Hollywood - An Objective Look

 A lot of Hollywood films are masala of a different kind. A few are good, in various genres. But overuse of technology and special effects/VFX have spoilt the kind of good films we got to saw earlier in decades gone by. This also seems to be happening in India to an extent, with tech playing a larger role than before.

When I started watching Hollywood films in the 70s and 80s, I did not understand the accent, always. But some movies made a mark with good action, comedy and so on. Slapstick was also a part of some. Laurel and Hardy were early favourites in childhood. Until we came tp appreciate Charlie Chaplin and his social commentary/satire, in Modern Times and The Great Dictator.

In humour of a different kind, fell Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. I liked both. Some action films like Guns of Navarone, Mackenna's Gold, or Where Eagles Dare were awe-inspiring. I did not dig the ovies that relied on special effects all that much. Star Wars  or Close Encounters or disaster films like The Towering Inferno, I mean. Lawrence of Arabia seemed like a meaningful film, about the history of the Arabs.

Lately, I have liked the trilogy starting with Before Midnight which was really made well. Before that, some capers like Romancing the Stone, or A Fish Called Wanda were also fun watches. 

A really good suspense film- apart from Hitchcock films- was The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, remade badly as Karz. The original was deadly!

The Comedians

I mean the directors, not the actors, though some of them were both.

In Hollywood, the first guy that comes to mind is Woody Allen. He made several good films, one as recently as a couple of years ago. Most of these had wonderful humour, mostly about human relationships, but also a lot of other things. Sometimes dark humour, but very witty. And delivered with deadpan expressions. A genius.

A very different kind of humour (in your face, slaspstick) is to be found in Mel Brooks' films. Usually spoofs on something (Silent Movie was about Hollywood itself), I still remembers scenes from films of his I watched many years ago-Blazing Saddles (spoof on Western Cowboy movies), History of the World (about major events in history), To Be Or Not To Be (on Hitler), and a Star Wars spoof called Spaceballs. I remembered the last again while watching The Martian recently.

Closer home in India, directors of good comedy were Basu Chatterjee and Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Both masters of situational humour, they made between them, great films like Chupke Chupke, Chhoti Si Baat, Shaukeen, Gol Maal and Naram Garam. Angoor by Gulzar was another great comedy. Though not known for comedy, Satyen Bose's Chalti ka Naam Gaadi with Kishore Kumar was an excellent romantic comedy. So was Padosan, directed by Jyoti Swaroop. Mehmood's role in it was immortal, on of the best ever.

Woody Allen's The Front

This is a movie about a dark chapter in American history- the persecution of anyone remotely linked to the left. I mean with communist leanings. American people have seen slavery, a civil war, and this mindless persecution which probably ended in the sixties, but not before taking a heavy toll of reputations and people with reputations.

Anyway, trust Woody to make a black comedy about this. Made in 1976, this is the story of an ordinary American who fronts as a writer for a "left-leaning' friend who is on the dreaded blacklist, and therefore does not get any work under his own name. This leads to naturally comic situations, such as Woody pretending to know a lot of authors, and his being asked to rewrite a scene on the sets of a hit TV show because the sponsor has a gas company and wants the reference to gas chambers deleted from a Nazi story episode. He also finds a girl who is in love with the 'writer' in him, and throws a fit when she discovers he is not.

A delightful film, recommended highly for fans of the Woody Allen brand of humour.

Movie on Lumiere

Saw a movie on the Lumiere channel. It shall remain nameless, coz I believe the channel wanted it so. It was Norwegian, going by the story, scenery and some hints. Nice story, of a geeky guy who is befriended by  a girl who wants to move in with him, and does.

There is a group of friends at a swimming club who keep advising him about how to handle her, and his love life. She has a kinky friend with crystals and theories about chakras. Borrowed from India. And she herself is normal, by female standards. She believes in auras, and takes him for a spin to Paris and then throws a tantrum. She later moves up North to work (North is more beautiful and less populated), and falls for a guy there who is into watching eagles. The upshot is anxiety, and some time later, she realises the 'eagle-eyed man' is pea-brained, and comes back. Hunky dory till hero discovers she is carrying an eaglet inside her. End of love story. He throws her out and goes on the rebound into the arms of a girl he'd met in his travels, and whose advances he rejected.

Novel elements like the Norwegian scenery, the geeky guy's expressions (or lack of  them) and the one-liners which reminded me of Woody Allen, make it a nice film to watch.

Of Cyclones and More- Mission Impossible

I was in Great Lakes Institute at Chennai for a conference. Against impossible odds, when Cyclone Thane (a Burmese name) threatened, we still managed a round of Golf at the Gymkhana early morning before it struck. Mission Impossible? Tom Cruise would be proud. Great Lakes justified its name, and looked like all the Lakes had converged on it. Conference went on quite well in spite of that.

One of the bonuses of a conference is you get to meet academic friends and others too. Both missions were fulfilled. Some interesting papers on advertising effectiveness came from presenters. Also squeezed in some movies, including Mission Impossible 4- The Ghost Protocol. Interesting concept, though not new. Tom Cruise is aging, but still watchable. But a better film was a video watch called Hotel Rwanda, about a brave manager at this hotel who saves many guests through his innovative thinking, during one of the usual civil wars/coups that are the bane of many African nations. Moving, with a very good acting quotient. Also had a glimpse of Woody Allen's 2011 film, Midnight in Paris, which has the hero, a budding author (played by Owen Wilson) doing time travel to a Paris of another era and meeting great authors and artists- Hemingway, Picasso, Scott Fitzgerald, Salvadore Dali, and in the process, discovering himself. Fantastic idea!

Kurosawa and Woody Allen

It is rare for me to watch two movies in a day these days. I did it a few times during college days. In a day, I had once seen three Hindi films- and survived. But this weekend was different. I saw a Kurosawa film, Red Beard, followed by a Woody Allen film- Take the Money and Run. Both as different as chalk and cheese- or wine and single malt, but each completely engrossing.

Kurosawa is an acclaimed Japanese director known for his prelude to The Magnificent Seven and eventually, Sholay in its Indian avatar. Seven Samurai. But Red Beard is an incredible film. It is three hours long, and apparently, as its cassette cover describes it, about a young doctor posted in a rural clinic while dreaming of a plush job elsewhere. But that description does no justice at all to the film, and the guy who wrote it must have been blind, or of a low IQ. You will rarely see a movie so rich, multi-layered, and making its point with such little drama- understated in all its finery. The drama is in its simplicity, and the stories within the main story- the one described on the CD cover. It is about life in all its shades- gray, white and black. Of love, betrayal, poverty, lack of medical care, dedication of a single doctor who serves the poor, medical ethics, grace in death, confidences kept till the death bed, and lots more. It is difficult to describe it, actually. In short, great cinema.

Take the Money and Run is a breezy, self-deprecating comedy in typical Woody Allen style, about a bumbling bank robber and his wife. Enjoyable, and good fun to watch.

Woody Allen

Having seen a few of his movies, I was aware of the wacky sense of humour. So it was with some anticipation that I bought a book (Without Feathers)written by him recently. And he did not disappoint. The same wacko humour is evident on every page. It seems he can take off on anything. The book is a collection of writings about a myriad subjects. His movies are mainly about man-woman or man-God relationships, but this bunch is a lot more diverse.

Another comic from the U.S. who I like is Mel Brookes. His movies from the classic Silent Movie, to Spaceballs, History of the World Part 1, Blazing Saddles, and To Be or Not to Be are all uniformly good. His brand of humour is unique, though some people don't identify with it.