Maleficent

Directed By:

                Robert Stromberg     

Review:

No stranger to larger-than-life characters, Angelina Jolie doesn’t chew the estimable scenery in Maleficent — she infuses it, wielding a magnetic and effortless power as the magnificently malevolent fairy who places a curse on a newborn princess. Her iconic face subtly altered with prosthetics, she’s the heart and soul (Maleficent has both, it turns out) of Disney’s revisionist, live-action look at its most popular cartoon villain, the self-described Mistress of All Evil from 1959’s Sleeping Beauty. A few bumpy patches notwithstanding, the new feature is an exquisitely designed, emotionally absorbing work of dark enchantment. With the production’s star wattage, well-known source material and multipronged branding push, the studio should see its $175 million gamble on a first-time director stir up box-office magic both domestically and in international markets.As the Broadway musical Wicked did for the Wicked Witch of the West, the movie humanizes Maleficent by creating an origin story, revealing a shocking betrayal that turned the kind fairy vengeful. Reworking an age-old tale that has undergone countless variations over the centuries, the screenplay by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast) draws from Charles Perrault’s 1697 “La Belle au bois dormant” and the animated Disney feature that gave the spiteful character a name and a deliciously sinister personality — which Jolie deepens while still finding the kick in it. There’s no hundred-year sleep in the new film’s timeline, and the handsome prince is a bit player in a story whose true center is a love that has nothing to do with happily-ever-after romance.

But magical fairy-tale elements still abound in the debut helming effort of Robert Stromberg, production designer on Avatar and a longtime visual effects artist whose credits include Pan’s Labyrinth, The Hunger Games and Life of Pi. “Let us tell an old story anew,” the film’s voiceover narration begins, setting a tone of once-upon-a-time with a twist. (The opening scenes were written by an uncredited John Lee Hancock for late-in-production reshoots.) Though thenarration sometimes states what’s already obvious, Janet McTeer delivers it with mellifluous and warm authority.

Those early scenes show the blossoming love between two orphans: a compassionate fairy girl named Maleficent and a human boy, Stefan. Played as kids by Isobelle Molloy and Michael Higgins, and as teens by Ella Purnell and Jackson Bews, they grow apart as adults. Jolie’s Maleficent is busy as protector of the moors, and Stefan is driven by ruthless ambition to attain his kingdom’s crown. He’s played by Sharlto Copley as the epitome of cravenness — a far cry from the just, noble and dreamy kings of many a childhood story, including the source for this one.

To secure that crown, Stefan commits an act of unspeakable cruelty against Maleficent. The mutilation takes place offscreen, but its effects are fully felt; Maleficent’s heartrending reaction recalls Jolie’s cry of anguish as Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart. To call Maleficent a woman scorned would be the mildest of understatements. And so her cruelty is understandable, if not justifiable, when, in a scene of beautifully orchestrated suspense and terror, she attends the christening of King Stefan’s child, Aurora, and casts her under a spell, dooming her to begin a very long nap at age 16, after the famously foreordained incident with a spinning-wheel needle.

The teenage Aurora, appearing three-quarters of an hour into the movie, is played by Elle Fanning with a preternatural brightness. (Jolie’s daughter Vivienne Jolie-Pitt takes her screen bow as the 5-year-old princess.) The opposition between the innocent, openhearted girl and the hate-filled fairy queen has the necessary archetypal pull, and their initial meeting, in the night forest, is one of the most striking sequences in the Disney canon.

The Hunger Games Mocking Jay Part 2

Director:

                Francis Lawrence

Novel:

               Suzanne Collin

 Cast:

 

Review:

So now we have the absolute, ultimate, this-time-we-mean-it finale of the “The Hunger Games” series, the clunkily titled “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2.” But really, if we’re talking about things like art and narrative drive—which actually can and do exist in this franchise—a single film would have worked just fine. Last year’s “Mockingjay – Part 1” felt like one long placeholder. It featured a lot of wheel spinning and repetitive imagery, and it served as a glaring reminder of what a cynical cash grab this finale-splitting business truly is.
With the exception of a couple of truly dazzling action set pieces, “Mockingjay – Part 2” provides more of the same. The stakes are higher because this is the end—It really is this time!—but the first hour or so of returning director’s film is legitimately nap-inducing. From the very first moments, when Jannefer Lawrance's Katniss Everdeen struggles to speak her name as the late, great looks on sadly as gamesmaker-turned-ally Plutarch Heavensbee, it’s just unrelentingly dour, even for a film set in a dystopian future. Mercifully, the script from  and g offers a few glimmers of sardonic humor, including quips from katiness fellow victor, the quick-witted Johanna.
It would be reasonable for us to hope for something better, however. Based on Suzazns Collin’ best-selling trilogy, “The Hunger Games” series has set the gold standard for all adaptations of post-apocalyptic Young Adult novels. “Divergent,” “The Maze Runner” “The Grive"—regardless of when the actual books came out, they always seemed like knock-offs of “The Hunger Games” films in terms of narrative thrills, weighty themes, production values and star-studded casts. The presence of serious, seasoned actors like Hoffman, Donald, Julieen, Woody, Stanley and Jreffry gave these movies a gravitas but also elevated them above your expectations for material aimed at angsty tweens. They were violent, exciting blockbusters but they were also About Something—at least the first two movies were.

Udta Punjab

Review

Genre:
Drama • Cast:
Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Diljit Dosanjh • Director:
Abhishek Chaubey SPOILERS AHEAD Abhishek Chaubey's Udta Punjab is littered with standout scenes, but none matches the sledgehammer impact of the climax. Sudden, quick on the draw and stunningly to the point, it brings the curtains down on a profane, dystopic vision of a state that was once India's bread basket but is today burdened with a whole slew of problems, not the least of which are the horrific repercussions of narco-terror. Chaubey tells his powerful, sinewy story with great dramatic flair, but he never ventures too far away from the harsh reality of the nexus between the drug kingpins and the state's politicians.  
 In one scene, a lawman mockingly describes the current situation as Green Revolution Part Two, drawing attention to the link between the drug menace and Punjab's worsening agrarian crisis. If the film's keen sense of the times that we live in is impressive, the way it etches out and develops the key characters in the drama is no less commendable. Three of the film's four principal characters are utterly imperfect, but they are, pretty much like Punjab itself, not beyond redemption. When self-realization kicks in, they are all ready to give redemption a shot. It is their journey from gloom to hope that Udta Punjab tracks without the slightest concession to overt sentimentality.  
 What it achieves in the process is real emotional traction. As the three flawed figures - a wayward pop singer, a poor farm hand done in by desperation and a cop uneasy with the compromises he makes - fight to rise above the despair surrounding them, they emerge as people worth rooting for. At two-and-a-half hours, Udta Punjab is an overlong film, but almost every scene, jointly written by Sudip Sharma and director Abhishek Chaubey, demands attention and propels the story forward. The dialogues, mostly in Punjabi (written by Sudip Sharma), are earthy and rooted in the soil, which augments the authenticity of the story and the characters that people it. Expletives fly thick and fast as the action shifts from the raucous milieu of a coke-snorting Punjabi crooner (whose songs are peppered with four-letter words) to the world of corrupt cops (who let drug consignments be driven in and out of the state) to the depths of the difficult life of a Bihari migrant (who sinks into a spiral of drugs and sexual exploitation).  
 With an intelligent combination of hardboiled cynicism and broad touches of trippy black humour, the film brings alive a benighted universe where life has lost its way in a drug-induced haze. The film invokes Punjab's great romantic poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi to accentuate the poignancy of the situation. The rockstar-protagonist sings of "a girl whose name is love and who is lost" to drive home the evaporation of charm and beauty from the lives of the youth. In the first 40 minutes of its second half, Udta Punjab is literally trapped in darkness. Director of photography Rajeev Ravi lenses the night-time scenes with great skill, setting up the eventual opening out into a burst of brightness accompanied by an eruption of cathartic violence. Chaubey's third venture underscores, like Ishqiya and Dedh Ishqiya did, the originality of his directorial voice. He imparts heady propulsion to a grim theme and constructs an unflinching narrative that does not shy from calling out the forces responsible for Punjab's undeserved plight. Udta Punjab takes flight without wasting a second - from the very moment the title appears on a flying heroin pouch hurled from across the border by a discus thrower. It cruises along at an even pace right until the crackling climax, which is shockingly bloody but remarkably effective. Chaubey's robust directorial style, which enmeshes sharp characterization with evocative use of music (composer Amit Trivedi is in fine fettle here), keeps the tale on the boil even during the occasional stretches where it teeters on the edge of over-articulation. A pop star Tommy Singh, a nameless Bihari migrant girl, a cynical policeman Sartaj Singh and a doctor who runs a de-addiction centre (Kareena Kapoor Khan) are thrown into dangerous disarray in a climate vitiated by the easy availability of drugs.  
 Two metaphors - one delivered in the form of a physical prop, the other as a visual refrain - define the plight of the pop star-hero and the girl who gives him a purpose in life. As the film hurtles towards its climax, we see the male protagonist in winged shoes, but limping. On the other hand, a tourism hoarding exhorting people to "go Goa" is the only thing that the entrapped girl can see from the room where she is held captive. Both have the will but are severely held back by their circumstances, which is, by extension, a commentary on the current state of the state of Punjab itself. The character that overshadows everyone else in Udta Punjab is that of the poor farm worker played with intensity and passion by Bhatt. The girl's misfortune falls literally from the sky in the form of a heroin packet. Greed gets the better of her and she ends up in a hell-hole.  
 It is ironic that the other female part written for Udta Punjab is the weakest of the quartet of pivotal characters. Played by Kareena Kapoor Khan, Dr. Preeti Sahani, whose concerted war on drugs helps the conflicted policeman out of a personal crisis, is an embodiment of righteousness. She is too perfect to be true.  
 The director extracts solid performances from his two male actors. Shahid Kapoor, with his toned torso heavily tattooed, does full justice to the mercurial Tejinder Singh alias Tommy Singh of Phagwara, plunging headlong into the gleeful but ill-advised mayhem he represents. Diljit Dosanjh, in his first role in a Hindi film, plays the cop who decides to break free from the system when his own brother Balli (Prabhjyot Singh) nearly dies on him due to a drug overdose. Dosanjh does not put a foot wrong, playing his role with restraint. He also lends his singing voice to the film's defining musical piece - a Batalvi poem set to lilting music by Amit Trivedi.  
 But it is Alia, who despite the battering that fate has reserved for her, never loses her appetite for a fight. The petite actress is the film's towering totem. The liberal use of cuss words may be too grating for some ears. Udta Punjab is not family entertainment, but it is an undeniably magnificent -

Directed by:

                      Damien Chazelle

Writer:

              Dameien Chazelle

Cast:

         Ryan Gosling as Sebastian
         Emma stone as Mia
         Rosemarie DeWitt as Laura
         J.K. Simmons as Bill
         John Legend as Keith
             

Reviews:

We’ve had some musicals since the era of Rogers & Astaire, but few that have tried to recapture that sense of fluid, magical thinking in which characters communicate with their bodies as much, maybe even more, than they do with their voices. One of many remarkable things about Damein Chazelle's “La La Land” is how much energy and time it devotes to movement and music, not just lyrics. The modern movie musicals, so often based on Broadway shows, have focused heavily on songs that further plot. In Chazelle’s vision, choreography matters and a simple piano refrain can have more power than a lyric. This is a beautiful film about love and dreams, and how the two impact each other. Los Angeles is filled with dreamers, and sometimes it takes a partner to make your dream come true.
“La La Land” opens with a bit of a fake-out in that it’s a large ensemble number of a variety that we won’t really see again in the movie. Cars are stuck in the notoriously awful L.A. traffic when the drivers decide to break into song called “Another Day of Sun”—a bit about how each day brings new hope for these young wannabe artists—jumping out of the cars and dancing on the freeway. Instantly, Chazelle’s direction and the dance choreography feels different. Here, and throughout the film, he works in long, unbroken takes. You can not only see the dance moves, but you can see the dancer’s entire body when he or she performs them. And after the chorus-like introduction to a city of dreamers, we meet two such sun-gazers: pianist Sebastian and actress Mia (Emma stone). Like any good musical, the two have a few false starts and playfully mock each other’s flaws in their first scenes. But we know where this is headed and Gosling & Stone have the chemistry to make us long for them to get together.
The first major centerpiece scene is a long walk between Sebastian and Mia as the sun is setting over the Hollywood Hills. They start to see similarities in one another. Mia is tired of going on worthless auditions, ones in which the producer doesn’t even look up from their phone. Sebastian holds on to an ideal version of jazz, wanting to open his own club instead of selling out and playing greatest hits for tourists. And Sebastian and Mia have a clear, instant attraction. So, even as they sing about how they’re not really a couple, and how this gorgeous night is wasted because they’re not with their true partners, their bodies tell another story with a fantastically choreographed dance number. Stone and Gosling aren’t natural singers or dancers, but they bring so much character and commitment to every movement that it doesn’t matter. They’re fluid, engaged and mesmerizing. We watch them fall in love through dance.

           The Legend Of Tarzan

 Directed by:

                   David Yates       

Writer:

                Edgar Rice Burroughs

Cast:

         Alexander Sharsgard as tarzan
         Margot Robbie as Jone Porter
         Samuel Jacksin as George Washington Williams
         Christopher Waltz as Captain Leon Rom
         Djimon Hounsou as Chief Mbonga 

  Review:

Sometimes you have to wonder how certain movies get made. I have no special knowledge of the production of “The Legend of Tarzan.” But I have to imagine that the movie spent such a long time in the development process that no one involved found a moment to look outside the Hollywood bubble and surmise that maybe right now in America isn’t the most opportune time to reboot a pop culture myth involving a quasi-superhero white guy who has dominion over the animals and certain peoples of Africa.
The upper-case “r” in a circle that appears below the name “Tarzan” in the opening credits of this new movie, directed by “Harry Potter” stalwart David Yates from a script by Craig  (of “Huslte And Flow” and “Black Snake Moan” renown, and no, I’m not kidding) and Adam Cozad(no idea), may have something to do with the movie’s raison d’etre—when one has a trademark, one must exploit it. But the wisdom of propagating any kind of white savior narrative during the charged era of Black Lives Matter surely must have seemed dubious, no?

Actually, yes, because throughout its brisk hour-and-forty-five minute running time, “The Legend of Tarzan” does things to reassure those viewers that care that the movie is indeed aware of its “problematics.” The movie begins with some texts evoking the colonization of what was in the late 19^th century called the Belgian Congo, and of a nefarious scheme involving mercenaries, slave labor, and pilfered diamonds, all engineered by an envoy named Leon Rom. This fellow is played by  and he carries with him a rosary that sometimes doubles as a short-distance noose, which isn’t a heavy-handed piece of symbolism at all, no way. Anyway, he’s the bad guy, and he’s first seen entering the deepest, foggiest, most spear-ridden caverns of the African jungle to bargain with fierce chief Mbonga, who will give Rom all the diamonds he needs to finance his army … on delivery of his most hated enemy: Tarzan.

The movie finds Tarzan up in England, all civilized and respectable and Lord Greystoke-like, residing in his manor with wife Jane, something of a London celebrity and man of influence. The ruse of an invitation to check out Belgian’s “progress” in the Congo is proffered to Tarzan—this is part of Rom’s trap—and Tarzan, I mean Lord Greystoke, I mean John Clayton, is disinclined to accept. He’s moved, though, by the entreaties of an African-American diplomat/investigative agent, George Washington Williams, who wants to tag along with, um, Tarzan, and get solid evidence of illegal slave trading. That’s travel companion one. Once the Big T gets back to the manor, we discover that he and Jane have a pretty 21^st-century type relationship. She, played by, insists that she’s coming along too. He protests “The last thing you need is more stress"—I told you about that 21^st century biz—but she’s not having it. The gang of three hits the sea, and once on the Continent makes a meaningful detour to visit the tribe that Jane knew when her parents were missionaries. And there is much singing and celebration in a manner not unlike that scene in “Hatari!” where they make the elephant queen or whatever she was. Almost sixty years and ain’t a damn thing changed in Hollywood.

The Fantastic Beasts

Directed By:

                      David Yates

Writer:

            J.K. Rowling

Cast:

                                                                                      Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander
                                                                                      Dan Folger as Jocab Kowalski
                                                                                      Katherine Waterston as Porpentina Goldstein
                                                                                      Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein
                                                                                      Samantha Morton as Mary Lou
                                                                                      Colin Farrell as Percival Graves
                                                                                      Ron Perlman as Gnarlack
                                                                                      Ezra Miller as Credence
                                                                                      Jenn Murray as Chastity
                                                                                      Jon Voight as Henry Shaw Sr
                                                                                      Carmen Ejogo as Seraphina Picquery

Review:

 Perhaps a fable embellished with fantasy trappings that’s spun off from the Harry Potter universe. One that touches upon such issues as the inherent danger of outing a magical community to an intolerant public while No-Majs, the Americanized term for Muggles, are equally distrusted by wizards and witches. Some young people are forced to suppress their very natures by those who inflict physical and psychological harm upon them. Not to mention that a strange deadly force has been somehow unleashed, leaving mass destruction and fear in its wake.
OK, that doesn’t sound like that much fun, does it?
But what if I tell you that J.K. Rowling’s “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” which dips into the dark side fairly regularly, is at its best when it serves as a more exotic version of all those cute puppy and kitten antics that fill your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts? Instead of dogs sporting holiday attire or cats falling off kitchen counters, you can go “aww” when a naughty Niffler, a mole-duck-billed platypus hybrid, goes on a crime spree while greedily stuffing gobs of shiny objects such as coins and gems into its belly pouch. Or when a majestic giant Thunderbird, destined to live in the wilds of Arizona, spreads its eagle-like wings. Maybe a teeny leafy twig-like critter known as a Bowtruckle, reminiscent of a shrunken Groot from " Gaudains Of The Galaxy” is more your style. There’s also an amorous Erumpent, a big-butt cross between a hippo and an elephant, who causes a ruckus at a zoo. That this expansive menagerie and more are able to fit into the best piece of enchanted traveling luggage in a movie since Mary Poppins' bottomless carpet bag is a welcome bonus.

 

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

Review

Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Photograph: Fox Star Studios • • • • 
View more sharing options Mike McCahill Friday 28 October 2016 13.16 EDT Last modified on Thursday 15 December 2016 07.22 EST From the controversy, a movie emerges. A Diwali release from superstar Hindi director Karan Johar was always likely to attract column inches, yet Ae Dil Hai Mushkil has landed more than anybody anticipated: India and Pakistan’s latest impasse has made Johar’s decision to cast Pakistani actor Fawad Khan the hottest of hot-button topics. Threats of suppression were met by a video message in which Johar sheepishly confessed he’d misread the national mood and, like many colleagues, pledged not to hire Pakistani creatives in future – an industry climbdown some found disappointing, coming so soon after last year’s bridge-building megahit Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Bollywood film set to open in India after Pakistani actor ban Indian film producers ban Pakistani actors 'for ever' over Kashmir crisis What’s odd is that the movie itself turns out not to be some incendiary provocation, but squarely Bollywood trad, a globetrotting weepie unlikely to offend anyone but the most entrenched. This is the tale of Ayan (Ranbir Kapoor) and Alizeh (Anushka Sharma), Hindu and Muslim respectively, who meet as barhopping students in London and bond over 80s film references and their cheating other halves. Over several years, the pair tour the continent, twirling from Parisian cafe to Viennese nightclub, with Ayan’s burgeoning singing career shaping the narrative, and Alizeh’s DJ ex (Khan) standing between the pair becoming anything more than just good friends.