Showing Character Growth In 2 Simple Shots.

I recently saw Adam. An obscure love story about how the eponymous Adam (Hugh Dancy from Hannibal) despite having Asperger's Syndrome manages to learn how to love and also overcome some drawbacks of his condition. Now on paper, it sounds like a standard love with a dash of diseaste type of story but it translates well on screen.

A lot of credit goes to Hugh Dancy's acting chops. He wins our hearts over by making Adam's social anxieties relatable. For example, there are a bunch of times in the movie where Adam doesn't know how to react to his girlfriend Beth's (a subpar Rose Byrne) emotional needs. Now even if you are the most well-adjusted human being out there, I'm sure you too have found yourself at odds while dealing with a loved one. Dancy presents Adam's anxieties with a mix of social awkwardness and a nonchalant bemused demeanour. Just like us he wants to help but isn't sure on how to do it.

So every time he comforts Beth, it shows that he's managed to come closer to her. To loving her in the way, that makes him for the lack of  a better expression, a more integrated person in our world. As a director, Max Mayer had several ways of showing this. Instead he chooses this neat trick.

This is one of the opening shots of the film. Adam is about to attend his father's funeral. This is his last goodbye to the man whose support saw him lead a comfortable life. He's at the dining table, passively eating his cereal. No signs of discomfort. He's alone here but there's no hint of loneliness. 

Then, there's this shot later towards the end. Adam is again at the dining table with cereal. Except this time, things have changed. He's broken up with Beth. He is really alone now. Without his father, he found a way to get by but he didn't grow out of his shell. He didn't try to make new friends or create his own simulacrum of family.When Beth came along, he learnt to love. He saw how good could life be and now that he's lost her he's a little worse for the wear. He knows that the people who enable him love him but enabling someone isn't the same as loving someone. Spoiler alert - Beth leaves him because he wants her to move with him to California for a job. All his reasons are practical, he needs her to help him out. He loves her alright, but mostly because she enables him. And this simple truth prompts Adam to turn his life around. To see that he needs to live without Beth to possibly show Beth that he can love her unconditionally and in some way, learn to love himself. Using a near identical shot and juxtaposing it with the inner journey of a character is a real smooth move. And, Adam, dear readers is a real nice watch. 

Androids Have Existential Crises Too.

Just saw Blade Runner on a terrible DVD rip on an age-old CRT monitor. Didn't affect its quality though.  I loved it but was a little underwhelmed. That happens a lot with classics. When you watch them, you find them reductive. Everything you see in them has been copied upon and often improved. I admired Blade Runner's grand but gloomy industrial landscape. It's sci-fi with noir approach but the proceedings felt a little off-key

And then the climax hit me like a bullet train. Firstly there's Rutger Hauer's epic monologue as the main villain as Roy Batty. He plays the leader of replicants, an android workforce with sentience and a short lifespan. They are mostly used for grunt work in space and for some odd reason aren't aware that they are replicants. So when 4 replicants rebel and try to find a way to lengthen their lives, the task falls upon blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to find them and hunt them down.

The chase is interesting enough but it reaches its peak at the end. An exhausted Roy is at the end of his thread. The female replicant he loved and his other allies have been gunned down by Rick. The two men meet, as they must in a desolate abandoned building. And as per noir custom, it's pouring down. Roy and Rick engage in a game of cat and mouse. Roy, fully feline even howls like a wolf. By the end, Roy's battery is draining, he has but a few minutes to kill Rick. Then something surprising happens. Right when Rick is dangling by a pillar on the roof of a building, Roy jumps over and saves him. Then he delivers this monoloue.



Legend has it Hauer improvised the entire monologue. Whether that's true or not, it's one of the best monologues commited to screen and Hauer sells the hell out of it. It makes his Roy look more human than all the characters in the movie. It makes us see that he too felt, that he too loved, that he too deserved the luxury to live. And like any other human, he feels the need to have someone bear witness to his life and death. Maybe that's why he saves Rick. Or maybe he realises that for all the lives he took, he couldn't save his own. So to bring an end to the violence, he saves Rick. And that's just one small part of the movie - the entire movie can be interpreted in multiple ways. Why, for example, Tyrell, the man who invented replicants, treats them the way Frankenstein treated his monster?

The film packs multiple religious references too. After a dying Roy loses his ability to control his palm, he puts a nail through it to attack Rick. But in the end he doesn't really hurt Rick. And then you can't help see the parallel with Jesus, who by his end also had nails driven through his palms.

A dash of butter, a stroke of brilliance.

Wieden + Kennedy hysterics. A client who loves bold off-the-wall stuff. And a director with a flair for big, flashy visuals. That’s all there is on offer with this visual food porn opera from Lurpak.

Have a look and marvel over the slow-mo shots, the hyperkinetic editing, and the extravagant amount of Lurpak applied on every item that’s being cooked. I'm not a foodie but dammit this looks yum and inspires me to take up cooking.

George Clooney and Vera Farmiga Show You the Right Way To Break Up with Someone.

Breakups. They happen to us all. The sad part is no matter how significant or meaningful the relationship was, the way people break up with each other is usually ugly. Words are tossed around without any thought. Unfortunately, those who get their hearts broken spend countless days deciphering those same words. Trying to find greater meaning in 'It's not you, it's me'. 

And this is exactly why I love this breakup scene from Up in the Air. The director Jason Reitman shows two ‘adults’ in a romantic situation and how it comes to a close in an ‘adult’ manner. 

Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is a cold-blooded bastard. He joyfully fires people for a living and with recession looming in the background, his business is booming. He flies a lot and ends up meeting Alex Goran (Vera Farminga). She is just like him. She tells him to think of herself as a ‘female version’ of him. Notice how the director gives her a traditionally ‘male’ name. Alex is not your traditional enabler female archetype.

At the end of the movie, Ryan realizes that his life is empty and meaningless. So he rushes to meet Alex. To declare his love for her. To his surprise, he finds Alex is married. With kids. And is even seemingly happy. He is crushed. So when she finally calls him back, you expect an apology. But this is a Jason Reitman movie. What you see instead is an explanation.

We see how Alex is indeed Ryan’s counterpart. She parrots an explanation Ryan could have given someone a few weeks back. As she puts, ‘I thought we signed up for the same thing... I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis.’

Cold but clear. Heartless without meaning harm. Besides, I’m sure Ryan would be broken by the ‘parenthesis’ remark but at least she gave him a meaningful answer. It’s the kind of honest breakup we all should aspire to.

Scorsese Actually Hinted at the Ending of Shutter Island in the First 20 Minutes Itself.

Possibly not one of the Scorsese's greatest films but it's got merit. And Leonardo diCaprio and merit. Why I say? While its surprise ending might have seemed like a downer and a damper (it rains a lot in the movie), Scorsese surely did arrive at it artfully. Here's how. Scorsese's no hacky debutant to lure you in with a silly plot twist. And for most part, the end of Shutter Island feels like that - Leonardo diCaprio's a patient - OMG - Leo's not there to investigate the case, OMG - Leo's a freaking patient.

But then I saw bits of it during breakfast and I realised how Scorsese subtly drops the hint that all that is happening is an elaborate setup. Consider the first shot of them on the island, as soon as they meet Shutter Island's head of security, all the security guards next to him cock their guns. Now, there's no reason for them to do so but on second viewing it becomes clear that they are doing so because Leonard diCaprio is mentally unstable, and on top of it armed too. After this, the head of security goes on to take away their hand guns because of 'penitentiary laws'. In the later scenes, it shows the two cops navigating the harsh terrain while being unarmed which is a nice dramatic touch but we know the real reason now.

In the next scene, they both are driving to the actual hospital - a virtuoso crash zoom shot follows them on the road. It looks as if the subjects are being tracked and wait for it, of course they are being tracked. Leo's being 'observed' as you can see.

Finally at the mental asylum/jail's facility as they are about to enter the main building, we see a patient/prisoner making 'Shh' gesture to Leo. What looked like a standard movie trope, in retrospect becomes a warning to the Leo - this patient must have actually recognised Leo as a patient/prisoner of Shutter Island.

Pretty cool, right? And I just saw the first 20 minutes of the film. Imagine how much more I would uncover if I could watch it all.

Love the new Levi's Commercial. More or Less.

Check out this new commercial from Levi's for its Revel line of jeans. Pretty cool direction, nice sound track. Lovely match cuts at 0:10 and a nice line that sums up the product benefit in the end. But what's missing here are women? I mean Revel as a shapewear denim product helps give better shape to women's bodies then why does the ad only show beautiful skinny women. How are consumers to know if the product is working or not? Although guys are least likely to complain thanks to all the lovely ladies here.

PS: Major brownie points for Levi's for possibly being the only fashion brand that uses a lot Asian models too. I think there's an Indian one in this commercial too. 'Yeaaaaah', as they go in the commercial.