narrow halls. The cavernous atrium of a former department store in Görlitz served as the hotel’s main lobby.

Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom) says his shoots are carefully planned and organised – until the actors come in, "and then it's just chaos.”  What adds to the chaos in TGBH is the number of famous names with little to do, and you might be surprised to read in the titles at the end (or on the net) that the film also had Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman, Edward Norton and Owen Wilson!

All the actors acquit themselves well, particularly Mathieu Amalric and Willem Dafoe, but the focus is on Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori. Contextually, before he went to acting college, Ralph Fiennes worked as House Porter in Brown’s Hotel London, an old, well-known Mayfair hotel. He reminisces, “There were two of us and we had white coats and were the lowest of the low. I remember I had to take Jack Palance’s suitcases to his car. He made me stand and wait as he fastidiously counted his English coins into the palm of my hand, which I found a bit humiliating. And I remember Leonard Nimoy walking underneath me as I cleaned some windows.” It’s a crisp, natural performance from him, perhaps a little too easily done.

Anthony ‘Tony’ Quinonez Revolori, 18, who is of Guatemalan heritage and grew up in Anaheim, has been acting since he was two, bagging roles in TV series. During weekly bowling excursions, Revolori learned that F. Murray Abraham, the 74-year-old Academy Award-winning actor who portrays the older Zero with flair, easily had the best arm.

Revolori said the Anderson likes to do 30 or 40 takes of each scene -- which worked against him one day when they were filming a scene where Zero is slapped by Keitel. "Harvey Keitel slapped me about 42 times," he said, groaning. "And Harvey Keitel is an ex-marine so he doesn't play around." Was worth it, Tony! You have a meaty role and your dead-pan delivery goes so much with the character. Maybe you need to work on your diction a bit. Yes, you are playing an immigrant, but it’s the clarity I am talking about, not the accent.

Tilda Swinton is 54 in real-life. Born Katherine Matilda Swinton to a Scottish father and Australian mother, the red-head is 5’11” tall. She went to school with Princess Diana. Her films include Snowpiercer, Moonrise Kingdom, Limits of Control and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Her make-up is incredible and the lipstick nothing less than 70mm! Brevity of the role might have prompted Angela Lansbury to say nay.

If you watch it in a neutral frame of mind, without being coloured with the names associated with the Grand project, you might find your brief stay at the Budapest Hotel more rewarding.

Rating: ***

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fg5iWmQjwk

Lucy

From La Femme Nikita and The Professional to The Fifth Element, writer/director Luc Besson has created some of the toughest, most memorable female action heroes in cinematic history. Meet the latest: Lucy (Scarlett Johansson). Lucy is attractive, not tall, not muscular, with a cutish face, vulnerable, even gullible--An unlikely action hero, an unlikely drug-racket battling, science’s accidental guinea pig who is about to prove unwittingly the theory of an eminent scientist concerning the infinite power of the human brain, when fully tapped. 

Lucy is a woman living in Taipei, Taiwan who is forced to work as a drug ‘mule’ (credits say so!) for the Mob. She is tricked into delivering a locked brief-case, hand-cuffed to her by her short-term date, who works for the Korean drug ring. She then finds herself waking up with an incision on her abdomen and is told by a British gang-member that a drug has been implanted in her body, as well as some other people of different nationalities.

After a violent incident, the drug, CPH4, inadvertently leaks into her system, which allows her to use more than the normal 10% of her brain's capacity, thereby changing her into a superhuman. As a result, she can absorb all types of information instantaneously, is able to move objects with her mind, and can choose not to feel pain or other discomforts, in addition to other abilities. With her abilities growing and fatal consequences likely, Lucy only has a short amount of time left to find the drug-lords responsible for her new found powers, and contacts the scientist, whose research may be the key to saving her.

Shot in New York, at the Cité du Cinéma (a new mega-studio located on the outskirts of Paris), cliffs of Étretat in northern France and Taipei 101, one of the world's tallest skyscrapers, this film has the highest budget in the production company (EuropaCorp)’s history. Luc Besson had never put so many special effects into a movie. Some footage was filmed with IMAX cameras. All that was truly worth it. If you still wish there was more of it, you have a point, because a lot of time is spent sermonising and explaining scientific principles in a Power-Point presentation, and the film is just 89 minutes long.

Scarlett Johansson is blank-faced and business-like most of the time, using a detached stare to express her feelings. All that she experiences is depicted externally, though, through stunning visual effects. It is a matter of speculation what difference, if any, would it have made if the part was played by the original choice, Angelina Jolie. Although he does it convincingly and with élan, Morgan Freeman has by now had just about enough of the sagacious old wizards’ roles. Min-Sik Choi (Old Boy, 2003) continues to strike terror as the ice-man vice-man Kang. Amr Waked as the French policeman is impressive, although his motivation (the kiss notwithstanding) is ill-defined.

Trying to shake –off the label of a female character specialist, Besson has said about Lucy, “Big Blue is about two guys; Subway is an adventure with two guys and one girl; Nikita is a girl and a bunch of guys. Léon (in Léon: The Professional) is a very big, strong guy, but Mathilda is as strong as him. I always try to do the best for both. I don’t feel that I’m a specialist in female characters. I mean, when you see Lucy, there’s one girl and three guys. So I try to treat them the best I can, no matter what they are.”

The premise of Lucy is that with the help of some drug(s), we could access largely unused parts of the brain, and thus achieve great mental strength, even mind over matter. Such theories have been challenged ever since they were propounded. Recently, there is a protest wave that Besson got it wrong. Yes, we do use 10-15% of the brain’s capacity at one time, but we use the rest of the capacity on other occasions, because the full capacity is not needed at any given moment.

Besson counters, “It’s totally not true. Do they think that I don’t know this? I work on this thing for nine years and they think that I don’t know it’s not true? Of course I know it’s not true! But, you know, there are lots of facts in the film that are totally right. The CPH4, even if it’s not the real name--because I want to hide the real name--this molecule exists, and is carried by the woman at six weeks of pregnancy. Yes, it’s true that every cell in our body is sending 1,000 messages per second, per cell. And in fact, the theory of the 10 percent is an old theory from the ’60s. It’s never been proven. Some people worked on it, and it sounds like it’s not the truth. What is true is that we’re using only 15 percent of our neurons at one time. We never use 100%. We use 15 percent on left, and then after that, we use 15 percent on the right. But we never use more than 15 percent at one time.”

Without spoiling it for readers, I can say that Lucy, like Nikita and the protagonist in The Big Blue, has an ambiguous ending. Not everybody enjoys such endings, but Besson argues, “I think it’s how characters become legends. What about God? Everyone’s been talking about him for thousands of years and no one has seen him.”

There are loose ends too. Occasionally, the drugs/sci-fi/woman v/s fate elements appear incongruous, and clash. Special effects are overdone in places, and underplayed in others.                                                                                                

The best way to enjoy the film would be to treat it as pure fiction, and rationality, reality checks and smooth cinematic flow take a back seat.

Rating: **1/2

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeDvSBpPnF4&list=PLpTga61DBp6CSdkmUGduMFOnSrwbML_DL

Women’s Film Festival returns to Mumbai

The second edition of the Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival (MWIFF), an 8-day event, organised by Oculus Creations, is slated for 6th to 13th December, 2014, with the goal of showcasing women's talent behind the camera and giving them the spotlight they deserve. 

The competitive category includes Short Films, Documentary Films, and Feature Films; the non- competitive category includes World Cine-busters, World Panorama and World Premiere.

Festival director Avinash  Pawar says, “This is the first biggest Women’s International Film Festival in India, through which we aim to unleash the talent of film-makers from all over the world. We also have master class and seminars by Indian Film industry professionals to provide deep-rooted knowledge about cinem,a to aspiring filmmakers. MWIFF will prove to be a stepping stone for film-makers in converting their dreams into reality”.

MWIFF will include 6 days of film screenings, closing night networking parties, industry panels, post-screening discussions, celebrities, an award ceremony and a pink carpet.

In its first edition, MWIFF left a lot to be desired, especially in terms of logistics, scheduling and planning. I hope their teething problems are over and we shall see a much improved fest, come December.

To get a detailed insight into the festival, visit www.mwiff.com, or send an email to contact.mwiff@gmail.com . Film entry submissions have started and will close on September 30th 2014.

Hercules

You could add an extra dimension to a demi-god and turn him into a full god. But the power of a God would not find much in common with human film-goers living a mundane existence, who secretly identify with the on-screen exploits of super-MEN. Why not work it the other way around? Why not subtract a dimension? Why not doubt even the demi-god status, and let the audience think that the tale is a myth, and that the real Hercules is just a hard-hitting, large-framed mercenary? They will identify more with such a fallible figure than a pure God! So must have thought Steve Moore, as he wrote the graphic novel "Hercules: The Thracian Wars". Drawn by Admira Wijaya and published in the United States by Radical Studios in 2008, it has led to a new version of the Greek saga, backed by Radical and filmed by Brett Ratner. And to compensate for the missing dimension in the story, there is one on your eyes: 3D.

After completing the labours (punishments, challenges), Hercules is humiliated and becomes a mercenary. Along with five faithful companions, he travels across ancient Greece, selling his services for gold and using his legendary reputation to intimidate enemies. But when the ‘benevolent’ ruler of Thrace and his daughter seek Hercules’ help to defeat a savage and terrifying rebel warlord, Hercules finds that in order for good to triumph and justice to prevail… he must again become the hero he once was… he must embrace his own myth… he must be Hercules.

Ratner made his debut in 1997, directing his first feature film, Cash, a comedy about the misadventures of a small-time crook (Chris Tucker) and a journalist (Charlie Sheen), pitted against a diamond smuggler. His first big success was Rush Hour (1998), an action comedy that introduced Jackie Chan to the American public. Building on this success, the filmmaker made two other episodes: Rush Hour 2 (2001) and Rush Hour 3 (2007). After X-Men: The Last Stand and the episodic film My Movie Project (2013), for which he directed the segment Happy Birthday, he has come-up with the Dwayne Johnson starrer, Hercules.

Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock, famous for the Fast and Furious series) is not fully black, nor is he white. He is neither a giant (by wrestler standards, 1.96 metres is tall, but not amazingly so) nor a heavy-weight (120 kg).--just the right choice for a hero whose ambiguity is at the core of the film. Type-casting for an action spectacle in general, but for the Greek war extravaganza and its mainstay, Zeus’s illegitimate son Hercules? Not so type cast. Dwayne Johnson and Kellan Lutz (who plays the role in the Disney film on Hercules) are not the first actors to play the famous Greek hero. Others who have played the legendary character include Steve Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Mickey Hargitay and Reg Park.

Even The Rock had to undergo rigorous preparation for the role of the Hercules. He needed to train intensively for eight months, to sculpt his athletic body for the role, cut off from the world like a monk, for the duration of filming. Super confident gait, dead-pan approach to crises and just that little ‘enjoying the proceedings’ style make it a good outing for Johnson.

Moore and Wijaya’s source material was adapted into a script by two screenwriters who are looking to prove their mettle: Ryan Condal and Evan Spiliotopoulos. With the help of spectacular CGI enhanced battles—including at least one innovation featuring a chariot blade--and a generous dose both haha and subtle humour, they have proven their ‘metal’. (For mettle, they’ll have to do it at least a couple of times again).

Ian McShane (Jack the Giant Slayer) is endearing and funny as the ‘prophet’, John Hurt (Doctor Who) is diminutive yet theatrically sound as King Cotys, Joseph Fiennes (American Horror Story: Asylum) as Eurystheus is able to sustain some sense in a stock climax, Barbara Palvin (Hungarian model on debut) plays Fiennes’ wife Antimache (name?) in a blink and gone role, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) flaunts a bow and arrows, along with shapely legs, amidst massacres, Tobias Santelman as Rhesus (name?) makes a worthy rebel.

Hercules marks the debut film of the 28-year old Russian supermodel Irina (meaning peace) Shayk(hislamova), known to football aficionados as Cristiano Ronaldo’s girl-friend. She plays Hercules’s wife Megara in a one-scene appearance. One scene, maybe, but she’d rather play Megara than… “Every time I get a script, it’s, like, bartender…stripper… And I don’t think I would make a bad bartender or stripper, you know? But Greek mythology! Irina is a Greek name, so I think: Maybe it’s destiny? I had met Brett over the years at different events and we had always wanted to work together so when this role of Megara came up it seemed like a perfect fit.” Profundity?

Hercules was shot in the city of Bucharest, Hungary, and not in Greece, in a six-month schedule. Savour the locales and the photography, till each location turns into a giant graveyard. At 99 minutes, the film never sags or drags. Incidentally, did I see some of the rebel fighters wielding their scythes the wrong way?

Rating: ***

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj_xJNuLunQ

CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia 2014 diary, VII 

End of a blockbuster, four day extravaganza                                                                                          

Interview with Anshul Sharma, Technical and Operations Head for APAC Region, Mobile Viewpoint, which provides broadcast solutions to the BBC, NBC and Al Jazeera

Q. Where is your company located and what products does it make

A. It is a Netherlands-based company, having its direct offices at Netherlands, India, Bangkok, the UAE, the US, China and some other places. We are into Broadcast solutions, Video Streaming Solutions, 3 G Backpacks, Security and Surveillance products.

Mobile Viewpoint has been developing and manufacturing portable video transmission technologies and equipment for more than 15 years. We are the worldwide leader with the most advanced and truly portable platform for live video transmission and content management solutions. With a staff of over 175 employees, covering more than 80 countries, we are truly a global player. Our client list includes the world’s largest broadcasters, such as BBC, Al-Arabiya, NBC, Al-Jazeera, Sky News, MBC, Sky Sports and many more. Our technology is used in news gathering, security, sports, healthcare and education. With a robust and diverse platform, we can custom build any solution for any client regardless of size, with complete scalability.

Our company offers a complete line of technology solutions, ranging from smart-phone apps to portable backpack units to satellite backup and replacement technology. With our patented WMT platform, we are able to provide multiple bonded IP connections such as CDMA / 2G / 3G / 4G / LTE / WiMAX / WiFi / Ethernet and Satellite, that allow for the live transmission of audio and video in real-time, from anywhere in the world. Using our complete line of products, you can transmit live to television, the web and the cloud, with complete control and the ability to manage all your assets and content, from one customised web manager, accessible from any internet connection.

Q. Tell us about the latest products you have launched.

A. 1. The WMT Content Exchange Platform

2. The revolutionary new WMT Expert with embedded H.265 and VP-9 technology and support

3. The all new Android App with unlimited bonding capabilities

4. The all new HLE-1 rack-mount encoder

5. The advanced WMT LiveKart

Q. Have you participated in CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia before? How many times? When was the last time?

A. We have been participating from the last three years, up to this year, in succession.

Q. How was the event in 2014, compared to earlier years?

A. 2014 was much better, or the best until now. In 2013, due to haze from forest fires in neighbouring Indonesia, the number of clients visiting the event was lower than expected. (Record haze levels were seen in Singapore during June 2013).

Q. Your overall experience at CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia 2014?

A. Good.

Q. What do you feel about the venue, Marina Bay Sands?

A. It is the best possible venue.

Q. Which are the other exhibitions you have participated in, recently? Which other exhibitions will you participate in during 2014-15?

A. NAB, IBC, CabSat, BA, BES, BI and some others. IBC in Amsterdam is just round the corner, from September 12 to 16.

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Nazir Husain Keshvani and Hare Rama Hare Krishna

In the Media room at CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia, I noticed an Indian looking man, apparently in his late 30s-early 40s, bespectacled like me, offering a gentle smile. We soon got introduced to each other. He has the odd name of Nazir Husain Keshvani and prefers to be called Naz, which might be stylish and short. Nazir Husain is a name that is common in India and Pakistan, and we had a popular character actor-cum producer-director of Bhojpuri dialect films, called Nazir Husain in India. Keshvani is a surname that you will find among many Indians, but one would readily associate it with the Sindhi or Kutchhi communities because of the last three letters: a..n..i. A majority of Sindhi’s and a large number of Kutchhis have surnames that end in ani. Nazir is an Ismaili Khoja Muslim, a follower of the Aga Khan. Naz means pride, while Nazir means ‘comparable’ or ‘in the vein of’. Nazir’s father migrated to Singapore from India in 1950, as a teenager, to work with the famous Jumabhoy family of Singapore that developed some landmark areas of the young country.

Family patriarch Rajabali Jumabhoy left India in 1915, to start a commodity trading business in Singapore. In the 50s, they invited workers from India, mainly from their own Khoja Isna Ashari (Shia) community, but also from other faiths, to join their projects. Over the years, the family diversified into multiple businesses, including ship-building, real estate, retail and hospitality, creating assets in Southeast Asia, Australia and the UK. Babubhai Jivabhai Keshvani left the Jumabhoys to join a film distribution company that released Hindi films in the Malaysia/Singapore of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Owned a group of Parsees from India that included the legendary film-makers, the Wadias, 84 year-old Keshvani has many tales to recount, including how he released Dev Anand’s drugs/hippies drama, Hare Rama Hare Krishna (1971-72) in Johor Bahru (across the sea-link from Singapore, in Malaysia) because it was banned in Singapore. Many Singaporeans went across especially to watch the film and went gaga over it. Dev Anand recalled the incident vividly when he met Nazir in 2008.

Nazir speaks very little Gujarati (parent state language of the Kutchhi dialect) or Urdu or Hindi (the other two widely spoken Indian languages, close to Gujarati). He says he grew-up in the cinema halls of Singapore. Currently, he works in the publishing industry as a freelance writer/editor. His passion has always been film-making and he learnt the ropes by participating in various film projects. Nazir’s film credits include co-directing Ragged (1993) and Hurt Instinct (1994). Both films won the Special Jury Prize at the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF). He has occasionally collaborated with his brother, Nisar. He went on to direct various documentaries and the “Holidays in Hell” travelogue, which premiered at the 14th SIFF. Nazir took me a special screening of the impressive Saudi Arabian film, Wadjda, organised by Open, Participate, Enrich, Negotiate (O.P.E.N.), the public engagement initiative of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA).

O.P.E.N. is a prelude to SIFA, four weeks before the opening of the Festival, a curated selection of events in a casual and intimate setting, leading to SIFA, in August and September 2014. Ong Keng Sen is the Festival Director of O.P.E.N. 

Here I also met Teo Swee Leng. Swee Leng and Philip Cheah were the pillars of SIFF that I attended in some years ago. Nowadays, Swee Leng is Acquisitions Manager at Asia Pacific Films.co. Philip is there too, and so is Aruna Vasudev of India. Both are Curators.

At the show, I met a young lady related to Nazir, 20 year-old Saher Hashmi, who is half Pakistani (father), half Arab, and full of gusto and joie de vivre. She was one of the volunteers on duty. During a brief chat, I discovered that she had studied Urdu in Singapore, and spoke the language reasonably well. Pleasantly surprised, I asked, “How come?” and she replied that school students in Singapore could choose to learn a language other than the usual Tamil, and she chose Urdu. I should have known that this was the very school where I taught basic Urdu for two terms during 1997-98, after my one-year stint at ESPN Sports TV. Farah Anwar, who was the co-ordinator, in my time, has recently retired, Saher told me. The school had almost all-female teaching staff, predominantly from Pakistan, and I was an exception.

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AsiaPacificFilms.com streams culturally and historically significant films from Asia and the Pacific. Their curators and AsiaPacificFilms.com’s President Jeannette Hereniko are members of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), a well-respected international organisation. Every year, NETPAC awards prizes at major international film festivals. By acquiring digital rights and streaming their film collection, AsiaPacific films.com gives subscribers access to half of the world’s films: films made by Asians and Pacific Islanders. They stress that 95 percent of these films are never seen outside of their own countries, because mainstream distributors don’t bring them to the global market, or film-makers from these areas lack access to distribution channels.

Philip Cheah is a film critic and is the editor of BigO, Singapore's only independent pop culture publication. He is Honorary Secretary of  NETPAC. He is also on the selection committee of the Locarno International Film Festival and Founding Member of SIFF.

 Swee Leng has been an arts, film, and new media administrator for major international organisations for the last 26 years. She was co- festival director of SIFF for 20 years, and was instrumental in making the Festival a recognised and highly regarded international film festival, for its progressive programming and promotion of Asian cinema. Currently, she is a consultant with the Moving Image Gallery at the Singapore Art Museum and is responsible for organising the annual Southeast Asia Film Festival. She is a member of NETPAC.

Aruna Vasudev is an author, critic, editor, and former festival director with a Ph.D. in cinema from the University of Paris. She is the author of two books on Indian cinema: Liberty & License in the Indian Cinema and The New Wave in Indian Cinema.  She is the Founder-President of NETPAC; Founder-Editor of Cinemaya, The Asian Film Quarterly (1988-2006); and Founder-Director of Cinefan, the Festival of Asian Cinema (1999-2004). She has been a jury member of more than forty international film festivals. Among other honours, Vasudev was conferred France’s top cultural award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; the Satyajit Ray Memorial award for promoting Asian film culture; and the Star of Italian Solidarity. (I am flattered to learn that the last honour, also called OSSI, which is short for Ordine di Stella di Solidarièta d’Italia, is something that I share with Aruna).

This seventh instalment ends my CommunicAsia-BroadcastAsia, June 2014, diary.

Hope you enjoyed a personal recollection of that eventful week in Singapore that I shared with you over the last one month.                                        

Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora, Groot, Rocket, a Great time at the Galaxy and Gunn's bull's eye!

Produced by Marvel (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers) and distributed by Disney, Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG) is the tenth instalment in Marvel’s cinematic forays. It is co-written and directed by James Gunn, and is one of their best ever. Generous doses of humour, CGI used to stunning effect, incredible sets, mesmerising VFX, villainish/grey heroes from three kingdoms—human, plant and animal--of incredible shapes, sizes and colours, 3D that does not intrude and/or overkill, space-chases that are breath-taking, pace that makes 122 minutes easy viewing...it’s got everything going its way. GOTG is an inter-planetary joy-ride that also cuts across age-barriers and nationalities, having in its cast whites, blacks, greens, greys, a Filipino and  a Puerto Rican.

In 1988, following his mother's death, a young Peter Quill is abducted in a space-ship from his native Missouri (director Gunn is Missouri born!) by the Ravagers, a group of alien space pirates, led by Yondu. Twenty-six years later, on the planet Morag, Quill steals an orb, only to be intercepted by Korath, a subordinate to the fanatical Kree, Ronan. Although Quill escapes with the orb, Yondu discovers his theft, and issues a bounty for his capture, while Ronan sends the assassin Gamora after the orb.

When Quill, now known as Starlord (Star Wars, anyone?) attempts to sell the orb, Gamora ambushes him and steals it. A fight ensues, drawing in a pair of bounty hunters: the genetically engineered raccoon Rocket (first seen in the comics of the 80s), and the tree-like humanoid Groot (character created in 1963). The Nova Corps arrives and arrests the group, imprisoning them in the Kyln. A powerful inmate, Drax then Destroyer), attempts to kill Gamora, when he learns of her association with Ronan, who had killed his family. Quill dissuades him by convincing him that Gamora can bring Ronan to him. Gamora reveals that she has betrayed Ronan, unwilling to let him use the orb's unimaginable power to destroy entire planets such as Xandar. Learning that Gamora has a buyer for the orb, Rocket, Quill, Groot, and Gamora work together to escape the Kyln, and the conflict moves to a much bigger scale, with the galaxy's fate in the balance.

Pratt has described his character as a mix of Han Solo and Marty McFly. Prior to filming, Pratt underwent a strict diet and training regimen to lose 60 lb (27 kg) in six months. After his selection, Gunn said, “Even if he stays chubby, he’ll still be better than anyone else. I would have put him in the film even if he stayed overweight.” Zoe Saldana said that she became Gamora through make-up rather than computer generated imagery (CGI) or performance capture.  Gamora is green, unlike her role in Avatar, where her skin was blue. Director Gunn had not even heard of Dave Bautista (a Filipino, former WWE wrestler, now 46), but found him to be an ideal Drax. Said Bautista of his casting, “I can just relate to Drax (by the way, one of the Bond villains was called Sir Hugo Drax!) so much it's not even funny. Simple things like the tattoos, the tragedy in his life – because, you know, I have a lot of tattoos and had a bit of tragedy in my life as well." Bautista's makeup took approximately four hours to be applied. It makes his body look like a steel statue. His skin tone was changed from a bright green in the comics to a muddier grey, to avoid visual similarities to Hulk. Some physical similarities, still remain, though.

Vin Diesel lends his voice to Groot, who took almost a year to create. Diesel often did 500 takes of “I am Groot,” which will endure as the funniest catch-line in the film. Another star voiced Rocket, the raccoon, (Gunn’s favourite character): Bradley Cooper. He does it with aplomb. Rocket is a genetically engineered raccoon, a bounty hunter and mercenary, and a master of weapons and battle tactics. Gunn worked with live raccoons to get the correct feel for the character, who was conceived as the sort of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Sean Gunn, James’s brother, stood-in for the character during filming.

Lee Pace was originally auditioned as for Peter Quill, but, in the end, he played Ronan the Accuser. Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta has a quaint, if partly indecipherable accent. He looks the lovable rogue he is. Karen Gillan, as Nebula, researched Spartans, shaved off her hair, and trained for two months for her role, while her make-up took approximately four and a half hours to be applied. Featuring in cast is veteran Glenn Close, as Prime Minister, with a ‘carved’, designer hair-do. Puerto Rico-born Benicio del Toro (Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez, to use his full name) plays the Collector, another of the film’s villains, who also figures in the post-credit sequence. Like in his earlier films, The Usual Suspects and Traffic, Benicio impresses here too, and even seems to be enjoying himself.

Well, not too much is required when you have such heavy make-up or are a CGI created character, wielding all kinds of weapons or manoeuvring all manner of inter-stellar vehicles, but whenever the scenes demand, the actors have all put in the requisite effort. Saldana, not conventionally beautiful, has spunk. Pratt has the cool-dude swagger required for the role. If there was some doubt about the abilities and capabilities of the 44 year-old James Gunn in handling such a project, all that is more than cleared now. GOTG meets critical dissection and is already earning audience appreciation. In India, it comes to him as a birthday (August 5) gift, being released in the same week.

Co-writer Nicole Perlman spent two years writing a draft. In late 2011, Perlman was asked to create another draft, and, in early 2012, James Gunn was brought in to contribute to the script. Gunn has since stressed that Perlman's draft was very different from the script he eventually based the film on, including a different story, character arcs, and there was no Walkman. (The film has a strong inter-linked 70s and 80s connection, forming the link to Quill’s childhood, carried into future along with his Walkman and headphones). Admittedly, most of the plot situations are stock, but Gunn manages to use them as tropes. Variety is the spice of virtual life too. Gunn virtually proves it. Bull's eye!

Rating: ****

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LIQ2-PZBC8

James Gunn on GOTG, and himself

*We have a prison that is 350,000 pounds of steel (in the film). Anybody who knows me knows I love the mix of practical and CGI effects.

*I had a raccoon figurine collection as a kid...They come in my backyard all the time and we just stare at each other like a couple of idiots."

*Had it been twenty years ago, we definitely would’ve gone after Joe Pesci himself to play the role (Rocket).

*Some physical movement from Bradley Cooper, including facial expressions and hand movements, was recorded as potential reference for the animators, though much of Sean Gunn's acting is used throughout the film..

*I was as huge Spider-Man fan as a kid, but I really liked The Defenders a lot. I was also a big Moon Knight.

*Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson do in their films. Those are three people whose work I really admire.

*(On his GOTG pitch to Marvel) They must have liked it, because I suddenly had my dream job – all the things I love in one – Marvel comics, space operas, and raccoons. I had an office at Marvel studios. (See illustration from his official blog).

Short bio

At the age of twelve James Gunn began his film-making career with an eight-millimetre camera. His first film featured his brother Sean, shown being dis-embowelled by zombies. While attending Columbia University in New York, Gunn applied for a part-time job filing papers at famed B-movie studios Troma Entertainment, and ended up writing the screenplay for Tromeo & Juliet instead. Gunn left Troma to write and star (along with Rob Lowe, Thomas Haden-Church, Jamie Kennedy and his own brother, Sean) in the feature film, The Specials, about a group of super-heroes on their day off.

In 2002 the live action Scooby-Doo movie was released into theatres. Gunn wrote the screenplay for the film, the first movie he was involved with that he allowed his mother to see. Gunn’s love for the comedy and horror genres coalesced in the humorous horror film SLiTHER, 2006. In 2008 Gunn created Xbox Live’s first ever original content, producing seven comedy shows by horror directors, and creating his own, Sparky and Mikaela.

He lives in Los Angeles with his dog, Dr. Wesley Von Spears (yes, you read it right).

The Hundred-Foot Journey: Worth going far to watch

Riots, destruction of  his restaurant, and his wife (Juhi Chawla)’s death push Papa Kadam (Om Puri) and his four children out of India. The family moves to London, eventually settling in a quaint village in France. The village is both picturesque and elegant – the ideal place to settle down and open an Indian restaurant. And so, the Maison (house) Mumbai is born.

The cold and stiff chef-proprietress of Le Saule Pleureur, a Michelin (hotel rating group of critics in France) one-starred (on a scale of 1-3), classical French restaurant, Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), gets wind of it. Her protests against the new Indian restaurant a hundred feet from her own escalate to all out war between the two establishments – until Hassan (a cook prodigy)’s passion for French haute cuisine, and for Mme. Mallory’s enchanting sous (under/assistant) chef, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon), combine with his mysteriously delicious talent, to weave magic between their two cultures and imbue the village with the flavors of life that even Mme. Mallory cannot ignore. Mme. Mallory eventually recognises Hassan's gift as a chef and takes him under her wing. More glory will follow Hassan.

The Hundred-Foot Journey is based on a 2010 debut novel by Richard C. Morais. Morais worked for Forbes magazine for 25 years. An American born in Portugal (he has Portuguese blood) and raised in Switzerland, Morais has lived most of his life overseas. To quote him, “A hundred-foot journey begins that moment when you bravely drop what is familiar and cross over into a new realm that is far out of your comfort zone. It is a profound journey, however small in physical distance, that materially changes the course of your life for the better.”

These words could easily describe producer Juliet Blake’s journey that began when she read, Richard Morais’s novel for the first time. At the time, Blake was an executive with National Geographic Channel. Blake already had Mirren and Puri in mind for their parts upon first reading the book. “I had always loved Om Puri and Helen Mirren, and I knew that they both had this extraordinary range.” When it came to selecting a screen-writer, Blake knew she wanted an English writer “because they understand the Indian immigrant experience. Steve (Steven Knight) and I had grown up 125 miles away from each other. We all grew up with Indian pockets around us and used to eat curries every Sunday night.” She was so very right on all three choices. Om is so appealing and natural, Helen is studiedly perfect and Steven’s screenplay is easy-flowing and slice-of-life. Morais is happy at the way he has made some of the portions lighter and more humorous than he had penned them.

Steve Knight read English Literature at University College, London. In 1988, he and Mike Whitehill started a freelance writing partnership, providing material for television. They wrote The Detectives and devised game shows, including Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with David Briggs. He avoids going deep into the Muslim identity of the family, and manages to deal cleverly with issues like their restrictions on food and wine. He (I assume) changes the family surname from Haji to Kadam, perhaps to avoid any controversy. (Haji means one who has performed the Haj, but is also a mere surname in some cases).  That does sound odd. Though Kadam is the surname of many a hotelier family in India, it is not a Muslim surname.

Talking about inspiration for the character of Madame Mallory, Morais has said, “She was modelled a little bit on my grandmother. She was very formidable, with very high standards, and also a little unforgiving of others when they didn’t meet her impossible expectations. But she also had a spiritual side that softened her with age. Madame Mallory is probably drawn more from some of those severe, elderly Swiss women, like our landlady in Zurich, who loomed large in my Swiss upbringing.”

But the film is as much the story of Hassan and Marguerite, as it is of Papa and Mallory. Manish Dayal, who plays Hassan, is relatively fresh and ideally de-briefed for the role. There is a natural vulnerability about him and a distant look that says a lot. He starred in the CW's 90210 reboot and AMC's Rubicon. Most recently, he co-starred in the ABC Family series Switched at Birth. Dayal was born in a small town in South Carolina, and grew-up with a distinct southern accent. In the film, he has to first deliver his lines with an Indian accent, moving on to that of ‘an Indian learning to speak French’, and finally to that of a French resident. He also took French cooking lessons to prepare for his role, though cooking was an important part of growing up in his Gujarati family. Dayal was not a huge fan of Bollywood while growing up, but is open to Indian cinema, minus the song and dance routines. For someone whose interest in films was sparked by Spielberg's Jurassic Park, meeting its creator at the start of the Hundred-Foot project (Spielberg is aslo a p[roducer on ths film, as is Oprah Winfrey) was a dream come true.

Montreal-born actress Charlotte Le Bon was discovered by Steven Spielberg for the role. Her French-language movie, Yves Saint Laurent, is a French drama releasing just about now. Le Bon just shot The Walk, with director Robert Zemeckis. Le Bon, now 27, is highly impressed with co-star Helen Mirren. “I want to be like that when I grow up,” she has said, of the Oscar-winning English veteran. “She’s so powerful. She is the kind of woman that just owns the place. And it was very inspiring to see her work and actually to see her struggle at times and she’s asking herself questions and she’s changing stuff and she’s talking with the director and with us, too.” Not that she chose projects like The Hundred-Foot Journey. They chose her. Spielberg picked her for her vitality and crazy sense of humour. In the film, she is intense, physical, spontaneous and sensual. Bien venue et bon chance, Charlotte Le Bon!

Morais’s book itself leads to such human drama that it makes the task of the actors that much easier. Many readers found it to be close to a screenplay. Guess why? “I always wanted to be an actor. My route into fiction is acting. For a little while, I get to pretend I’m in another culture. It’s a fine balance—that first layer of stimulating the imagination, then doing enough research.” Watch out for the scene where the now a national celebrity chef Hassan reveals his favourite dish---jalebi--and you'll get to know what I mean!

Swedish director Lasse Hallström is renowned for his sensitive but unsentimental depictions of childhood in films such as My Life as a Dog (1985, Spielberg’s all-time favourite), which brought him international attention and an Oscar nomination. He made his first feature, the romantic comedy A Guy and a Girl, in 1975, and soon afterward cheered pop-music fans with ABBA: The Movie (1977). He has directed several American productions, including What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993), The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000). Would Spielberg have made a better film than what Hallström has? I doubt. Characters, drama, greatest attention to detail, the felicity with which the cast translates dialogue from one language to another, vibrant images, colours that leap out (thanks to the preference of film over digital, at least in some parts), a natural approach to extracting performances—where do you fault him? Maybe the cutting points could have been better, maybe the three siblings could have delivered more convincingly, maybe a little back-story would go well, maybe some Muslim cultural and religious references (other than their code on food and wine) were in order! Never mind the side dishes; enjoy the main course.

Rating ***1/2

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEO1TWeM5JU

Thatman Robin joins Dead Poets’ Society

Comedy is heart wrenching, and can be fatal. For the comedian, that is. As it was, for Robin, the genius, who ended his 37-year career, and his 63-year life, by apparently killing himself, on 11 August 2014, at his home. What really killed him? Cocaine? Alcohol? Depression? Parkinson's? Maybe a combination of all. But cinema lost one of its most versatile, innovative actors, who was also incomparable in his wit, mimicry and motor-mouth repartee. Earth's loss is Dead Poets' Society's gain, up there. Rest in everalsting peace, Robin.

Robin McLaurin Williams was born on July 21, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois, son of a Ford Motor Company executive. He was educated at Claremont Men’s College, College of Marin, California and Juilliard School (of Drama), New York. At Juilliard, he was a room-mate of Christopher Reeve, who became his best friend. A stint under the legendary John Houseman (Orson Welles’s partner for his early years) helped hone his acting skills. Williams began as a stand-up act, performing in New York and San Francisco.

Williams had done work on TV programs like The Richard Pryor Show, Laugh-In and Eight Is Enough before getting his big break with Happy Days. Writer-director Garry Marshall’s son said to him that it would be nice to have a Star Wars-like alien on the show, and Marshall thought of Williams. Robin would recall much later, “I went to the meeting with Garry and I kind of did the thing where I started doing a voice. I came into the room and immediately sat on my head, rather than, you know ... he said, "Make yourself at home," so I sat down and put my head, ass up, thinking, Well that's a good way to start with him. And then he said, "Well, it'll be great. You won't be doing Shakespeare, but it will be fun." Williams became widely known to American audiences as the alien Mork from Ork, before being given his own show, Mork & Mindy. 

This picture is from Robin's Twitter page, posted by Ryan Haught and clicked by his aunt, in 1979. It shows Robin performing on a street of New York City.

Williams co-starred with Pam Dawber in the zany, endearing ABC sitcom, about an innocent, wise-cracking, alien (Robin), and the earthling (Mindy), which debuted in 1978 and ran for four seasons. Robin’s other TV appearances include America 2Night, Carol and Carl and Whoopi and Robin (Emmy award) and Royal Gala: Prince’s Trust (another Emmy). On stage, he did Waiting for Godot with Steve Martin (1988, off- Broadway) and teamed-up with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal to do fund-raising events for the homeless, called Comic Relief. He also made some outstanding recordings: Reality, What a Concept (1979, Grammy Award), Throbbing Python of Love, and A Night at the Met.

On the big screen, he was part of the cast in the 1977 (72-minute) suggestive romp, Can I Do It 'Till I Need Glasses?, but the debut in a lead role came when he played the famous spinach-eating sailor Popeye (1980), in the eponymous film, directed by Robert Altman. Another title character was in The World According to Garp (1982). In Good Morning Vietnam (1987), Williams portrayed irreverent radio DJ Adrian Cronauer, a real, though highly fictionalised, person) while in Dead Poets' Society (1989, remade in India as Mohabbatein), he played free-thinking teacher John Keating, both roles bringing him Academy Award nominations for lead actor, with GMV earning him a Golden Globe.

He developed a drug and alcohol problem early on in his career, while working on Mork and Mindy, and struggled with addiction for many years. He also became involved with several women, even while married to actress Valerie Velardi. Williams and Velardi ultimately divorced in 1988. The following year, he married his son's former nanny, Marsha Garces, with whom he formed a production company.

He appeared in the hit Penny Marshall (Garry’s sister) medical drama Awakenings (1990) with Robert De Niro, and received his third Oscar nomination for his role as a homeless man in the 1991 drama, The Fisher King. He did win a Golden Globe, though. Providing wholesome entertainment as well, he starred as a grown-up Peter Pan in Hook (1991), with Dustin Hoffman, and provided the voice of the genie in Disney's animated film, Aladdin (1992). Williams starred in the drag classic, Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, remade in Hindi as Chachi 420), Jumanji (1995) and Flubber (1997).

His performance as the psychiatrist Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting (1997) won him an Academy Award as best supporting actor. He starred as the doctor who treated his patients with humour (remember the round, red, Santa Claus, nose?) in Patch Adams (1998) and then portrayed a Jewish man in Germany during World War II in Jakob the Liar (1999). Based on a work by Isaac Asimov, Bicentennial Man (1999) gave Williams the opportunity to play an android who develops human emotions. And he returned to ‘voice acting’ (dubbing) as Dr. Know in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, in 2001.

 Arts and literature were the themes of three of Williams’ films in the early 21st century: One Hour Photo (2002), in which he played a creepy photo developer, Insomnia (2002)--a writer of pulp novels and The Night Listener (2006)--a radio host who gets caught up in the mystery surrounding a troubled fan. Williams returned to his comic talents as well with Man of the Year (2006), and that same year, he portrayed Teddy Roosevelt in Night at the Museum, with Ben Stiller.

In 2006, Williams suffered a drug relapse and got admitted to a rehabilitation facility for alcoholism treatment. Recovering fast, in 2007, he starred as a Reverend, in the comedy, License to Wed. In 2008, Robin Williams started touring for his one-man stand-up comedy show, Weapons of Self Destruction, focussing on social and political absurdities. That same year, he and his second wife Garces (Finnish-Filipina by birth) divorced, citing irreconcilable differences.

His health was deteriorating. Besides shortness of breath, he developed a heart condition too, and was operated. Even as he was recovering, the actor was seen playing Teddy Roosevelt again in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. In November 2009, he starred alongside John Travolta in the Disney film, Old Dogs.

In March 2011, he appeared on Broadway as part of the original cast of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, written by Rajiv Joseph and directed by Moises Kauffman, in which the ghost of Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, wanders around with the head of his brother, Qusay, in a plastic bag. Charles Isherwood wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Williams, the kinetic comic who has sometimes revealed a marshmallowy streak in movies, never indulges the audience's hunger for displays of humorous invention or pinpricks of poignancy. He gives a performance of focused intelligence and integrity, embodying the animal who becomes the play's questioning conscience with a savage bite that never loosens its grip." Variety said, "Robin Williams is phenomenal". On the big screen, reprising his roles of Ramon and Lovelace from the 2006 original, he lent his voice to the 2011 animated sequel Happy Feet 2. He wed graphic designer Susan Schneider that October. Susan, his third wife, was living with him till his death.

Williams had supporting roles in two 2013 films: the romantic comedy The Big Wedding with Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton, and the drama The Butler, where Williams portrayed Dwight D. Eisenhower. Then, in 2014, Williams starred as disgruntled Henry Altmann in the film Angriest Man in Brooklyn. This year, Williams also announced his return to series TV. He co-starred with Sarah Michelle Gellar on the sitcom The Crazy Ones, which debuted in the fall. Set in an advertising firm, the show featured Williams and Gellar as father and daughter. In its April 10, 2014, episode, Pam Dawber was briefly reunited with her partner from Mork and Mindy. The show was cancelled after only one season, on May 10 this year, due to less than expected response.

Pam Dawber paid tribute to Robin on their reunion for The Crazy Ones: "I don’t know what it is about the two of us, but I have just loved him on a very deep level. Robin is truly one of the kindest, most caring people I’ve ever met. He cares about all the younger cast members, and I’m so happy they’ve surrounded him with such talented kids. Robin was never one of those comedians that was competitive and had to have all the funny lines. It was always playtime for him. He’s just very generous. In Mork and Mindy, there’s a scene in a restaurant where he’s just unraveling. Well, while we were shooting that, playing that together, he kept reaching out, grabbing my hand, saying, “Dawbs, are you okay? Dawberdog, are you all right? And I said, “Yeah, Robin, I think we’re getting it. It’s good, you know? We’ve got plenty of time! “Oh, okay. Are you sure? Finally, after he did this maybe three times, I realised. I said, “You feel bad that you’re hurting my feelings in the scene. He said, “It’s killing me! I can’t stand it! And I said, “Oh my God, that’s so sweet, but Robin, it’s called ‘pretend.’ I’m not taking it seriously! But that’s what kind of a sensitive soul he is: It was really bothering him to watch his character hurting my character!" 

Robin Williams quotes

· No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.

· You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

· You're only given one little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

· Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?

· I'm sorry, if you were right, I'd agree with you.

· What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.

· The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'

· In America they really do 'mythologise' people when they die.

· Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose.

· If women ran the world we wouldn't have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.

· Ah, yes, divorce... from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.

· Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

· Okra (called ladyfinger/bhindi in India) is the closest thing to nylon I've ever eaten. It's like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.

· I left school and couldn't find acting work, so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up. I've always improvised, and stand-up was this great release. All of a sudden, it was just me and the audience.

· We've had cloning in the South for years. It's called cousins.

· If it's the Psychic Network why do they need a phone number?

· I started doing comedy because that was the only stage that I could find. It was the pure idea of being on stage. That was the only thing that interested me, along with learning the craft and working, and just being in productions with people.

· Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'

· Comedy is acting out optimism.

· We had gay burglars the other night. They broke in and rearranged the furniture.

· Having George W. Bush giving a lecture on business ethics is like having a leper give you a facial, it just doesn't work!

· You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous.

· Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.

· Death is nature's way of saying, "Your table's ready."

· You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) 'It's the same sex all the time.'

· Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money.

· I love running cross country....On a track, I feel like a hamster.

· When the media ask him (George W. Bush) a question, he answers, 'Can I use a lifeline?'

· We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself.

· Men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.

· Cricket is basically baseball on valium (diazepam, a prescription drug, also sold under the brand name of calmpose).

The Expendables 3: Generation Ex+Gen Next

“The challenge was to write literally 16 main characters in a two-hour movie, and how often do you get to write for Zorro, the Terminator, Rocky, Indiana Jones and Mad Max?”—Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, co-writers, The Expendables 3.

The Expendables are a group of righteous, patriotic mercenaries, used by the CIA in operations where the US government does not want to be officially involved. They are led by Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and were once 22 in number. Currently, they are down to Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Toll Road (Randy Couture). Since such a small number would be incapable of carrying out the high profile missions assigned to them, they carry out a near impossible prison-break to extract former member Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes), a knives specialist and team medic, from a military prison. Immediately, they get on with intercepting a shipment of bombs meant to be delivered to a warlord in Somalia. Arriving there, they reunite with another old associate, Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), who directs them to the drop point, where Ross is surprised to find out that the arms trader is Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), who co-founded the Expendables with Ross, but later betrayed the team to make his millions through illegal weapons dealing. Ross had pumped three bullets in him, but he has miraculously survived. In the ensuing battle, the Expendables are forced to retreat due to Stonebanks' men's advanced weaponry. They all manage to escape unscathed, but Caesar is severely injured.

Ross disbands his unit and leaves for Las Vegas, where he enlists retired mercenary Bonaparte (Kelsey Grammer) to help him find younger mercenaries to join the team. After a series of interviews, they pick ex-Marine John Smilee (Kellan Lutz), female night-club bouncer Luna (Ronda Rousey), computer expert Thorn (Glen Powell) and weapons expert Mars (Victor Ortiz). Skilled sharpshooter Galgo (Antonio Banderas) is desperate to be included in the team, but Ross turns him down. The new team then meets CIA operative Max Drummer (Harrison Ford), the Expendables' mission manager, and Ross' rival mercenary, Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who has decided to work directly for Drummer. The two have traced Stonebanks to Romania, where he is expected to make a deal with another arms trader. Ross and the new recruits capture Stonebanks, but Stonebanks' men catch up in a helicopter and fire a missile at the team's van. Ross is thrown into a ravine, while the other four, Smilee, Luna, Thorn and Mars are captured by Stonebanks, who challenges Ross to rescue them.

Pitched at two levels, with two sets of heroes, the film tries to, and partly succeeds in, involving both young adults as well as senior fans of the first two outings. Missions aimed at rescuing/assassinating high profile targets lodged in maximum security prisons/hide-outs are the grist that runs the mills of films like Ex3. It is the how and how much that matters. With the writers of Olympus Has fallen on board, adrenaline rushes were to be expected, and are there in good measure. The husband and wife team of Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt, who met at a screenwriting class, retains elements of Olympus Has Fallen (they are writing a sequel too), in the shape of huge structures pounded with a million tonnes of explosives and bullets, with all the casualties confined to the bad guy’s side. At one point, ‘King Lawless’ Mel Gibson, lets loose a few abuses at his inept henchman and decides to take the Law (matters) in his own hand, armed with just a gun.

It must have been tough trying to accommodate 16 main characters in a film just over two hours long, so they try to use narrative dialogue as back-story or intro, a device which will please those who like to make some sense of the mayhem, but might not go well with the android and apple addicted generation Ex3. There isn’t too much of Jet Li. Harrison Ford and Arnold Schwarzenegger (Is he beginning to look like Clint Eastwood?) are brought back in a well-written twist, but except for his first entry, Ford is good without being impressive. Dolph (Hans) Lundgren, the 57 year-old Sweden-born body-builder who  a bit of a star in the 80s and was seen in Rocky 4, looks like a version of Mads Mikkelsen, and is cast as the strong, silent type, with little to say. One cannot help noticing the names given to the characters, including one called Church, largely symbolic and mostly funny.

Australian ad film-maker Patrick Hughes, who made Red Hill, the Action/Thriller/Western a couple of years ago, helms Ex3. He says his first memory of films is Coen Bros’ Raising Arizona . “The scene that floored me was Nic Cage robbing a supermarket with a shotgun, for nappies.” (Nicolas Cage was to play the part that went to Kesley Grammer in Ex3). Hughes graduated from film-school in 1999, and, after Ex3, is planning to remake the Indonesian film The Raid. To get an insight into the functioning of black ops agents, Hughes spent three hours with three men whose job regularly sees them flying to a remote country, taking out a target (usually a drug cartel figure), being shot at and, hopefully, flying home again. Each of them had a “go bag” under the table, in case they got the call to leave during the meeting.”

Ex3 maybe a fiction film, however, it deals with realistic issues. Luckily for The Ex, their chances of getting blown apart or stopping a bullet are one in a gazillion—literally. Countless shells are fired, and only one of them gets injured in the whole film. Ah yes, Brian Tyler’s music score goes well with the theme. Some of the stunts, especially the motor-cycle acrobatics in the extended climax, are stunning. Scenes shot as Millennium’s film city in Bulgaria, coupled with computer graphics, make for some interesting viewing.

Sylvester Stallone, who worked on the script too, does not hog all the lime-light. True, by virtue of being the founder (co-founder, now) he is the central character. He sustains his position and holds his own against some heavy-weights. Mel Gibson (reportedly paid $1m/day x 4 days’ work= $4 m) comes across suave initially but begins to ham down the line. Talking of lines, look out for the scene where he suggests that Ross is treating his men not as Expendables but Deletables! Jason Statham as the member who always differs with Ross, yet ends up as his eternal well-wisher, adds a touch of humour, is good. Wesley Snifes...Snipes gets a meaty role, and the re-credit sequences are dominated by his heroics. Kelsey Grammer (villain in Transformers: Age Of Extinction) , who worked recently with Sylvester Stallone in John Herzfeld’s Reach Me, gets reasonable exposure and some punch lines. Ronda Rousey is the only female member of the Ex. She started judo at 11, retired at 21, and started Mixed Martial Arts at 22. Along the way, she was a bartender, cocktail waitress, canine physical therapy assistant, and also worked graveyard shifts for 24-hour fitness. Films came next. Her catch expression in the film? A disgust-laced, “Men!” Antonio Banderas as the Spanish recruit-who almost-was-not, talks, talks, and talks. It’s hard not to like him, and, like Ross in the film, you succumb to his silly charm.

Did I miss out on some names? Meet

1. Avi Lerner 

2. Danny Lerner    

3. Guymon Casady  

4. Boaz Davidson 

5. Danny Dimbort  

6. Robert Earl 

7. Samuel Hadida 

8. Victor Hadida  

9. Basil Iwanyk 

10. Zygi Kamasa  

11. Matthew O'Toole  

12. Lonnie Ramati  

13. Trevor Short  

14. Kevin King Templeton    

15. John Thompson     

16. David Varod  

17. Les Weldon  

That makes 17 producers/co-producers/executive producers. 16 stars, 17 producers. How often do you see that?

Rating: ***

Trailer:

http://www.theexpendablesmovie.net/expendables-movie-trailer.html#.U_YbD5XYfDc

            Gandhi director Richard Attenborough leaves a rich legacy

Surviving ten testing years, actor-director-producer Lord Richard Attenborough (Life Peer-1993, CBE-1967, knighted-1976, Padma Bhushan-1983), breathed his last on 24 August 2014, five days short of his 91st birthday. For many in the film fraternity, the face of British cinema has faded out. For millions in India, it is the passing away of the Englishman who immortalised the Father of the Indian Nation, Mohandas Karamchand (Mahatma) Gandhi, on celluloid. His Gandhi (1982), made in English and painstakingly dubbed in Hindi too, remains a classic, both at the box office and at the Oscars, with 8 wins, including Best Film and Best Director.

In 2004, his elder daughter Jane Holland, her daughter, Lucy, and her mother-in-law, were killed in the south Asian tsunami. That was one body blow, which he described as the “…worst day of my life.” Then, in August 2008, he had a pacemaker installed. Four months later, he suffered a stroke and had a fall, landing him in coma. Though Sir Richard recovered in a few days, he could only move in a wheelchair and was never the same. Meanwhile his youngest brother John died in 2012. A lot of time was being spent at the nursing home, so the Attenboroughs sold-off their home in Richmond for £11.5 million. On Sunday, son Michael, 64, a theatre director, announced that his father was no more. (Michael’s sister Charlotte, 55, an actress (Jane Eyre, 1996) is married to actor Graham Sinclair).

Seven years before he lost his daughter, he had lost a close friend—Princess Diana. Shortly after the royal marriage, Prince Charles called Lord Richard when he was overseas, to ask him if he would coach Diana in speaking and communication skills. Attenborough readily agreed. The two became friends, and Diana even helped him fund some of his charities. He was deeply pained at her untimely and shocking death, in 1997. That was the first major tragedy in his later years.

Born Richard Samuel Attenborough on August 29, 1923 at Cambridge, he was the son of a college administrator, later Principal, of Leicester University College. His mother was the President of Leicester Little Theatre. He had two younger brothers, John (an executive with Alfa Romeo) and David (David is about four years younger). Richard studied at Wyggester Grammar School, Leicester, but left the school aged 16. He had developed a passion for acting and started working on stage at the age of 12. Soon afterwards, he won a scholarship and joined Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), which is where he met his future wife, Sheila (Beryl Grant) Sim, whom he married in January 1945. The marriage lasted an amazing 69 years, till his death. They worked in a play, The Lady with the Lamp. Later, she even acted in a few films. Making his professional debut at age 18, he played Richard Miller in the play, Ah! Wilderness. Next came the West End debut, in Awake and Sing (1942). That very year, he got a small role in film, Noel Coward’s In Which We Serve (1942). The film was a World War II drama and Richard played a coward sailor who leaves his post. Unfortunately, he got type cast in this image for some time. 

Richard joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1943. While on duty, he sustained permanent ear damage. For a while, he was loaned out to the RAF film unit, which was making war effort films like Journey Together. Demobilised in 1946, Richard returned to stage in 1949. He was a member of the original cast of the stage production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap, 1952, which is the longest running play in drama history. Sheila was also in the play. Richard was active on stage till 1965. Meanwhile, his film career had started in earnest and he began getting lead roles. Turning producer in 1959, he formed a partnership with Bryan Forbes (actor-director-screenwriter). Their company was called Beaver Films, and lasted for five years.

Actor Richard Attenborough’s directorial debut was Oh What a Lovely War! (1969), a project started by John Mills, who had developed the screenplay, with Len Deighton, from Joan Littlewood's stage play. This satire-fantasy on the First World War is largely set on Brighton Pier, but Attenborough and cinematographer Gerry Turpin successfully move out of the locale and the film is best remembered being the final shot, which pulls back to reveal an entire hillside covered in white crosses, marking graves. Gandhi (1982) got him the Academy Awards for Best Film and Best Director + 6 more. It was a 20-year obsession, since that winter day in 1962 when he sat down in St. Moritz to read Louis Fischer's biography of Gandhi, and he even wrote a book about it, called In Search of Gandhi (1982). Though he continues to make films till 2012, his later films could not match the genius or the popularity of his earlier work.

Often described as a workaholic, he believed passionately in social justice and the Labour Party, and was a vocal campaigner against apartheid. His leisure interests were football, collecting paintings and sculpture, listening to music. Among the numerous positions he held were: Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, since 1987, Chairman RADA, VP British Academy of Film and Television Art, VP British Film School, Chairman of the Actors’ Charitable Trust, pro Chancellor of Sussex University, Life President Chelsea Football Club, Trustee, Tate Gallery, Chairman Goldcrest Film and TV (which had partly financed Gandhi), Chairman, Capital Radio, Deputy Chairman, Channel 4 TV. 

Selected filmography: 74 films as actor

1947: Brighton Rock. Based on a Graham Greene story, Attenborough's breakthrough role as a psychopathic young razor wielding gangster

1956: Private's Progress. Successful comedy for the Boulting Brothers, John and Roy.

1959: I'm All Right Jack. Another hit comedy for the Boultings

1960: The Angry Silence. He starred as a factory worker who refused to join a strike

1963: The Great Escape. His first role in a major Hollywood, all star cast blockbuster

1963: Séance on a Wet Afternoon. Personal favourite

1964: Guns at Batasi. Bafta Best Actor Award

1965: The Flight of the Phoenix. He acted opposite James Stewart

1967: The Sand Pebbles. Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe

1968: Doctor Dolittle. With Rex Harrison. Another Best Supporting Actor, Golden Globe

1969: Oh! What a Lovely War. Feature film directorial debut

1971: 10 Rillington Place. Played serial killer John Christie

1972: Young Winston. He directed this epic period film based on British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's early life

1974: And Then There Were None. Based on the Agatha Christie classic, Ten Little Indians

1974: Conduct Unbecoming. With Michael York, Stacy Keach, Trevor Howard, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York

1977: A Bridge Too Far. Directed this epic war film, starring James Caan, Anthony Hopkins and many more.

1977: The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari), directed by Satyajit Ray

1979: The Human Factor. ‘Every man in love is a potential traitor.’

1982: Gandhi. Won best Picture and Best Director Oscars, and Best Director, Golden Globe

1987: Cry Freedom. About apartheid in South Africa

1992: Chaplin. Attenborough directed and produced this film, starring Robert Downey Jr. Some critics feel it his most under-rated film.

1993: Shadowlands. Another director/producer title for Lord Attenborough, starring Anthony Hopkins. He rates it as his best.

1993: Jurassic Park. Attenborough as John Hammond in the Steven Spielberg film

1994: Miracle on 34th Street. He starred in the remake of this 1947 film

1997: The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park sequel

1998: Elizabeth. Directed by Shekhar Kapur  

1998: Grey Owl. Released directly on video in the US

2002: Puckoon. He played the writer/director/creator)

2004: Tres en el camino (Within the Way Without) Introduction (Voice only)

2007: Closing the Ring. A love story set in Belfast, this was his last film as director and producer. It starred Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer, with Neve Campbell and Mischa Barton. 

Attenborough on Gandhi

''Of course it's a cheek, it's an impudence to tell 50, 60, 70 years of history in three hours. And the temptations of filming in India are simply dreadful.

The only kind of epics that work are intimate epics.

This film is old-fashioned in its shooting. It is a narrative film. I have no interest in being remembered as a great creative film-maker. I want to be remembered as a storyteller.

I realise that in making a film like this, the mere fact of selection carries with it the danger of lack of objectivity. And that objectivity is further reduced by the exclusion of characters and events. There will no doubt be criticism in India - legitimate criticism - that I have left out a number of huge figures in the Indian history of the time.

Nehru was closer to Gandhi than anyone else. Nehru willingly said to me: 'Look, he had all the frailties, all the shortcomings. Give us that. That's the measure, the greatness of the man.' ''

When the film was finished, we took two hours of it and showed it to all the major distributors in Los Angeles. Every single company that had turned it down over the 20 years bid for it.

One of the things that was of great concern to me was that none of the money subscribed by the Indian Government to the fund for indigenous productions would be eroded through our movie. I was given absolute assurances by the (Indian) Minister of Information and Broadcasting that there would be no question of this. Indeed, he went further, to say that whatever profit accrued as the result of the Indian Government's investment, once that investment was repaid, would go to indigenous film production. Nonetheless, there was massive protest, considerable protest, in India that this enormous sum of money had gone to an external movie made by a foreigner about the father of the nation.” 

Attenborough quotes

1.      I am anything but an intellectual.

2.      I am an actor. I work on instinct. I work on emotion.

3.      It is the narrative filmmakers who I most enjoy. D.W. Griffith is among those who influenced me most. I don't think I have ever been disappointed with a Fred Zinnemann picture.

4.      I do care about style. I do care, but I only care about style that serves the subject.

5.      I don't read a great deal of fiction, to my shame, other than the classics.

6.      And I believe we need heroes, I believe we need certain people who we can measure our own shortcomings by.

7.      And whereas I don't suggest for one second that Hemingway falls into the bracket of a heroic figure, he is nevertheless a very grandiose, a very flamboyant, a very theatrically evident figure, who unquestionably changed our views in relation to literature.

8.      A number of people have asked me and said, “What performance do you like best or what's the best film you've made?” and so on, and I don't really have any hesitation that the film I'm least embarrassed by and ashamed of or uneasy about is Shadowlands.

9.      I'm a passionate trade unionist.

10.  I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

11.  I just love biography, and I'm fascinated by people who have shifted our destinies or our points of view.

12.  I prefer fact to fiction.

13.  I understand how to cast and I understand how to get performances out of actors.

14.  I can't write, I can't paint, I don't compose.

15.  They criticise films that they think you ought to have made, not the film that you wanted to make and did make.

16.  I work as an actor work-- to involve an audience by engaging their emotions, to interest them in the story you are putting before them. 

Gleanings from Entirely Up To You, Darling by Richard Attenborough and Diana Hawkins

(Hawkins has worked with Attenborough on all the films he has directed, as co-Producer, Producer, etc.). It was Sheila’s idea that Lord Richard should collaborate with Diana on his autobiography.

*He loathes being called Dickie.

*A young Madonna auditioned for a part as an extra in A Chorus Line.

*The Hinduja brothers pledged funding for Gandhi, then refused to sign the final contract.

*Robert Downey Jr, star of Chaplin, invited Attenborough and Hawkins to dinner and seated them opposite a tailor's dummy dressed as the Little Tramp.

*Desperate to get finance, he once piled his art collection into the boot of his Rolls-Royce, parked it outside the Bank of Scotland, and offered to leave the paintings in exchange for an extended overdraft.

*He once forced his brother David, as a youth, to dress up in drag, and perform in a skit called Lydies Wot Come to Oblige.

*Lord Richard nursed one last ambition---He planned to make one last film, a film on the life of his hero, Thomas Paine.

                                                                                                                The November Man: Bond meets Bourne meets John Le Carré

Four times James Bonder Pierce Brosnan and the franchise parted company about a dozen years ago. Shortly after that, he started making plans to film a spy novel quite different from Bond sagas. It took ten years to materialise, but materialise it did. So, we have a film in which Irishman Brosnan, (who lives in Malibu and Hawaii) plays an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) man. An Australian TV actor plays his apprentice Mason, a Russian actress plays a Chechen victim of Russian brutality, a Sarajevo born actress is cast as a Russian assassin, a Yugoslavian actor-producer-director dons the garb of a Russian president hopeful. And they are directed by an Australia-born director, Roger Donaldson, who lives in New Zealand.

Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan), an ex-CIA agent, is pulled out of retirement in Switzerland by his old handler Hanley (Bill Smitrovich). His mission: retrieve valuable information on a Russian politician named Arkady Fedorov (Lazar Ristovski) from an old flame, in return for securing safe passage to her into the USA. But before he can pull her out, she is killed. Accused of war crimes, Fedorov has sent a hired assassin to destroy the trail of evidence leading back to him. Devereaux must play a game of cat and mouse with the young CIA recruit he helped train, Mason (Luke Bracey), while trying to locate a Chechen refugee, who is also on the hit list of Fedorov. All paths lead to Alice Fournier, a Serbian social worker with a secret (Olga Kurylenko).

The November Man was mostly shot in Belgrade, which replaced Berlin as the locale. According to Donaldson (Cocktail, The Bank Job, Dante’s Peak, Thirteen Days and No Way Out), “The script was originally set in Berlin, but we changed the whole movie to Belgrade, rewrote it for Belgrade, so it’s not Belgrade doubling for Berlin, it’s supposed to be Belgrade.”

The film is adapted from a 1987 novel, There Are No Spies, by late author Bill Granger. An award-winning novelist and reporter, Bill Granger began his literary career in 1979 with Code Name November (first published as The November Man), the book that became an international sensation and introduced Peter Devereux. His second novel, Public Murders, a Chicago police procedural, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1981. He wrote usually under his own name but sometimes under the pseudonym Joe Gash or Bill Griffiths. In all, Bill Granger published twenty-two novels, including thirteen in the November Man series, and three non-fiction books. Granger passed away in 2012, aged 70. Michael Finch (co-writer of Predators) and Karl Gajdusek (Trespass) worked together on the script for November Man, with some help from producer Sriram Das, President of Das Films, which has co-produced this project. Das, who is just 36, graduated cum laude from Harvard University, with a BA in Social Studies, and received an MBA from Yale University.

The November Man derives its title from the nick-name given to Devereux, suggesting that anyone who crosses his path ends up dead, as in December. Almost bereft of the kind of gadgets that are Bond’s stock-in-trade, the film does use a contemporary technological device, the drone. There is plenty of mayhem, but it never gets gory. And the only scene that can be described as semi-steamy is a set-up between a villain and a murderous blast from his past, not Brosnan and a femme fatale. In fact, the film begins with Brosnan retired, and soon he loses the mother of his 12-13 year-old daughter, who dies in his arms. Towards the climax, the fiends grab his daughter. So, f-a-r from 007! Some of the chases remind you of the Bourne films, and a lot of the CIA scenario is what we have seen in John Le Carré’s novels, and films based on them. One recent example was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. One can even see some elements of the classic Sleuth, where a senior detective locks horns with a junior, in a battle for professional supremacy.

Donaldson has been careful with the casting and used unusual faces, in particular: Bill Smitrovich as Hanley and Amila Terzimehić as the Russian assassin. Bill (General Gabriel in Iron Man), a former acting teacher and now 67, is given a bald look. Was this inspired by the baldness of some of Ian Fleming’s megalomaniacs? Amila Terzimehić was born in Sarajevo, and is an Olympic-level athlete, dancer and award-winning student of the Academy of Performing Arts.

In terms of narrative, we have seen many films about evil, greedy men in the CIA, some at the very top, so that in itself is not novel. However, the suspense here is well held. You do begin to get confused when you keep discovering every 15 minutes that the character you are following is not what he or she appears to be. It is especially painful when you find that in a blink, the whole game has changed. Towards the end, there is one noisy scene in which Devereux kills guard after guard while they are taking pot-shots at him, in a hotel. Yet the Supremo, who is in one of the rooms, doesn’t hear a thing. On the plus side, Donaldson finds ways to make the zillionth car chase scene in an American film exciting.

So what has the ex-Bond been up to, and how does he acquit himself here? The James Bond franchise came Brosnan’s way in 1995. In 2005, he did the comic thriller The Matador, playing an assassin whose life is falling apart. In the 2008 musical comedy hit Mamma Mia!, based on the songs of the music group Abba, wherein he crooned ABBA songs (yes, actually sang them!) and you might also remember Mrs. Doubtfire, with his very good friend, the late Robin Williams. In the November Man, he plays his age, and yet he is part of some high voltage action. He has said that he had asked himself before he decided on the part, “Can I still walk straight? Do I still pack a punch?” Both answers being in the positive, he got going. At 60 going on 61, he’s lost none of the charisma, and it is good that the film comes twelve years after his last Bond outing, helping avoid immediate recall comparison. Although his company, Irish Dreamtime, has a stake in The November Man, he does not stash up all the meaty stuff. The actors are all part of a pretty democratic project.

Dominic Cooper (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Devil’s Double) was to play Mason after he wrapped up his work on the thriller Dead Man Down, but he opted for another franchise, Need for Speed. (It might be worthwhile mentioning that Cooper is appearing as Ian Fleming in BBC America’s new drama, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond). Come in, Luke Bracey. Square faced and suitably dead-pan, he starts the film by smooching a waitress while waiting for Brosnan. Working in this set-up was a great experience for the Australian TV actor, who now has several major assignments in hand.

Olga Kurylenko, 34, who was seen in the Bond film Quantum of Solace and very recently in Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters, tries to play Alice Fournier with detachment, till two major twists in the story bring out some strong sentiments. Olga was born in Russia and lived in the port city of Berdyansk. Her father left when she was three years old, following her parents’ divorce, and in that respect, Kurylenko has followed in her parents’ footsteps: she is twice-divorced herself! Playing Fedorov is Lazar Ristovski, now 62. Born in Yugoslavia, he graduated as an actor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts of the University of Belgrade. He has had more than 3,000 performances on stage, and more than 40 appearances in films and TV, mostly in lead roles.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9PSKL8XsfI

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Review: Four turtles, One rat, One Shredder, One Fox

New York City is under attack by an evil gang, the Foot Clan, so-called because they trample everything.  They have an iron grip on everything, from the police to the politicians. Their leader is Shredder, a Japanese Ninjitsu Sensei (Tohoru Masamune), who raised the evil billionaire, Eric Sachs (William Fichtner), in Japan, and now works with him. When they learn about this, four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) come out of hiding in the sewers, to defend the city. TV reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox), who is the daughter of the scientist who made the turtles into mutants in the first place, while working for Sachs, unaware of his sinister designs, joins them. Also in their team are April’s admirer and TV channel photographer Vernon Fenwick, and the guardian of the turtles, a mutant rat named Splinter. Together, this motley crew has to overcome the might of Shredder, Sachs and their armada, who are equipped with an armoury of chemical and state-of-the-art traditional weaponry.

Besides the four reptiles, Splinter and Shredder are also CGI generated, though Shredder is shown in human form in a couple of scenes. All four turtles have names that refer to the Italian renaissance: Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. What kids and teenagers of today might find interesting is that Donatello is quite a big fan of the internet and has designed a technology rig on the back of his shell that gives him the most powerful mobile internet connection in New York City. The rather unimaginatively titled TMNJ is written by Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Evan Daugherty, based on characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman. Michael Bay is one of the producers. 

With such an outrageous plot, filmed in 3D, it is futile to look for clear logic. A rat who has raised the turtles from infancy to teenage, a rat so bog that his face looks like a horse’s, turtles that spend little or no time in water, turtles and a rat going topsy-turvy (literally) over pizza (“You'll see the world's most operatic pizza scene committed to CGI, say the makers”), turtles beat-boxing in a lift, a villain who has an unending supply of large knives emerging from his armour, turtles that look more like Shrek than turtles, one liners often coming at one every five seconds, and so on. Sachs receives April at his humungous mansion personally and shows her around without any servant/aide/guard. In an attempt to keep the story’s feet on the ground, we find the turtles are shown as no match for the Shredder, and even Splinter, who uses his tail like a whip, can barely offer a challenge. But the way the turtles eventually tackle Shredder is hardly convincing. It would appear that the flimsy bandanas they wear are designed to hide their identity. Really? Where have we seen the climax before, one in which heroes and villains dangle from architecture/metal rods and everything  keeps collapsing stage by stage, taking them lower and lower, until…?

In spite of lack of attention to detail and indulgent liberties, director Jon(athan) Liebesman (38, South African, huge cricket fan, and the maker of Wrath of the Titans, Battle: Los Angeles, The Killing Room, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) turns out a fun film. TNMT takes a few liberties with its prequels, while presenting a nearly complete unit of plot to first-time viewers. (I cannot stress enough that reviewing latest vehicles of long-running franchises is a reviewer’s nightmare. How does one ensure that he has seen them all, and remembers enough of them to make/analyse references/differences?). TMNJ does not take itself too seriously, either on the side of the turtles, or the humans, as evidenced in the encounters between April and her editor/room-mate/admirer. Most of it is a joy ride, à la the chase on snow. Many youngsters are going to scream in glee.

Megan Fox, 30, a three-time Transformer, has a meaty role here, the meatiest among the humans. She comes out impetuous, loving and lost, as the character demanded. Will(iam) Arnett (Canadian, 44, Despicable Me, Ratatouille, Voice of Batman in The Lego Movie) mumbles his lines, which results in viewers missing some of his quips. Another William, Fichtner (58, American of German ancestry, The Lone Ranger, Elysium) has clearly ‘crooked’ looks, a giveaway about his place in the story. Veteran Whoopi Goldberg (59, born Caryn Elaine Johnson) occupies a large part of the frame whenever she appears on screen, has little to do, and does it routinely.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwXFsrp6WBs

Crossing Bridges: Country Roads, take me to home, to Arunachal

If you are likely to be moved to deep emotions and tears by the idea of a Mumbai-based IT professional rediscovering his remote countryside roots in North-East India, and making the life-defining move of permanent homecoming, you will most likely feel you have a seen a minor classic. On the other hand, if you distance yourself and assess the film on merit, you are more likely to feel that it is a well-intentioned film which draws from multiple sources and uses clichéd allegory to make a moral statement, but not a classic by some distance. Either way, Crossing Bridges, not pacy or entertaining, has enough merit to be watchable.

Crossing Bridges is a very simple narrative of an IT professional, Tashi, who is forced to return home, to the North-East, from Mumbai during the recession period. Tashi has been away from his home for 8-9 years, and his culture is almost alien to him. Now, Tashi doesn’t have a job and is forced to stay in the village. Tashi is an only child. His parents want him to stay back forever, and tend to the field, but Tashi is keen on finding another job, and going back to Mumbai. Sadly, along with his job, Tashi has lost his girl-friend too, who has ‘eloped’ with his best friend to Delhi. Whereas Tashi has a laptop, a mobile phone and camera, he misses a TV and a car, luxuries he soon buys. And then he meets Anila, a substitute teacher in the village school, who helps him cross the symbolic bridge.

Writer-director Sange Dorjee Thongdok, who belongs to the Sherdukpen tribe of West Kameng district, is the first person of his State to pass out from a film school, the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) at Kolkata, in 2008. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Delhi University. His father, a government servant, wanted him to follow suit. But destiny willed otherwise, when Sange went to appear for the SRFTI entrance test at Guwahati, and was selected. Prior to this film, Sange Dorjee had made two short films--Pratyabartan and Evening Café.

About Crossing Bridges, he says, “It is my first feature film; it is about my people and my journey. Whenever I used to come back home, things seemed quite alien to me. As it was my own story, I felt it would work well -- I would be honest in my treatment and in a way it would be a safe narrative to attempt for me. Through the protagonist's life, the audience would see my world unfolding in front of them.” A great fan of Iranian cinema, he is highly influenced by Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi and Majid Majidi. His favourite quote comes from Kiarostami: “Strip away all the bells and whistles, and what you have is a subject and a camera.” These are the only things you need to shoot a film really. The rest are all etcetera.

How does it all add up? Sange is inspired by Swades. He even pays homage to the film by playing a scene on video. The Mumbai angle is well-handled, confined to occasional phone calls and an off-screen voice. You have to look a little deeper and then it might be apparent that the witch and her victims is an allegory to China, which shares a border with Arunachal, and has been making claims on Indian territory for decades. Contrasting this with swadeshi (indigenous), Sange has a scene at the TV showroom where the owner sells him a set that he has designed himself, and that can work without electricity (a scarce commodity in many parts of India, including Arunachal) for an hour. You must appreciate the way in which the character of the teacher is woven into the script. Not so, the way the giggling foursome go around in a vehicle. Symbolic to the point of being utterly predictable, crossing of bridges at various nodal points in the story would have elicited ‘there he goes again’ kind of responses, had Sange not managed to keep them coming-up just about naturally. Also, watch-out for the school class where Tashi is reading a lesson about Holi, and how a girl-student's innocent question leads to micro treatise on alienation. Contrived it might seem, but Sange executes it with so much honesty that you get taken in with the flow.

The name Crossing Bridges came about when Sange and his unit were crossing a river on foot and the Director of Photography (DOP), Pooja Gupte (an SRFTI batch-mate), suddenly said, “How many rivers are you making us cross, Sange?” That led to Crossing Rivers, and it eventually became Crossing Bridges. Crossing Bridges was shot on a Canon 5D camera and edited by Sanglap Bhowmik, another final-year batch-mate from SRFTI. Photography is commendable, the gorgeous locales apart, while the editing, obviously slow-paced, follows the demands of Sange’s story and treatment. Some cuts are awkward. Anjo John’s musical score underscores the narrative.

A word on cinema in Arunachal Pradesh. Film, as an industry, doesn’t yet exist there. Also Arunachal Pradesh doesn’t have any trained professional DOP or an editor or a sound engineer or other professionals and artists needed for a film crew. Crossing Bridges is the second film to be made in Arunachal Pradesh but is the first-ever directed by a native of the state. In 2006, a film in the Monpa dialect, Sonam, was made by Assamese director Ahsan Muzid, and premiered at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Crossing Bridges, premiered in September 2013 at the Mumbai Film Festival last year, won the Best Feature Film in Sherdukpen award at the National Film Awards. It came with a Rs.1,00,000 (US$1,700) award, which about 1/35 of the cost.

Before the shoot, Sange did a three-month workshop with members of the cast. All the names that constitute the acting credits are unknown, except for the lead actress, and she too is known for achievements far removed from scaling acting peaks. Phuntsu Khrime plays the protagonist, in a performance that is a bit laboured, studied, probably still under the workshop phase. The female lead is given to mountaineer Anshu Jamsenpa, mother of two, hailing from Bomdila, one of the locations in the film. Anshu created a mountaineering record by climbing Mt. Everest on 12th May 2011, and again on 21st May 2011. She repeated the feat on 18 May 2013, thus becoming the only Indian woman mountaineer to climb the world’s highest peak thrice. Anshu adds regional star value, and guess what, she acquits herself well. Most of the remaining cast-members are playing themselves. Though that may not be easy in all cases, there are no such issues here. They all blend with the landscape.

The film is partly in English and the local dialect is sub-titled in English.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNck_xV8BGc

Life of Crime: Black comedy with grey areas

Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch has been adapted for the screen as Life of Crime by director Daniel Schechter. It is not in the same league as Jackie Brown or Get Shorty. Attempted as a black comedy, it is not black enough (one lead actor being black notwithstanding) nor is it comic enough (some lines and situations are admittedly funny).

In the late 70s, the wife (Jennifer Aniston) of a corrupt real estate developer (Tim Robbins) is kidnapped by two common criminals (Yasiin Bey and John Hawkes) while he is away in another city, on a rendezvous with his girl-friend (Isa Fisher). The crooks intend to extort a huge ransom from him for her return. To add weight to their demand, they obtain inside information about his crooked business and off-shore accounts, and threaten him with dire consequences if he does not play ball. But the husband, who has already filed a divorce petition, decides he'd actually rather not pay the ransom to get back his wife, setting off a sequence of double crosses and plot twists.

Chances were slim that Daniel Schechter, a huge Leonard fan, would ever be able to make Life of Crime. Even so, he went ahead and wrote a draft in eight days, entirely as a speculative exercise. He said, "The book was so easy to adapt, I doubt I'll ever have that good an experience again." (Well, he’ll have to do a much better job the next time, if there one). Schechter sent his draft to Michael Siegel, Leonard's manager, who was impressed enough to gave permission to start pulling together financing. Schechter joined forces with producer, and Quentin Tarantino confidant, Lee Stollman.

The first actor to sign-on was Yasiin Bey, known to music fans as Mos Def. The 40-year-old, who was born Dante Terrell Smith, grew up in Brooklyn. You might have seen him in The Italian Job (2003) and in the 2005 film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Smith started to use the name Yasiin Bey after he performed the Haj, in 1998. He now lives in South Africa.

Playing the part of  Melanie, a classic Cosmo girl, Isla Fisher was cast after Schechter saw her in Bachelorette (2012). John Hawkes (52, Winter’s Bone, 2010, Sessions 2012), who rates Malcolm McDowell’s performance as a villain in A Clockwork Orange as outstanding and wishes he had done a role like that of Ray Liotta in Something Wild, came on to be the second villain in the team. Will Forte (Saturday Night Live) was fresh from his anything-but-comedy role in Nebraska when he was cast as Marshall Taylor, whose attempt at an extra-marital fling proves not only abortive but almost injurious. Somebody suggested Jennifer Aniston’s name to play Mickey and Tim Robbins (56, Mystic River--2003, Cinema Verite—2011) came on board to be her husband, Frank.

For decades, Elmore Leonard's novels--3:10 to Yuma, Jackie Brown, and Get Shorty--have been adapted into some of Hollywood's most thrilling movies. Leonard felt the worst two films he'd ever seen were adaptations of his 1969 novel, The Big Bounce, starring Ryan O'Neal in '69 and Owen Wilson in 2004. Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown –from his 1992 novel Rum Punch--was the truest he'd seen. He told a radio host, "My books are dialogue heavy, which makes them easy to adapt to screenplays.” Unfortunately, Life of Crime may not count among the best that made it to the screen. 87 year-old Lawrence passed away in August 2013, just as Schechter was giving finishing touches to the film, which took nearly six years to reach the screen.

Schechter says that he wrote one original scene not in the novel, an encounter between Marshall (Will Forte) and Richard (Mark Boone Junior) outside Mickey's house. Schechter began his career as a writer and editor. His previous movie, Supporting Characters, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2012, was made for $50,000. He is currently writing an adaptation of The Job, a 2008 novel by Irene Dische.

If he added only one scene to the novel, then it must be said that either director Daniel Schechter has failed in converting the book into a cohesive screenplay, or the novel itself lacks elements that would make it compelling viewing. Long pauses, little or nothing happening in several scenes, heavily accented dialogue that can be understood only in parts (another case for sub-titling American films in English), a heroine who does nothing for most of the time (waste of Aniston), a climax that comes too suddenly and too conveniently, entire scenes that bring out one bit of information each, unimaginative cuts, and so on.

The character of the Jews and blacks hating Hitler cultist is interesting, and the reason for most of the enjoyable black comedy. Some of the one-liners are hilarious, especially one that is Schechter’s favourite: Yasiin Bey, on seeing Aniston getting shocked at discovering that Mark Boone Junior is a Hitler cultist and has Nazi paraphernalia all over his house,  “What? Don't you care about history?” Performances are average on the whole. More was expected of Tom Robbins, Will Forte and Mark Boone Jr. Less was to be extracted from Yasiin Bey. John Hawkes’ looks and personality are incongruous. Isla Fisher is a good piece of casting.

Plot-wise, the twists are good, but one finds that many opportunities to turn the black comedy into loud guffaws are consciously eschewed. The angle of the husband not being interested in paying a ransom to get his wife back, which is the raison d’être of this story, is a joke I am sure many of us have heard at least 46 years ago. Hey, 46 years ago it was 1978, wasn’t it? Guess it all began with The Switch. Another nugget? Jennifer Aniston starred in a film called The Switch (2010), which was a romantic comedy and had nothing to do with Leonard’s story. Life of Crime, which is an odd title that does not quite resonate with the plot, has been described as a prequel of sorts to Jackie Brown. Do we have a brown comedy on the anvil?

Rating: **

P.S.: With as many 26 producers coming together to fund this film, are we looking at crowd funding as the next big ‘in-thing’?

1.      Ashok Amritraj   ... producer 

2.      Wendy Benge   ... co-producer 

3.      Charles Sauveur Bonan   ... executive producer 

4.      Joe D'Angerio   ... associate producer 

5.      Elizabeth Destro   ... producer 

6.      James Garavente   ... executive producer 

7.      Ellen Goldsmith-Vein   ... producer 

8.      Christopher Herghelegiu   ... executive producer 

9.      Aleen Keshishian   ... executive producer 

10.  Jordan Kessler   ... producer 

11.  Larry Ladove   ... executive producer 

12.  Tracey Landon   ... line producer 

13.  Kim Leadford   ... executive producer 

14.  Elmore Leonard   ... executive producer 

15.  Bryan Mansour   ... executive producer 

16.  Daniel McCarney   ... associate producer 

17.  Tara Moross   ... associate producer 

18.  Tim Nye   ... executive producer 

19.  Jacob Pechenik   ... executive producer 

20.  Peter Pietrangeli   ... co-producer 

21.  Jennifer Prediger   ... associate producer 

22.  Ralph Rossini   ... associate producer 

23.  Michael Siegel   ... producer 

24.  Lee Stollman   ... producer 

25.  Kim Wolf   ... consulting producer 

26.  Francesca Zappitelli   ... co-executive producer 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnaI-w8h8Ls

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Review: …and a Dame Who Kills

Comics icon Frank Miller and director Robert Rodriguez return nine years after their first trip to Sin City, a four-story compendium outing that had Quentin Tarantino as guest director and Frank Miller in a cameo, as a priest. It was a highly unlikely partnership. Their association began when Miller got a call from Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids 1 and 2, Desperado). Rodriguez made him a simple offer: Come to Texas for a day. If you like what you see, we'll make a deal. If not, the short film is yours to keep. Miller accepted and flew to Austin. Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton performed a scene, as he watched. When Miller saw the results, he was impresses. Rodriguez offered Miller the chance to co-direct the film with him. That did the trick. The film went on to become a worldwide hit. Come 2014, they are back, minus Tarantino, but with a heavy cast, and this one is called Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

If you haven’t met some of the characters, meet them now. If you have, meet them again.

·         Marv (Mickey Rourke) is the man with the giant face and almost superhuman strength. He is also able to command forces around to do as he pleases.

·         Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) is a pole-dancer/stripper (we do not see much of her body in the Indian release version) at Kadie’s joint, who has not got over the suicide of her life-saver, John Hartigan.

·         John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) is a dead cop, who appears as a ghost and talks to Nancy and explains to her why he committed suicide.

·         Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), the overlord of Sin City, usually plays poker in the backroom of Kadie's with his associates, including a crooked cop. He kills anyone who wins against him.

·         Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is his ‘illegitimate’ son who has probably inherited his father’s winning genes (gambler’s luck) and wants to confront him at his own game in his own den.

·         Marcie (Julia Garner) is a stripper who takes a fancy to Johnny, and vice versa.

·         Dwight McCarthy (!) (Josh Brolin) offers his services as a spy/private detective, takes compromising pictures of victims and sells them to his clients.

·         Ava Lord (Eva Green) is Dwight’s beloved but is now married to a billionaire, who, she says, abuses her. (From foreign accounts, there is generous skin show by Green, which has met with a red signal in India, and been deleted).

·         Manute (Dennis Haysbert) is a black hulk, with incredible strength, and a maniacal mission to guard and protect Ava.

·         Mort (Christopher Meloni) and his partner Bob (Jeremy Piven) are policemen investigating a ghastly crime at the Lords’ mansion.

·         Herr Wallenquist (Stacy Keach Jr.) is the most grotesque looking mobster in the film.

·         Dr. Kroenig (Christopher Lloyd) is a doctor with a menu card, who operates on his patients without anaesthesia, if they do not have the money to pay for it.

·         Bertha (Lady Gaga) is a waitress, fully-clothed, in a cameo, who has a heart of gold.

Experimenting with style, technique and technology is the hall-mark of films like Dick Tracy and Sin City. Founded on straight story elements, such films push the boundaries of VFX, colour, camera angles, make-up, graphic violence, sex and depravation. We have all of that here, in very good measure. Though it is an occupational hazard for the producers, I think viewers and some of my esteemed reviewers tend to constantly compare the elements of one film of the genre with the other, more so when it is a sequel or a franchise. Not having seen the 2005 venture, I could enjoy the film better as an entity and was happy to find it working on many levels. But there are several shortcomings too.

Bruce Willis is dignified, but wasted (as a ghost). Though the need to gain self-respect might be the motivation for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, his character is far from convincing, especially his ability to win at all forms of gambling every time. It is unclear whether Mickey Rourke possesses divine powers, is invincible or partly ‘vincible’. Jessica Alba’s dance routine gets tiresome after the third repetition. In any case, her persistence as a dancer, working in the same place that is the daily haunt of her hunter, is illogical. Julia Garner’s role too is contrived, leading to some of the goriest moments in the film. The presence of Powers Boothe (whose reminds you of Henry Fonda) at her house at the very moment when Gordon Levitt goes there is height of co-incidence. Your heart goes out to Josh Brolin, who loves a Dame to Kill For. Eva Green is convincing, both as the pure white dream-woman and a scheming vixen. Dennis Haybert is a massive opponent to both Josh Brolin and Mickey Rourke. Watch out for some real ‘graphic’ violence when he is on screen. Christopher Meloni and Jeremy Piven are quite credible as the policemen. With just one scene, that too in a Frankenstein/Mr. Hyde kind of face, there is little to say about Stacy Keach Jr. You don’t know whether Christopher Lloyd’s is a pound-of-flesh kind of role or a trope for black comedy. Ray Liotta’s one scene is strong. And that’s all he has. Gaga as a waitress? Lady, you’ve got to be kidding.

Stunning, surrealistic visuals greet you in the beginning, but the narrative fails to explain them convincingly. Maybe it is meant as a stand-alone prelude. Blending into graphics from live action is used diligently, and works almost every-time it is done. The black-and-white frames, with only selected elements and faces/hair/clothes colored, is a good technique, but probably overdone in the end. A sense of catharsis pervades the mayhem, and the VFX often serve as a tool for Bertolt (dramatist) Brechtian distancing.

Robert Rodriguez has had a good run, while Frank Miller (see below) has seen some rough years recently. With such a name-heavy ensemble cast on board, and with so many 3D/VFX films being churned out, maybe audiences would have expected more. Was it a good idea to make a ‘sequel’? Well, if a comic series runs for 10 years (1991-2000), it surely can spawn two films. India’s Prime Focus has done the VFX and 3D, most of it at its home ground, Mumbai.

Lastly, besides 3D glasses, it might be a good idea to carry and extra pair of eyes into the cinema-hall.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iFdPcx0W2w

Prime Focus World

Prime Focus World (PFW) has done the 3D and VFX for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. This is the same Indian company that worked on Clash of the Titans remake, and found its work panned. Their 3D effort was even nominated in a special Razzie category in 2010: Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3D. Luckily for them, Avatar: The Last Airbender won. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, had completed filming in late 2012. For a year after that, the film looked for a VFX company who would do the effects not for money, but in exchange for a share in the profit. PFW decided to jump in. PFW started work on the film in September 2013, with almost 2,300 shots to complete, in eight months. For reasons unknown, that eight months time-slab became five. PFW divided work between its locations worldwide, and Mumbai had to do almost 1,800 of the 2,282 shots in the film. Even though Rodriguez and PFW are generally happy with the outcome, the success of the film means a lot to both. Perhaps more to PFW, which has been struggling financially.

Frank Miller

57 year-old Miller was born in Maryland. In 1979, he landed a job as the regular penciler of Daredevil, and soon began writing the series, making him a true rarity in the world of superhero comics: an artist who was also allowed to script. By the dawn of the '80s, Daredevil's crisp dialogue and inventive, cinematic cartooning had sent sales soaring and turned Miller into an industry star. His most rewarded work was during 1991-99. His accomplishments in the film industry include: Sin City 1-3, 300, Elektra, Rats: A Sin City Yarn, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, RoboCop 2-3, and RoboCop vs. the Terminator. Also, though he received no direct credit for it, Batman Begins is widely acknowledged to be based upon his vision of the character, especially as seen in Batman: Year One. Likewise, his earlier work, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, is seen as having influenced the 1989 Batman film. He also appeared in the films Sin City-1, Daredevil, RoboCop and Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey.

When Ronin was released in the summer of 1983, the critical reception was glowing. Published in 1986, The Dark Knight became a pop culture phenomenon, clearly inspiring Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. He worked on the scripts of two RoboCop sequels--but the films flopped. In 1990, he lost control of his script for RoboCop 2, and was less than pleased with the on-screen result. Darren Aronofsky worked with Miller on adapting both Ronin and Batman: Year One. Miller had been hired in 2008 to make a film of Will Eisner's '40s vigilante comic The Spirit. When it was released, Miller's solo debut as a director was ravaged by critics and had disappointing box office collections. Then, in September 2011, Miller finally published Holy Terror, the graphic novel that had been brewing for ten years. Holy Terror failed miserably. The reviews, and the response from fans, were very harsh indeed.

The Prince: Assassin Prince, Drug King and two Princesses

The Prince is the latest offering from Grand Rapids-born director Brian A. Miller. Shot in Alabama in late 2013, the film was given a limited theatrical release on Aug. 22, 2014, and became available as Video on Demand (VoD) the same day. Three weeks later, it gets its theatrical release in India. It is one of two movies Miller shot back-to-back with Bruce Willis in Alabama. The sci-fi film Vice, which is scheduled for release in 2015, is the other. The director attended Grand Rapids Community College and studied film-making at Grand Valley State University, before moving to Los Angeles in 2003. Miller is a 1993 East Grand Rapids graduate, who directed his debut Caught in the Crossfire, in Grand Rapids, in 2009. He also filmed 2011's House of the Rising Sun locally. The Prince and Vice are from Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films, the production company that backed Caught in the Crossfire and brought Bruce Willis to West Michigan for the action movie, Setup, in 2010. Michigan’s film subsidies have been a huge incentive. The Prince cost between $15-18 million. Duration is listed varyingly as 93 min and 103 min.

Jason Patric plays Paul, a former army-man who turned assassin, who’s now gone straight. His has died of leukaemia, and the widower now runs an auto-garage. He is extremely fond of his only child, a school-going daughter, Beth (Gia Mantegna). All seems to be well, until Beth disappears. Paul locates his daughter’s greedy, coquettish classmate Angela (Jessica Lowndes), who, on being offered money, reveals that Beth had become addicted to drugs, and had gone to New Orleans, with her drug-supplying boyfriend. The boy-friend is linked to a drug-lord known as The Pharmacy, and, in turn, The Pharmacy (Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson) is controlled by a crime boss known as Omar (Bruce Willis). This is the same Omar who just happens to hate Paul for planting a car-bomb and killing his wife and daughter twenty years ago. In fact, back then, Paul’s target was Omar, but he did not take his car that day; his wife and daughter had borrowed it. Paul has little problem returning to his violent, violent ways, in order to rescue his dear, dear daughter.

Miller is the third choice to helm The Prince. It was John Carpenter first. Sarik Andreasyan (American Heist) was almost finalised, before Miller came in. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore, who scripted Ride at Fox and San Andreas 3D, had been peddling this idea since 2008. Miller is a great fan of Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. This film, he says, was inspired by Clint Eastwood’s The Unforgiven and Kevin Costner’s Open Range. The writers were accused of plagiarising from Taken, but their take was that they had reworked the idea of Unforgiven and made it into a contemporary gangster tale.

Getting off to an interesting start, including a good montage that establishes the back-story along with the titles, the film then keeps slipping into less credible and finally incredible situations. Maybe dates was an issue, but in the length available, Miller is unable to do justice to any of the other actors besides Patric and Lowndes, and Lowndes is not convincing either. One car explosion is well-executed, though it loses impact on repetition. The only car chase--which is de rigueur these days but has come miles since the days of Bullitt--is tame. Yes, it is realistic, but this is not a realistic film—you do not have totally one-sided gun-battles in a realistic film. Same goes with the way Paul acquires guns and ammunition. We see him approach the same man twice, with a reference to his father being the hero’s friend. Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore fail to invest the narrative graph with any exciting fluctuation, once the protagonist hits the ‘I’m coming to get you’ trail. In a cliché that is almost laughable, Omar tells one of his errant operatives that he will not forgive him, for “…only God forgives”. And then Omar’s man-Friday, Mark, shoots him down in cold blood.

Jason Patric, who was the lead in director Miller’s The Outsider, is cast as the modern-day Clint Eastwood. He is deadpan for most of the film and even speaks in a low voice, perhaps to get the “Make my day” effect. Patric is sincere in the early part of the film, but slides off into mediocrity as the film progresses. Patric is the son of actor and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller, and the grandson of Jackie Gleason. He played the role of a cop in Rush, then one of the leads in Sleepers, with Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman and Brad Pitt. More recently, he was noticed in Narc (2002), The Alamo (2004), and In the Valley of Elah (2007). He also starred in the Guy Maddin film, Keyhole (2012).

Jessica Lowndes has problems projecting the right age as well as right personality. In any case, hers is the most ill-defined character. Gia Mantegna as Beth has some chance to act as the climax draws nearer. Bruce Willis uses his stock-in-trade right-cheek contortion as he always does, but here it goes well with his role. An extended father-daughter-wife scene that is over-the-top and an ending that paints him as deluded and all-at-sea, make sure that he is wasted. Sleepy-eyed and ruffled-haired John Cusack has little to do except stand, talk and listen. Most of the conversation is inaudible anyway. The Grifters in 1990 was Cusack's first lead. He co-starred in Con Air (1997), opposite Nicolas Cage. Some of his other films:  Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), High Fidelity (2000), The Raven (2012), The Butler (2013), Grand Piano (2014) and Bag Man (2014).

Rapper Curtis (50 cent) James Jackson III, now 39, a real-life drug-runner turned singer, has barely one half-a-dollar scene as a menacing drug-baron, and he looks the part. There’s not much you can perform if bullets start flying a minute after you are first seen on the screen, and it’s RIP next. He was probably cast because he has worked with Miller earlier. Korean singer Jung Ji-Hoon, alias Rain, plays the right-hand man of Omar. He is given a kohl (kaajal)-laced look and at first sight appears to be a gay character, but that angle is not developed. Packing a mean punch, especially in martial arts, he almost gets the better of Paul in hand-to-hand combat. Okay, I said “almost”. Rain made his Hollywood debut in the Wachowski Bros. Speed Racer and went on to play the lead in Ninja Assassins, also directed by the same duo.

And what was the title all about? Yes, I get the point that it is a nick-name. But firstly, it is ill-suited and secondly, it is merely mumbled once or twice in the film. At least The Pharmacy has a direct bearing upon the gent. Two young girls are at the centre of the story, so how about  two Princesses? Unless ‘The Prince’ was the hero’s code-name. Now, I can’t Crack that!

Rating: **

Trailer: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x23izb4_the-prince-2014-trailer-dailymotion_shortfilms

                                       

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