Pleasantville (1998)

If you have seen "The Truman Show", you will like "Pleasantville" because both are similar but not essentially the same.  The main character(s) is trapped inside a TV show, but here they are sure about it than the doubtful Jim Carey. A brother-sister twins gets transported to a 50's sitcom, where everything is black and white and people who populate are innocents.  They don't even use a toilet. The basketball team never misses the loop even during practice sessions.  I can go on, but that would be revealing major interesting scenes of this movie.

The twins try to gel along the environment.  But the sister hates the goofy goodness surrounding her.  Both inadvertently start questioning and providing some insights on the world outside.  As one-by-one the characters experience a change in themselves, they turn into color while the other less enlightened people start seeing them as a threat to their existence.

The stunning scenes are when each color change happens and the reaction it gets from others.  Its really a fun to watch those.  When everything surrounding them changes, the twins remain in black and white and they don't know why.  Then they realize that though they induce most of the changes, they remain unchanged for most part and start searching within themselves.  When they gain the missing part of their lives, bingo...comes the color.

Thank You for Smoking (2005)

I am often curious how some guys get the best out of any situation.  Even when they are holed out in a corner with apparently no options, they not only come out of the tight situation but convert it to their advantage.  One such guy is our hero.  He is a tobacco lobbyist, who is very good in smooth talking against anti-tobacco campaigns.  He along with a weapon and an alcohol lobbyists form the MOD (Merchants of Death) squad.

Look at the situations that he gets into.  He is cornered in a live TV show with a patient who has just recovered from tobacco addiction.  He is assigned to silence a bad mouthing former Marlboro Man, who is very shrewd and can't be fooled easily.  He gets involved with a reported who back stabs by revealing his game plan.  He gets kidnapped and almost killed by forced nicotine patch abuse.  From all these problems, he emerges a little scathed but ultimately successful.

There is no soul-searching on moral correctness of the protagonist.  Just like the negotiator in "Unthinkable", he is just doing his job with a monk-like detachment. His son admires his adventures and inherits his legacy by winning in the school debate competition.  I was also admiring all along making mental comparisons with similar personalities I have met.  Their knack of getting successful still eludes my tiny little intelligence.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

An almost dysfunctional family embarks on a road-trip for their daughter to make it to the beauty pageant competition.  The father is an unsuccessful self-motivational speaker who couldn't use his own step-by-step development program for his own life.  His son is kind of a freak, who takes a vow on silence until he becomes a pilot.  The daughter is a cute little kid who is in cloud nine after hearing that she is qualified for the beauty contest.  Her trainer cum grandad is recently sent back to family from an old-age home because of his drug addiction.  The mother is a weary home-maker that ties this family together.  As if there is not enough tragedy to this family, a suicidal and gay uncle joins them in their journey towards self-realization.

Although the son never talks, he shares a quiet and deep connection with his sister.  She is the only one who could console him when he realizes that his dream of becoming a pilot is not possible.  The grand-dad also shares a close relationship with his grand-daughter.  His demise brings an unexpected closeness to an emotionally indifferent family.  The Uncle's depressions further worsens when his gay partner switches loyalty towards his arch rival.  Even the van in which they travel develops problem with the gears.  It looked like only the daughter is relatively saner than anybody and she is less depressed about the proceedings apart from the last minute stage-nervousness.


In all road movies, the travel is most important than the destination.  But, in "Little Miss Sunshine", both the travel and destination are quite satisfactory.  When we expect a feel good ending of an underdog wins a contest, the movie makes a very smart and unexpected twist in the end.  It makes a mockery of the contest that was revered throughout the film.  Till that time, it was a good movie, but the twist makes it even better.

In The Loop

Set in the backdrop of impending Iraq war, "In the loop" is a satire that has lightning fast one-liners that requires multiple viewings to comprehend the wholesome quality of humor that this film depicts. 

We have a British minister who gives a dry statement that a war in the Middle East is "unforeseeable".  But the Prime Minister feels that this is an unacceptably clear and non-neutral statement for a politician.  On his orders, his enforcer comes bullying down to the minister's office.  The minister is ineptly assisted by a new joinee who keeps leaking inside information to the press.  When this minister is invited by the US officials for a friendly visit, less does he know that he is marked as a victim of a political game.

Its a pleasure watching the enforcer spewing cuss words at everyone he meets.  For him, political position or nationality doesn't matter.  He treats his US counterparts the same way he treats his own statesmen.  The minister on the other hand is a pawn on a chess board, pushed over and sacrificed at will.  He is a serial offender and commits another mistake of a statement "climb the mountain of conflict" when asked about the relationship between UK and US.

There is also a secret war committee being formed and one of the assistants is asked find it out by running through the list of committees that has boring names.  A Lt. General and another top official settle in a kids room and try to do a math calculation with a toy calculator.  When another restricted committee meeting is held, too many attendees turn up so eventually they had to move to another big room which the Lt. General aptly mimics as cow-herding.

Likewise, there are many other supporting characters who raise the bar of political absurdity.  The film starts slowly in a documentary-style cinematography and builds up the comedy as time progresses.  There are at least more than a handful of scenes that made be roll in laughter.

"In the loop" requires that you turn on your intelligence to understand the nuances this film provides.  Its not the slapstick variety that are often represent the so-called comedy genre.