Arb ‘em all

 

 

 

Everyone can cut a deal. Well, at least everyone who lives to see the end of the tale. Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is selling his self-made top-of-the-line hedge fund empire. A few hundred million dollars of accounting jugglery owing to some badly placed bets notwithstanding. Robert takes a late-night jaunt with mistress Julie (Laeticia Casta) – and a terrible road accident ensues, leading to Julie’s demise. The rest of the movie is about Robert holding on to the increasingly shaky prospects of keeping his family as well as the proposed sale on course, as the skeletons threaten to tumble out from the cupboard one after another. Arbitrage is an amoral story, perhaps intended to extract some modicum of sympathy for a profession much-maligned of late, in particular for one of its stereotypical New York protagonists

 

12/20  

 

Five Degrees

Crime and Punishment and perdition lends itself easily to the moviemaking medium. Before I begin to sound like the celebrity hosts at the Oscars with their hackneyed one-liners let me quickly say that I just happened to catch up with several movies of the same genre in rapid succession, and cannot currently resist the temptation to rank them in a continuum ranging from the purely amoral to the redemption tales.

Joint #5: The Flock and Lonely Hearts: Do you like your porn served freshly killed and/or amputated? Gorno (gore + porno) is apparently the new rage - with movies like Saw and Hostel running into several delightful sequels. Thankfully movies like The Flock (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473356/) serve as some degree of anodyne. Did anyone notice the resurrection of a leaner meaner Richard Gere? Adventurous war photographer in The Hunting Party, and keeping tabs on crimes of passion offenders in The Flock - this movie shows the lengths of depravity that affection can lead to. Same with Lonely Hearts (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441774/) - John Travolta, Jared Leto and Salma Hayek light up the screen and make you retch at the sheer inhumanity of man

#3: Zodiac (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/): David Fincher in another brilliant movie about an obsessive chase of a serial killer. Watch for Robert Downey Jr as the obsessed detective here. What does one make of the futility of the search, many years on? Little, it appears. A movie with lots of drama and few conclusions. Fincher is consistently brilliant

#2: Cleaner (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0896798/): Samuel L Jackson is singularly missing from this blog so far. This movie is about those that clean up post a death in the family. Things get messy as crucial evidence is "cleaned" from a murder scene. The movie goes on into explore the moral ambiguities in the protagonist's past, and the effects on his daughter. It ends with a lot for the small family to clean up, with a little help from a friend. Playing around with shades of gray and degrees of right and wrong, an otherwise hackneyed theme is well executed by Samuel L Jackson, Eva Mendes, and Ed Harris - the last being in a pivotal role

#1 Road to Perdition (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0257044/): What is it about Tom Hanks? (Well - there was Paul Newman and Jude Law here too, but, really?!) In Forrest Gump you cry as this man, oblivious to walking hand in hand with history, lives by the simplest of tenets. In Saving Private Ryan, we have no trouble believing that this man is a schoolteacher as well as a consummate leader of men on the battlefield. In Apollo 13, we live the space dream gone horribly wrong and rejoice at survival against all odds. Really, what is it about this man?! The perdition of Mike Sullivan Sr (Tom Hanks) lies in protecting his surviving son from the damnation of hell that is likely to eventually befall all gangsters on account of their chosen path. If I were to attempt to summarize this movie in a single sentence, I would say thus - Tom Hanks is a gangster, is unfairly set upon, avenges his family, and is survived by a son untainted by evil. And having summarized thus, I can categorically say that such a summary completely fails to capture the evocation, the emotional highs and lows, and the superb performances in the movie. This is among the best movies that I have ever seen, period. This is about legacy, about what you are remembered by, about what you live by. In a Depression and in a world of gangsters, and with your hands tainted by innumerable killings in the course of your profession, if you are remembered by your son for your goodness and resolve, you are truly noble. If the Corleones draw you by the sheer thrill of their acts and way of life, the perdition of Tom Hanks actually makes you believe that a gangster can be truly noble at heart
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PS: American high society is pretentious (who isn't?) and flaunts many trappings of Brit high society while never failing to castigate it at the same time. Saw Woody Harrelson in an unexpectedly brilliant role in The Walker (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783608/) where he cleans up his complicity in a high society murder with reserve and panache! And on Mr Hanks - a relatively simpler role of leveraging disgruntled CIA officers (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and high society ladies bored and with nothing to do, really (Julia Roberts) to spark off - hold your breath - a counter-offensive against Russia in Afghanistan(!) in Charlie Wilson's War (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472062/)

Looking at these posts, I cant help feeling that we live in a Golden Age of movies with so many brilliant performers and scripts, both new and resurrected, aided by the greatest heights cinematography and sould editing has ever attained thanks to technology. And that in itself makes maintaining a movie blog (currently with zero readership) worthwhile.

Mixed bag

Many years of *not watching much by way of movies* can lead to many years of glorious catching up! Chinatown (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/) is the kind of movie that one would dread reviewing, possible but not probable that one would be able to add much by way of fresh thought on what has been called in multiple fora as the "Finest Film of the 70's" and is in any case anthologized to weariness. Jack Nicholson is superlative, Roman Polanski signs off with a (wholly unnecessary?) macabre end. Made me think of cliches of brittleness and futility of life than suspense and the politics of water, really. Film noir calls for careful exploration

With a lot less trepidation, I write on Monty Python and the Holy Grail (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/), pretty much popcorn to Chinatown's complex concoction. Comedic capers and Brit wit, and what really stands out for me is being relevant and genuinely funny thirty years down. Not a mean acheivement. And a hilarious one, too

Back to times more contemporary. Edward Norton remains a favourite, and neither American History X (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/) nor Primal Fear (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117381/) in the least diminish. What would you say of this man in the former (juxtaposed as he is against a young and impressionable Edward Furlong (T2 etc))? I would say that Mr Norton is as accomplished an actor as any, carries off venal hatred and cold malice well, but unlike many that deviate and die, is prone to morality tales - American History X, and Kingdom of Heaven and Fight Club to boot, have him "come round" and question his chosen path. Not so Primal Fear. It is exciting as Anthony Hopkins is exciting as Hannibal, and it is unapologetic and unredeemed. One wishes the actor really gave us some notice of where his heart really lies. Richard Gere - well, I didn't quite get what the fuss with his performance was all about - much like George Clooney in Michael Clayton, I'd say - reserved, strong and ordinary

Cast of The Great Debaters on Oprah

In other noteworthy movies I have seen of late, Barton Fink indulgently questions creativity - both the Hollywood Movie Mogul kind and the Broadway inspired scriptwriter kind. Yet again Forest Whittaker and Denzel Washington dazzle us in The Great Debaters, another pre-affirmative action movie, this time with a debate team of a *negro* college taking on Harvard and winning - some of the debates make for good listening, Indian viewers may well like the repeated references to Gandhi, a contemporary in the 1930s setting of the movie. Untraceable is the periodic catharsis of out Internet-and-all-that-it-purports conscience and one cannot help wondering whether parts of the movie were not meant to titillate. No such *moral ambuiguities* in P2, your regular urban horror flick - I only chose this movie because Rachel Nichols looks remarkably attractive in it!

Scenes from P2

Whew.

Its 2.50AM. Would like to catch up tomorrow on The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - I am not a reader of the series but it does seem to be more substantial than ridiculously ageing wizards