Arrival

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl: We are all awaiting their grand arrival, sometimes without even closing our eyes.

Vampire Bat: I don’t understand. Who exactly are you talking about? There are no names on this guest book for quite some time. If this is an unofficial meeting coming up, you will still have to inform Uncle Dracula through the telepathic connection.

Vampire Owl: The ones who shall not be named, those whom nobody shall dare to name.

Vampire Bat: If you can’t name then, I won’t be able to wait for them. It makes no sense at all.

Vampire Owl: It is because you are a man without faith. It makes you spiritually poor.

Vampire Bat: I have more faith than you and your brainless zombie minions combined.

Vampire Owl: Well, the beautifully carved tombstones at my favourite cemetery has better faith.

Vampire Bat: This does make me wonder what you mean by the words “faith” and “arrival”.

Vampire Owl: Maybe, you can take some lessons from this movie.

Vampire Bat: Movies with messages and lessons are the best. Let us see how this one goes.

[Gets three cups of masala tea with special samosas].

What is the movie about? :: A linguist, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is teaching at the university when she hears an alarm. Twelve alien spacecrafts have landed on Earth, at Maracay in Venezuela, Montana in the United States, Kujalleq in Greenland, Devon in the United Kingdom, Kenema in Sierra Leone, Khartoum in Sudan, Punjab in Pakistan, Siberia in Russia, Hokkaido in Japan, Shanghai in China, and also in the Black Sea and the Indian Ocean. The United States Army Colonel G.T. Weber (Forest Whitaker) contacts Louise to help the nation and the planet Earth as a whole by joining a team which includes people specialised in different fields including a theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). The idea is to understand the reason behind the arrival of the aliens.

So, what happens next? :: At a military camp in Montana near one of the spaceships, the military look forward to knowing if the aliens are really hostile, or are they just trying to make peace with the humans. This can only be done by entering the spaceship at a certain point of time, coming face to face with the creatures. The aliens are nicknamed by the group as “heptapods” due to having seven legs, and the team starts making contact with them. The language of the aliens is something which corresponds to nothing else, as they write some strange circular symbols on the glass which separated them and the humans. Louise puts in a big effort to understand what these symbols mean by connecting them to the basic vocabulary.

What follows the arrival :: Louise also seems to have visions of her daughter at the same time, and it seems to connect with her process of knowing the new language. The nations and their leaders become restless as time passes, and all the spacecrafts remain at the same place without moving an inch. With the curiosity at its peak, the answer from the aliens on what they want seems to be “offer weapon” which alerts all countries. There is the fear of an upcoming threat from the aliens with some new advanced weapons, and some nations even mobilise their military as if to defend against a potential attack. China takes it one step further, as it gets ready to attack the aliens from its territory, and asks other world leaders to do the same. But Louise is convinced that there is something more to this alien arrival – what can it be? Can she stop a war?

The defence of Arrival :: We might have seen many alien invasion movies, but Arrival is the flick that successfully thinks differently with the basic idea. It is science fiction, and it has creatures from other planet, but it so close to life; it is something that not many movies of the same genre will find difficult to achieve. There is also a lot of beauty on screen, and the performances that support the whole thing. The feeling of a possible disaster runs throughout the movie, but there seems to be not more than one explosion in the whole movie. Amy Adams remains the big strong point of the movie, and along with Nocturnal Animals, this is another movie in which she scores amazingly high. Between Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the upcoming Justice League, she has got two perfect movies in there. Jeremy Renner and the visuals nicely compliment the same.

The claws of flaw :: A lot of people are certain to find Arrival to be kind of slow for their liking. There are too many things happening in this movie, and a lot of them are emotional, plus there is almost no big action sequence or destruction which people expect from these type of movies. Don’t judge this movie by the positive or negative opinions though, as Arrival is a kind of personal experience which needs the movie to be watched. It is also a little bit too philosophical – even though it is not that bad, that feeling is not there throughout the flick. A quicker pace, and a more twisted revealing of the surprise would have helped better too, but as this is based on a short story, it is up-to those who have read the tale to make a better analysis inside. The movie could have also been darker in its theme along with speeding up things. I am also sure that people would have expected more considering how the first half was going.

How it finishes :: Based on a science fiction short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang which had won the 2000 Nebula Award for Best Novella and the 1999 Sturgeon Award, Arrival might be the alien movie and the science fiction flick which you might have been waiting for, with a desire to concentrate less on action. It has won eight OScar nominations at the 89th Academy Awards as we look at them – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Production Design, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. Well, if these are not reasons enough to make you watch this movie, one has to wonder what else would have. I would wish for a nomination for Amy Adams for the Best Actress too, with this one and Nocturnal Animals too, but we can’t get them all, can we?

Release date: 11th November 2016
Running time: 116 minutes
Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, Mark O’Brien

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Fender Bender

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl: A movie on a minor collision? How minor is that?

Vampire Bat: It is not really minor, as you consider what happens after the collision. You should read the synopsis of the story somewhere.

Vampire Owl: Yes, that person is a serial killer. It is quite natural.

Vampire Bat: It is not natural! Are you thinking Joy Ride, Wrecker or Duel?

Vampire Owl: No, people drive like serial killers these days.

Vampire Bat: It is a human thing. The whole humanity finds it difficult to drive. It is because they have lost all their magic to science.

Vampire Owl: We could provide them with more magic. Then there will be more necromancers than serial killers. We will be doing them a favour.

Vampire Bat: Necromancers are really not that good for them under the current circumstances either.

Vampire Owl: Then they should really learn how to drive.

Vampire Bat: Well, I hope that they do.

[Gets three cups of masala tea with jackfruit chips].

What is the movie about? :: A girl named Jennifer (Cassidy Freeman) is alone in her house, and after talking on phone about some random incident during the day, gets the message from an unknown number – the person on the other side seems to know what she is doing though. Even though she feels uncomfortable in the beginning, she just dismisses it as one random guess becoming correct. Soon, she is attacked by a masked figure right out of darkness, and while trying to escape through the window, is stabbed to death by the man in the mask. Then there is Hilary (Makenzie Vega), a teenager has just found out that her boyfriend Andy (Harrison Sim) is cheating her with another girl whom he kisses in front of her. Just a few days after getting her driving license and driving her mother’s new car for the first time, it happens that some random car just hits her vehicle on the back.

So, what happens next? :: She provides all of her information to the driver of the car (Bill Sage) who also shares his information – from address and phone number to taking photos, they keep the information, which Hilary uses to contact the insurance company that tells her to wait till they process the data. Her boyfriend apologizes to her, but she goes with what her friends had said, and dumps him. When she returns home, her parents are really angry about her relationship with the recently dumped boyfriend, and it gets worse that she has ruined the new car. They decide to go on their intended trip without her, and despite her repeated requests, they leave her alone in house after declaring her grounded. She notices that the car which had hit her earlier was moving on the road in front her home too. But it does disappear soon enough, and she gets back to doing her things.

So, how do things go from here? :: But strange things begin to happen as she finds her own photo in her mobile which was taken by someone else, and the photos of the car and the driver which she had taken were deleted. She hears a knock at the door, and is relieved to find that it is her friends Erik (Kelsey Montoya) and Rachel (Dre Davis) who have come to check if she is okay. The ex-boyfriend, Andy also comes at the door, and they blame him for the pranks on her phone, but it is certainly not the case, as it turns out to be. A late call from the insurance agency reveals the truth about the owner of the car, and the killer soon begins his game. Can Hilary escape from this madness, or will she become another victim on the long list? How can her friends help, and what role will the ex-boyfriend play with death sneaking around the dark corners?

The defence of Fender Bender :: Even though we know who the killer is and who the next victim is supposed to be, there is no shortage of thrills in this flick. The scary moments come in very well, and we will like this as a slasher movie too, with all the gore. As a home invasion movie, this one gets to a good position in the list too. There is also one other costume, which can nicely establish this villain as another big name like Jason, Freddy, Chrome Skull, Rusty Nail, Michael Myers, Harry Warden or Victor Crowley – if there is a sequel, that could work really well to establish a new franchise; the ending also makes sure that the scope is there to do the same. We can make sure that people will drive more responsibly if one such antagonist is unleashed only on those creepy ones on the road. Among many things, one thing that the leading lady Makenzie Vega proves here though, is that she can be in more of similar movies – a future scream queen in store here for sure.

The claws of flaw :: For some reason, Fender Bender just tries to keep close to what has been tried before, and doesn’t bring anything that new, even when there was a solid chance in store. There could have surely been more intensity with what the movie deals with – there is one serious serial killer right here, and the movie’s inability to make the maximum use of the same is rather confusing. We could have also done without the antagonist making his intentions clear too early – more suspense could have been added there. After it is made clear, the movie delays too much to get into the killing spree, which is really a bad idea. Also, the characters other than the leading lady gets killed too fast, and these characters are also there for a less amount of time for us to get to know them. This story could have gone deeper too, with the antagonist more established, but this should work pretty well for most people with all that is present in the movie.

[Walks into a bakery after the movie].

Vampire Owl: It was not bad as I expected.

Vampire Bat: Your expectations have been flawed for some time.

Vampire Owl: Do you know what kind of people need to be taught a lesson by some fender bender people?

Vampire Bat: Those who drive like maniacs, especially those on those huge motorbikes riding like psychos, right? You were talking about them last day.

Vampire Owl: Yes them too. But more than that, it is about those people who cause traffic jams. A few days ago, I was traveling from Aluva to Perumbavoor, and there is this auditorium on the way at Thottumugham which has very less parking space, and people are parking everywhere on the road. Disgusting, anti-social creatures who have no respect for others. At least, if they can’t arrange enough parking, these people shouldn’t invite this many people for wedding receptions.

Vampire Bat: I faced the same thing near Muvattupuzha on the Arakuzha road which has an auditorium which seems to have not enough parking. These people have everyone parking on the sides of the road – actually both sides on a road which is not a big enough one. Along with the same, they had buses for this particular wedding reception, and it was held in the evening. There was almost no hope to escape from this traffic trouble – it was so long.

Vampire Owl: The same was the case of the wedding reception I am talking about. When will the auditoriums provide enough parking space, or will these idiots have the brain to park responsibly?

Vampire Bat: We should note down those who repeat the offence and send the list to the responsible humans.

Vampire Owl: They all need their fender benders.

Vampire Bat: Yes, they do.

[Gets one sweet porotta, one blackcurrant shake and a glass full of grape juice].

Release date: 23rd May 2016
Running time: 91 minutes
Directed by: Mark Pavia
Starring: Makenzie Vega, Cassidy Freeman, Dre Davis, Kelsey Leos Montoya, Harrison Sim, Bill Sage, Lora Cunningham, Steven Michael Quezada

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

NH10

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl :: I heard you were not anywhere close to here, and just a few hours ago, you were watching a movie here?

Vampire Bat :: Yes, I was on a trip, but now I am here, and I am back after watching NH10.

Vampire Owl :: I saw the SMS and thought you were travelling through NH10.

Vampire Bat :: You make too many guesses. You even read conclave as con-cave, and delegate as Delhi Gate. You need to think about this seriously.

Vampire Owl :: Yes, we owls find our own meanings and spellings rather than be dominated by any bat community. Do you know what the werewolves are doing these days?

Vampire Bat :: Don’t you think that we are too divided instead of becoming one Night Creature nation?

Vampire Owl :: Yes, the werewolves were the first to invent the Wolfine tapioca chips maker, which is one of the reasons why they think they are a superior community.

Vampire Bat :: First to invent what?

Vampire Owl :: You won’t understand. It is a complete wolf thingy. I am still working on it with the experts.

Vampire Bat :: Can you just go and watch this movie which I recommend?

[Leaves for the tea shop].

What is it about? :: Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) are part of the metropolis and have their lives among the skyscrapers. But after an incident involving a number of unknown men at night, Meera is traumatized and even gets a gun for protection. But as they go on a trip to make up for the trauma, things only get worse. As they stop at a restaurant, a woman asks Meera for help. But she refuses and the unidentified girl and her lover are soon taken away by a group of goons despite Arjun trying to interfere. As they continue on their trip, Arjun notices the car of these people and gets out of the car to follow them hoping to scare them with the gun and thus stop them, despite Meera’s protests. But things change as they witness a case of honour killing, and it is then they are the ones who are hunted, and there might not be enough bullets in the gun for all villains.

The defence of NH10 :: This is like the first full horror slasher movie of India with a message. The movie keeps asking the question if people are actually safe beyond the lands where law has a role to play – are women safe? Does the weak or the less privileged ones, both men and women has a role to play in a society which is becoming more violent and mindless even in a modern world? How long is the list of the modern age subaltern? Is there a certain kind of automatic mindwashing that goes on which makes one hate the other religion or community? Shouldn’t human life be the most valuable thing and not rules or community/religious beliefs? Yes, the questions are endless. What this movie also brings is some violence which mostly stays off the screen, which is actually a nice idea. The thrills are always present and the twists also arrive to make the desired impact. This is also realistic for most of the run-time.

The Claws of Flaw :: The movie’s ending is rather dull, with just some adrenaline rush and everything finishes with the revenge. I did feel that it should have been better thought out and executed in a more interesting manner than quickly going through it. There are also some dumb actions done by the characters, about which I won’t talk much to give too much of the idea out. The songs are ridiculous, and it is totally unnecessary in a movie like this – why would they even think about putting music in between is totally beyond my comprehension, and if those songs were at least good for something, we could have at least be happy to listen to them separately. The darkness doesn’t look that good too, and it could have been better handled with some of the camera shots.

Performers of the soul :: Anushka Sharma manages to come up with a fantastic job and this is the kind of role that I haven’t seen her playing before. She has that scared look on her face for most of the movie, and then there is the anger, frustration and the moment when she knows that she needs to have that revenge – she looks so good. I haven’t watched all her movies, but I find it easy to say that this might be her best performance, and that much is the mark that she leaves on us. Yes, I can’t claim perfection, because there are dumb things that her character does, just like the others – something that the horror slasher movies cannot live without; Hollywood has its horror character doing similar things. She is too good here, and the rest of the characters seem like those of lesser power.

Soul exploration :: The question asked here is about the difference between what is built as an utopia in the cities and the dystopia outside the boundaries of the metropolis, that we see as a universe of development. Are we looking to divide the known world into two, one of development and the other hardly seeing any? I have been thinking about the same during a number of visits that I have made around India – why is the gap too much? Shouldn’t the difference in development be not that much? Shouldn’t we strive to fly high above the differences? And honour killings in this century – it is a strange world, indeed as there is absolutely no honour in killing. Human life should be the most valuable thing of them all. There is no substitute for it; each person has the right to life, no matter how he lives his or her personal life.

How it finishes :: NH10 doesn’t seem to have attracted that many audience here, but that shouldn’t define the quality of this movie. That may be because this was not the kind that they had expected. It has been some time since I watched a movie at the theatre, and tomorrow, it is to be a month since I have reviewed a movie here – I couldn’t let that happen, and so here is the review. This is also the last day on which I can watch this movie because it will change here on Friday and no remains of this movie shall be left here. I would suggest that those who still have this movie at their nearby theatres do give it a try, because it shows that there is promise coming from this year, as we have already watched and were impressed by Baby. It is not flawless, but it is a good and interesting deviation from the regular Bollywood – you don’t get to watch movies like this too often.

Release date: 13th March 2015
Running time: 115 minutes
Directed by: Navdeep Singh
Starring: Anushka Sharma, Neil Bhoopalam, Darshan Kumar, Deepti Naval

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Taken 3

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Dr. Tennyson

Uncle Dracula :: So do you believe that the Vampire Owl was taken?

Vampire Bat :: I didn’t say that. I was talking about him not going for movies, and not being available for consideration even for watching the movie Taken 3.

Uncle Dracula :: But he could have been taken, nevertheless.

Vampire Bat :: Why are we even having this conversation?

Uncle Dracula :: Because I am giving you a substitute for the Vampire Owl here. Take Igor.

Vampire Bat :: What? Wasn’t he with Doctor Frankenstein?

Uncle Dracula :: Yes, but he was taken. You didn’t know? Even my brides know that.

Vampire Bat :: Yes, they will surely know that, because they have no other job. They don’t even brush their fangs. But taken by whom?

Uncle Dracula :: Taken by me. Who else? I am the only Bryan Mills around here. Now, take my new vampire chariot and leave. You are getting late and there is a chance that you might be taken by Doctor Frankenstein in retaliation.

Vampire Bat :: That is a fair point. And you stop abducting people after transforming into fog, mist, wolves, dogs, potato chips, Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Titanic DVD and all those other things. The age is different now. It is not cool anymore.

[Kick-starts the vampire chariot].

What is it about? :: The two major incidents seem to have cooled down, and nobody seems to be “taken” anymore. Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is once again trying to be good with his daughter Kim Mills (Maggie Grace) who is now living with her boyfriend and his ex-wife Lenore Mills (Famke Janssen) who is having problems with her current husband, Stuart St. John (Dougray Scott). But things get turned around as his wife is found murdered, and when he enters the house, he is framed for the murder. As he becomes the prime suspect here due to the evidence, he manages to flee from the scene using his special skills and uses the same to find a way to get to her murderer. The police is on his trail and asks him to surrender and let them investigate, leaving it for the court to decide, but Bryan knows that he can trust his skills better than anything else. Inspector Franck Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) is in charge of the case and decides to go after Bryan.

The defence of Taken 3 :: You know what to expect in a sequel to the kind of movies that the predecessors were. Even with a change in the basic plot as nobody is “taken”, this one tries to use the same protagonist to its advantage nicely. Yes, it chooses not to follow that idea and comes up with something different, even as it is not something which hasn’t been tried before. The action sequences involving our protagonist are once again good, even as not raising the level. This is also more of the action movie than thriller, even as some suspense is there trying to make smaller impacts. The stunts mostly involve some melee combat, more shoot-outs and a lot more car chase action. The fans might still love this one up-to an extent, and too much expectation will kill this one. Yes, the franchise ends here, and may be that will also work in favour of this in your mind, even as one his the last dialogues might make one feel otherwise.

The claws of flaw:: Taken 3 fails to give a great ending to the franchise which has to be satisfied with the average finish compared to how it has been going. There is no coming anywhere near the first movie, that is for sure. A comparison with the predecessors is going to devastate this movie, and the place of this one is below the previous two. This is not even that well edited, or even developed as something that brings the thrills to the viewers. It even hesitates to go full swing action, and one has to wonder why. The final scenes also lack the power, and the villains as well as the gang remains not just weak, but also uninteresting. Even the twist could have used more power. It needed more action and thrills, but Taken 3 tries to hang on to the power of the previous movies and bring this franchise to an end which neither Liam Neeson or the audience deserved. After watching this one, may be you will feel that this should have been a movie out of Taken franchise – like Non-Stop, Unknown and The Grey.

Performers of the soul :: You see a Liam Neeson movie here again, and he takes the avatar of one of his best known characters, even as I don’t consider his characters in Non-Stop, The Grey and Unknown with any less reverence – same goes to Hannibal of The A-Team. Being the action hero that everyone wants to see beating up the bad people, he once again doesn’t fail to deliver. There are signs of old age for sure, but he still got it as the man who got the special skills that he acquired. Here, he is bigger than the movie – no doubt about that. You know that Famke Janssen’s character gets killed early, but Maggie Grace is once again very good, but is left with not that much to do in this movie. Forest Whitaker was impressive during his stay, but the villains were too weak. The Russian villain idea never really came close to working, and the other villain twist was another weak addition. There could have been better ideas about it, but we find none here.

Soul exploration :: Taken 3 has its heart at the family, and once again the father-daughter relationship gets a good chance in the middle. But if it was given better thoughts or at least shown with more humour, that would have actually worked in favour of this movie, considering how much this movie has struggled to keep up with its predecessors. Even in what has made this franchise such a big name, this one struggles to make the expected impact. I have actually heard my friends saying “does this guy’s family still have members who are to be kidnapped? How big a family is that?” – when they heard about the release of a third movie. Taken 3 is more like The Hangover III considering the fact that it had no hangover as this one had nobody being taken, but the after-effects of the earlier hangovers and those abductions in the earlier movies still stay.

How it finishes :: Taken 3 doesn’t seem to make much impact in the theatres, even as the initial crowd is there due to the fame of the previous movies, and it is only a matter of time until the advantage is lost. There is a long list of Hollywood movies from the previous weeks though, like Exodus: Gods and Kings, The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, Interstellar, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies and Penguins of Madagascar along with the other language movies, all of them with better opinions received than this one. The advice here would be not to go for Taken 3 with the expectation of another Taken. Think about it as another action movie coming from Liam Neeson, and the characters as just the reflections of the situation in the flick. Watch this one for Liam Neeson, and think not much about the franchise or the rest of the things.

Release date: 9th January 2015.
Running time: 108 minutes
Directed by: Olivier Megaton
Starring: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Forest Whitaker, Dougray Scott, Sam Spruell, Leland Orser, Jon Gries, Jonny Weston, Dylan Bruno