Watching Instantly
By Vijay Kumar
June 29, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Went Looking For…
Believe it or not, I sometimes do have a predetermined playlist while browsing for movie titles. Generally, there is a week between my adding them to the playlist and actually watching them. The movies under “Went Looking For…” are typically the movies that I had slotted as “Ended up with…” the previous week.
Rachel Getting Married
Brushing aside the snide remark “You are more involved in this wedding than you were with ours”, my wife claims that siblings (read sisters) tension cannot be written more accurately than in this movie. Rosemarie DeWitt is the titular Rachel, whose pre-wedding jitters are compounded by the presence of her scene-stealing sister, Kym, played by Anne Hathaway. In fact, more than the commonplace wedding anxiety, Rachel’s nerves face greater challenge from Kym, who is seeking closure from everyone, including her separated parents, for a tragic past. The engrossing screenplay and cinematography ensure that you are as involved as the rest of the cast. Involvement can take the form of either the bridesmaid, who seems to be itching for a showdown between the sisters, or the father of the bride, who is doing his best to maintain a safe distance between the sisters. The bridesmaid wins.
Two extended scenes stand out in their execution – the rehearsal dinner and the dishwashing competition between the groom and the father of the bride. Other unconventional plot points come in through the Indian style interracial wedding and the musicians among the family members.
Food, Inc.
You can’t argue with the facts presented in this documentary. Most of it is public knowledge. Food in America has become incorporated to such a great extent that farms in the traditional sense exist only on the wrapping material. Although the filmmakers have commendably tackled the whys and the how for food processing today, no real solution for improving the process is presented. Maybe that is not the aim of this documentary. According to IMDb, “Neither Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan or director Robert Kenner are vegetarians, despite the film's spotlight on meat cultivation and processing in the United States”.
Again, they are not expected to be vegetarians, but it underlines the reason why a solution is not imminent. The eating habit is not going to change as quickly as is required to prevent the mass eating disorder available in this country. As a fact presenting documentary, it is a solid film and was awarded with an Oscar nomination for the year 2010. It is available in HD on NetFlix IW.
The Misfits
Famous for being Clark Gable’s and Marilyn Monroe’s last starring roles, John Huston’s The Misfits is a character study of a small group of people who get together as a group and try to coexist with each other. Set in Nevada, a recent divorcee decides to spend some time in the country side with an aging cowboy and his cronies. She is as sensitive and emotionally vulnerable as they come. This is in direct contrast with the take-life-as-it-is trio of men. Somewhere along the way she invokes the sensitive side of each one of them and their individual reaction to the change is as different as are their personalities. One fights with this change, the other rejects it while the last one does his best to embrace it.
The movie, done in collaboration with Arthur Miller, deals with a few concepts once deemed as lasting forever - like marriage, the wild west, motherly love and the American dream. Rather than glorifying these popular topics, the movie goes about deconstructing them during the course of the narrative and strips the "forever" label from each one of them.
While the characters of Monroe, Wallach, Clift and Gable struggle to accept the permanent changes in life as they know it, they fail to see the simplicity with which the older woman, Monroe’s companion, reconciles with changes in her own life. The fact that her husband now lives with her best friend should depress most people but the older woman reasons it out in two quick sentences. She also has the best quip in the movie about Nevada - “The Leave It state. Ya got money you want to gamble? Leave it here. You got a wife you want to get ride of? Get rid of her here. Extra atom bomb you don't need? Blow it up here. Nobody's gonna mind in the slightest.”
Sense and Sensibility
This is my second movie this week involving sisters. Strange how the subconscious works…
The selection of Ang Lee as director for this very British movie must have raised a few eyebrows and a few other stiff upper lips might have quivered as well. His genius is visible through the absence of any stark trademark directing techniques. It turns out to be a gently paced, faithful adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel and is based on a screenplay by the female lead, Emma Thompson. Inspiration to go with Lee could have had its origins during a viewing of the movie he directed prior to this one, the very original, very Taiwanese take on a patriarchal family with three sisters with three unique personalities in “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman”.
Sense and Sensibility is set in a time clouded with unspoken communal rituals peculiar to the British gentry. Their ability to be eloquent without communicating is a rich source for writers from that era to create situations based on misunderstandings. I couldn’t help but notice that Hugh Grant can essay the same bumbling mumbling charm of an aristocrat regardless of the era in which his character lives. Replace charm with a stoic quality and you have Alan Rickman, who probably never went overboard before or after Die Hard. Indeed it is the ladies, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, as well as the supporting cast, that carry the movie for most parts.
The story has been retold in many languages. Although Sense and Sensibility has been set in the original surroundings, my favorite continues to be the Rajiv Menon helmed Kandukondein Kandukondein or “I have seen it,” which was liberal with narration changes but stayed true to Austen’s original characters.
Ended up with…
Whilst checking out the above movies, I invariably end up fattening my instant watch queue with some new additions. These go into my “Ended up with…” list and the plan is to watch them during the week ahead. NetFlix keeps tempting me to move each one of them to the top of the queue but I resist. These are movies that I plan to check out in the days ahead.
The Closet
This French comedy (Le Placard is the original title), was recommended to me as being in the same lines as Get Out Your Handkerchiefs. That was enough for me to add it to my queue. The first one had a unique plot even for a French comedy where a 13-year-old achieves what a woman’s husband or lover could not. Let’s see what unexplainable plot point this one has.
Following
The only reason for adding this one to the queue is due to the fact that this is Christopher Nolan’s feature debut. I have a feeling that this might not be a Memento, but I am compelled to check it out.
The January Man
Back when Kline was king… was he ever? Anyway, he has had some memorable roles as in A Fish Called Wanda and Sophie’s choice. If nothing else, this is from the same decade and Kline must show some form in this movie that deals with a serial killer but is labeled as a comedy by NetFlix.
The Education of Charlie Banks
The movie plot line hints at an intense drama but the actors involved are relatively untested. The director, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, is a little out of the ordinary as well. Plain curiosity makes me add this movie to the list.