Talking Movies

Talking Movies
Talking movies

Tuesday 28 February 2012

OSCAR LEG-IN-YOUR-FACE SHOW


"Left leg and I talked — everything's cool. Next Oscars, she gets the slit," says the Oscar famous right leg on Twitter. When this more than cheeky Angelina Jolie's leg creates many a fluttering stomp plus a twitter account devoted to it,bringing in 37000 plus  followers,you wonder if she is doing something right or if it's a glimpse into entertainment starved souls around the world.
Whatever it is,this skin show is a definite showstopper.
While the undeniably talented Ms Streep puts in every cell of her sincerity dripped soul into the Oscar winning performance both in 'The Iron Lady' as well as her perfectly modulated tearjerker speech, all it takes is Jolie's just rightly tailored gown slit to take the limelight away.One wins the prized golden trophy, the other doesn't need it, blissfully aware she is the trophy.
As usual you can't help comparing this hit charade with our Desi girls.I can't imagine anyone walking away with as much elan and confidence as perhaps drama queen Rekha who made a brief appearance once,her hairline dotted with glowing  sindoor that painted the evening red and young, fresh,dainty Kangana who carried off a waist dipping cleavage gown,not caring a shit about the slit that might just pop..well..it. .
But then,comparisons are a futile exercise and it's much more fun to devote focused attention on what Ms Jolie's red luscious lips don't have to spell out.
That there is nothing like show business and a red carpet is the world's biggest ramp.
A perfect walk and an ever so careful, toned though skinny leg thrust pose a la Jolie can drive frenzied shutter clicks and Internet hysteria swifter than a sweaty 20 plus year marathon under the harsh,unsparing arclights a la Streep. Both have a somewhat unfair place under the sun.One comes out with a nice tan, the other is ready for the sunburns as she admits hearing half of America groaning "oh no" though she dismisses it with a "whatever".
So here's a super confidence crown to the sexiest,a LEG-IN-YOUR-FACE attitude that slams you into getting starstruck once again and steals the show.

Sunday 26 February 2012

JODI BREAKERS: THE ODD COUPLE

                             (Also published in :http://www.fwa.co.in/SitePages/index.aspx)
 Instantly, while trying really hard to sit through the first half of the film, all sorts of bad puns come to the mind. But you want to keep in mind that this comes from writer and director, Ashwini Choudhary  whose debut  Haryanvi film “Laado” won the Golden Lotus award.
 So you hope for the best and brace yourself for corny lines(dialogue writer, Aakash Kaushik) like “An Old Monk once said you must keep the Black Dog within you under control..”  mouthed by strange-planet-accent boy with ‘unusual fracture’, Omi Vaidya. Followed by divorcee Madhavan’s now happy, now cynic attitude (maybe another ‘good boy,bad boy’- title of the director’s previous film) willingly drowning into Bipasha’s cute, dreamy eyed life views.
So here is a brief how-to list for all fizz, no drink, mock‘tale’.
First, put in a song named after the heroine.. “Bips you got the eyes, you got the lips;
now c'mon shake shake shake you hips.. Aaja main sikha doon pyaar ki bhasha
Bipasha …Bipasha..”
Next, make a good promo that promises to deliver something interesting and different like a couple out there helping other couples break up.
 Next, cast an odd couple and tweak some more interest. So far so good.
 Now that’s done and one doesn’t know how to take this forward, give a twist to the story by bringing in an ex as the vamp to break our cute teeny bopper jodi. Rope in another hot couple, add one more love story, add some butt jokes (the heart is the new bum), potty jokes, repeat speech jokes from “3 Idiots” (Omi Vaidya as Baba Kaamdev), add a car named ‘Horny’ and make Bipasha sizzle in a song “Main hoon Bipasha” and there, a romantic comedy is ready for the box office.
Sid (Madhavan) has just got divorced and is happy to be a free man though he has to pay a fat alimony. To get the required money, he starts a business that helps others divorce. He and Sonali (Bipasha) get together at a bar (what’s with drunk couples in every movie), and form a partnership. Some rapidly easy Jodi breaking deals later, they go to Greece and expectantly fall in love. A phone rings dramatically at the interval point and here comes  the real jodi breaker. Enters sexy Ms Vamp, the Ex factor, Mrinalini Sharma who keeps you distracted with her heavily fringed wig. Post interval, you hope against hope that the film will engross you more than the popcorn. Sadly, it  simply takes you from Greece to Goa and moves to juvenile jodi making methods that make you  wish that the makers had remembered a Hindi line, “shaadi koi gudde guddiyon ka khel nahin”. Then comes one redeeming factor that eventually shines out like the diamond ring on Bipasha’s finger, especially when you are reeling under oh-so-clever climax scenes of HIV positive blood reports. One line that  makes  you sit up and take notice, right in the end. There is an interesting dialogue from Madhavan that says that innumerable flings, “6 relationships aur ek galat shaadi ke baad mujhe apni soul mate mili hai.” There lies good material for a story with much to be explored. The idea that a good relationship doesn’t come by easily and should be worked upon, is pretty relevant today.
The core problem lies in the lack of a strong central conflict. The appearance of a blackmailing ex wife and Bipasha’s objection to Madhavan’s mistake doesn’t seem to be convincing enough to keep them apart. It might have worked if  Madhavan as completely cold and heartless and Bipasha as a die-hard romantic, went beyond stereotypes. Too much time devoted to Milind’s love story also takes away from the central romance.
There are several alternatives the story could have followed. The story starts with the couple believing that divorce is a better option than living in a marriage. If  they had stuck to this, it would make for a very interesting  and relevant plot for today’s times. Instead, it decided to play safe and placed its bet on the marriage card and turned the characters from jodi breakers to jodi makers. Or perhaps it might have helped if the story, taking on from the premise that involves divorce, could have focused on the value of commitment and what it takes to keep a marriage going. When the film turns the protagonist, Madhavan into wanting to be a better man by helping a couple patch up, it might be interesting to explore his own character and role in the failure of his marriage rather than giving a convenient stereotype label of a rich society, status conscious, gold digger to his ex wife. Instead the film takes a simplistic course of him trying to salvage his conscience by coming up with juvenile ideas like  giving Maggie Noodles mixed with medicine to Milind Soman to induce vomiting and hence bring out concern from his hurt and uncommunicative wife. If the intention of the film was to simply take a comical dig into breaking marriages and Madhavan’s character being involved in it, it could also take some tips from David Dhawan comedies and go all out in making this a harmless fun ride. It tries to do so in the beginning with the help of Omi Vaidya’s cheesy  character but changes its tone from comedy to romance to drama and ends up losing what could be a perfectly good plot.
Madhavan, Bipasha and Milind Soman deserve a special mention. Not because they have done any kind of outstanding work but because they have really tried and it shows. It’s easy to act well if you have  well fleshed out characters to play like the ones in “The Dirty Picture” or the recent “Ek Main aur Ekk Tu”. It’s not easy to do teeny bopper, long drawn out cute boy-girl pouting scenes discussing a kiss for more than 10 minutes when you are well into your 30s. So here goes a teen kiss award to Madhavan and Bipasha. Next, the sincerity award goes to Milind Soman who with his sun kissed skin and intense eyes, makes his presence felt not just with his chiseled looks but also with his acting. He manages to look sufficiently in love with the wooden Dipannita Sharma, who fails to compete even with your cane or teak furniture. Having delivered extremely fine performances in Marathi national award winning films like Gandha, it’s not surprising to see Milind in his element here. Finally, a Miss Stunning award to Bipasha Basu who probably looks her best in the film and has done a shade better in the acting area.
Besides the more popular ‘Bipasha’ number, Salim-Sulaiman along with lyricists Irshad Kamil and Shabbir Ahmed come up with mildly pleasant song tracks, especially “Nahi maaloom hasrat hai, Yaa tu meri mohabbat hai..mujhko teri zaroorat hai” which sounds better in the remix version sung by Rahet Fateh Ali Khan and is written well situationally.   
To get an eyeful of beautiful Greece locales watch this half baked film  that needs more than Helen, a marriage vow scene and an odd couple as a savior.
 The film ends up as monotonous and mechanical as a regular, lackluster marriage that could do better  with a good dose of maturity, passion and energy.

Monday 20 February 2012

THE IMPORTANCE OF AGNEEPATH

               (Also published in http://www.fwa.co.in/SitePages/index.aspx)
Naam hai Vijay Dinanath Chauhan…poora naam..” - the trademark dialogue  delivered like a powerful punch by an iconic hoarse voice once upon a time, could not save Agneepath  from commercial failure in 1990 but did leave behind enough weight to carry a remake after 20 plus years. Simply because it had all the material that always appealed to Indian sensibilities, however predictable it may be. It told a story in the oldest format, starting from a childhood and a moving back story drawing the viewer in, moving onto a larger than life growth( a tall pair of legs stride across with confident black boots) and an action filled ending, the famous dishum dishum scenes that front row to last row ticket buyer waited to cheer. A lavishly mounted story that is every director’s dream, especially when given a cool, technical edgy feel introduced by late Mukul Anand and used well by debutant Karan Malhotra.
Once upon a time in the eighties, there was the hero, the villain, the principled school master, a  mother India, a small village, a sister and a rape, a standby heroine with open arms and a big heart(read bosom).The emotional theme was like an anthem :anger and revenge that could turn you “lathpath, lathpath, lathpath”. The famous Bollywood ingredients came back in bits and pieces with Ghajani, named after the villain followed by more high grossing South Indian remakes like Wanted, Dabangg and Singham. Karan Johar and Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath cashed in on every ingredient and did two things that turned it around.
Firstly, it maximised the presence of the villain, doubling its effect by adding more evil in the form of  psychic Kancha Cheena who violently hates his ugly mirror reflection  and an extra character, Rauf Lala, made more impactful with Rishi Kapoor’s mean delivery. Secondly, it left no room for comparison with everyman’s hero, Amitabh Bachchan as it completely changed Vijay’s character from a man who blasts everyone with his words of fury and long tapori language filled speeches(“topi sambhalo Dinkar Rao,hawa bahut tez hai,ud jayega” written by Kader Khan) , into a man who seethed quietly, worked calculatingly, suffered silently, which Hrithik Roshan played with perfect vulnerability. Fantastic cinematography by Ravi K Chandran and Kiran Deohans make even blood and gore beautiful. Watch out for red gulaal filled screen closing into beautifully lit introductory close-up of Hrithik. All in all, an apt unapologetic tribute to the eighties filmmaking by Karan Johar known for romance and mush, recreating violence and melodrama with as much flair.
Here are some pointers from the old form of storytelling that works for the new Agneepath and some that don’t.
-Establishing  hero's world as a small place with a big bad villain. The world is a small village of Mandwa where a little boy is brought up to respect hard work, honesty and fighting for the right by his highly principled headmaster father. The father, Master Dinanath Chauhan, opposes the scary, ugly, psychic giant, Kancha Cheena to prevent him from taking over the villagers’ land for his drug business and pays with his life. Little Vijay Chauhan is left helplessly watching his father humiliated and hanged brutally on a dark, rainy night(magnificent, haunting, dark image) and is forced to leave Mandwa with his pregnant mother. Mandwa is used better than the original Agneepath and remains the centre point of focus throughout the film, not letting the audience forget the hero's burning desire for revenge.
-The hero's goal. What can be a better goal to appeal to the Indian audience than the hero taking an oath to give his village back to his mother after witnessing his father's shame and brutal murder? Vijay is willing to take the path of crime even if he stands alone, rejected by his mother because he remembers only one thing his father always told him.. “shakti ka paas mein hona zaroori hai, sawaal shakti ke istemaal ka hai” and decides to gather power,using all means.Vijay Chauhan, ek chote se gaon ke master ka beta. Mumbai ke underworld ka badshah bannah chahta hai”..Inspector Gaitunde’s lines sums it up well in one line.
-The larger than life villain. The original villain played by the ever so smooth Danny Dezongpa(which is the best thing about the original) is doubled in size literally and given a fascinating scary look, made even more interesting by the casting of an otherwise popular hero. Sanjay Dutt tries his best to look ugly which is easy when placed opposite the handsome Hrithik Roshan. Though Dutts’s  giant menacing looks lose their effect every time he smiles hinting at a softness and reminds you of Nargis(tight close shot in first introductory frame) and chants terrorisingly from Bhagwat Gita, “tum kya leke aaye the,kya leke jaaoge…” The role of the antagonist is taken to a more sinister level by adding an entirely new subplot with Rishi Kapoor who with his lurid human traffic history makes you fear for the hero's little innocent sister.
-The hero himself. This change in the new Agneepath is a masterstroke. Made perfect by Hrithik's beauty like that of a not so wild but stunning stallion galloping painfully to stay ahead of the unruly, wild, killer pack of  wolves. “Dekhne main seedha lekin sabse uljha hua” in Inspector Gaitunde’s words. Who mouths the famous Vijay Dinanath Chauhan dialogue with an intensity that matches the dramatic moment reaching a crescendo during a magnificently shot Ganpati visarjan scene.
-the best card left unused, the reason for ultimately failing to stir the soul: the mother. Played perfectly in the original by Rohini Hattangadi as the mother refusing to accept her son and simple lines like,"Gaon chalo,maa..",the real strength of the script in the son’s desire to make his mother accept him, is ruined by Zarina Wahab's unconvincing portrayal despite Hrithik's valiant efforts at making it work in the touching dinner scene on the steps outside her house. The ending in the original film comes out stronger with Amitabh dying in his mother’s arms. In the new version, the ending is like a piece of beautiful symphony played at a funeral that you admire but don’t mourn, unfortunately.
-the most common premise. A revenge drama, a son's burning mission to destroy his father's killer and bring back dignity to his mother, is a common theme of the eighties, which still works if well done.
-an add on item value.No, its not the chikni chameli dance but Rishi Kapoor in a qawalli. Mind you, not a single woman in the entire sequence. Proves that a good song and great energy on screen is all that one needs for good entertainment.
-last but not the least,the famous poem,the title and the concurrent theme by late Harivansh Rai Bachchan,Ye mahan drishya hai, Chal raha manushya hai, Ashru, shwed, rakt se, Lathpath, Lathpath, Lathpath…. Agneepath, Agneepath, Agneepath..
All in all, an unabashed celebration of the stuff that Hindi cinema is made of.

Thursday 16 February 2012

EK MAIN AUR EKK TU:A BREEZY AFFAIR

 There is a scene in Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu where Rianna leads Rahul down a memory (staircase) lane in her school and tells him about her first kiss just the way a girl and boy share memorable trivia that makes them who they are. Rahul leans forward in anticipation of his first kiss and she moves back and asks him perplexed, “yeh kya tha, Rahul?” The scene sums up the theme of story. The thin line between friendship and love. Can friendship turn into love or more interestingly vice versa?
Rahul Kapoor (Imran Khan) is a 25 year old architect and lives in a plush place at Vegas. But that’s not Rahul Khanna. That’s the man his parents have forced him to be. His mother is a rich socialite (Ratna Pathak) who decides his hairstyles and reminds him to chew his food 32 times and his father (Boman Irani) is a successful tyrant who decides the colour of his ties knots them around Rahul’s neck like a noose and reminds him he is never good enough. Having grown up in suffocating spaces of luxury cars sandwiched between controlling parents deciding his life, contradicting each other, Rahul has no identity. Who is he now that he has just lost his job?
 He is a tight arse, walks around like a stiff pole, has innocence in his wide eyes, sits carefully, irons his underwear, is a virgin, a boring lost soul and secretly visits a therapist. Here he meets his unlikely saviour, Rianna Braganza. The endearing cheerful jobless hair stylist who gives him a haircut that definitely doesn’t meet his mother’s approval. A free soul, broke and shunted out of her rented place yet full of beans. She also visits a psychiatrist because she has a history of several relationships and wants to stay single for a change. She is multitalented, a hairstylist who could have been a ballet dancer if not for an accident and can be an architect if she wants. She is at the same time a “defective piece” with two broken teeth. She can be anything she wants and doesn’t need her parents’ permission. He is not good enough. She is too good. A 10 on 10.She is the person  who tells Rahul that she likes him purely because he is so “perfectly average”, just the way he is. She is the person that Rahul wants to be. Just the right reason to fall in love.
 Material for a light,popcorn,clichĂ© romance, you would think. The two will fall in love, you think, sing songs, get drunk, fight, make up and live happily after. Not quite. And here is where the writing gets good, the story where nothing happens, gets interesting. The two meet, get so drunk that they get married overnight at a Vegas chapel, wake up and decide to get the marriage annulled, live together for 14 days and Rahul simply grows up. There is no melodrama, not even drama, just a conversation between two people who spend a good time together, meet each other’s families and come close the way friends do,a slice of life experience.
It’s great to see quirky characters  finally being explored in Hindi cinema, in freshly treated script by Shakun Batra and Ayesha Devitre. Probably a Woody Allen influence on the director, Shakun Batra who shows a subtle sensibility. There are a few moments like the dining table scene where Imran delivers an excellent performance of angry outburst, ending at just the right note of funny exasperation with Ratna Pathak’s well written line of parental deaf stance.. “lekin chopsticks mein kya kharaabi hai?”
 It would have been interesting to explore Rianna’s past pattern of flitting from one relationship to another and the present need and desire to be single. But the script focuses mainly on Rahul.Both Kareena and Imran pull off a seemingly simple chemistry, really well. The film has a deliberate almost flat narrative style which could have been tweaked a bit with more spice in lines perhaps. The subtlety is nice up to a point but if it had added just a bit of Karan Johar’s panache for getting the tear ducts filling up, it would have come close to a wholesome Hindi neo Bollywood film.
Music by Amit Trivedi (‘Auntyjee’ specially) and lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya (‘Teri Aahatien’), like the film, make you smile and hum like a soft passing breeze.
It’s okay to be just okay, just average. This thought and premise itself is a good reason to watch a film.
What’s also interesting is that Karan Johar who started with movies that stated it’s all about loving your parents, now has a film under his banner that says it’s all about coming out of your parents’ shadows. A reflection of not just his movies but the times that we live in. Time was when there was character called Majnu or Devdas and men actually loved to emulate them or glorify them as symbol of true love. Then came a time when stories debated if a man and woman could be friends and most voted against it, most happily too. Today, even more happily there is no sad connotation of love unrequited. And what a relief that is. Here is a story with a nice combination of friendship and love and a well rounded perspective to love that does not need to be taken seriously.
You come out smiling with a feel good factor that soon wears off like a nice sweet smelling perfume which you wish had a stronger, lingering presence...You will enjoy it as long as you go in minus the rose tinted lenses or frames as shown in the catchy poster.

Saturday 11 February 2012

LOST, LONELY MEN, ROAD TRIPS AND ALEXANDER PAYNE’S MOVIES


                  What happens when a depressed, failed writer, missing his wife two years after divorce, is told she is getting remarried? He grabs a bottle of wine, unseals the cork with his mouth and runs down a slope, not failing to gulp down some wine. “Sideways” with wonderful actors like Paul Giametti and Thomas Haden, puts this tragicomedy across with great effect.

How does a middle aged man react when dealing with his wife’s impending death, suddenly discovers she had plans of leaving him for another man? He puts on his sneakers and runs across the road, in an ungainly fashion, like a man …. well,.... like a man who has lost his wife. George Clooney, an unlikely persona, performs this with aplomb in “The Descendants”.

What does a 66 year old man go through when he is suddenly confronted with huge emptiness after a retirement followed by his wife’s death and nothing to hang onto except a superficial relationship with his daughter who is about to marry? He drives out in a 35 ft vehicle, sleeps on top of it, talks to the stars, makes drunken passes and writes letters to a six year old orphan who cannot read or write. Jack Nicholson cuts a lonesome figure with his pretence at a normal life in “About Schmidt”.

More such uncomfortable questions are raised by Oscar winning director Alexander Payne in his last three movies. What do these men  inherit or leave behind? Money? Land? Happy memories? Something meaningful? Do they buy cheap caskets for the wife’s dead body and believe that’s a wife’s worth? Are they men who fear intimacy and are doomed to midlife lonely existence?

These are heavy issues that Alexander Payne’s characters deal with and we see them closely examined with great finesse  and clarity through the lenses up close and both personal and impersonal. The personal understanding gives us a glimpse of their pain and lost souls and a careful impersonal objective storytelling through juxtaposition of other funny, weird yet real characters bring out a strange humour in a poignant situation, masterfully crafted by Payne. He uses the structure of road movies effectively to show each one’s journey of self evaluation and growth. The locations and surroundings and even the vehicle used in "About Schmidt" take on a character of their own and are used beautifully to reflect the emotions.

Matt’s journey in “The Descendants”, starts literally on the road with his long run after his mother-hating teenager daughter reveals the truth and later  continues with a flight to another island, to face the wife’s lover and in effect himself and his failings as a husband. In a moment of rage at the hospital, he screams at his half dead unresponsive bedridden wife, “You said I wasn’t in touch with my feelings, that I need therapy..”.These words are most revealing of his nonexistent relationship, which he was blissfully unaware of until it takes an accident and death to make him face the brutal reality. “The Descendants” is the story of a middle aged average American who has lived a so called honest life, but does not know how to be a husband or a father. Matt is shown, eventually reacting to every situation like a regular human being coping with tough tragic circumstances, dealing with unruly daughters and learning to forgive his wife once he has vent his anger and confronted the wife’s lover. In a moving concluding scene, he sits by his wife’s bedside, kisses her and tells her, “Goodbye Elizabeth. Goodbye, my love, my friend, my pain, my joy, Goodbye.” The writing is made even richer in the form of the most important character: the comatose, speechless wife. She is a great metaphor for  feelings untold and unexpressed, lying on the bed, challenging the man to do something, to save whatever is left.

Matt King’s character follows the pattern of most male characters in Alexander Payne’s prior movies, “Sideways” and “About Schmidt”. All are deeply flawed, almost selfish and disconnected from their women. They are about men, where they are about to lose their women or have lost them and each one ends up realizing the importance of women in their lives.

In “About Schmidt”, Warren  starts the journey with  letters and continues through a road trip in a huge van bought at the insistence of his wife, now dead. It is about a man missing his job, missing his wife, missing his daughter about to be married and realising how much he has missed out on life by not doing that one thing that would make difference to somebody in the world. A similar scene of waking up to reality as in “The Descendants”, shows Schmidt, a repressed conformist, mourning his wife’s death, smelling her perfume, her clothes when he discovers old love letters. Battling mixed feelings of rage, pain and restlessness, he drives out in a huge 35 ft vehicle, larger than a bus, bought at his wife’s insistence ironically  and embarks on a lone journey, the loneliness more marked  against the ludicrous large vehicle. He eventually comes to a point of forgiveness as he sits gazing at the stars in the dark, talking to his wife. “What did you really think of me? Was I really the man you wanted to be with ?.. I let you down..I’m sorry, can you forgive me?”

Unlike the two films, there is “Sideways”, a much more complete, satisfying film, again about two men who are trying to escape their fears and feelings. Miles’ introduction starts off somewhat as a liar who makes up excuses for being late, even steals money from his mother’s drawer and has a friend who has decided to live a lie for a week before his wedding and actually starts believing the lie, thinking he is in love. Yet the beauty is that Payne treats these characters with such understanding that you don’t dislike them at all. 


One starts viewing them with compassion as one travels down the beautiful wine countryside along with them, enjoying the conflict created by opposing desires of each. Miles, wants to show his friend, Jack, the wine countryside  and but Jack, a washed out TV actor about to be married, wants to bed the first woman in sight and his sole mission is to get Miles laid too. He sees sex as the solution for every depression. When he does get it , he ends up with a broken nose, a frozen naked body running on the street chased by an angry husband, and crying like  a baby ,shit scared of losing his fiancĂ©e and wants to go home. 

His  brash all confident behavior is offset by Miles’ reluctant response to the lovely, sensuous Maya (Virgnia Madsen),  laced with slow, heady, intoxicating conversations about wine, made more intimate than a lovemaking scene would be.

The surroundings are used extremely well to set off the characters’ inner turmoil. In “The Descendants”, the lush, green Hawaiian island with clear blue water defy Matt’s inner conflict.
Likewise we have Miles who is in the company of the most beautiful, glowing, warm woman in a romantic locale, discussing the intricacies of delicious wine and is unable to enjoy a free soulful intimate evening.
In “About Schmidt” and “The Descendants”, the men come face to face with harsh reality when their daughters  bring out their lack of fatherly presence in the open. Schmidt stands uncomfortable and unsure as his daughter asks him, “You have an opinion about my life now?”We don’t see much change in him as towards the end, he gives a wedding speech that he doesn’t mean just the way he obeyed his wife even though he didn’t want to.

With each film, the central actor with his masterful characterization and performance makes you care, makes you think about his world and what could be the best solution. Clooney makes you cry with his parting lines to his wife, Nicholson makes you swallow bittersweet tears with his final expression in the end, Miles makes you squirm as he shifts and fumbles uncomfortably during the most cozy conversation at a first date.
Overall, each one leaves one with warm poignancy. On a happier note, “Sideways”  makes you want to have Pinot with your lover. “The Descendants” makes you want to  snuggle together with your children under a  blanket, have ice-cream and watch TV. “About Schmidt” makes you  appreciate what you have and want to fund a child with an NGO.

All road trips worth taking.

Small scenes to watch out for Payne’s special touch:
Sideways:
A  sequence of cross dissolves,as Miles flirts with Maya, drinks too much, becomes distant and then goes and calls his wife,with varied close-ups of his expressions as he moves to and fro,talking in drunken anger.

Best line:“I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlott.”

The Descendants:
A late night quiet conversation between Matt and his daughter’s idiotic boyfriend, Sid,that changes one’s perception of Sid.

About Schmidt:
Warren, sitting alone, talking to stars in the dark sky that looks like a canopy covering him.