#365DaysOfWriting — Day 203

3 days, 3 films

This has been one enjoyable weekend, starting Friday night. I’ve watched 3 films over the course of the weekend, and all of them were good — Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Arrival and Dear Zindagi.

It started off on Friday night with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

To be completely honest with you, I wasn’t that happy when this film was announced. I’ve got a bit of a bias against Eddie Redmayne (still don’t think he deserved the Oscar over Michael Keaton in 2014, no matter HOW good he was) and I felt that this was just another way of milking a beloved franchise. I was proven wrong on both counts. Eddie Redmayne turns in a delightful performance as the twitchy, eccentric Newt Scamander, and the movie turned out to be better than most of the Harry Potter films! David Yates pulls the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and helps us enjoy a non-Harry Potter world, which still references some of our favourite characters from the original franchise, and introduces us to new and fantastic beasts and villains. It still upholds the values of the magical universe, and that I believe is a function of the screenplay being written by JK Rowling herself. The supporting cast is great too — Katherine Waterston as Porpentina Goldstein (or Tina, as we know her), Colin Farrell as the mysterious magic ministry man, Percival Graves, the DCEU’s Flash, Ezra Miller, as the poor Credence, a boy who’s constantly under his mother’s thumb. But my favourite performance in the movie comes from Dan Fogler, who plays the No-Maj (no magic, an American Muggle if you will) Jacob Kowalski, exposed to magic. Now I’ve heard that a lot of Potter fans were aghast at the use of the term ‘No-Maj’ but I think it’s a very clever way of Rowling showing us how America has always tried to be different in its spellings, nomenclatures and measurements from the English. Coming back to Kowalski — he represents all of us, what we would do and how we would react if suddenly exposed to the magic universe. He’s our journeyman in this journey of magic, and he makes the film a lot more enjoyable. Go watch this in IMAX 3D if you can, you won’t regret it. And watch out for a very, very special cameo at the end by… someone special, I won’t say who.

Saturday afternoon was reserved for Arrival.

Denis Villeneuve is helming Blade Runner 2, and I couldn’t be happier. Arrival showed us why he’s the man for the job. It’s not a film as much as a work of art, a critique on the human race. It’s a fascinating experience that you must absolutely not miss. You can read my more detailed write-up on Facebook.

On Sunday morning (today), I watched Dear Zindagi with dad.

The first half started off predictably and sloppily, but it got much better as the film wore on. Thanks to the leads, Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan, Gauri Shinde was able to weave a simple, heart-warming and devoid-of-stereotypes movie on mental illness. My father, who doesn’t like watching too many movies in the theatre, enjoyed this film, and he’s fast becoming a fan of Alia Bhatt (as is almost everyone else). I’ve written a lot more about it on Facebook. You can read the whole thing here.

It’s been a good weekend. I hope you had a good one too. Watch all three films on the big screen if you can!

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