The Incredibles
115 mins, 2004. Director: Brad Bird
Pixar is synonymous with quality and this film is a testimony of that. It’s about a family of undercover superheroes trying to live the quiet suburban life but forced into action to save the world. There’s lots of humour and silliness for the kids and some clever pop-culture references for adults. Watch it for its extremely sharp writing and plotting (rewarded with a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination), excellent voice acting, extraordinary conceptual design and, most importantly, the audacity to break from the mould and do something different. There are no talking fish, no talking bugs, no talking toys. It’s a real movie with real heart told with extraordinary skill and style. You don’t have to be a child or a parent (I myself am neither) to love this film.
Office Space
91 mins, 1999. Director: Mike Judge
This film makes you laugh until you cry. It’s also cathartic to those of you who have to work to make a living. Watch it for its wily, inventive workplace humour that’s a scream in its finest moments and consistently amusing otherwise. Starring Jennifer Aniston and Ron Livingston, it gained instant cult status for its unabashed caricatures of office personalities, and its theme of corporate sabotage. Anyone who’s recently spent any time chained to a desk will probably find this just the right thing to rewind, reboot and restart. Ruthlessly funny stuff, so relentlessly acerbic that it makes Dilbert seem downright reverential by comparison. You can check your brain at the door and still get a good laugh from Office Space, or you can hold on to your brain and get an even better laugh. One statutory warning: you can identify with most of the characters in the film.
Dude, Where’s My Car?
83 mins, 2000. Director: Danny Leiner
If you are looking for something which requires little thinking, and will make you laugh, give this movie a chance. It may be silly but dude, it’s effective. There are enough funny moments littered throughout the movie to make you forget about the lack of an in-depth storyline. The vast majority of jokes are crude and well managed by the leading pair (Seann William Scot and Ashton Kutcher). There are some really funny moments including a rendition of Jurassic Park, but with ostriches instead of dinosaurs. Dude’s comic formula is simple: throw the dudes in one bizarre situation after another and watch them goof their way out. Given the movie’s PG-13 rating, it all lands on the lighter side of the teen-comedy spectrum, and if angry ostriches, donut-loving cops, a 50-foot bimbo in a miniskirt, and a pot-smoking dog sound like a good combo, Dude is just for you.
Forrest Gump
141 mins, 1994; Director: Robert Zemeckis
Warm, wise, and wearisome as hell. Tom Hanks plays Forrest Gump, an educationally challenged soul who serves his country without hurting a fly; he saves his comrades in Vietnam, woos the dippy Jenny (Robin Wright), and runs back and forth across the continent. Hanks does his best to convince us that Gump is, in fact, a character, and not merely a bulging sack of virtues, but the movie takes the fight out of him. The director, Robert Zemeckis, is no slouch, as he proved in the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy, where he invented his own brand of smart, critical nostalgia. Here, however, the whole film is tuned up to Gump’s pitch of gentle sweetness. The visual effects are neat enough, with Hanks showing up in old footage of Kennedy and L.B.J. it’s an endearing film that will remain with you long after the credit lines roll.
The Mask
97 mins, 1994. Director: Chuck Russell
Goofiness can be its own reward. This film shows you how. Jim Carrey plays a boring bank account officer Stanley Ipkiss who never speaks his mind about anything. One day, he finds an enchanted mask and he goes from ‘zero to hero’. With the mask, Stanley gets the courage to do everything he’s ever dreamed of, including woo blond bombshell Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz). With his sparkling, silly grin and his true talent for physical clowning, Carrey comes as close to being an animated creature as a live actor ever could. Carrey also has a bright and likable screen presence, a lost puppy quality that is surprisingly endearing. It is definitely one of Carrey’s best suited films, capturing his ability for improvisation and combining it with superb special effects. If you want to see a comic fireball in a tour de force display of physical antics, this film is just for you.
(This piece appeared in Windows & Aisles, the inflight magazine of Paramount Airways, South India’s business airline)
