Published by the popular online comic-strip team ‘Kachee Goliyan’, Umru Ayar: The Awakening is the promising first installment in an excitingly new Pakistani comic book franchise. Artist Ramish Safa reimagines the iconic Umru Ayar for a new generation, who will see the roguish hero battle powerful djinns. It is to team KG’s credit that The Awakening does not cheapen the original character for the sake of cheap thrills.

It would have been easy, after all, for artist Saad Hassam to draw Umru with a chiseled body and a handsomely square jaw in an attempt to appeal to the masses. But instead, he gives the character a more reasonable physique and shrewd eyes that instantly lend the hero an original and authentic look.

The artwork in the comic book is gorgeous, with some influence clearly drawn from stylised illustrations seen in Pakistani drawings from earlier generations. The colouring by Lucid Concept is phenomenal, featuring succulent shades of red in the book’s desert landscapes. There are some minor consistency issues however, in the drawing of Umru’s face, where it doesn’t always look the same. In fact, on one panel of The Awakening, Umru resembles the djinn he is conversing with, which did seem confusing.

The story opens with the djinns, who are Umru’s sworn enemies. They seek him out to earn his services, much to his curiosity. Here lies Umru Ayar’s greatest strength, in realising that his primary weapon in battling powerful mystical adversaries is his intellect, rather than his brawn.

Unfortunately, the dialogue in The Awakening is the comic book’s weakest suit, with even some grammar gaffes. Umru also occasionally uses modern diction which feels out of place with the book’s historic setting. Meanwhile, the Urdu version of The Awakening suffers from composition problems — it flows oddly from left to right like an English book.

These minor grievances aside, this comic book is an engaging piece of art that is definitely worth a place in your collection, especially if you take a moment to consider its dirt cheap price of Rs300 (Order via Facebook). But there is one more reason to get a copy: to encourage the young artists to keep ’em coming.

Our top 3 comic book heroes

1. Commander Safeguard

This animated Pakistani superhero has a clean reputation and helps kids fight germs. But here is some dirt on him: Did you know that he has been fighting germs overseas as well? In 2005, he was adopted in the Philippines as Captain Safeguard. In 2007, in Mexico he became Capitan Escudo. You can even find him in Kenya.

2. Dr Faiza Hussain

She goes by the superhero name of Excalibur and she is a British doctor of Pakistani origins. This Marvel character has the ability to heal patients on the subatomic level. Like all super beings she has a weakness, however, and can’t use her powers on magical beings. We can’t all be perfect.

3. Simon Baz

OK so he isn’t Pakistani, but he is an American Lebanese hero and we are partial to that combination. Baz is the latest Green Lantern in the comics published by DC Comics, and this is a man who really knows how to wield the magic ring. He has been known to have picked a fight or two with Batman. We love you Baz, but don’t overestimate yourself. It’s Batman after all.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 28^th, 2013.

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It may suffer from a few clichés, but Mama is one scary mama! Yes, at times this film on the supernatural directed by Andrés Muschietti was so frightening that it left me wishing for the presence of my own mama. And judging by the shrieks from my fellow audience members, I was not alone. 

Mama begins with a scene typical of many horror movies. Three-year old Victoria (Megan Charpentier), and her one-year old sister Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), along with their father Jeffery (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones fame), get into a car crash, after their speeding vehicle drives off a snowy road, and into the woods, where the trio finds themselves at what seems to be an abandoned cabin. Jeffery, who is in the middle of a psychotic breakdown having earlier murdered his business partners as well as his wife, decides to kill his young daughters with his handgun. But before he can pull the trigger, he is snatched away and killed by a smoky apparition. This savior of the two children is a ghost, who for the next five years takes care of the little ones as her own, until the girls are found by a search team sponsored by their uncle, Lucas, (Coster-Waldau). Having been away from any human contact, the girls are in a horrific state, underfed, hissing to communicate and crawling on all fours like beasts. The film subverts the powerful innocence of children.

The State turns them over to Lucas, and his girlfriend Annabel and they begin to live in a government-owned house. At this point, Mama transforms into a typical haunted-house film, with the ghost following her girls into their new home. Annabel, who is a former punk rocker, is still tough as nails. Although reluctant at first, Annabel’s love for the two girls grows steadily, until she decides to fight for her wards. And thus, this turns into a film about one mama against another mama. The film is produced by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), whose influence clearly felt in the absence of gore.

You can’t watch but you must watch — that is the impossible pull of the horror film. “I think we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the mental asylums only hide it a little better,” Stephen King once said in an interview. He is the master of the macabre and explains the appeal of the horror film. He should know, he has sold 250 million books worldwide in the genre.

Perhaps we watch them to dare the nightmare or prove to ourselves that we are able to take it. We also watch them to remind ourselves of our own normality, argues King. Perhaps the movie theatre or your sofa at home are the only places where — even though it is just watching — we can unleash our darkest parts. There is a reason why we watch them in the dark, after all…

Models, Morals and Messing with Nature: 3 of our film picks on motherhood

1. All about My Mother (1999)

Blurred lines brought on by emotional crises dominate this celebrated work, Todo sobre mi Madre, by Spanish genius Pedro Almodóvar. A single mother relocates to Barcelona after her teenage son is killed in an accident. She continues to play roles determined by society and even takes on other ones such as a ‘surrogate’ mother to three strong characters, a stage actress, a pregnant nun (Penelope Cruz), and a sex worker.

2. Mother India (1957)

As its title makes clear, this Nargis classic is about the struggle to make the motherland, especially so close after Partition. Radha, the ‘mother’ of the village refuses to let grinding poverty compromise her morals. Symbolically she even kills one of her sons as he turns into a criminal. This Bollywood box-office hit is regarded as one of the finest works in world cinema.

3. Three Men and a Baby (1987)

It wasn’t quite a gender-bender for the 1980s, but Tom Selleck can babysit us any day. In this Leonard Nimoy comedy, three roommates are forced to care for a baby one of their girlfriends leaves on their doorstep. What was long considered a woman’s job took on a whole new meaning as the men struggled to change diapers (“How can something so small create so much of something so disgusting?” and feed the baby (Michael: I don’t know what babies eat? Peter: Soft stuff. We were babies once, for Christ’s sakes, what did we eat?).

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April 7^th, 2013.

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Watching A Good Day to Die Hard is surely a good way for people to die of tediousness. Directed by John Moore (Max Payne), this nonsensical fifth installment in the Die Hard action series continues the adventures of John McClane (Bruce Willis) in a highly disappointing outing which undoubtedly is the worst film in the series, and a terribly dull action picture overall.

Considered to be popcorn entertainment, the Die Hard movies have often featured creatively staged action sequences which pack enough excitement to be worth the admission fee for the weekend crowd. And while no one can accuse the storylines in these films of having Shakespearean potential, they are written adequately enough to provide star Bruce Willis with enough wit and cockiness to give his reckless cop character a likeable persona.

A Good Day to Die Hard however is poorly written, with its star Bruce Willis coming off more like a cranky old has-been, rather than the droll renegade detective we have come to love. Things take off with McClane flying to Russia to aid his son Jack (Jai Courtney), who has been arrested for a mysterious assassination attempt. Here he finds his son, and government whistleblower Yuri Komarov (Sebastian Koch), being chased through the roads of Moscow by heavily armed assailants. At this point, John needlessly destroys several bridges, roads, and possibly kills dozens of innocent civilians, all so that he can aid his son. Yes, John McClane is a complete jerk, and his estranged son is not happy to see him.

Soon, John learns that Jack is a CIA spy on an important mission to extract information from Komarov against a powerful and corrupt Russian official named Viktor Chagarin (Sergei Kolesnikov).

Does John tell Jack that he is proud of him for taking on such an impressive profession? No. Like the big jerk that he is, John laughs at Jack for ‘playing a spy’, and admits that he thought Jack was a drug addict. No wonder Jack hates his father. The film briefly focuses on their tense relationship, and they eventually bond over explosive levels of gratuitous violence.

Unfortunately, the action sequences in A Good Day to Die Hard are loud, unexciting, completely unimaginative, poorly edited, and more than a little obnoxious. Sadly, they aren’t as obnoxious as the hero of the film himself.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 31^st, 2013.

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Fee-fi-fo-fum, Jack the Giant Slayer is rather ho-hum! Directed by Bryan Singer, this is a formulaic fantasy film that tries desperately hard to climb the beanstalk to reach the skies of the box-office, but falls somewhat amusingly on its bum.

Although the film features swashbuckling adventure, romance, and humour, it sadly suffers from weak characterisation and lack of originality, leading to a rather predictable narrative. The romance is also quite dull, since the two lead characters seem to have very little chemistry. Thankfully, the visuals are presented in some fine 3D shots. The giants are the most entertaining, and are decently crafted with special effects.

The film is based on the fairy tales ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, where it meshes the two to create one yarn, with some spice on top. The story features a somewhat naïve eighteen-year-old farmer  Jack (Nicholas Hoult), who as we all remember from our bedtime stories, comes home with some magic beans, instead of money.

But while Jack is out in town, he defends the honour of Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) against some thugs. Then one stormy night, Princess Isabelle rides to the farm boy looking for some adventure, where a very contrived attraction develops between the two. This flirtation, however, is thankfully cut short when one of the beans erupts into an enormous beanstalk, carrying Isabelle into the realm of the giants.

Typical of cookie cutter fantasy films, the princess is a high strung young woman, who is tired of socially defined gender roles, and wants to carve out her own path. Unfortunately for the princess, her marriage has already been arranged by her father, King Brahmwell (Ian McShane), with his adviser Lord Roderick (Stanley Tucci).

In what isn’t a giant surprise, Lord Roderick is evil and is plotting to manipulate the giants into handing him all the known kingdoms. As the evil character in the film, Roderick comes complete with his lackey, who tries awfully hard to be amusing but doesn’t quite succeed.

Soon a rescue party is formed, which includes the leader of the king’s elite guards. Here, we are introduced to the giants, who are hungry, disgusting, comical, and always in the mood for a good fight. It is just a pity that the giants don’t gobble up all of the film’s very dull human characters.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 24^th, 2013.

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Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, War Witch is an unsettling French language drama about a 12-year-old girl named Komona (Rachel Mwanza), a child soldier who is forced to kill her parents by the rebel forces.

The film is skillfully directed and scripted by Kim Nguyen, a film-maker who discovered Rachel Mwanza after watching her in a documentary about street children in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC Congo.

Mwanza’s performance in the film is quite amazing, displaying a restrained sense of misery and pain accompanied with a quiet strength to survive unbearable circumstances. Her performance is all the more commendable considering that the uneducated actress was unable to read or write at the time of her casting. Perhaps in War Witch, she draws from her own experiences of a difficult childhood, creating a performance that has all the right nuances into making her character believable.

Komona’s life is documented year by year, when her rebel superiors are convinced that she has magical powers, a superstition in African culture that is prevalent in the film. Somehow, Komona escapes with a fellow child soldier, an albino named Magicien, played in a fine performance by Serge Kanyinda.

At this point War Witch reminds us that Komona is just an innocent young girl, and the film takes a sweet and humorous turn as she and Magicien fall in love, and look to get married. Here, local culture dictates that in order to get married, Magicien must present Komona with a rare white rooster, a quest that earns the boy uncontrolled laughter from the locals. But Komona’s happiness doesn’t last. Tragedy befalls once again, as she struggles to break free from the rebels, and to put the haunting spirits of her loved ones to rest.

In order to focus on characterization, War Witch deftly avoids displaying the visuals of bloody massacres. But War Witch is still quite a powerful piece of work, and an important film about a real world tragedy that could use a little more attention.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 17^th, 2013.

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Even after watching The Master twice in as many days, I’ve still not got full mileage out of this captivating drama film by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.

The strength of The Master, as recognized by the Academy with three nominations in the acting category, is in the performances, with Joaquin Phoenix (Freddie Quell) terrific in his role as a bizarre sex-crazed World War II navy sailor, exhibiting quirky mannerisms in a visually mesmerising display.

Phoenix’s character is clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress after witnessing combat. After the war ends, Freddie is given a visual world association test by a US government employee, and strangely recognizes each inkblot pattern as a pornographic item. But whether the military service worsened Freddie’s mental faculties is questionable, as he later admits to having had sex multiple times with his own aunt.

Freddie’s mental problems are worsened by his addiction to creating and consuming dangerously intoxicating drinks, as he will mix anything, even naval ship torpedo fuel, with his concoctions. It is through his talent of creating booze that he truly connects with Lancaster Dodd, a man on the fringe of starting a cult called “The Cause”, and a character heavily inspired by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology.

Philip Seymour Hoffman convincingly plays Lancaster Dodd, a character who through his ability to sell himself, earns the hero worship of his followers through wild existential stories.

The chemistry between Dodd and Freddie in The Master is powerful, with the two taking turns to steal screen presence. The pair has an inexplicable fascination with each other that almost borders on the homosexual. But Freddie’s behavior is highly erratic, and when the police come to arrest Dodd for fraud, Freddie’s violent defense of his master also lands him behind bars. It is here that Freddie starts questioning Dodd’s wild theories, and Dodd’s wife Peggy (Amy Adams) begins to question Freddie’s loyalty and his behavior.

The Master features a beautifully outlandish soundtrack that perfectly complements the eccentric nature of the film’s characters. It also features some breath-taking cinematography, shot on the rare 65mm format to create a film that is almost as undeniable visually, as it is cerebrally.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, March 10^th, 2013.

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Don’t be fooled by the film’s title, which translates into ‘love’ in French. Amour is a disturbing piece of cinema which examines the bitter fact of life that everything comes to an end; including the tender love between a couple, which if nothing else, is brought to an end by old age.   

The film is shot in a slow and tense style by Austrian Director Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher), a filmmaker known for tackling less discussed social problems in his films.

Amour pulls no punches, and opens unconventionally with what is in fact the final scene of the film, showing the police breaking into an apartment which has been taped shut from the inside. This apartment belongs to Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne Laurent (Emmanuelle Riva), an elderly couple who happen to be retired music teachers. The apartment reeks of decay, and upon further examination, the police find the source of the foul stench of death within the premises: it is the corpse of Anne, lying peacefully on the bed, dressed in a comfortable gown, and adorned lovingly with flowers. The scene is troubling, yet this early revelation indicates that the film isn’t concerned with the fate of the Laurents, but their troubling final journey.

From here we are taken back to the recent past where the couples’ difficulties are beginning. The Laurents are shown to be a loving and caring pair, who take care of each other’s needs the best they can. And pleasantly, the husband sometimes still surprises his wife with stories about himself. Here, Georges starts to notice an alarming pattern in his wife’s behavior, where she freezes, staring into space for minutes at a time in a catatonic state. Later, a surgery for Anne results in complications, where she is left partially paralyzed, and not wanting to go on. Here, Amour shows us the challenges that come with such a situation, which for many may hit a little too close to home, especially for those who have felt the desperate feeling of helplessness when unable to do anything for a loved one in pain.

Amour is a superbly acted film with an equally powerful subject. Taking on the touchy subjects of suicide, and assisted suicide, this is a bleak notice that life isn’t pretty when the clock stops ticking, and one should prepare the best they can, because even genuine love stories must come to an end.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 24^th, 2013.

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Flight is a moving voyage, and almost entirely turbulence free.  This film stars one of Hollywood’s finest actors, Denzel Washington, who earned an Academy Award nomination for a beautifully nuanced performance of a tortured man battling alcohol and drug addiction.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Flight takes off with a craftily edited flying sequence, both pulsating and terrifying at the same time. In the opening scenes, William “Whip” Whitaker (Denzel Washington), the captain of a 102 passenger plane, and a person who enjoys getting high in more ways than one, is shaken out of his stupor by an alarming situation.

Whip, who had fallen asleep after consuming a forbidden mixture of vodka and orange juice, wakes up to discover that his aircraft has gone into a steep dive after the failure of its control system. Here, the captain brilliantly saves the day by landing in an open field next to a church, though much to the fright of his passengers, including rookie copilot Ken Evans (Brian Geraghty). This crash landing sequence is absolutely harrowing, bringing to mind actual tragedies that involve plane crashes.

Eventually, Whip finds himself in a hospital, where he is greeted by the hilarious Harling Mays (John Goodman), who is the pilot’s friend and drug dealer. He also meets the representative of the airline pilots’ union, Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood), who tells him that he has been hailed as a hero for saving 96 of the 102 passenger lives.

But Whip doesn’t consider himself to be a hero, and is deeply burdened by feelings of guilt and shame; guilt for the death of others, and shame for being unable to control the need for alcohol. These negative feelings are exacerbated by an official investigation into the plane crash.

Whip isn’t the only character in Flight battling addiction. His love, Nicole (Kelly Reilly), a former heroin abuser, is addicted to bad relationships. Through her turbulent affair with Whip, she learns valuable lessons, eventually letting go of her own baggage in Flight.

Despite being a character prone to making bad choices, Whip is highly sympathetic and identifiable, thanks to Washington’s immense talent in conveying complex emotions through subtle changes in facial expressions. And although Flight loses a little altitude in its finale with what is a crowd pleasingly safe landing, the film is still quite a trip.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 24^th, 2013.

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Perhaps it is fitting that Silver Linings Playbook, which features a group of characters with more than a few loose screws, is a little…maddening.

Directed by David O Russell, this romantic comedy/drama is for the most part a wonderfully whimsical film with a cast of sweet and interesting characters, who in their bouts of anxiety, depression, delusion, and paranoia seem to be made for each other.  Yet as the film progresses, it sheds its unique narrative and regresses to the paint-by-numbers Hollywood treatment, and quite disappointingly ends up employing every romantic comedy cliché in the playbook.

The film stars Bradley Cooper, who gives an excellent performance as Patrizio “Pat Jr” Solitano Jr, a man with bipolar disorder. Pat Jr was sentenced to a mental health facility by the courts after brutally assaulting the man his wife, Nikki, was having an affair with. Now, with expectations that border on delusion, Patrizio hopes to get back together with his spouse, while being counseled by his court mandated therapist Dr Patel (Anupam Kher), who tries to keep Pat Jr grounded in reality. After all, the cuckolded Pat Jr beat his victim nearly to death when he came home to find him in the shower with his wife, with their wedding song cruelly playing in the background.

But Pat Jr finds it difficult to stay balanced, especially whenever he hears his wedding song, which causes him to lose all control. He also finds it difficult to now live in the care of his parents, especially his unemployed and crazily superstitious father Patrizio “Pat Sr” Solitano (Robert DeNiro) who tries to fund his restaurant dream by betting on football games featuring his favorite team.

Here, Pat Jr is set up with his best friend’s sister in law, Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence), a recovering sex addict who lost her job, and her direction, after the death of her husband.

Both Pat Jr and Tiffany are seemingly made for each other, even though Pat Jr continues to long for his wife. It is here that Silver Linings Playbook loses its originality, resorting to overused plot devices, and an ending so sickly sweet that it would even make Bollywood cringe.

With eight Academy Award nominations, Silver Linings Playbook features some top notch acting from its entire cast; its narrative provides a lot of humour, but with the severe faults in the film. I believe the movie’s nomination for Best Picture seems more than a little delusional.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 17^th, 2013.

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The Impossible is not a horror film, yet it is one of the most chilling films I have ever seen. Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, this film is based on an extraordinary story of a Spanish family that survived an actual tsunami. Twice in the opening credits of the film, the viewers are told that the amazing narrative which is about to sweep them away, is indeed a true story.

At the centre stage of the act is the resourceful physician Maria Bennett, whose brilliantly harrowing portrayal by Naomi Watts has earned her a 2013 Academy award nomination. Maria here is shown to be a courageous woman, who along with her thirteen-year old son Lucas (Tom Holland) is swept away without warning from a resort in Thailand.

The Impossible, through some fantastic CGI, shows the massive impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which has now gone down in history as one of the world’s worst natural disasters. The film displays the awesome might of the tsunami waves, as buildings and people alike are broken and torn apart like mere sand castles on the beach. Maria, herself, is tossed like a rag doll by this unstoppable force of nature. Indeed, at one point, Maria is like a frog in a blender, as she is painfully and repeatedly struck by debris, making her survival, as well as the fact that she manages not to lose Lucas, all the more incredible.

The family that Maria leaves behind is husband Henry (Ewan McGregor), as well as her young sons Tomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee), who hope against the odds for the survival of their loved ones. Here, Ewan gives a fantastic performance as a father who tries to find strength for his traumatised children and a man who won’t give up on his missing family. Meanwhile, Maria is given great support by Lucas, who turns to help countless other survivors, as the two try to endure the deathly aftermath of the natural disaster.

The film’s main character is based on María Belón Alvárez, who has now gone on to become an advocate and spokesperson for survivors of tsunamis. After watching The Impossible’s highly emotional ending, I can understand why she later stated “The tsunami was an incredible gift. I embrace life. My whole life is extra time”.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 17^th, 2013.

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