October 12, 2006

FILM

Anthropomorphised automobiles didn’t sound like a sure recipe for success to me, even for an animated feature, but credit to Pixar Studios (the people who brought you Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo) that they pull it off in Cars. The movie isn’t quite as brilliant and engaging as the two Toy Story films or The Incredibles and will appeal more to a younger audience than adults but, despite a slow start, it does manage to cross the finish line in style.

Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) is a cocky, self-absorbed rookie race car aiming to win the biggest prize of them all –– the Piston Cup. Headed for a final three way race-off between The King (Richard Petty) and Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton) in California, Lightning loses his way on the highway, gets on to Route 66 instead, and finds himself in the sleepy town of Radiator Springs, a place which has seen better days. There he finds the town’s quaint and lovable characters including the town patriarch Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), a 1951 Hudson Hornet who is hiding something from his past, a cute 2002 Porsche called Sally (Bonnie Hunt), Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), the Italian tyre-shop owner who loves his Ferraris, and Mater (Larry, The Cable Guy) the slow but good-hearted tow truck who declares himself to be Lightning’s best friend.

This is standard Hollywood wherein our brash, arrogant hero comes to a small town and learns lessons about selflessness, making sacrifices and slowing down and smelling the roses. But despite the over familiarity of the plot and the characters, director John Lasseter still manages to make it work through some deft characterisation and attention to detail. Typically for a Pixar production the animation is top-notch as well. The kiddies will definitely love it and the bigger kids (i.e. adults) will like it too.—Khusro Mumtaz

OR

Naksha tries to turn Sunny Deol into Indiana Jones. But you just can’t take him seriously in his cowboy getup complete with cowboy boots and cowboy hat. And you can’t take the rest of the movie seriously either with its ridiculous plot, laughable stunts, so-so special effects and incredibly bad acting by almost all concerned. To make up for its shortcomings the movie throws in a few “item” numbers.

Deol plays Veer, a forest ranger, who along with his half-brother Vicky (Vivek Oberoi), tries to hunt down a mysterious treasure the only clue to which is a tattered map left to the siblings by their father. On their trail is bad-guy Jackie Shroff who seems to have strolled in off a Clint Eastwood movie set what with his long leather trench coat and cowboy boots of his own. Sameera Reddy and newcomer Mridula Chandrashekhar are on hand to provide some “oomph” but with Reddy’s heft it’s “oomph” a different kind than intended.

I’m all for stretching the boundaries of mainstream Mollywood cinema and hardly anybody’s made a high-adventure movie in Mumbai. But with cinema from all over the world easily available to local audiences thanks to DVDs and satellite movie channels, certain standards have to be met for a movie to pass muster. This is not an impossible task as Dhoom demonstrated. However, Naksha, aiming to be a cross between National Treasure and the Indiana Jones movies, falls woefully short. Director Sachin Bajaj has basically made a low-rent cartoon.—K.M.


SINGLE

A second Canadian has won the Rock Star competition with Lukas Rossi being crowned new lead singer of “super group” Rock Star Supernova which features Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted, and former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke.

Upon the announcement of the winner, the new band released their official first single It’s All Love, which had been sung by fellow competitors Magni Ásgeirsson and Toby Rand earlier in the competition.

The gritty track is quintessential hard rock mixed with mainstream melodies and some great guitar work by Clarke. The lyrics are effortlessly poignant, with such lines as Nothing left but the sound of doubt/A pouring out of how did you live in/No one tried to help you figure it out/Does anybody see the signs you’re given.

However, this single lacks the addictive, explosive quality of J.D. Fortune’s unforgettable Pretty Vegas which was the first single released by INXS after he won the Rock Star: INXS competition.

That being said, Rossi’s vocals work very well here with him striking just the right balance between edgy and emotive. Ratings of this second season were over double last year’s and It’s All Love is sure to be a big hit and a perfect lead into the band’s album which will be released November 21.—T.U.Dawood

ALBUM

The Killers’ 2004 debut album Hot Fuss put them immediately on the map with their romantic dance punk sound and irresistible tunes. Lead singer Brandon Flowers and his boys aped early made-up David Bowie looks and were in-your-face with their tissue paper light themes and poppy sound. Their alchemy was pure magic and you couldn’t get songs like All These Things That I’ve Done and Mr Brightside out of your head even when you turned the radio off!

Now the Las Vegas band is back with their sophomore CD Sam’s Town. Like many other bands, they have made the mistake of aiming for J.D. Salinger like depth with their second album when their talent is actually addictive grooves and charming hooks. The result is the playful make-up is gone but so is some of the musical charm.

The album does have its moments, however, and better songs include the welcoming title track (that sounds like it belongs in a Broadway or West End Musical), Bones and When You Were Young, which are pumped with power but are certainly less winning than All These Things That I’ve Done. The rest of the disc does not succeed as well and at times, Flowers voice is simply unable to handle the more ambitious notes and on more than one occasion, he foolishly tries to aim for Meatloaf-like seriousness!

The buoyant boyish sound and feel of Hot Fuss may be missing here but the band still has talent and Sam’s Town should receive a lot of airplay. However, it’s unlikely it will become, in the words of Flowers, “the best album in the past 20 years.” In fact, next time around, the quartet would be wise to lose the Bruce Springsteen-like ambitions and stick with pure New Wave pop.—T.U.D

 

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