Tag: Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks excels at playing real-life heroes (Part 2)


In the first part of this post, I recapped five real-life characters that Tom Hanks has portrayed in his big screen career, starting in 1995 with Jim Lovell in Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, up until 2015 when he played lawyer-turned-negotiator James Donovan in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. In this second and concluding part, let’s look at three other real-life characters Hanks has played out of the nine films he has appeared in since 2015. And frankly, other than those three films (plus Toy Story 4), his other recent films have been rather mediocre.

Sully (2016): In his first collaboration with veteran actor-director Clint Eastwood, Hanks played pilot Chesley Sullenberger, who successfully crash-landed an ailing commercial plane in the freezing Hudson river with no loss of life or critical injuries in January 2009. Sully chronicles the heart-stopping incident and the subsequent federal investigation during which he and his co-pilot had to prove that they made the right decision to ditch in The Hudson rather than divert to a nearby airfield. Just as Bridge of Spies is one of my best-loved films from the latter stages of Spielberg’s career, Sully is the same with respect to Clint Eastwood’s (the others being Jersey Boys and The Mule). I love the film for its matter-of-fact narrative of a very dramatic event and the quiet confidence of its two leads played by Hanks and Aaron Eckhart…a closer depiction of real life, as compared to the typical Hollywood dramatization. Released in time for the 2016 awards season, the film was a solid though unspectacular performer at the box office, but certainly profitable because Eastwood’s films are always shot economically. Although it featured in a few year-end top ten lists, the film didn’t garner any major awards. It is eminently re-watchable though, and I look forward to it popping up on cable or streaming from time to time.

US Airways pilots Chesley Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) in the aftermath of the crash-landing of Flight 1549 in “Sully” (2016), directed by Clint Eastwood

The Post (2017): The following year, Hanks appeared in his fifth film with Steven Spielberg, the political thriller The Post, which follows a long tradition of Hollywood films honoring the heroism of American journalism in the face of vested interests. Incredibly, this was the first time in their long careers that Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep would star in a movie together. Streep played Katherine Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post newspaper and Hanks played its editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee. Although I enjoyed the film while watching it, I honestly can’t remember (nor particularly care) what it was all about. But there was no denying the pleasure of watching an ensemble of supremely gifted actors ply their craft under the skilled guidance of an all-time great director. The Post was a modest commercial performer (helped by a relatively low budget given its high profile cast and crew), but it was a big success during awards season, with Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress (Streep’s umpteenth!) and a Golden Globe nomination for Tom Hanks.

Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) and Katherine Graham (Meryl Streep) in “The Post” (2017), directed by Steven Spielberg

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019): Hanks worked with a female director for the first time in his career, starring in Marielle Heller’s third film, following on from her breakout 2015 debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl and 2018’s amazing biographical film Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which garnered Oscar nominations for Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant. This film is very special to me because of my love for the children’s show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood which I would religiously watch as a kid. The 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is a wonderful homage to the show’s host Fred Rogers and is a good primer for those unfamiliar with the series which ran for 31 seasons from 1968. Marielle Heller’s film focuses on a jaded, cynical journalist (played by Matthew Rhys) who has been assigned against his will to interview Fred Rogers, and uses his experience to showcase the warm, caring qualities of the celebrated, but grounded TV host. Through a series of interactions that echo the ministrations of a priest on a wayward member of his flock, Fred Rogers gets the journalist to face up to his own pent-up frustrations and repair his broken family ties. This understated but deeply moving performance yielded Hanks his sixth Oscar nomination and his first since Cast Away 19 years earlier.

When Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson tested positive for Covid-19 earlier this year in Australia, he was filming for yet another real-life character portrayal, playing Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley’s manager in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the rock and roll legend. The film is scheduled for release in November 2021. Interestingly, this would be the second time Hanks plays this sort of character, having appeared as Mr. White in the delightful musical comedy That Thing You Do!, which he himself directed in 1996.

What’s remarkable about Tom Hanks’ real-life roles is that he plays them with minimum theatrics, no prosthetics and little physical transformation (he seems to reserve that for some of his fictional characters). Since they are all American, he doesn’t even need to change his accent; the only exception being the southern twang he adopts for Charlie Wilson’s War, but then Hanks has shown a fondness for playing characters from the South, including the title role in Forrest Gump and Professor Dorr in The Ladykillers. His conventional looks allow him to be chameleonlike, hiding in plain sight as we focus on the emotional journey of his characters, their motivations and actions, as they play everyman heroes caught up in extraordinary events.

Tom Hanks excels at playing real-life heroes (Part 1)


Imagine you’re a Hollywood studio executive and you’ve been given an outline for a story based on a real-life event, featuring a protagonist who exhibits extraordinary strength of character in challenging circumstances. If the lead role calls for the casting of an outwardly unremarkable white male, chances are that Tom Hanks will be the first actor you will call. In the past 7 years, Hanks has become the go-to star for high profile projects, playing a wide array of real-life characters ranging from an airplane pilot and a merchant navy captain to a US congressman and a respected newspaper editor to a celebrated TV show host and the head of a movie studio.

Apollo 13 (1995): This exploration of real-life characters a quarter century earlier, as Commander Jim Lovell in the dramatic thriller Apollo 13. Having come off two back-to-back Best Actor Oscars, Hanks was red hot and had top billing, but in fact the film was very much an ensemble piece, notable especially for the determination and ingenuity depicted by the Houston ground crew under the leadership of Flight Director Gene Kranz (played so memorably by Ed Harris that I made a point of reading Krantz’ biography Failure Is Not An Option years later). I would go so far as to say that Hanks portrayed Jim Lovell with a certain blandness, which helped to accentuate the personalities and emotions of other key characters in the film. And so, while he missed out on a third consecutive Oscar nomination, Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan received Supporting Actor nominations, and the film a Best Picture nom. Deservedly, they all won the Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.

Charlie Wilson’s War (2007): Another 12 years passed before Hanks next played a real-life character. Charlie Wilson’s War was the final film of veteran director Mike Nichols’ storied career, one which started off four decades earlier with an Oscar nomination and a win respectively for his first two films Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate. In Charlie Wilson’s War, Tom Hanks plays the eponymous Texas Congressman, whose efforts led to the covert CIA-led Operation Cyclone which armed and financed Afghan mujahideen through the 1980s (and which, as we now know, led to the creation of Al-Qaeda and the 9-11 attacks). I never really enjoyed this film, as Nichols chose to make it a comedy-drama which doesn’t gel with the serious subject matter that it covers. Nevertheless, there is some outstanding acting on show here, with Hanks (once again) playing a somewhat bland foil to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s incendiary performance as CIA operative Gust Avrakos and Julia Roberts’ intelligent portrayal of Texas socialite/political lobbyist Joanne Herring. All three received Golden Globe acting nominations, but it was Hoffman who stole the show and received an Oscar nom, as well as numerous other accolades.

Captain Phillips (2013): Six years and six films later, we come to the beginning of Hanks’ extraordinary current streak of playing real-life characters. As the lead in Captain Phillips, he delivered what I consider his best acting performance since 2000’s Cast Away, playing the captain of a merchant vessel commandeered on the high seas by Somalian pirates. Based on the 2009 hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama, the film was directed by Paul Greengrass as a taut psychological cat-and-mouse thriller involving the pirate leader and the captain.

Captain Phillips (Tom Hanks) faces off against his captors in Captain Phillips (2013), directed by Paul Greengrass

The final moments of the kidnapping drama are almost unbearable to watch, with Hanks depicting a man experiencing pure terror as he faces certain death. And thereafter, the scene in which Capt. Phillips is examined by a medic while experiencing the after effects of the ordeal, is heartbreaking. The acting performance of those few minutes alone should have sufficed to land Hanks an Oscar win, but he wasn’t even nominated that year, one of the great travesties of recent award seasons. He did however, receive nominations from the Golden Globes, BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild. And the film itself received 6 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor (for Barkhad Abdi as the pirate leader).

Saving Mr. Banks (2013): A couple of months later, in December 2013, Hanks was on the big screen again, this time playing none other than Walt Disney himself in the period drama, Saving Mr. Banks, which chronicles the negotiations between Disney and author P.L. Travers to get her beloved Mary Poppins stories adapted to film. I had high expectations from this film but the humorous tone often felt forced and out of sync with the personal history and serious underlying anxieties that sat at the heart of P.L. Travers irascible behaviour and her many confrontations with the naturally ebullient Disney and his staff. Hanks played Disney like a broad caricature of the man, with the script giving him little opportunity to humanize the individual behind the public persona. Of course, this was really a story about P.L. Travers’ emotional journey and Emma Thompson did not disappoint; she received several accolades for her portrayal of the celebrated writer.

Bridge of Spies (2015): Hanks’ next film reunited him with Steven Spielberg for the first time since The Terminal (2004). This is one of my favourite films of the late stages of both Spielberg’s and Hanks’ careers. I frequently forget, and then am surprised to recall, that the film was co-written by the Coen Brothers. While their own directorial efforts are laced with black humour, they wrote this film with the gravity and respect the subject matter deserves. The film chronicles the behind-the-scenes efforts to secure the release of Gary Powers, the American pilot who was shot down and captured while flying a spyplane over the Soviet Union in 1960, sparking one of the many diplomatic incidents which peppered the decades of the Cold War. Hanks plays lawyer James B. Donovan, whose conscientious defense of a captured Soviet spy named Rudolf Abel some years earlier, saved Abel from the death sentence, but resulted in severe criticism from the American public.

Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) and James Donovan (Tom Hanks) in Bridge of Spies (2015), directed by Steven Spielberg

This past connection with Abel now makes Donovan the most acceptable person to negotiate a quid-pro-quo spy-swap proposed by the Soviets: Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel. The bulk of the film is a narration of Donovan’s efforts in Berlin to secure the deal in the midst of a bleak winter just as the Berlin Wall is going up. Hanks plays Donovan as a man with humanity, humility, patience and intelligence, all the qualities shining through in his role as lead negotiator which eventually results in a successful exchange at Checkpoint Charlie on the Berlin Wall. It’s a highly satisfactory, feel-good film and just writing about it makes me nostalgic to watch it again. Once again, it was Hanks’ co-actor who had the opportunity to shine, with Mark Rylance winning an Oscar for portraying Rudolf Abel. The film itself was nominated for multiple Oscars including Best Picture and Screenplay.

In Part 2, I’ll cover off three more Tom Hanks films between 2016 and 2019, portraying real-life characters and incidents – Sully, The Post and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

The Other Memorable Films of 2019: Part 1


Ok, the Oscars are done for the year and history has been made! I am thrilled that Parasite won 4 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director and am doubly thrilled that the (subjective) scoring system I developed to rank the Best Picture nominees, threw up Parasite and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood with the joint highest scores.

But as I indicated at the end of that post, there were plenty of other quality movies worth watching besides those Best Picture nominees, some of which were recognized at the Indie Spirit Awards which took place a day before the Oscars.

In this series of posts, I’ll do a run down of the other memorable films of 2019, many of which, I now realize, are based on real people or events or are semi-autobiographical in nature.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, directed by Marielle Heller

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: I’d been waiting for this film to be released for multiple reasons. The show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was a big part of my growing up along with Sesame Street. I loved the comfortable routine which bookended the show of Mr. Rogers switching between jacket and cardigan, home shoes and walking shoes; it was a revelation to me that someone would have a separate pair of shoes to wear inside the house! And of course, it was also Mr. Rogers’ soft-spoken demeanour and the very many characters (both real and make-believe) on the show that collectively made it so appealing. It’s only when I watched the 2018 documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor that I realized what an amazing human being Mr. Rogers was in real life and I came to appreciate the impact of the show on an entire generation of kids and adults. Another reason I looked forward to the movie is that it’s director Marielle Heller made Can You Ever Forgive Me?, one of the best movies of 2018 and one that I wish had been watched by more people. And last but not least, I am a die-hard Tom Hanks fan and will watch virtually anything that he is in. Suffice to say, with such a pedigree, the movie didn’t disappoint me; Marielle Heller honoured the memory of Mr. Rogers by creating a movie that artfully integrated the values and the warm-hearted tone of the iconic show into its narrative.

Dark Waters: Director Todd Haynes has made some memorable films such as Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven, I’m Not There and Carol. He is considered a leading light of the New Queer Cinema movement and therefore an important voice in contemporary filmmaking. With that in mind, Dark Waters is an unusual project for Mr. Haynes, because it steps away from his preferred LGBT-themed storylines. Instead it tells the equally important true story of a lawyer who took on the powerful DuPont corporation to expose their willful negligence leading to the exposure of entire commuities to toxic chemicals from the manufacture of Teflon. The movie stars one of my favourite actors Mark Ruffalo who is able to bring an ‘everyman’ sensibility to any character he plays (…even Dr. Banner/the Hulk!). This is a low key, almost documentary-style film, very much in the vein of other recent expose-based movies such as Spotlight (which also featured Mark Ruffalo) and The Post.

Dolemite is My Name: This is the 3rd fact-based movie in this list, but as far removed from the tone and subject matter of the first two movies as it is possible to be. This movie tells the story of filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore, who made a name for himself in the 70s filming blaxploitation films, featuring himself playing the lead character Dolomite who would get into some pretty ridiculous situations involving crime and beautiful women. This is a script that is tailor-made for Eddie Murphy and you can see that he’s having a blast on screen. Rudy Ray Moore’s films were over-the-top and this film about Rudy Ray Moore follows in the same vein. Be prepared for 2 hours of politically incorrect entertainment from this Netflix production. Eddie Murphy received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor and the National Board of Review included the film in its annual Top 10 list.

A Hidden Life: This tragic story of Austrian soldier Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight during World War II as a conscientious objector is very different from that of American objector Desmond Doss, whose story was chronicled in 2016’s outstanding Oscar-nominated film Hacksaw Ridge. Unlike the US Army, the German Third Reich was not quite as sympathetic to Mr. Jägerstätter’s beliefs and after a period of incarceration, had him executed. Director Terrence Malick narrates this somewhat disheartening story using his lyrical, elliptical style of filmmaking. I am a big fan (as is pretty much every cinephile out there) of Malick’s first 2 films from the 70s – Badlands and Days of Heaven. After a self-imposed exile of 2 decades, Malick returned with a relatively prolific output of 6 films in the next 2 decades. The ones with the most conventional narrative structure have been The Thin Red Line and The New World, but The Tree of Life was just too “stream of consciousness” for me and I skipped his next 2 films. A Hidden Life feels like more of the same and while I can appreciate the movie as a work of art, the meandering pacing and 3 hour running time makes it tough going to watch at one stretch. I have to admit, I watched about 60% of the movie at high speed, occasionally resuming normal speed. It just felt like more of the same…monologues, slice of life scenes, lots of classical music in the background. Not really my cup of tea. But great acting performances from August Diehl (the very irritating and persistent Major Hellstrom from Inglourious Basterds) and Valerie Pachner as his wife.

I have another 19 movies to cover and I hope to finish off this series in the next couple of weeks.

The Holiday watchlist, Part 6: Award heavyweights


There were 3 films that weren’t yet released in this part of the world when I did my run of movie-watching at the end of the year. I had been desperate to catch them because they feature some of my favorite directors and actors, and the 3 of them have collectively been nominated for 21 Oscars (including Best Picture). The deed is now done courtesy the extended break for Chinese New Year and it was well worth the wait!

Darkest Hour: This is the latest effort from 46-year-old British director Joe Wright, who is well known for his literary adaptations Pride & Prejudice (2005), Atonement (2007) and Anna Karenina (2012)…all of which incidentally featured his lucky charm Keira Knightely. His last effort, the expensive fantasy epic Pan was a bomb and so it’s great to see him back at what he does best, another period piece set in the real world, this one focused on Winston Churchill during the early years of the Second World War. The film has been nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture, Cinematography, Costume Design, Production Design and most critically for Best Actor and Best Makeup; Gary Oldman has been transformed into Churchill and it will be very surprising if the film does not win Best Makeup. Likewise, Mr. Oldman should probably be considered a joint front-runner with Daniel Day-Lewis for the Best Actor statuette. The performances of the two British actors are a study of contrasts, dictated by the characters they play. While Day-Lewis delivers an understated performance as the repressed head of a fashion house in Phantom Thread, Oldman is all fire and bluster as the man who almost single-handed, it seems, turned the tide of the war in favour of the Allies. The filmmakers have taken liberties with some of the facts, but all such considerations seem secondary, as the viewer is held in the grip of Oldman’s powerhouse acting. The film plays like a political thriller, with Churchill racing to create an evacuation plan for British forces trapped in Dunkirk, receiving no help from the then-neutral Americans, while trying to stave off attempts by members of his own party to overthrow him. Interestingly, Chris Nolan’s Dunkirk which tells of the famous evacuation from the viewpoint of the rescuers and the rescued, is nominated for Best Picture, along with Darkest Hour. Having recently watched John Lithgow as the older, post-war Churchill in Netflix’s The Crown, there was a strong sense of familiarity with the character while watching Darkest Hour. This film beautifully brings to life one of history’s most significant (though not particularly well-liked) figures.

The Post: Like Joe Wright, Steven Spielberg is also coming off the disappointment of his last venture, the fantasy film The BFG, which had a lukewarm critical reception and lost money at the box-office, a rare occurrence for history’s most successful filmmaker. Before The BFG, his previous three films, all based on historical events, received Best Picture Nominations – War Horse, Lincoln and Bridge of Spies. Spielberg has gone back to that formula with his latest effort The Post, which tells the story of the ‘Pentagon Papers’ case in the early 70’s. The film has received 2 Oscar nominations, for Best Picture and for Best Actress (Meryl Streep’s 21st nomination!). This is the first time that Meryl Streep has worked with another of Hollywood’s biggest acting icons – Tom Hanks, or with Spielberg for that matter. Set during the most powerful days of the Nixon presidency (before Watergate), The Post is built around two themes which are relevant in today’s political and social climate – freedom of the press and equality for women. Streep plays Katherine Graham, the publisher of The Washington Post, a woman who has inherited the newspaper from her husband following his suicide, who has to deal with her own self-doubts and with being talked down to by her predominantly male stakeholders – the board of directors, investment bankers and lawyers. Hanks plays her editor-in-chief, Ben Bradlee, the man whose desire to publish a set of leaked government papers puts the newspaper on a collision path with the US government and puts Ms. Graham on a collision path with her advisors. The film falls into the category of ‘journalistic thriller’, much like All the President’s Men (1976), The Insider (1999), Zodiac (2007) and the recent award-winner Spotlight (2015), with the protagonists fighting the clock and the establishment to get their story out. It paints a romanticized picture of the glory days of newspaper journalism and I was filled with admiration for this fast-diminishing breed of professionals who had to fight the odds day after day to do their jobs. I felt that in this film, Spielberg has dialed down his melodramatic touches and I thought this was particularly evident in the final scene; following the Supreme Court hearing, as The Post’s flashier rival, The New York Times is busy courting reporters in the front of the building, Katherine Graham descends the steps from the side and doesn’t seem to realize that she is walking past dozens of women who gaze silently at her, in admiration of her courage and resolve in challenging the (male) establishment. I kept waiting to see tears or some other obvious form of recognition, but the silence and the expressions on the faces of the women was much more powerful.

The Shape of Water: Unlike Joe Wright and Steven Spielberg who have received their biggest accolades when telling stories based on real people or real events, Mexican auteur Guillermo del Toro is at his best when building worlds in which elaborate mechanical constructions co-exist with fantastical creatures. In his breakout movie Cronos (1993), an ancient clockwork mechanism is used to entomb an insect whose secretions can prolong life. His Hellboy films feature various devices which are used to control supernatural creatures. In Pacific Rim, mankind creates giant robots called “Jaegers”, to combat extra-dimensional monsters which are laying siege to our cities. And so we come to his latest film, The Shape of Water which is perhaps his most ‘human’ film. He initially conceptualized it as a sequel to 1950’s classic The Creature from the Black Lagoon, as he wondered what would have happened if the ‘Gill-man’ had been able to romantically link up with the female lead. This eventually led to the story of the relationship between a bizarre ‘fish-man’ who has been pulled out of the Amazon river by the American military and the mute cleaning lady who works at the scientific facility where they are experimenting on him. Set during the 60’s at the height of the Cold War, del Toro’s trademark machines built to contain and control the ‘fish-man’ are relegated to the background, with the focus on the memorable characters who populate this love story. Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, the young janitor whose expresses her passion and love for life with her eyes and hands. Her best friend at work is Zelda (Octavia Spencer), a sassy, no-nonsense woman with a heart of gold. Elisa lives in a room above an old movie theatre and she is close friends with the tenant next door, an ageing artist Giles (Richard Jenkins), who struggles to sell his work to advertising firms while dealing with his own loneliness and closet homosexuality. At work, there is the new head of security, Strickland (Michael Shannon), a sadistic, misogynist who takes great pleasure in strutting around, torturing the fish-man and projecting his authority in front of the scientists and cleaning ladies. In a small but pivotal role, Michael Stuhlbarg plays the lead scientist who wants to learn from the creature without harming it. And of course, there is the creature, played by Doug Jones. Just as Andy Serkis has become “Mr. Motion Capture”, Doug Jones is the go-to actor who is willing to work under layers of makeup; he played Abe Sapiens in the Hellboy films, the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth and the alien Saru in Star Trek: Discovery. To understand why this film has received 13 Oscar nominations, you only have to watch the opening scene which is ‘pure cinema’. This is when one realizes the brilliance and vision of the director. There are many other delightful touches in the film and it’s really an extraordinary example of storytelling and characterization. It’s entirely possible that on Oscar night, it may lose out in many of the 13 categories to other nominees, but I do believe that this is a film where Guillermo del Toro has created something that is greater than the sum of its parts and I hope he will take home an Oscar for at least one of his 3 nominations – as scriptwriter, producer or director.

Oscar nominations – Not a year for subtle performances


The internet has been abuzz about the high profile snubs in the acting categories of this year’s Academy Award nominations. What a cruel, unforgiving world the entertainment industry is! The use of the word ‘snub’ itself indicates some sort of malicious intent with undertones of politics and favoritism. Well, all of that is most likely true. The voting dynamics of the Oscars are no different from that of any vote-based competition (including national elections) – those who spend the most money or effort in marketing themselves are the ones who are most likely to be top of mind or to win. For every high profile film which garners nominations for acting or directing or script-writing, there are twice or thrice as many films which featured equally praise-worthy performances, but just weren’t marketed sufficiently among the Academy’s voting fraternity. Already Robert Redford has spoken about how his highly praised, but little-seen film All is Lost hardly received any sort of marketing and distribution support from its distributor. On the other hand, when completely unknown films have won in the past, observers and pundits have complained that the winners aren’t representative of ‘real world audiences’.

All things considered, I felt that this year’s nominations for Best Actor generally favored brash, over-the-top performances above subtle ones. Hence, the nods for Christian Bale (American Hustle) and Leo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street) over more nuanced performances by Robert Redford (All is Lost) or Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips) or Forrest Whitaker (The Butler) or even Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhall (both in Prisoners). I haven’t watched American Hustle yet; Mr. Bale is a fine actor and in all likelihood he has turned in yet another superlative performance, but he probably also benefited from the overall marketing behind the film among Academy voters. Mr. DiCaprio surely has received this nomination as a compensation for being ‘snubbed’ in the past, as much as for the quality of his acting in The Wolf of Wall Street. On the other hand, Robert Redford had to carry an entire film with no other actors, with practically no dialogue and with a fair bit of physical effort (for a 77 year old), which he does with amazing grace. I always knew that Tom Hanks would find it tough to win this year with so many other outstanding performances, but I certainly expected him to get nominated. Captain Phillips played out like a documentary – therefore giving Hanks little opportunity for over-the-top histrionics as in the case of Hustle or Wolf – and he did so by completely immersing himself in the character. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, just the 5 minute medical room scene at the end should have been good enough to get him a nomination. Nevertheless, I was genuinely happy to see Mr. Hanks well and truly back in the game with 2 solid roles this year in Captain Phillips and Saving Mr. Banks – both commercial and critical successes. For the past few years, he has either focused on TV and film production duties or appeared in overtly commercial fare like The Da Vinci Code or in duds like Charlie Wilson’s War and Larry Crowne (which he directed himself) or in well-made movies that could not find an audience (Cloud Atlas and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close). Just goes to show that even an actor as talented and with as good taste as Tom Hanks can’t always get it right.

I do think that Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew McConaughey fully deserve their nominations. Both of them delivered compelling and moving performances (in 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyers Club respectively) which effectively carried their films. I first noticed Ejiofor playing a drag queen in a British comedy-drama called Kinky Boots (which went on to become a Tony Award winning musical on Broadway). Since then, he has been a very reliable supporting actor in various mainstream Hollywood films. It will be interesting to see where he takes his career from here onwards. Meanwhile, Matthew McConaughey has moved in the opposite direction, leaving behind those crass romantic comedies for meatier roles in indie films in the past couple of years. In Dallas Buyers Club, he effortlessly inhabits the character of Ron Woodroof in a true story about a man who set up an illegal ‘medical club’ in the ‘80s to provide HIV patients with non-FDA approved drugs imported from other countries. The sort of weight loss that he went through to play this role qualifies as surefire ‘Oscar bait’ (Quite likely that Christian Bale’s nomination also was partly on account of his transformation into the overweight balding con artist Irving Rosenfeld). I think the winner in this category will be either Ejiofor or McConaughey.

On the women’s side, there are fewer surprises. Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock have long been favored to win for their extraordinary performances in Blue Jasmine and Gravity respectively. I myself am struggling to choose between the two. Dame Judi Dench’s nomination comes on the back of an intense marketing campaign by Harvey Weinstein for Philomena in the past few weeks. Can’t say till I’ve seen the movie if it’s a deserving nomination or just because of the marketing. Meryl Streep’s presence in the nominee list (for August: Osage County) was a foregone conclusion I suppose, as she has been nominated for almost every film she has acted in for the past few years…and deservedly so, I feel. She is a great example of someone who is both talented and a consummate professional. The only weak candidate is Amy Adams; many observers feel that slot should have been given to Emma Thompson for her entertaining performance as author P.L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks.

Similarly, there has been a lot of talk about Oprah Winfrey not receiving a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in The Butler. I certainly think it was a Oscar-worthy performance. Here again, it is tough to say whose slot she should have taken. Lupita Nyong’o is perhaps the frontrunner in this category for her heartbreaking performance in 12 Years a Slave. Sally Hawkins was good in Blue Jasmine, but not Oscar winning material. I can’t comment on the other nominees as I haven’t watched August: Osage County (Julia Roberts) or Nebraska (June Squibb –who is that?) or American Hustle (Hollywood’s critical and commercial darling – Jennifer Lawrence…and she’s just 23 years old, my God!).

For Best Actor in a Supporting Role, I think Jared Leto stands a very good chance for Dallas Buyers Club (another case of an incredible physical transformation). Michael Fassbender gets his first Oscar nomination for playing the crazy plantation owner Edwin Epps in 12 Years a Slave…it was just 4 years ago that he came to prominence with his short but impactful role as Lt. Archie Hicoks in Quentin Tarentino’s Inglourious Basterds. He is now one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood – equally at ease playing comic book villains, androids, 19th century plantation owners or corrupt lawyers.

All told, this has been one of the strongest acting fields in recent years and it promises to be an interesting few weeks of speculation and debate leading up to the Oscar night on March 2nd.

6 movies to end 2013


First of all an announcement. This is my 100th post on the WordPress platform, starting in Feb 2012. I had already done about 50 posts on the earlier avatar of this blog on Weebly in 2011. So that’s 150 posts in 3 years.

OK, enough with the statistics. Here are 6 movies I watched in the past one month…an interesting mix of indie and blockbuster fare…all worth watching:-

Mud – Matthew McConaughey went through this unbearable phase (for me, at least) in the past 10 years when he was acting in insipid romantic comedies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Fool’s Gold. The actor who came to prominence in critically acclaimed indie films like Dazed and Confused and Lone Star in the early 90’s then went back and restored his indie creds with Richard Linklater’s Bernie in 2011. He quickly followed it up with a series of other small films like Killer Joe, The Paperboy, Mud and Dallas Buyers Club; I could even include Steven Soderbergh’s indie-like Magic Mike in this list. The results have been varied but at least he gets marks for trying. And it’s finally paying off…the 44-year-old actor is getting rave reviews this year for his performances in both Mud and Dallas Buyers Club. I watched Mud recently and was thoroughly engrossed by this coming-of-age tale inspired by Huckleberry Finn. The director Jeff Nichols is now considered one of the leading indie filmmakers in America. The real star of this Arkansas-set movie is teenage actor Ty Sheridan, who along with McConaughey’s character ‘Mud’, experiences both the rewards and risks of their respective romantic pursuits. MM and Sheridan construct a fascinating relationship…on one hand Mud is the ‘tough guy’ that the boy wishes his father was; on the other hand, it is Mud who desperately needs the boy’s help to escape from some unsavory characters and avoid ending up at the bottom of the Mississippi River. This ensemble drama features outstanding, nuanced performances from a host of lesser-known actors. And it has a happy ending to boot. McConaughey now seems to be back on an upward trajectory again – he has a role in Scorsese’s just-released The Wolf of Wall Street and returns next year as the lead in Chris Nolan’s new scifi film Interstellar.

Frozen – I thoroughly enjoyed Disney’s latest animation effort. It closely resembles Tangled (2010) in terms of treatment and tone, but the songs are far superior. And because it is based on a less well known Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, the flow of the plot is less obvious than in some of Disney’s other movies. All the characters are likable (even the villains), but the star of the film is the snowman Olaf voiced by Josh Gad…his ‘In Summer’ song is an instant classic, I think. This is going to be one of Disney’s biggest grossing non-Pixar animation films since their hey-days of the mid-90s.

Captain Phillips – British filmmaker Paul Greengrass is the man who loves to bring a documentary-like feel to movies, whether it is the shaky-cam approach of his Bourne films or the amateur video cam look of Bloody Sunday and United 93. He is therefore the perfect choice to direct Captain Phillips – the retelling of a real life ship hijacking off the coast of Somalia in 2009. Equally perfect is the choice of Tom Hanks to play the captain. It has been a while since Mr. Hanks has got this meaty a role…he has restricted himself to producing films and some poor acting choices (Larry Crowne, Charlie Wilson’s War) in recent years. But he is back in full force in this movie and the general view (which I agree with 100%) is that he will get an Oscar nomination just for the ‘infirmary scene’ at the end of the film. Here’s an article about how this unscripted scene came to be shot. This is an incredibly intense movie with unbelievable performances also from the first-time Somali actors Barkhad Abdi and Barkhad Abdirahman. Absolutely must-see.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug – Yes, we know everyone was a tad disappointed with Peter Jackson’s return to Middle Earth last year; the first Hobbit movie suffered from complaints about its length and repetitive nature of fight scenes (I suspect this was largely a self-inflicted perception stemming from all the press about how a 300-page book had been stretched into 3 films of nearly 3 hours each). I thoroughly enjoyed the first film and was happy to get in line for the 2nd one. I was not disappointed. It is as good as the first. While Martin Freeman (Bilbo), Ian McKellan (Gandalf) and Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield) continue to command center stage as the key protagonists, there are plenty of other characters to add spice and variety. There are the 3 strong elvish characters – Orlando Bloom reprises his role as Legolas (he didn’t feature in the original book), we get to see the the female elf Tauriel created just for the movies (Evangeline Lilly of Lost is perfectly cast) and we have Lee Pace also perfectly cast as Thranduil, the king of the woodland elves and Legolas’ father. Of course, as the title suggests, we finally get to see the dragon Smaug in all his glory. And there is an amusing little turn by Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown (although he is not as funny as I had hoped or expected him to be). There are some great action set pieces – the spider attack in Mirkwood and the barrel in the river; the latter in particular is as good as the best Indiana Jones sequences or anything else I have seen on film and well worth multiple viewings.

Love is All You Need – Two of Danish director Susanne Bier’s last 3 films have been nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscars, with In a Better World winning in 2011 (Interestingly, Mikael Persbrandt who acted in that film features as the changeling Beorn in the latest Hobbit film). Ms. Bier’s latest film Love is All You Need is too ‘light’ and commercial to be nominated for an Oscar, which is precisely why I enjoyed it so! Pierce Brosnan is a long-widowed Englishman who continues to live and work in his late wife’s native Denmark. He arrives at his lemon plantation in Italy to attend his son’s wedding with a Danish girl, Astrid. There he meets Astrid’s mother who is recovering from a battle with cancer and has just discovered that her husband has been cheating on her while she has been fighting for her life. Into this mix, the script throws in Brosnan’s self-obsessed sister-in-law who harbors a not-so-secret crush on him, Astrid’s philandering father who lands up for the wedding with his bimbo in tow and last but not least, Brosnan’s son who starts having doubts about getting married. It sounds like a farce, but the actors play it straight and it all works somehow. Very charming and always good to have a happy ending. I am definitely going to have to watch Ms. Bier’s 2 Oscar-nominated films now, although I will have to be prepared for heavier fare.

Parkland – Parkland is the name of the Dallas hospital where doctors attempted to save JFK after he was shot on that fateful day in 1963. The film chronicles the events that take place from the time of the shooting through the next 4 days until JFK’s body is flown out to Washington DC. The story is told from the perspective of the doctors at the hospital, the Secret Service and FBI agents who deal with the aftermath of the shooting, the family of the prime suspect Lee Harvey Oswald and Abraham Zapruder, the man who filmed the now famous footage of the shooting with his home movie camera. Zapruder is played by the ever-reliable Paul Giamatti. Also in a prominent role is Billy Bob Thornton as Secret Service Agent Forrest Sorrels who was in charge of the security detail on the day. Jackie Weaver is completely frightening as Oswald’s unhinged mother. Zac Efron features prominently in the movie’s publicity material as one of the doctors and he is a significant figure in the first 15 minutes of the film when they try desperately to save the President’s life. I enjoyed the film for the history lesson and for the sheer intensity of those hours and days after the shooting. And I have to admit, for the 60s hairstyles and clothing!

That wraps up my 2013 film watching. I still have 31 movies on my ‘watch list’ for 2013, mostly indie films, except for Saving Mr. Banks, The Wolf of Wall Street and 12 Years a Slave. A few like All is Lost (Robert Redford), Inside Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaacs), Dallas Buyers Club (McConaughey), Philomena (Judi Dench), August: Osage County (Meryl Streep/ Julia Roberts) and Nebraska (Bruce Dern) will gain prominence when the acting nominations are announced in a few weeks. As for the rest, I will have to pick my way through them before the 2014 summer blockbuster season begins!

Cloud Atlas wasn’t as complicated as the reviews made it out to be


At the end of last year, as I was counting down to the year-end films worth watching, I wrote about my concerns for Cloud Atlas, the movie based on the award-winning book by David Mitchell. The novel consisted of 6 nested stories which are interconnected either thematically or by a plot element; everyone agreed that it would be a daunting task to adapt such a book.  On my part, after the relative disappointment of the Matrix sequels (2003) and the unwatchable Speed Racer (2008), I was really worried that the Wachowskis’ creative well had run dry.

Then the movie was released and my fears seemed to be valid as it tanked in the US, grossing just $27 million and didn’t do enough in the rest of the world (another $97 million) to recover its budget.

Critics were sharply divided. Its average Metacritic score is 55, but that doesn’t tell the story. Scores range from 100 for Roger Ebert’s review to just 50 for Richard Corliss and 40 for Kenneth Turan of the LA Times. Rottentomatoes which aggregates scores from non-US markets gave it a 67% score.

I eventually saw the film a few days ago and am happy to say it wasn’t as bloated (it has a run time of 172 minutes) or complicated as the reviews indicated.

No doubt, the directors (the Wachowski siblings + Tom Tykwer) chose to change the story structure so that all the stories are being told simultaneously, rather than in the nested structure of the book. They also chose to use the same actors to play characters who are ‘thematically linked’ across the different stories. The two decisions are interconnected and they work in my opinion. Although it took me a few minutes to switch my brain into this gear, I thereafter found it relatively easy to follow the multiple storylines and get a sense of the common thread running through them.

I really enjoyed the multiple performances of Tom Cruise, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving and Jim Broadbent (among others)…bolstered by some spectacular make-up (yes, yes some of it doesn’t work that well)…in some cases with actors playing characters of the opposite gender. Among the lesser known actors, I thought James D’Arcy was quite impressive as well as Jim Sturgess and Ben Whishaw (the new ‘Q’ in Skyfall)…all British actors. With such a large cast, some characters invariably don’t work out and Halle Berry’s Meronym was one such character, although her Luisa Rey was quite good.

The special effects were fantastic and it goes to show just how much can be achieved on a budget of $100 million when a film is shot in Europe using a largely European cast and crew, plus some big American stars who were willing to put aside financial considerations to make this project come to life.

My favourite segment was probably the Timothy Cavendish (Jim Broadbent) segment from the present time which played like a black comedy…and oh, wasn’t it a pleasure to see Nurse Noakes (Hugo Weaving) get her comeuppance at the end of the segment? Equally engaging was the opening segment set in the South Pacific Ocean in 1849 featuring the dastardly Dr. Henry Goose (Tom Hanks with prosthetic nose, teeth and all). Perhaps the weakest segment was the one set in the far future, but this too had a happy enough ending with a grizzled and scarred Zachry (Tom Hanks again) seated around a fire telling his grandchildren stories (in fact, it transpires that he is the person telling all the stories).

Definitely worth a try as long as you go in with an open mind. Watching it on DVD will make it even easier as viewers will be able to go back and forth to sort out any continuity issues. I enjoyed the film sufficiently that I have now started reading the book, armed with the prior knowledge of plot and characters!