Honeymoon

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl :: I was planning for a Honeymoon with Lady Death myself.

Vampire Bat :: But you are not married yet.

Vampire Owl :: Yet, but it has to happen some day. I am preparing my soul for the same. I have even bought a Suit of Death from Vampire Best Deals.

Vampire Bat :: Do you know that the suit is supposed to prevent death for a few hours?

Vampire Owl :: What? It is not supposed to bring death closer?

Vampire Bat :: No, it is not. The original prototype was used by Uncle Dracula to travel to twenty seventh dimension of eternal death. Vampires and the rest of the undead can’t go through the realms of death without permission from the dead, as it can cause slow disintegration of the vampire body. This suit prevents the same.

Vampire Owl :: What? It is totally unfair. This is going to prevent my Honeymoon from ever happening. Mountain of Death brings death, Isle of Death is known for dealing with death, Valley of Death causes more deaths than any other place, and why is this Suit of Death so much the opposite?

Vampire Bat :: Well, you should have read the full description before buying it. Vampire Raven once bought something and didn’t speak even a word after that.

Vampire Owl :: My honeymoon plans are ruined. You could have at least given me false hope by not letting me know.

Vampire Bat :: Well, we will watch the movie Honeymoon instead.

[Gets a cup of tea].

What is it about? :: A newly married couple, Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway) finds the right place to celebrate their honeymoon, and it is a cabin in the woods. It seems to be the perfect and extremely peaceful are as they enjoy their time and explore the surroundings. In a small restaurant, they meet Will (Ben Huber) who seems to act strange and his wife Annie (Hanna Brown) who is acts even more weird. One night, Bea goes missing, and later she starts showing some strange behaviour which upsets Paul. She forgets things and write down even basic facts about her life. She often acts opposite to how she had been earlier. Paul sees strange lights at night and feels that a third person is involved. But he finds no real clue anywhere as things don’t get any better.

The defence of Honeymoon :: The movie uses its environment related to the cabin in the woods to come up with the much needed advantage. The two main characters are also made a lot more interesting by the cast. There are a lot of interesting moments between these two characters, and the performances are excellent throughout. The time before the major incident and after that are actually presented in different ways, and it makes us feel the change with a powerful psychological impact. It also leaves a lot of things to our imaginations, and it plays on our mind to know what is wrong, and who is the one actually in trouble here. You feel caught between the two characters, thinking and imagining to recreate what could possibly have gone wrong between the two lovers who seemed so happy and energetic just a few moments ago.

Claws of flaw :: Honeymoon surely drags, and it takes quite a lot of time to get into its more interesting part. Even between the thrills, it goes rather slow. There is a certain amount of beauty about this slowness at times as it adds to the mystery elements, but at some other times, it is not there. The ending is actually a little bit of a let down [A little bit of spoiler stuff to follow even though nothing of heavy dosage] considering the fact that this was going so nice as a psychological thriller-horror movie until the finishing line doesn’t really justify the same, but attributes things to unknown creatures. Even with surprises thrown in here and there, it finally comes to those moments which are rather more predictable, and things become what a good number of people might have thought in the beginning.

Performers of the soul :: The movie needed its performances because it uses them more than anything else due to being a psychological thriller on one side despite being known as a horror movie – may be that ending confused the genres and even added a certain amount of sci-fi to the same. You have to love Rose Leslie in this one, and you once again get to see Game of Thrones‘ own Ygritte doing what she does best; giving the feeling that her husband knows nothing as her character undergoes changes. She has managed two sides of her character so well that we can see the changes clearly and impressively managed. Lets see what she can offer in The Last Witch Hunter – wait for it. Harry Treadaway does a very good job, and the chemistry between them in amazing.

Soul exploration :: The movie asks the basic question if you really know the one who is close to you – it is something that is worth feeling scared about. Well, people do pretend to be someone else, and acting comes naturally to a lot of people. You see those people with profiles on the matrimonial websites with descriptions being God fearing, non-alcoholic and never smoking, but do you think that it is true? Well, even in the case of love marriages, people are blind in love and can’t see through the masks. If people missed this idea, that makes an opportunity gone for this movie. Will someone whom you love undergo so many changes that one day, that you won’t be really sure who he or she is? Well, it is a point to think about, and something that this movie could have focused further on. It is not that the same is not in the movie, but it is not that clear.

How it finishes :: The first movie that comes to my mind when thinking about this, is Under the Skin. They are surely not the same, but some moments do feel similar from a distance. Well, this one keeps the audience wondering though; couldn’t this have been a lot better with the premise? It is good with its stress and intensity, but is this all that this movie could come up with after showing a lot more promise? May be they could have stuck to the psychological side throughout, and in the end, we could have had a minimum of one psychopath or even two. It could have surely achieved better ratings with that. It already has a powerful drama side to power the same. The horror that this movie required was purely psychological, and with the same not being fully there, Honeymoon could have really been the true honeymoon.

Release date: 7th March 2014
Running time: 87 minutes
Directed by: Leigh Janiak
Starring: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway, Hanna Brown, Ben Huber

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Maleficent

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Dr. Tennyson

The Sleeping Beauty :: There are not many of us who don’t know the Sleeping Beauty or Princess Aurora, being as famous as the little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Gretel and Rapunzel, may be a little more popular than Goldilocks – the heroines of the tales of our childhood, at least belonging to some of them. Red Riding Hood returned darker in 2011, Snow White in 2012 and Gretel in 2013. All these movie have been coming up with a darker version of the old fairy tales. I have felt that there is nobody like Amanda Seyfried to be a fairy tale character. I have found these re-imagining of stories pretty much interesting except for Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of Snow White which ruined it for me. There is always something about seeing a story which you have known in the childhood presented in another way, and with this movie coming from the perspective of the antagonist who features in the posters and impresses us, Maleficent was not going to be a movie to be missed. Well, it is not always about the princess; for there are so many things which are not royal, but is yet better than they are. Then, this movie has Angelina Jolie; a long time since she was last seen in a movie – I guess the last ones were two fine movies, The Tourist and Salt in 2010.

What is it about? :: Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is a faeire living in the magical forests which the human kingdom has always wished to capture. Despite having no king or standing army, the forests have always managed to keep the armies of the greedy human king away. She actually serves a certain kind of leader to the creatures of the woods, being the only faerie of human size. Her only human acquaintance is Stefan (Sharlto Copley) whom she met when they were both kids and grew up together, falling in love. As the old friend and lover returns one day, she lets him in, only to have her wings taken away from her. Maleficent, in her state of sadness, pain and anger turns darker with her magic, and with that, turns the magical fairy kingdom darker, depriving it of the colours. With a shapeshifting raven Diaval (Sam Riley) for company, she decides to give the man who betrayed her what he deserves. The current situation is that the man is now the king of the human kingdom, and his wife has given birth to a baby girl. She finds that her window of opportunity to march to the castle and give the newborn baby a gift from her dark magic which will make sure that her former lover would remember her for a very long time.

The defence of Maleficent :: No matter what other movies might have, we have Angelina Jolie here, coming back to the big screen after a long time, except for her voice that we heard in in Kung-fu Panda. Maleficent has a lot of visual splendor, right from the beginning when we are introduced to the cute little protagonist faeire who sleeps on a tree at the top of a cliff, flying around and having her fun with the creatures of the magical woods. All these creatures are nicely created to give us a taste of the magical forest in such a way that we can feel that it is different from the human side as well as the darker side to which we are introduced later. The trees surrounding the faerie world as well as the mounted warriors of nature also needs some special mention. But what thrives is the awesomeness of her with those wings and the final dragon. The cute ones are rather those which you usually expect to see. The movie’s environmental theme is real good, but it could have been used in a more visible manner. The difference in the story is nicely worked out even if not fully utilizing the available resources. The 3D is effective at times. The kids are going to love this one, that is for sure.

The claws of flaw :: Maeficent reminds us of so many movies, including Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Oz the great and Powerful, Jack the Giant Slayer, Hansal and Gretel: Witch Hunters and finally, Snow White and the Huntsman which had Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart instead of Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning here, even as this movie is surely better except for not having, may be Charlize Theron. There was the need for more imagination, which is why this movie struggles and drags at parts. It actually remains too predictable at times, and when it is not, it just manages to make its story good enough. With the classic story of the sleeping beauty in the pocket, they could have done better, may be with a better information about how this one big faerie came into existence as one of her kind, and how she mastered black magic getting so powerful. Another question would remain about the mental state of Princess Aurora whom we know is the one narrating. Some things just happen here, and even as there is the unreal atmosphere around, it needs to explain within that circle, but it doesn’t, and also fails to connect with the audience emotionally at times. The jokes and other dialogues are not memorable.

Performers of the soul :: Angelina Jolie has everything under control in this movie. Just like the poster, she has herself inscribed all around the movie; she is majestic as the defender of the magic realm when left with her wings, and magnificent as the sorceress who takes on the powers of dark magic when deprived of her wings. It is really a joy to watch her in such an avatar; I have always felt that she would make a great villain, an evil sorceress – this feeling of mine has actually come to screen with this one. The horns, the wings, the black dress and the wicked smile; then there are those cheekbones and the fury in the eyes, they are all perfect. The idea of sending the enemy’s daughter into eternal sleep on her sixteenth birthday – now she is indeed fit to give such a curse. Even the girl who plays her childhood was so good. The beautiful magical world indeed belongs to her! Elle Fanning, the sister of Dakota Fanning (Jane Volturi of the Twilight series) plays the role of Princess Aurora in the movie. She is the next best thing as she becomes one of the cutest princesses one has ever seen on screen, and wait until you see with a crown on the head in the end. Sam Riley’s human-raven hybrid avatar was nice. Sharlto Copley made a pretty good villain, but with not enough space and screen time.

Soul exploration :: Maleficent is not just a story of the past or unreality. It is in many ways parallel to what is happening in our world. They not only keeps the famous villain in the shades of grey and closer to white, they also divides its world into the human world of science and technology and the magical world where nature thrives. The humans are always motivated by that desire to destroy nature with their new scientific inventions after looting whatever wealth they can find from there. The human king and his subjects fear what they can’t understand, because it is beyond their scientific explanations, and it is the same reason why they feel that it should be destroyed. But the wealth of the forest in also too attractive, and thus they keeps making an attempt to take control of the territory and deprive it of the resources. On one side, there are the greedy humans, and on the other side, there are the creatures of the forest who live a happy life even with no control or rules imposed by the society. The enemies of the faeries are the products of new technologies, and in this case, iron. The movie is a battle between the righteous nature and the evil man’s scientific inventions, the same thing that happens in the present.

How it finishes :: Maleficent is not a movie that you can avoid even in the presence of a number of regional movies which have gained positive reviews; in our case, those like How Old are You and Bangalore Days. It doesn’t have the power to make a huge impact in the presence of the other movies, but one can’t deny that it has its magnets to attract, starting from Angelina Jolie. The movie is short too, and thus making sure that it won’t lose its way moving towards the end that has quite the difference that is needed. Yes, there is no true love, and all that romance and stuff is a lie – this movie has such dialogues throughout, claiming that true love doesn’t exist, and even the breaking of curse is supposed to be by true love which everyone knows doesn’t exist. Now, I would say that it is a great step taken when the stories of dumb romance have been spreading through the air. This realization that human beings are inherently evil and there is no love between even the most seemingly romantic couple, is what contributes powerfully to the dark and powerful side of this movie, which has to be appreciated. Yes, this is that kind of a world when the prince gets drunk on the way to the castle, arrives late, and the sleeping beauty dies; end of the story.

Release date: 30th May 2014
Running time: 97 minutes
Directed by: Robert Stromberg
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Miranda Richardson, Lesley Manville, Kenneth Cranham, Vivienne Jolie-Pitt, Eleanor Worthington Cox, Janet McTeer, Ella Purnell, Isobelle Molloy, Toby Regbo

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

The Lorax

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Dr. Tennyson

What is The Lorax? :: Here is a movie based on Dr. Seuss’ children’s book of the same name. Born as Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss has published fourty six books for children, and this one published in 1971 should be the most popular of them all. The book as well as the movie talks about the poor situation of the environment which humanity has brought on by themselves. There are significant differences between the book and the movie, and some might feel that there might have been a little bit too much deviation to suit the standards of Hollywood. But the fact remains that it has a strong message for the environment, something which has not been lost in the adaptation. So who is this guy known as The Lorax? Does he save the environment by making sure that the trees are not cut and the air and water are not polluted? Is he something like the male fairy of the forest of just another wood elf? Lets venture deep into the same.

What is it about? :: The movie begins with the story of Ted Wiggins, a twelve year old boy who lives in an artificial world. Surrounded by a destroyed environment, he lives in a walled city called Thneedville where everything is made of metals, platic or synthetics, and there is not even one tree which is real. There is a price for natural resources and clean air is difficult to get. Our kid wishes to impress a tree-loving young girl called Audrey by getting a real tree for her, but there is no such thing available. His grandmother tells him about Once-ler who can give him enough information about trees if can get that man fifteen cents, a nail, and a shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail. Even as the mayor of Thneedville, Aloysius O’Hare who sells bottled oxygen tries to keep him inside the walls, the boy sneaks out regularly in order to hear the story of the man who will only give him the tree after he finishes his tale. It turns out that the story is more of a history about the trees rather than anything else. Whatever it is, the boy needs his tree.

The story of Once-ler (You can choose to skip this one if you don’t need more details) :: The man who is hidden from the outside in her mostly destroyed cottage tells the story of a young man who left his family and reached the forest in order to make money. After cutting down the first tree, he meets the guardian of the forest, The Lorax. Even as Once-ler agrees not to cut another tree, but only to take what is needed from a living tree, his Thneed invention becomes a great success, and as his family members join him, there is a horrible attack on the trees with the mass production which needed big deforestation and the final destruction of the forest with not even one single tree left. As the air, water and land remains polluted and nothing left for him to do business with, his people abandons him and he is left with no hope. As all the animals and The Lorax leaves, he becomes a recluse living in an abandoned cottage. Now he needs to make amends for his action, but can he do it, or how will he do the same?

The defence of The Lorax :: I can’t remember a movie which has had this strong an environmental theme for a long time. It has the strong background of a brilliant work, and they have used it well to further strengthen the characters in the movie and make it more suitable for the current age. The looks of the characters are also appealing for the children. Its emphasis on saving the environment and its powerful assertion on the need to save the nature is impressive. As the world is slowly being taken over by the corporates who use the power of science to manipulate nature and create an artificial world out of nowhere, this has a powerful role to play. May be this can keep the newer generation of kids informed about the need to safeguard the world they live in. The preservation as well as the improvement of the natural environment should be taught in the early age itself rather than throwing scientific nonsense doing their brains. The movie can actually do a great job in the same.

The claws of flaw :: The movie surely deviates from the book, and its environmental concern is indeed a bit overdone. There are not many good tunes, and there is not enough fun with this one as compared to the other animated movies. There is a pervading dark tone around it, and the irony about the movie might be too much for an animated movie. It often losses its point as the life in the synthetic world is shown as perfect even in the natural destruction. There is also too much of the life in the artificial world which seems to justify itself without nature. Why does our hero want to grow a tree? Not to save the environment, but to impress a girl. The romantic subplots are getting more and more ridiculous these days, and I would hope that they can do without it whenever not needed. The environment is not part of our need to impress someone, it is the need of our life, not only of ours, but all life forms. It should stay with us forever rather than becoming an instrument to tell others that we did that, and we are awesome!

Nature’s sad loss :: Lets think about all these before we concentrate on sending rockets to Moon, Mars and everything that the scientists claim about. If we can’t save our planet which is moving more and more into chaos, what are we going to do about the future worlds were we live in? How can we even know that such a world exists without seeing them? We hear that they sent the rocket there, but how will we ever know that such things really happened – the plight of the common man who is set to believe everything, and can’t question where all the money disappears. Well, we have an environment to take care of right before our eyes. We can’t care about our habitat and our people; instead we look for a habitat in another world and also for lifeforms in another worlds. I have a lot of respect for the nations who would actually care about their citizens rather than go for space research. The lesser the betterment of other worlds, that much the better.

How it finishes :: With a villain who is almost like all the companies of the present who sells bottled water, and a selfish hero along with a former selfish hero, the movie has its flaws, but with its appealing animation and still powerful environmental message, the movie takes control. The biggest advantage might be that the kids can take a message home, that the trees are good and they should be planted everywhere – with a hope that when they grow-up, the world becomes a better place, even if one has to doubt that seriously seeing how they are exposed to the artificial world in such a young age. The respect for the elders, the parents and the teachers are slowly disappearing, but may be this movie can put a little bit of respect for nature in them. If it does, that should be the success that this movie can boast about. It is quite a short movie lasting less than one and half hours and hope you all give it a try. There is the need for balance between the humanity and the nature, and the the clock is ticking!

Release date: 27th July 2012
Running time: 86 minutes
Directed by: Chris Renaud
Starring (voice): Zac Efron, Danny DeVito, Ed Helms, Taylor Swift, Rob Riggle, Betty White, Jenny Slate

@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

Ezhamathe Varavu

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Dr. Tennyson

Do you have nostalgia about the old Malayalam movies or do you feel nostalgic very often and feels that the Malayalam movies have degraded a lot and the effect of the new generation movies has not been that good? Do you feel that Malayalam movies should go back and be inspired from a former golden age of movie history or at least appreciate that age which was undoubtedly a memorable one? If the answer of these questions is yes, this is a movie you should watch and this is a review you should read. Otherwise, I would suggest that you return to what you were doing before falling into this ocean of nostalgia instead of poking your nose at a place which is not good for the kind of move loving soul which you have. The movie hasn’t done that well as it should have, and it reveals the lack of nostalgia around or rather the inability to sell this nostalgic feeling due to that horrible change which the audience has undergone with the rise of new generation movies and that mindless entertainer power which has cast a shadow on the beautiful woods of nostalgia. If you haven’t left this page yet, I suggest you reclaim it with this movie.

The film’s script which was written by M. T. Vasudevan Nair in the 1970s and was filmed by Hariharan himself with Sukumaran playing the role of the major antagonist, a role which has been passed on to his son with this new version. But as we have heard about it, the older version of the movie didn’t get released. So this remake of the Sukumaran-Venu Nagavally starrer Evideyo Oru Shatru has Indrajith-Vineeth combination instead. The movie might seem a little bit old generation for the liking of most of the people, but one thing that most of the viewers have to keep in mind is that in spite of all the changes that has come upon the world, may be with laptops, mobiles and tablets taking over what was to be their absence, the environment remains the same. The story of the subaltern undergoes no significant change as a whole, no matter how much the man can claim to have improved and changed their attitude towards their fellow beings. Another thing is that there will always be something in this world that humanity shall never understand, and it is supernatural, either divine or devilish.

But the movie doesn’t follow the path of the older movies with exaggeration or overdose of any element. Yes, there is one good man who comes into a forest with tribals around, and finds his former lover as the wife of the evil man who has control over the lands; and he tries to protect both a young tribal girl as well as the environment from the eyes of the man-devil – a plot which has been used for ages. In this remake, there is a certain amount of realism which has been added for sure, and even during this age of disgusting relationships, the plot remains striking enough. All of the characters are simple ones who doesn’t make a big mess around. None of them try to be heroic and try something which is too unexpected of them, and they stick to the stereotypes of the earlier ages, but carries over the impact which they would have created at that time, to this age which has no fixed quality in its movies. Hariharan and M T Vasudevan Nair have indeed created another beauty in the form of Ezhamathe Varavu, literally translated as The Seventh Coming and not to be confused with the Tamil movie Ezham Arivu.

Our story follows the path of an archeologist, Prasad (Vineeth) who has reached the forests of Wayanad, in an attempt to find the remains of a kingdom which is supposed to have existed in the area which now stands in the wilderness. As he tries to find helpers for the cause, he comes across a simple and innocent tribal girl Maala (Kavitha Nair) who helps him with the forest and its people. He lives in the mansion of Gopi (Indrajith Sukumaran) a rich planter and land owner of the area. Gopi is a wife-beating ego-maniac, heavy drinker, womaniser and a self-proclaimed expert in hunting. He is ruthless in getting what he wants, and always look forward to asserting his wishes on others. He also comes across his former lover Bhanu (Bhavana) who is married to the same man, but has turned out as an alcoholic due to his behaviour towards her. Meanwhile, a tiger makes frequent visits to the tribal village, claiming people during regular intervals. Gopi sets out to kill the animal for the thrills along with having his eyes set on Mala, while Bhanu gets closer to Prasad. But the tiger seems to succeed more despite of the efforts of Gopi and the villagers. What happens next shall end a few lives and change the others.

Indrajith Sukumaran plays the antagonist of the movie, and still wins the round for souls with another performance of brilliance which he carries over from his awesomeness in the movie Left Right Left. To be frank, he is the biggest reason why we had rushed to the theatre despite the number of shows being reduced to one. He portrays that dark shade of a hunter, a predator of no regret with such beauty that one would begin to wonder if anything could be worth missing watching such villainy. Vineeth plays the exact opposite, the side of the light, as the man who decided to give up his love for her own good, along with loving poetry as well as the symphony of the forest along with history. He seems to be in a familiar territory, as he progresses which ease, as a model archaeologist, a great lover of history and a big admirer of poems. Bhavana plays her character with ease and a certain amount of serenity, but Kavitha Nair has more screen presence as the symbol of innocence, the beautiful tribal girl whom the landlord has his eyes set on. The simplicity and the innocence of the newcomer’s portrayal of the girl is sure to have a long lasting influence on the viewers.

There is also the presence of some beautiful music, as we go back in time to the love story of Prasad and Bhanu, but the more touching one would be the song by Maala who is portrayed on screen by Kavitha Nair with such lack of blemish and so much of simple innocence that there is an instant liking that the audience develops with the character. As she is ravished by the predator of the human world and the revenge is half-done, the rest is taken over by the nature, or the symbol of the tribal beliefs or rather the vehicle of the Goddess whichever way the poetic justice prevails, more in a divine manner rather than anything else. If there is an outdated feeling at any point, the more appropriate word would be antiquity, and deserving an excavation as well as a mind which supports the same. What everyone can be sure about is that the evil is punished, and even in the suffering, the good finally survives, may be to thrive later. The possible pessimism which could have fallen into this movie is averted due to the use of the old formula, as the thrills, love as well as the vengeance is well balanced and well thrown on screen.

The movie’s hold on traditions, customs as well as the beliefs is also worth mentioning, as we wonder what the tiger actually depict, as William Blake had written as a part of his collection Songs of Experience in 1794; “Tiger, tiger, burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies, Burnt the fire of thine eyes”? Yes, we are talking about the visual experience here, for the vision of the burning eyes of the tiger in the darkness comes before the first display of the majestic creature. It is the creature which delivers the final judgement, from the nature itself, for the man who loved nature and the woman who was part of nature. So that adds to this visually superior movie which you can blame for having a predictable plot, and for lacking in mass masala qualities. You can cry about it dragging a bit. But you can never avoid this one, and let me tell you one thing, that this is still a faster movie than Annayum Rasoolum by kilometres and kilometres. Think about it – nostalgia; don’t you need it more than a little?

Release date: 15th September 2013
Running time: 150 minutes (estimate)
Directed by: Hariharan
Starring: Vineeth, Indrajith Sukumaran, Bhavana, Kavitha Nair, Mamukkoya, Nandhu, Suresh Krishna, Koottickal Jayachandran, Captain Raju