Oblivion: A science-fiction treat!

As the story goes, Joseph Kosinski began working on a graphic novel in 2005, in collaboration with Radical Comics. In 2010, Disney acquired the rights for the novel with the intent of building a movie out of it. However, when Disney realised that making a PG film would require lot of changes, it sold off the rights which were later acquired by Universal Studios. The studio gave the green-light for a PG-13 movie with Joseph Kosinski directing it. After all it was his graphic novel that kick-started the whole thing. And so a science-fiction movie was made, giving credit to the graphic novel of Kosinski. Oh, wait! The novel though does not exist. It may be there in someone's drawer at a conceptual stage with lot of art work done, but Radical Comics never came around to actually publishing it. In fact, its website still maintains a 'Coming in 2012' tagline. The movie production on the other hand is done and dusted and dispatched to the theatres. It is titled, as was the conceptual graphic novel, Oblivion. 

Despite the slightly strange background story of Oblivion, Kosinski stated in an interview that he always intended the movie to be the final product. And so here we are, the movie very much in theatres. And what is the verdict? It's a treat, a science-fiction treat! It may not feature in any top-ten lists and may not be remembered for long once Iron Man 3 starts ruling the theatres, but take nothing away from Kosinski's work to put forth a pure science-fiction movie, which stays true to the concept of science-fiction. The film begins with a premise narrated by Tom Cruise which informs us that an alien invasion on the moon led to the downfall of Earth (a view of the shattered moon is one of many amazing cinematic shots in the movie!), leading to a war which even though won by humans, led to the Earth becoming uninhabitable. The humans shift to Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, while a small crew of Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough are sent to oversee the extraction of water resources from Earth to support mankind's survival on Titan and eliminate any threats from whatever is remaining of the alien beings. That is just the beginning of the movie plot which has sci-fi written all over it!

For a long stretch of the film, Tom Cruise and Andrea Riseborough are the only two humans shown on Earth which brings forth the emptiness that Cruise's character also tends to feel. This loneliness is more aptly displayed by shooting the movement of the characters, mainly Cruise, under the backdrop of large landscapes, be it barren lands or twisting mountain ranges. Last that I had seen such grandeur images which would have made National Geographic proud was in the opening scenes of Ridley Scott's Prometheus. But in Oblivion, Kosinski does not let go of showcasing various wonders of Mother Earth right till the end, even though much lies in ruins after the alien attacks. There is some terrific art direction at work here, a reason in itself to watch the film. Wonder how cool the concept art would look like! The music score also deserves to be mentioned here; it adds to the intensity of the movie, it is alive and pumps you well, though bordering on being a bit jarring at times. 

To add to the theme, there are enough cool mechanical devices at work, running around in focus or in the background. The shuttle that Tom Cruise uses to scout Earth stands out in its elegance, and so do the roundish drones which form an intriguing and important part of the movie. As 'cute' as they might look, they do have a deadly shooting prowess and become a thick part of the action scenes that follow in the latter parts of the movie. If you are familiar with Kosinski's only other film as a director, Tron: Legacy, the slickness and ease with which the entire sci-fi feel has been created for the movie would not surprise you. In both his movies, Kosinski has displayed a creative understanding towards how a futuristic or an alternative world can look like and has then blended it in the world we know, and this consistency in his frames throughout the movie is what gives Oblivion a genuine science-fiction touch which delighted me on most occasions (I know I am harping on the sci-fi point!). 

And in this praise of his work, lies my criticism too. For just as was the case with Tron: Legacy, Joseph Kosinski makes Oblivion too cool and sleek, turning it into an appealing science-fiction movie, but losing out on the human touch. That is why Kosinski will never be say, a Spielberg. At the core, Oblivion has a very fascinating story, with enough twists in the second half of the film to keep you rooted till the dramatic end. But the screenplay, for which Kosinski is also credited with, fails to dig deeper into the characters and create a stronger bond between them and the audience. There is enough scope, that is easy to see, for making us really feel for the lead characters, and the writers do make attempts to showcase the conflicts and the confusion each of the leading characters face. But this display is handled at a mediocre level, as if dug using a kitchen knife where you end up chipping at the top and never reach anywhere close to the bottom. And this is going to be the main reason why Oblivion will be forgotten sooner than it should be.

Despite my lack of appreciation for the way the characters were built through the course of the plot, the actors do add to the quality of the film. Tom Cruise is no unknown entity to a sci-fi film and he does get the tone and rhythm right in Oblivion, almost redeeming for the disastrous role in Jack Reacher. Tom Cruise can really be an exasperating actor if you are a fan, for he can display his commitment and sincerity for a role in one movie and screw it up badly in the next. He does not necessarily lead the acting charts in terms of versatility as an actor and so it would do him no harm if he picks his movies more carefully; Oblivion though works in his favour. Morgan Freeman on the other hand is one of the few actors who can light up the screen in a matter of seconds in any film. And despite having a limited role here, he does exactly that, lights up each scene that he is placed in. The surprise package is of course the British actress Andrea Riseborough (who has played Margaret Thatcher in a TV drama previously) who is initially seen just as an accompanying actor as eyes stay fixed on Tom Cruise, but gradually asserts herself more strongly on the screen, which was quite essential as the movie contains such limited actors. Olga Kurylenko, a survivor of a crash, plays a big part in the eventual direction the plot takes, but her role as such has very limited to offer. 

All in all, Oblivion has added much to the flavour of April, delighting the hearts and warming it up as Iron Man 3 approaches. Joseph Kosinski is displaying his own style of movie-making and even though he is only two films old, I would be looking forward to his future works. If only he can add more to the characters even if it means losing out a bit on the 'sci-fi feel', maybe a classic would not be far away! 

Pop quiz time!

Time to rack your brains, for that is the best way to get past this lull. Firing away three questions... for answers, scroll down a little.

Q1) Only 2 actors have ever won the Academy Award posthumously. One was of course Heath Ledger who was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in 2009's The Dark Knight. The obvious question is, who was the other? 

Q2) Sylvester Stallone achieved fame quite early on in his career thanks to the smash hit  Rocky which released in 1976. But few know that his first leading role in feature films was in fact for a softcore pornography film. What is the title of the film?

Q3) Robert De Niro and Al Pacino have been the stalwarts of their times in Hollywood. They have featured together in three feature films so far in their careers. Can you name all three?

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A1) It was interestingly another Australian actor, Peter Finch who played one of the craziest and most memorable roles, that of a television anchorman in 1976's Network which won him an Academy Award for Best Actor. Sadly, he died of a heart attack in January 1977, only two months before the Academy Awards function. 

A2) The Party at Kitty and Stud's; yeah, that is the name of Stallone's first film and guess what his character's name was!? Stud! After the success of Rocky, the creators of The Party at Kitty and Stud's re-released it as Italian Stallion to cash in on Stallone's popularity. 

A3) The thought of De Niro and Pacino sharing the same screen could make any movie watcher's heart leap. And yet, their possibly best work together would be in a movie wherein they never shared screen time together, The Godfather: Part II. In 1995, the duo reunited for the classic film Heat featuring them on the opposite sides of the law. In 2008, the now aged duo came together in Righteous Kill where they both were cop detectives. 

Trying to enjoy peace

One can only ever miss the noise when he has been thrown in silence for too long. This, right now, seems to be the silent phase etching out. The trailer of Rush was intriguing but there has been nothing much apart from that happening recently in the world of Hollywood news. It is a silence I am trying to enjoy, though my craving for some big and breaking story is deepening. The week could very well turn out to be a memorable one if Oblivion, which is releasing this weekend, makes the most of the high-profile cast of Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman that it carries. The trailers looked good, the story is a bit common though may have more mystery in it, but what the final product will deliver, only time will tell. 

Apart from that Andrew Webb and Bryan Singer are finding it tough to stop tweeting about their upcoming movies (which are not coming till 2014!) and while I am keenly awaiting The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of the Future Past, the incessant publicity in the production stage itself has started to get annoying. Gone are the days it seems when the movie was made silently, to be followed by a blitzkrieg of marketing involving trailers, posters and interviews of the cast. Now you can invite people to be a part of the movie from quite early on, thanks to the flooding of various online communication channels and directors who find it hard to keep a lid on it! To each his own maybe, but I would like the silent approach to be followed where your work eventually does the talking. So farewell then, as I let silence envelop me again for soon it too shall meet its nemesis... of that I am certain! But even on such days, one can try to be blissful in peace...

Niki Lauda's crash to be relived...

It was the year 1976. The Austrian Ferrari driver Niki Lauda entered the 10th race of the Formula One season with a healthy lead at the top of the drivers' charts, looking to extend it further in the German Grand Prix as he sought a second consecutive World Championship title. Many points behind him languished the British driver James Hunt in his McLaren-Ford. It was turning into a question of not who, but when would Lauda win the World Championship. But sporting stories are never written in stone, are they? 

August 1, 1976, was the day of the German Grand Prix. Niki Lauda was starting second behind James Hunt who had taken pole position. The rains made most of the drivers start on wet tyres but by end of the first lap, the weather had dried up and so most of the drivers, including Lauda, changed back to dry weather tyres. And soon came a moment to change the course of not only the race, but possibly the championship. But the incident that was to determine this was so heart-wrenching that the Championship would have been a distinct second on the minds of many. Trying hard to make up for lost ground, Lauda's Ferrari "snapped to the right and spun through the fencing into an earth bank. The car bounced back onto the track, enveloped in flames." Niki Lauda was trapped in the flames! The picture above is from the actual crash scene and the burning car is Lauda's Ferrari. Other drivers rushed to rescue him from what was turning into his coffin, but by the time he was brought out of the burning car, he had suffered serious injuries. Niki Lauda fell into a coma soon after and battled for his life for the next few days. Thankfully, he survived. After missing two more races, Niki Lauda returned back to the circuit!

A story of grit and determination, a story of how the human mind can overpower the frailties of the human body, Niki Lauda battled right till the end of the 1976 Formula One season with James Hunt for the World Championship title. A championship that was alive right till the last race! It is the story of this championship battle which is largely being showcased in this year's film Rush. While I had found the story interesting enough beforehand to include this film in my watchlist for the year, the first trailer has raised my expectations further. The trailer, in its brief spell, manages to highlight the risks taken by the Formula One driver, and the grittiness of one to overcome the obstacles in his path and fight for the title. Directed by the highly acclaimed Ron Howard, who has brought multiple real life stories to the big screen with aplomb in the past including A Beautiful Mind and Frost / Nixon, Rush features Daniel Bruhl as Lauda and Chris Hemsworth as Hunt. Now, only if 42 and Rush live upto the expectations that the trailers have set, 2013 could indeed be a great year for sports biopics to be brought onto the theatre screens! And maybe more will follow... 

Avengers Phase 3 -- Coming Up!

Avengers Phase 2 is already underway and picking up steam as the release date for Iron Man 3 approaches nearer. But Disney / Marvel of course have this uncanny habit of seeing long into the future, beyond what they show us indeed! So while Phase 2 is only kick-starting for us, the audience, the studio seems well on track to keep the anticipation and excitement raging for Phase 3, by planning to release its next set of movies soon after The Avengers 2 is released in 2015. That is what you call 'being prepared'! First of all, what do we have for Phase 2? We have the popular ones of course, sequels to the Iron Man, Thor and Captain America movies and adding to that is the entrance of Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. So there is a lot of familiarity for The Avengers 2. But what about Phase 3? 

From the stories circulating so far, Phase 3 of this Marvel superhero-themed film series is supposed to have loads of new characters, each having their own backstory films as well, as was the case for The Avengers. So who are they? These aren't the most popular of heroes, neither was Iron Man such a giant of a superhero until the movies released, though they would still be quite familiar to the avid comic readers and even if you read an occasional Marvel story every now and then. The first official movie for Phase 3 to be announced is Ant-Man featuring a superhero with the same name (duh!), scheduled for a November 2015 release as of now. There have been no more official confirmations yet, but certain names are being openly declared, twitted and buzzed around. With such sources, what I could gather is that Doctor Strange is said to be high on the priority list for the Phase 3 project. And the latest internet buzz is on Black Panther after an actor posted a tweet mentioning the superhero's name. It takes only a little to get the net buzzing (and people blogging!) when it comes to the Avengers series. 

So with so many new and relatively less popular names being thrown into the ring, it is but a sensible thing to acquaint ourselves with the traits of the new set of superheroes who may grace the large screen. And even though 2015 is quite a distance away, we will be hearing a lot on the Phase 3 superheroes even in the period prior to The Avengers 2. So here's a brief on the possible future superheroes of this movie series, based on what they accomplished in the comic world. 

Ant-Man: Biochemist Dr. Henry Pym (that's his real name!) discovers a chemical substance to alter his size and voila, soon becomes the superhero called Ant-Man. He reveals his identity to his girlfriend and lab assistant, Janet van Dyne, who later also has an alter-ego called Wasp. Now, here's the most interesting aspect. Ant-Man and Wasp are actually the original founders of the Avengers (with the first roster also including Hulk, Thor and Iron Man)! That now seems unlikely to have a bearing on the storyline of the movie series though it shows the close connection that Ant-Man has to the Avengers. More interestingly, I located this trivia, that Henry Pym was referred to in the film Thor as a friend to whom Dr. Selvig emails, but this scene was later deleted from the final cut. The Ant-Man seems to have every right to be in an Avengers film! 

Doctor Strange: Strange is a character which opens many new realms in the Marvel universe, for his stories step away from the science loving themes of many other superheroes and into the worlds of mystic and magic. Originally Dr. Stephen Strange, he was a neurosurgeon who met with an accident and sought out the aid of a hermit called the Ancient One to heal his wounds, eventually himself becoming a sorcerer. Doctor Strange is part of a group called Illuminati which deals with future threats to the earth and also joins the New Avengers, whose roster currently consists of Iron Man as well. With Marvel Studios president announcing early on that Doctor Strange would be featuring in some capacity in Phase 3 of the movie series, get ready for the moments of sorcery to be brought on screen!

Black Panther: This one got some really amazing facts behind it! Black Panther is said to be the first black superhero in mainstream comics. T'Challa, that's his real name, is a warrior king of the African nation of Wakanda. Guess who he married? Storm! Yep, the one from the X-Men series. He's also part of Illuminati, as is Doctor Strange and Iron Man, and has been a member of the Avengers team too, from quite early on in fact. His usual problem has been to safeguard his technologically rich nation, Wakanda, from invasions and maybe that is what the film on Black Panther (if there is to be one) would be dealing with. 

Interesting characters, enough material to bring them on screen, though their integration with the storyline that The Avengers 2 will take would be the most interesting and eagerly awaited aspect. Though with so many new characters planned, and the actors of the existing superhero movies not getting any younger, one does wonder where the fate of the latter lie! Could we be seeing the end of some of them in Phase 2? Would be hard to digest. Wish that some things in life could just remain as they are... and not age and fade with time...

The many Al Capones

Al Capone has interested Hollywood in a manner no one from 'the dark side' would have, apart from maybe Hitler himself! Capone makes for the most boisterous in-your-face  type of villains, unlike the Agent Smith cool kinds seen in more recent times. His rise during the Prohibition era in USA in the 1920's and 30's, his high visibility in the public and his eventual fall when he was caught for tax evasion making him a high profile prisoner of Alcatraz later on, makes for intriguing story-telling. There are aspects of his life which remain unresolved, adding to the intrigue, exaggerated with time. The book called The Untouchables written by one of the agents, Elliot Ness, assigned to the task of nabbing Capone, its subsequent TV representation and the 1987 popular film of the same name, have also made Al Capone a name known to the ordinary. 

Portrayed by many, it is probably Robert De Niro as Al Capone in the 1987 movie The Untouchables which is more well-known. The wikipedia page on Al Capone indicates no less than 15 different portrayals of him on the big screen, and another 15 portrayals said to be based on Capone. With this big number goes my inclination to put across pictures of all the portrayals of Capone, though I still would like to put up the ones played in Hollywood upto De Niro himself. And while some do not even come close to resembling the real Capone, whose picture is there right at the bottom, the cigar is probably the one thing they could not do without!

Rod Steiger in  Al Capone (1959)

Neville Brand in The George Raft Story (1961)

Jason Robards in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

Ben Gazzara in Capone (1975)

Robert De Niro in The Untouchables (1987)

The real Al Capone (1899 - 1947)

Now that indeed are way too many cigars!

3D re-releases... no, please!

This weekend has seen the re-release of Jurassic Park in 3D. Yep, the original one. Why? Well, they claim it is to commemorate the 20th year of this classic film which introduced dinosaurs to the human race the way no one has done before. Which might be partly true. But the bigger reason would of course be simpler. With 3D technology booming and no studio daring to release a potential blockbuster in only 2D (and so kudos to Christopher Nolan for not falling into this mayhem with The Dark Knight Rises), the studios are trying to benefit from the goodwill of their old films, convert them from 2D to 3D, and market it loudly to the audience to make quick cash. Not pennies, but millions of dollars! The way Titanic earned another $57 million last year with it's 3D release (that one was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the actual tragic event). And so would have the likes of Lion King and Finding Nemo with their recent 3D re-releases. In case of Jurassic Park, there is the added advantage that bringing the film back to a relatively new generation acts as a good marketing ploy for Jurassic Park IV slated for a 2014 release. 

The problem I have with these re-releases is that it cuts down on nourishing new movies to a certain degree. The money which has been deployed for the 3D conversion process and meeting the marketing expenses could well have been used to fund an indie movie, maybe support the ambitions of the next Guy Ritchie or a Robert Rodriguez. While going for the easy money, the studios are hampering the possibilities of nurturing more talent and growth. And they also block out a weekend for any other movie to prosper, when you are releasing again something as famous as Jurassic Park. Having said that, re-releases are still a fickle notion, one which you hear very briefly, as thankfully there is enough refreshingly new content being made each year, either 3D or non-3D. Hopefully, that is the way it would continue and this idea of re-releasing movies in 3D (or 4D later on?) remains a rarity than a norm. 

While on the topic of 3D movies, many would find it hard to recollect the ones that were released before Avatar in 2009. And not surprisingly, for the outstanding box-office numbers of Avatar ensured that 3D films became a part of life only subsequently. But the history of 3D films goes as far back as 1915 when the first presentation of a 3D film before a paying audience is set to have been reported at Astor Theatre in New York. Coming closer to our times, while there were quite a few animated films released with 3D versions in the last decade, it was  2008's Journey to the Center of the Earth which became the first full-length feature film to be shot in 3D using the Fusion Camera System which has been co-developed by James Cameron and subsequently used for Avatar as well. 3D technology driven films are going to crowd the movie space, that for sure is guaranteed, and coupled with innovative and improving technology, Peter Jackson's The Hobbit with its 48 fps screening being a casing point, these are interesting and usually exciting times for movie viewing indeed. And if my wishes were to come true, the monies would be utilized on newer movies and newer technologies, rather than bringing in reruns of the old!