The steady stream of Oscar-nominated movies continues this week with Joy, David O Russell’s drama. Also opening is the eagerly anticipated Airlift and a sex comedy.
Airlift Over a two-month period in 1990, the Indian government evacuated over 110,000 citizens from Iraq and Kuwait after war broke out in the region. Nearly 500 flights were deployed. Airlift, directed by Raja Menon and starring Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur, is the story of this remarkable feat, which has found its place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the single biggest civilian evacuation in history.Joy The director of Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle is back with his muse, Jennifer Lawrence. She plays a fictionalised version of Joy Mangano, the entrepreneur of the patented Miracle Mop, which can be wrung out without getting the user’s hands wet. The heavyweight cast includes Robert De Niro as Joy’s father, Edgar Ramirez as her former husband Tony, Bradley Cooper as the sales executive who helps her push her product, Virginia Madsen as Joy’s encouraging mother Jackie, and Isabella Rossellini as Trudy, the girlfriend of Joy’s father. Lawrence has been nominated in the Actress in a Leading Role category, and has already bagged a Golden Globes award in the same category.
Kya Kool Hain Hum 3 The first of a handful of sex comedies that will be unleashed on audiences this year stars genre specialists Tusshar Kapoor and Aftab Shivdasani. The movie shares with the January 29 release Mastizaade a story originator (Mushtaq Sheikh) and dialogue (Milap Zaveri). The plot: a porn actor falls in love with a “respectable” woman, whose family demands to meet his parents. He asks his crew to masquerade as his kin.
The 5th Wave After four waves of attacks by extra-terrestrials, Earth is bracing for a fifth wave, one that might involve an invasion of human bodies. Based on Rick Yancey’s novel of the same name, this futuristic adventure stars Chloe Grace-Moretz as a teenager trying to rescue her younger brother with the help of a soldier (Nick Robinson) who might or might not be an alien in disguise.
Jugni A low-budget debut with a high-impact soundtrack. Shefali Bhushan’s movie is about a female music composer (Sugandha Garg) who, following a bad break-up, travels to Punjab in search of a legendary singer. There, she meets and falls in love with the singer’s son (Siddhant Behl). The soundtrack, by Clinton Cerejo, is one of the movie’s strongest selling points.