Tanu Weds Manu

The trailers of Tanu Weds Manu have been around for so long now that people already know the story for sure. There is a slim chance that you would have missed them in the halls. And if you are a movie addict like this writer, then you would have probably been tearing your hair apart by now, wondering when the movie would be releasing finally. It finally did yesterday. Phew.

Director Aanand Rai (I wonder why people are so hell bent on numerology) uses a star cast which doesn’t have too many well known names (except Madhavan and Kangana) but has all the faces that you would have seen in some movie or the other in the recent past. The fast paced first half starts off with the build up to Tanuja Trivedi (Kangana Ranaut) who is the kind of girl that most parents would want to be rid off sooner than later. A graduate from Delhi University, she is the kind of girl who would give the best of guys a scare. Smart, spunky, good looking and with a sharp tongue, she is far from being any man’s dream girl. She drinks, She smokes, She dopes. And that combination is quite lethal for a traditional UP family. Oh and did I mention the fact that she has had a few affairs and has actually run away from home a couple of times in vain. So much for being a “Sundar, Susheel, Sanskaron wali ladki” (Beautiful, Talented, Cultured girl – pardon my translation if incorrect)

And to fall into this trap is Dr. Manu Sharma ( Madhavan) who has come back from London thanks to parental pressures to get married – although I find that a bit hard to believe coz his parents seem to be the understanding kinds. His mom is quite a nag but then which mom isn’t especially in these matters? Dad is super cool and so is Pappi (Deepak Dobriyal) his family friend. The foursome make their way to Kanpur for the first step in the girl hunt – The Trivedi household – where there is complete and utter chaos coz – Jijaaji aa rahe hain (the brother in law is on his way – already? I thought the marriage is some time away). The girl is obviously in no mood to get married. Not because she is against the concept. But because her thrill in life is to be a rebel and go against everything that her parents ask her to do. And also because she wants to get married to her boyfriend. But our hero is unaware of all this and still falls in love with a girl who has fallen asleep on a quart of vodka and 5 sleeping pills. When she does come to her senses, she asks him to call off the wedding. Now what?

The first half of TWM is quite entertaining with a lot of clean humour and truck loads of over acting by Kangana Ranaut which is not very successful in masking the sincere effort from Madhavan and a solid one from the rest of the cast. One would be surprised at the attention to detail that the numerology believer director has put into finer points such as Delhi Airport being actually Delhi airport and not like most other movies where Hyderabad airport is called out as anything from New York to London to even Sydney at times. It remains to be seen, however if the other scenes were actually shot on location. I could vouch for Lucknow and Kanpur but not for the likes of a Kapurthala. What does not work for TWM though is the immense emphasis on every syllable that Kangana makes (That is the way she talks) and a second half that goes a way bit awry and very slow. The music is apt for the locations but not too great. Overall if you believe the successful formula of movies based on marriage that has always worked in India, you would enjoy TWM. I give it a 5 on 10. Its definitely watchable.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVdksjTQLjk&feature=fvst

The Nutcracker 3D

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky created a ballet called The Nutcracker way back in 1892. Since then there have been a few zillion movies and an equal number of plays have been made with the same name and definitely the same or similar stories. This time around a director with an equally complicated sounding name as the creator has decided to give us the first 3D version of this famed ballet. He goes by the name of Andrey Konchalovskiy. Have we heard of this guy before? Yep. He would be the same guy who gave us those epic movies that we grew up with called “Homer and Eddie” and “Tango and Cash”. He has just added an “i” to his name which hasn’t really helped much. Surely he must go back to the numerologist who advised him to add this to his name to get his money back (Do they have money back guarantees on numerology?)


For those who are unfamiliar with the story of the Nutcracker it is about this teenage girl called Mary (Elle Fanning – yep she is Dakota’s younger sister who is a bit grown up) who is tormented most of the time by her younger brother Max (Aaron Michael Drozin) who breaks up most of her toys. Her parents (Richard E. Grant & Yuliya Vysotskaya – whats with all these tongue twisters???) don’t spend too much time with the kids really parenting. But they care a lot about their children to ensure that the kids have all the comforts in the world including a huge house replete with butlers and a nanny Frau Eva (Frances de la Tour). All seems to be well at the household till one evening around Christmas the children’s godfather, Uncle Albert (Nathan Lane) – an Albert Einstein look alike with an accent that would put most German’s to shame – comes over to give the kids Christmas gifts. He gives Mary a special wooden toy called the Nutcracker whose basic utility as the name suggests is to crack nuts. But it turns out that the toy is a very special one and is actually a Prince (Charlie Rowe) whose country has been taken over by the evil Rat King (John Turturro) and his mother, the Rat Queen (Frances de la Tour – again) who want to “RATtify” the whole world. It is now upto Mary to save the country from being converted to Rats.

The Nutcracker 3D is a fantasy. You must be aware of the love that I have for fantasies as a genre of movies but this one is very honestly not too well executed. I am sure it had the capabilities of becoming a huge hit but the 3D effects are bad and the acting very average. The special effects without the 3D seem to be quite good and the tongue twister director is able to generate excitement about the concept. However, fantasies are expected to be significantly larger than life and that doesn’t quite come through in the final product. Having said that, it would go well with kids because of the entire concept of fairies and flying and talking chimpanzees and jokers and Christmas trees that grow huge overnight etc. etc. etc. Watch it for your kids if you must. 5 on 10 is my verdict. Have seen many better fantasy movies.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3906472217/

Rabbit Hole

Have you ever lost someone who you were really close to? I am sure most of us have at some point or other in our lives, gone through the pain. I personally went through it only a couple of years back when I lost a very close friend in an accident. But what if it was a blood relative? I may sound very crude and heartless if I said that losing a parent is difficult but probably not the most difficult of situations to have, and I am at no point of time under playing the pain here. What if it was someone younger? Your brother? Worse still, what if it were your 4 year old son who chose to run after a your dog because the dog ran after a squirrel and as destined, he gets run over by a car which is doing 31 kmph, maybe 32 kmph in a 30 kmph zone and the impact is enough for him to pass on. I could not even begin to imagine the trauma that one would go through and would hope and pray that it would never happen to anyone – whether known to me or otherwise. But it is exactly with this extremely sensitive and poignant topic that John Cameron Mitchell has achieved an Oscar nomination for Nicole Kidman.

Becca (Nicole Kidman) has spent the past 8 months trying to come to terms with her son’s death in a car accident. She has pretty much cut herself off from the rest of the world and speaks to people in the best possible way that she can muster herself to, without hurting their sentiments. Her support structure involves her husband Howie (Aaron Eckhart) who is in the same boat as Becca – probably worse. Between the two of them, they are putting their life back together – bit by little bit. They are past the stage of what they could have done to avoid the situation. Should they have locked the gate? Should they have bought a dog for their son? Who should have kept a look out for him? Still very much in love but the spark has gone off in some way. Add to that the conflicts of watching people who really matter to them getting on with their lives. Such as Becca’s sister Izzy (Tammy Blanchard) who is in a relationship with a musician Auggie (Giancarlo Esposito) and are expecting their first child. Or Becca’s mother Nat (Diane Wiest) who is trying her best to support Becca much to Becca’s disappointment. In the midst of all of this, Becca bumps into Jason (Miles Teller) who was driving the car that killed her son and slowly but surely builds a relationship with him – probably a way to come to terms with the loss of her son. The human mind acts in mysterious ways at times. Simultaneously, Howie is drawn to Gaby (Sandra Oh), one of the participants at counseling who has lost her child 8 years back and is still struggling to move on.

John Cameron Mitchell weaves for us an extremely complex web of human emotions and one cannot find much fault with the path that he takes the movie into. Not too many of us would be in a position to say if it is the right or the wrong direction. But irrespective of that, he ensures that the movie doesn’t drift about endlessly and keeps it on track and most importantly keeps it tight. Performances are the hallmark of Rabbit Hole across the board. Nicole Kidman is edgy / eccentric as always but has proven that she is much more than a pretty face. I personally thought that Aaron Eckhart was better in his performance of Howie with the exception of a couple of super emotional scenes where he falters. Diane Wiest, Miles Teller and Tammy Blanchard have all given probably their best shot towards making this movie what it has turned out to be. Warning though – not meant for the emotionally weak; this one is sure to break you down if you are. And question to the guy who made the poster – why make it so confusing? People should be able to get the movie by looking at the poster right? I always thought that was the idea. Nevertheless, try and get a dekko @ Rabbit Hole this week before it leaves the theatres – 7.5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3003816217/

How Do You Know

The trailer says - How Do You Know….. when you are in love? How Do You Know….. when you are in trouble? My question to ace director James L Brooks is “How Do You Know….. WHEN YOU HAVE MADE A REALLY DRAB ROMANTIC COMEDY THAT ALMOST PUTS YOU OFF TO SLEEP”? Surely you should know that Mr.Brooks. Considering that you are an academy award winning and nominated director who has given us the likes of “As Good as it gets” and “Broadcast News” both of which were highly acclaimed movies – rightfully so. But I guess everyone is human and has their lows. I am sure hoping to God that this was your all time low Mr. Brooks. I don’t think the world is ready for another really drab RomCom especially from directors like you. We may just about lose faith in the concept. I am not kidding you folks. I actually had to wake up my brother mid way through the movie and I don’t think he was to blame in any way.

Lisa Jorgenson (Reese Witherspoon) is a softball player for the United States National Team. She is about to be cut from the list of the final 18 for the year. She is 31 years old (Gawd I am going to die with so many movies about 30+ people) and the head coach thinks she is slow…. By about 0.3 seconds …. Which may actually cost them a game or two (No wonder they say sports is getting extremely competitive these days). The rest of the coaching staff doesn’t agree with the argument but don’t have much of a choice. Lisa loses her place in the side and to make matters worse finds herself in a weird relationship with ace baseball player Matty (Owen Wilson) whose idea of being a long way into a relationship is that he has only one bridge to cross – nameless sex. And if that is not sufficient, enter the 3rd corner of the triangle – George (Paul Rudd) who is facing an indictment thanks to some crimes that his father, Charles (Jack Nicholson) has committed over the past few years. All of this leads to a confused state of mind that Lisa finds herself in – torn between a rich future with a star baseball player who makes $14 million a year and gifts her Cartier diamond watches and the not so rich almost jailed flat broke man of her dreams.

The movie is so slow that it can compete with a snail or a tortoise for who would finish last. The editing is totally awry. In fact absent. Ditto for the acting and I wonder where the June Carter (Walk the Line) version of Reese Witherspoon disappeared. Although she still delivers a strong performance. Jack Nicholson continues to be the saving grace. But the trio of the constipated Paul Rudd, the over confident Owen Wilson and the extra hyper pregnant Katherine Hahn make a mash up of what could have been a decent movie with a zillion or so cuts. The saving grace are a few of the dialogues and some funny moments. But there is little or almost no romance in the movie. It is just the overall feel of the movie that makes me classify it as a RomCom but seriously – where is the romance? Imminently avoidable. Loads of other movies available to see anyways. 4 on 10 for the bit of humour and some strong acting from Jack Nicholson and Reese Witherspoon.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3436250649/

Gnomeo & Juliet

I am an amateur critic and would probably not understand the finer nuances of animation. But in my not so expert opinion, I think Disney has given us a lovely movie yet again. This time with director Kelly Asbury (Shrek 2; Spirit : Stallion of the Cimaron) they give us an adaptation of a The Bard’s classic and make no bones about it when they start the movie by saying “The story you are about to see has been told – A LOT”. It is definitely just another Romeo and Juliet movie but it is told a bit differently and Disney has ensured that it doesn’t turn out to be insulting to a classic like Rob Letterman did to Gullivers Travels. In fact it is an extremely entertaining animation movie for both adults and kids alike. And rest assured, the kids will totally love it.

In Stratford upon Avon (Shakespeare’s birth place) stay an elderly gentleman by the name of Mr. Capulet (Richard Wilson) and an equally elderly lady called Ms. Montague (Julie Walters). They are forever at loggerheads with each other. But this enmity is not restricted to just them. Even their ceramic garden gnomes come to life when there are no humans around and take the fight way too seriously for their own good. In the Blue corner is a team of gnomes led by Lady Blueberry (Maggie Smith) and her son Gnomeo (James McAvoy) along with their trusted ally Benny (Matt Lucas). In the Red corner is Lord Redbrick (Michael Caine), Tybalt (Jason Statham), Fawn (Ozzy Osbourne) and the extremely cute martial arts expert, Juliet (Emily Blunt). Their fights range from ruining the opponents garden to their favourite “national” pastime – Lawn mower racing. The not so obvious twist in the tale is when Gnomeo meets Juliet and it is love at first sight. Of course they take a few minutes to figure out what they are getting into but as Juliet’s frog nanny – Nanette (Ashley Jensen) puts it – the relationship is DOOMED from day one. And things only get worse when Tybalt decides to raid the Blue Lawns and destroy a flower that Gnomeo’s late father had lovingly planted and the Blue Army had tended to all these years.

A slew of corny one lines and references to Shakespearean classics do not prevent this movie from being great fun to watch. Stuff like Juliet being stuck to her pedestal with the “Taming of the Glue” or the fact that the warring elderly couple stay on Verona Drive or Nanette telling Gnomeo’s pet mushroom “You look like a fun gi”. And it is garnished with Elton John songs from the past 3 decades. The voice overs are excellent. The distinctly identifiable ones are those of Michael Caine, Ozzy Osbourne and surprise surprise Hulk Hogan as the Terrafirminator – the mean lawn mower that sets you back by a 1000 pounds of hard earned money only to cause the complete destruction of the back yards. The resulting product spread over just under 85 mins is a lovely way to spend a weekend afternoon. And it would not matter if you don’t see it in 3D coz the effects are quite bland. A very entertaining flick but on second thoughts, may not make it to the Oscars this year. Guess there were many other animation movies that were better off. I give this a 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi854264089/

Saat Khoon Maaf

We have all grown up with Ruskin Bond and his writing in a variety of genres. But who would have thought that we would actually land up watching one of his more intense but yet casually written short stories make it to the big screen. Trust Vishal Bharadwaj to take up four pages of scribbled lines and chase one of the best Indian authors of our time to convert it into a 150 minute screenplay. And not just that, he has also managed to convince him to appear on screen in a 30 second cameo. The story titled Susanna’s Seven Husbands is now set to be permanently etched in our memories.

A single legged, hot tempered Keerti Chakra winning Major from the Indian Army who is as possessive about his wife as our friends across the border are about the blasphemy law is Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes’ (Priyanka Chopra) first husband – Edwin Rodrigues (Niel Nitin Mukesh). He is followed by a drug addict who plagiarizes songs from his college band called Jamshed Singh Rathod aka Jimmy Stetson aka Jim. A closeted sadomasochistic poet Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan Khan), A Russian Spy with a wife and kids in Russia – Nikolai Vronsky (Aleksandr Dyachenko) and an Inspector who grows into being a senior intelligence officer Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor) are the next 3. Bringing up the rear is a Bengali medicine man Dr. Madhusoodhan Tarafdaar (Naseeruddin Shah) who has severe financial problems. Did I count seven?

What works for SKM is the fact that Vishal Bharadwaj can make anyone act. Niel Nitin Mukesh has been given a fresh lease of life but I have my doubts on him being able to sustain it for a longer period. John Abraham is impressive despite his best efforts not be. And Aleksandr Dyachenko in his first outing is equally good despite dialogues such as “Mein Tum Se Amar Prem karta hoon” and “Mere Paas Maa Hai”. Corny but well executed. Naseeruddin Shah, Irrfan Khan and Annu Kapoor are anyways amongst the finest actors that this country has seen. Priyanka exceeds herself yet again. Usha Uthup as Susanna’s nanny Maggie, leads the support cast with a fabulous performance as her partner in crime. The music is atypical Vishal Bharadwaj and very clearly seems to be made specifically with SKM in mind. The Dialogues are sharp and to the point. Narration is solid and the movie needed the time that was given to it. The use of light is superb in some scenes. Lovely editing. Nothing seems out of place.

So why then would I give a movie narrated in third person by Arun Kumar (Vivaan Shah) as a story to his wife Nandini (Konkona Sen Sharma) only 7 on 10. Well the surprisingly bad sound editing (at least in the print playing in PVR Mulund) kept aside I am unable to decide if I thought the movie was too perfect or had an X factor missing in it. That Vishal Bharadwaj gives a lot of credit to his audience’s intelligence could also have been a reason why I probably walked out of the hall feeling a tad incomplete. Somehow I am quite sure that this isn’t VBs best work to date. Omkara continues to be on top. Movie of the year so far though. Watch it.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLT-Nt-e_Vk

25th Hour

Montgomery Brogan (Edward Norton) has lived his life with his name thanks to his mother being a huge fan of Montgomery Clift. His father James (Brian Cox) wasn’t too pleased with it but doesn’t really bother with a debate with the wife. Monty loses his mother when he is 11 years old and his dad goes into a depression that drives him to alcohol. However, Monty gets into a prestigious school on a scholarship thanks to his above average intelligence. Now it is the same above average intelligence that gets him started very early in life with drugs. We are not talking about consumption – Monty is way too smart for that. We are talking about dealing. Pressures at home are increasing continuously with Dad getting into a financial mess and Monty wants to help him out. So he chooses the easiest way out that he sees at that time. Marks the beginning of a hugely successful and profitably career as a drug dealer which gets him thrown out of school but gets him into the company of Uncle Nikolai (Levan Uchaneishvili) a Russian Drug dealer who has made New York his home and Nikolai’s henchman Kostya Novotny (Tony Siragusa).


Monty seems to be doing quite well for himself not only monetarily but also on the personal front with a very hot Puerto Rican girlfriend with an exotic name – Naturelle Riviera (Rosario Dawson – who of late hasn’t been looking too hot but was quite sizzling in 2002 I guess). He continues to be close to his bum chums Frank Xavier Slaughtery (Barry Pepper) and Jacob Elinsky (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Frank is a successful broker on wall street and Jacob is a high school teacher who is lusting for a 17 year old Mary D'Annunzio (Anna Paquin). Yep its quite a warped bunch I guess. But the story is still due. Monty gets squealed upon to the DEA who raid his house only to find a kilo of narcotics and loads of cash. They try to set him up to compromise Nikolai which Monty wriggles out of. He gets 7 years in the pound in return (surprising coz he should have got 15 for a first offence with so much of narc). He is spending his last day as a free man (didn’t know you could plan your dates for going to prison but I trust Spike Lee to have done his research. Damn convenient arrangement right?) and is tearing his hair apart to figure out who gave him away.

Spike Lee weaves a slow but intriguing story primarily focused on the emotions that Monty seems to be going through and the emotions of people who are closest to him. The fear of being beaten up in prison, being degraded to the level of someone’s bitch and a host of other worries. His doubt about Naturelle being the one who gave him away. His best friends who are caught in the conflict of being there for him through the seven years or just moving on. And most of all his dad who in the hypothetical 25th hour convinces him to run away from all of this into some remote place where he cannot be traced back to ever in his life. 25th Hour is a mélange of emotions which could have been pulled off only by a director as talented and under rated as Spike Lee. Other than the fact that it was very slow, I for one could not find out any errors in the movie per se. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. The acting performances were all above par making it into a movie that more than made the cut but wasn’t too brilliant over all. I give it a 6.5 on 10. Worth a dekko when u find the time.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3350397209/

Good Advice

Director Steve Rash has made 14 movies over a 30 year period starting 1978.  All of them are a load of crap if you consider content or the art of movie making per se.  But all of them are reasonably successful and have kept him going in a genre of movies that are more slapstick than quite a few that you would see.  I believe the concept is called carving a niche for oneself.  Our man has generated just enough eyeballs every single time to keep going.  His last 4 movies have been direct DVD releases and the one before that was a TV movie only.  The last feature film to have seen the Box Office was 10 years back with Good Advice, a movie that has been playing on the tube for ages now and was playing this night when I got back and was wondering what should I watch.  Considering that I was writing out my last of 3 reviews from last night, it was obvious that I needed a movie that I had seen before and one that you would really not miss much when you are typing out a review and may have to move focus from the screen to the keyboard for a couple of minutes.  Good Advice is the kind of movie that really doesn’t hold your attention much.  Considering that I am typing out the review while the movie is on probably its last break, you would understand what i am talking about J.

Ryan Edward Turner (Charlie Sheen) is you cocky stock broker who thinks that he is God’s gift to the human race.  He is a hot shot who is on the fast track to being partner at his firm on Wall Street.  And he is also slick with women.  He is banging Vanessa Simpson (Lisa Rinna) who is the young wife of the super rich media magnate Donald Simpson (Barry Newman).  And he is rude. Not general rude.  But rude to the extent of telling the doorman who wishes him good morning, “You are a doorman Mike.  How good can it get”? Now in between all of this, he also has a girl friend, Cindy Steyn (Denise Richards) who is the personification of the term “Bimbo”.  She writes a column at a local newspaper, The Journal, that is barely able to give people their salaries and is headed up by Page Hensen (Angie Harmon).  Page is an ambitious but sensible young woman who truly believes in the power of the press and wants to make a difference to people’s lives.

Now Donald Simpson is a ruthless business man and when he realises that Ryan has been screwing his wife, he misleads him to investing on an unknown company called Jasco Pharmaceuticals and screws Ryan backwards into losing everything that Ryan has worked for including his brokers license; not to mention his life time savings.  Left with no choice, Ryan is forced to sell everything piece by piece and move in with Cindy.  But being a couch potato is going to make things worse for Ryan and Cindy eventually runs away with her new squeeze Francisco to Brazil.  When Page calls Cindy’s home to find out her whereabouts, Ryan uses the opportunity to take over Cindy’s job as a columnist – without obviously letting anyone know.  He needs to figure out how to pay the rent right.  He says that Cindy has got the Brazilian flu and cannot come to work but she wants to run the column from home.  Page allows this and over the next few days, the column actually turns out to be a huge hit and no points for guessing that Ryan and Page fall in love – slowly but surely.

Strewn with corny one liners, Good Advice is the kind of movie you would watch only in circumstances that I have described earlier in this review.  Surely you would not have too many instances like these popping up in your daily lives.  So basically what I intend to say is that the movie is fairly avoidable.  Not much can be expected from the direction or the consistency aspects.  Charlie Sheen is his usual cocky self and so is Denise Richards.  Its really not surprising either that Angie Harmon doesn’t have too many movies under her belt.  She is just not cut out for the screen.  She comes across as sincere but struggles to put up a decent performance.  Lesser said the better about the rest of the cast.  Overall nothing more than a 4 on 10.  I guess I am being fair and not generous this time around.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sOZw_Oatqk

Atonement

I had to finish Valentines Day with a movie that epitomizes true love. There are enough and more romantic comedies that were aired all through the day; some really good ones also. But what about the truest of love stores? The ones that are gut wrenchingly, excruciatingly painful but represent the concept of a long lasting love better than any other? I reviewed The English Patient yesterday and it was a sub conscious choice without giving much thought to the fact that it was actually a great build up to V Day. But picking up Atonement from my collection was not only a choice driven by the fact that I hadn’t seen it (the previous copy I had picked up was a DVD released by Big Videos and didn’t have subtitles and so was promptly returned) but also because I was looking at a love story and not a RomCom to finish off the day. I had my share of RomComs before Atonement with Hitch and Hope Springs. So a Golden Globe Winner and one with 7 Oscar nominations (one win) seemed to be a great choice.


What would be the emotions you could possibly go through if you are about 13 years old (a very peculiar and impressionable age) and you walked into the library of your massive house and found your sister having sex with the man that she loves who is coincidentally the one that you have a massive crush on. 13 year old - Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan – pronounced SEER sha); Sister – Cecilia Tallis (Kiera Knightley); Lover – Robbie Turner (James McAvoy). The embarrassed couple straightens their clothes and walk away.

The Tallises have their cousins from the north staying with them due some domestic problems – The Twins – Pierrot Quincey (Felix von Simson) and Jackson Quincey (Charlie von Simson) along with their elder sister Lola (Juno Temple). The twins don’t want to stay with their cousins and decide to run away that evening. Obviously the family panics and a search party is sent out. During the search, Briony stumbles upon someone molesting Lola and is shocked even further. Neither Lola nor Briony is sure about who the person was. But using this as an opportunity to get back @ Robbie, the naïve 13 year old gets him arrested as a prime witness. The fledgling romance between Robbie and Cecilia is smashed to smithereens. Robbie goes to prison and then to the war. Cecilia, leaves home and becomes a nurse. They keep their relationship alive through the years despite the frequency of meetings and the distances.

Atonement as the title suggests is a story of a girl’s search for retribution as she comes of age and understands the gravity of her actions. And how she tries to set things right. Yet another adapted screenplay, this one is based on Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name. I haven’t read the book but can only assume that it did deal with the aspect of Briony’s struggle to come to terms with her actions a bit more in detail. As aspect that was not given as much justice in the movie. The movie focused more on the love story between the protagonists who have done a very good job of bringing to fore the emotions that the lovers go through in sustaining their relationship through the years that build up to the war. Somehow, Joe Wright doesn’t seem to have done justice to the entire concept. Maybe it was in an attempt to keep the movie to under 2 hours. I would have risked extending it by about 30 minutes because the pace is quite solid and doesn’t really drop through the movie. The first thing that does hit you about the movie is the music which seems to be made with a typewriter and one which got the movie its only Oscar. Great cinematography. Some obvious slips on attention to detail – like Kiera Knightley’s luscious red lips in a nurse’s uniform. But Beautiful love story overall. Put this on your must watch list. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3836805401/

Hitch

V Day on Television would be incomplete without this one. Directed by Andy Tennant who has made Romantic Comedies his core competence in a manner of speaking and has dished out eight full length features in this genre that have ranged from perfectly acceptable to damn good ones like Hitch. So much so that there were 3 of his movies playing yesterday over the mélange of movie channels that we have – Bounty Hunter, Sweet Home Alabama and the one we are going to talk about – Hitch. Surprisingly, he pipped Nancy Myers to the post who I think is the undisputed Queen of the Romantic Comedy and didn’t have a single movie playing yesterday surprisingly.


When Cressida Baylor (Robinne Lee) dumps Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens (Will Smith) while in college, the question he asks her is what most of us ask when we get dumped – WHY? WHAT DID I DO WRONG? The answer he gets from the new boyfriend – dude you are doing it right now. Alex Hitchens is a quick learner though and realizes that to be successful with the woman you got to have game. “Everyone girl can and wants to be swept off her feet. Its only upto you to find the right broom” (Now that’s a slick one liner. One of many that come up when you are watching Hitch). Hitch now runs a service called The Date Doctor – A very very successful service at that which runs purely on referral. The idea of the service – simple – get the girl to see what she is actually missing out in you. Make you more sellable without portraying the unreal you. And nope – he doesn’t do break ups. He does his own research – on both sides. And he has a 100% success rate on date. All the factors that get Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) to him. Albert wants to improve his chances of getting into a relationship with Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta) – multi millionaress whose last boyfriend owned Sweden or something like that . Hitch takes up the task of finding the right broom for Brennaman but doesn’t understand what he is really getting into on his own personal front with gossip columnist Sara Melas (Eva Mendes). Easy to help others but equally difficult to help ourselves right? As he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into Sara, by making all the right moves, he is also reaching closer and closer to compromising the very essence that makes his service a successful one – secrecy. When a close friend of Sara, Casey Sedgewick (Julie Ann Emery) is dumped by her latest squeeze Vance Munson (Jeffrey Donovan) – apparently thanks to the Date Doctor – Sara takes it upon herself to expose the Date Doctor at all costs.

Hitch is one of the few RomComs that can be given a 7 on 10. Slickly made. Superb dialogues. Clean humour makes it great fun to watch. Well directed. Good use of music. Fabulous edits. Loads of attention to detail. Good solid performances by the entire cast - lead or otherwise. Do you really want me to continue? If you haven’t seen it yet then I strongly recommend that you don’t miss an opportunity to catch up with it the next time. If you have seen it already – watch it again coz you will definitely not get bored not matter how many times you would see it. Pure entertainment. A must watch for every Valentines Day for sure.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi418644761/

Hope Springs

I have always passed up an opportunity to pick up the DVD of Hope Springs at almost every discount sale over the past 2 years or so. Somehow it never got me excited although it had Colin Firth and Minnie Driver on the cover along with that hottie called Heather Graham. Don’t know whether it was because of bad writing on the DVD cover either. Having said all of that, I am not terribly disappointed that I did not pick it up. But it wouldn’t mean that I would have been disappointed if I had picked it up. Hope Springs is exactly that kind of a movie which leaves you with a feeling of not being terribly happy or terribly sad about watching it. Its just about average I guess. Lets put it this way – there are better movies that could have been aired on Valentines Day – not to mention that Zee Studio had a black out (or should I say white out) in between to kind of ruin the experience as well.


Now how many movies can you think of where the lead character’s name is the same as her / his off screen name. This was a first for me in the form of an Englishman by the name of Colin Ware (Colin Firth) who is an aspiring artist – the painting / sketching variety. He has recently been dumped by his half Welsh half bitch fiancée, Vera Edwards (Minnie Driver). The unsuspecting Colin receives an invitation in the mail which is for the wedding of Vera with some random guy who Colin has never heard of. Now our hero doesn’t have the better sense to check with his girl friend first but instead he is distraught and takes off across the Atlantic to some remote town with a population of a little over 18000 people. Its called Hope. Yep. There are several towns called Hope – you can look it up on google maps as well. Anyways, he lands up into Hope, jet lagged and checks into the only hotel available there run by Joanie Fisher (Mary Steenburgen) and her husband (Frank Collison). Joanie recommends that Colin meet the local healer of sorts, a girl by the name Mandy (Heather Graham). One thing leads to another and very soon Mandy and Colin become good friends and eventually lovers. So they should live happily ever after right? Wrong. Vera has other plans of her own. Turns out the wedding invitation was a joke that she was playing on Colin (I told you Colin, you should have checked with your girl friend before taking off). A subtle hint for Colin to ask her to marry him – which our daft hero could not get. Now she wants him back. But Colin is in love with Mandy. Sorry Vera you seem to have missed the bus .

Hope Springs comes from the table of unknown director (unknown to me at least) Mark Herman whose 7 full length features to date haven’t ruffled any feathers at the BO I guess. Never heard of any of his movies. And it isn’t too difficult to understand why. There is an element of direction that is required in most movies and Herman falls woefully short at the basics itself. There are inconsistencies galore. And the attempt to make it funny also falls flat more often than not. Colin Firth’s sincerity is a saving grace but he plays what he used to be stereotyped as for a long time – a gilted lover. Minnie Driver is effective and Heather Graham is furniture as always. The support cast other than Oliver Platt do not inspire any confidence as the movie trundles along its 92 minutes (thankfully!!!!). As called out earlier – average movie. You will be quite indifferent at the end of it all. 5 on 10 is my verdict.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4128113433/

The English Patient

It is extremely difficult to make a choice between 2 movies involving Anthony Minghella. Nine – which had the screenplay written by Minghella and the other was a winner of 9 academy awards in 1997 including best director for Minghella. I have never gotten around to seeing The English Patient fully for some inexplicable reason. Probably the same inexplicable reason why I managed to see Deewar only in 2003 (OK now that’s no reason to beat me up… I did manage to see it right). So Nine had to wait for a different date. I am anyways getting a copy of the movie in a bit. For those who have not seen TEP yet (the unfortunate few like me) I would exhort you to not delay any further. One of the best movies made that year as well as to date and why it doesn’t feature in the imdb Top 250 is beyond me.


Geoffrey Clifton (Colin Firth) and Katherine Clifton (Kirstin Scott Thomas) are a happily married couple. They know each other since they were 3. Almost like brother and sister as Geoffrey says. They both find themselves in Egypt in the late 1930s to help out an expedition that is being led by Count Laszlo de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) a Hungarian cartographer who has been contracted by the Royal Geographical Society along with Madox (Julian Wadham). That Katherine is the only woman in the entire group which does put most men at a lot of discomfort. But Almasy more so who finds himself attracted to her like never before. One cannot say that the feelings are not reciprocated but they take a while to surface and then there is no looking back as the two find themselves spiraling into a whirlpool of intense love that pretty much blinds them towards everything around them.

TEP is shuttles between the late 1930s / early 1940s and the mid 1940s where the war is about to finish. It is narrated by Almasy who, towards the end of the war is struggling to stay alive after his charred body is recovered by arabs from a plane crash and he is being taken care of by Hana (Juliette Binoche). Hana is a Canadian nurse who believes that she is cursed because everyone who she gets close to dies in the war. When she loses one of her closest friends on a mine field, she deicdes to stay back at a monastery and take care of Almasy.

Very few movies are able to create such clear character sketches like TEP has managed to. Yes it was helped by that Sri Lankan born Canadian writer called Michael Ondaatje and now I have to read to book to figure out if the movie did justice to it. If there is any flaw that I can find with the movie it would be the pace but that is more that offset by the award winning direction and the strong performances from every single person in the cast. Juliete Binoche went on to win the Oscar for the Best Supporting Actress. Ralph Fiennes and Kirstin Scott Thomas were nominated in the lead roles. And Anthony Minghella went on to win the Oscar for the Best Director for his best work to date. A nomination in almost every important category and wins in 8 of them would be indication of the fact that in the 9th and the most important of them all, The English Patient was an obvious choice. This one is definitely course material for schools that deal with Cinematography, Costume Design, Art Direction, Editing and Sound. I give it 8.5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFdGAHjaOcM

What a Girl Wants

Several years ago (I am guessing nearly 50 of them), someone by the name of William Douglas-Home, made a play that was called “The Reluctant Debutante”. This was then made into a movie of the same name starring Rex Harrison in the lead role. A little after the turn of the century, a lady by the name of Dennie Gordon, whose claims to fame include directing a few episodes of Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope and The Practice decided to remake this movie – now that most people would have forgotten it – very smart I must say Ms. Gordon. But Ms.Gordon’s experience in making TV serials didn’t get her too long a way in the directing department per se and the output that we see is an extremely average or maybe even below average movie which I can only classify as a RomCom because of a lack of any other term. It has Romance and it has a meek attempt at comedy but never together like you would expect in quality RomComs. A solid concept that would have definitely been directed well in the original by the great Vincente Minnelli but one which has not been done justice in the 2nd coming thanks to Dennie Gordon’s mediocre capabilities.


Lord Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth – why?) has all the ingredients to be a front runner for the Prime Minister of Great Britain. He is 40+, still single but about to be married to Glynnis Payne (Anna Chancellor), daughter of the scheming Alistair Payne (Jonathan Pryce). Alistair’s only aim in life has been to be in the political limelight and his daughter is no different and neither is his grand-daughter Clarissa (Christina Cole). The three are quite determined to get into the places that matter and right now the only place that matters in 10 Downing Street. Much to the disappointment and against the wishes of Henry’s mother, Lady Jocelyn Dashwood (Eileen Atkins). But the Payne’s delight at the announcement of the engagement between Henry and Glynnis is not going to last too long. Enter Daphne Reynolds (Amanda Bynes) daughter of Libby Reynolds (Kelly Preston). 17 year back Henry had gotten a bit naughty with Libby when they were in Morocco. Actually he was not planning on being only naughty. In fact they get married with help from a Bedouin priest. But when his Lordship returns, people at home aren’t too pleased with the idea of a Lord getting married to a singer. Henry has almost convinced his parents when Alistair gets Libby to leave without reason but not without a baby in her belly who grows up in the US without a father. After 17 Daphne cannot hold back any more and makes the trip across the Atlantic to meet her father.

Playing on Zee Studio these days (I think :P) What a Girl Wants is tolerable but nothing you would miss. I didn’t have much of an option and saw it as I was typing out my more important reviews. Those were the days when Colin Firth was given only RomComs or mushy British movies where he was portrayed as a loser father or gilted lover. But Colin has always given his best no matter what the role. Something that has held him in good stead all they way to date where he is definitely the Oscar winner in my books. The rest of the cast is quite average. At the end of the day, watch it only if you don’t have any other choice per se. 4 on 10 for this one.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi954335513/

No Strings Attached

This one has been made for the die hard RomCom hater. Even if you are one, you are bound to love No Strings Attached (NSA) for its slick direction, brilliant dialogues and superb acting by almost everyone in the cast. I saw the trailer first over a couple of months back and was quite certain that it would be entertaining. That it would turn out to be a great balance between quality comedy and great romance was something that I had not expected really. And a personal word of advise to my friend Sumantra Mukherjee, a die hard Natalie Portman fan – Don’t watch this before you are placed my friend lest you die of a heart attack – Portman looks delectable to say the least.

Adam (Ashton Kutcher) is all of 14 years old and a reluctant member of a summer camp – thanks to his parents getting divorced – when he meets Emmaa (Natalie Portman). He uses the sympathy vote to try and get a feel of Emmaa but our lady is one up on him. She is not one to be swayed by the sympathy vote factor and just lends him a shoulder to cry. Poor Adam. 10 years down the road, Adam and Emmaa meet up once again at a sorority party which is getting really ferrel as she walks in. She doesn’t look too thrilled to be there as such but tries to settle in when she finds Adam having a blast with a couple of chicks – or should we say that Adam finds her. Doesn’t really matter. Emmaa is now @ MIT studying medicine and asks Adam over to her place the next day for “doing something”. Turns out to be Emmaa’s dad’s funeral and Adam is the only person dressed in yellow in a sea of black. Sounds quite morbid right. Not really when you watch it. It is quite funny actually. Fast forward 4 years more and Adam’s friend Eli (Jake Johnson) bumps into an old acquaintance, Patrice (Greta Gerwig). And what do you know? Patrice is doing her internship at the local hospital and is sharing a place with – ta dah – Emmaa. Looks like there is not turning back for this couple considering that they keep bumping into each other once every few years. This time however, it seems to be for good. After a few embarrassing moments for Adam though.

Adam’s dad, Alvin (Kevin Kline) decides to drop a bomb onto him one fine day by informing him that he is actually dating Adam’s ex girl friend. Depressed with the thought, Adam decides to get drunk and call up all the girls on his phone to get laid and eventually wakes up the next morning @ Emmaa’s place. Nope they haven’t done it yet. But they will in a few minutes post which Adam is not able to get her out of his head. Funnily enough Emmaa seems to be all non chalant about it and continues to go on with life one day at a time. She really doesn’t believe in getting emotionally tied down and much to Adam’s happiness proposes to continue seeing each other purely for sexual purposes – a man’s dream come true one would assume. But not if you were to so obviously fall in love with the woman of your dreams.

A predictable flick but very well made. You will kept laughing all through the movie and leave the hall quite satisfied with the way you spent the previous 2 hours. Natalie Portman is fabulous as the girl who doesn’t believe in love and believes that the weight of the world is on her shoulders and that she can go through life alone. Ashton Kutcher is his normal playboy self and the support cast is also quite good. Kevin Kline seems to have settled into playing the role of a father of the lead actor very well and hasn’t lost his comic touch one bit. Ivan Rietman has given us a very compact modern day RomCom with very little wastage of time or anything that can clearly be called unnecessary. One of the better RomComs made. 6.5 on 10. Must watch this Valentines.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1902549273/

The Ghost Writer

No amount of controversies can take away someone’s talent. And no one can personify it in recent times more than the much hated Roman Polanski. Eccentric, different, slow, unconventional are some of the words one would associate with the extremely talented director. Over the years, Polanski has given us many a movie that may not have been liked by people but 2 words that could not be associated with his style of movie making would be bad and boring. One cannot fault him too much with areas such as attention to detail – or maybe I am not that experienced with Polanski movies. I have seen Chinatown and The Ninth Gate to date both of which were very well made. It is therefore a surprise that there are some very obvious pieces of his work with The Ghost Writer that come across as jarring errors in otherwise very clean movie.

Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) is the ex Prime Minister of Britain and is a much maligned person. More so in recent times when his older adversaries are pinning the blame of war crimes in Iraq onto him and calling for his head. His old friend Richard Rycart (Robert Pugh) has now turned enemy thanks to Lang moving him out of office during his days in 10 Downing Street. Rycart is leading the band of protestors that are asking Lang to be tried by the International Court of Justice. But not that easy since Lang now stays in the US where he cannot be arrested for the allegation. Lang is clearly uncomfortable with the arrangement and wants to get back home but stays back reluctantly. His wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) is quite convinced that the US will support him in his fight against these allegations.

Lang is writing his memoirs and needs the services of a Ghost writer. Especially because his current one dies in quite mysterious circumstances and is found washes ashore one day (Lang lives on an island close to Boston – like his wife says its like being married to Napoleon on St. Helena). The new Ghost Writer (Ewan McGregor) takes up the job – who wouldn’t if you were paid quarter of a million pounds to do that? He quickly finds out that there is a lot of mystery around this entire ghost writing thing and wonders what the secrecy around the entire book is. Especially since he is mugged – rather unconvincingly – right after he decides to accept the contract for ghost writing. As he goes through the manuscript, which he finds atrocious to say the least, he finds out that there is more to the death of his predecessor or should we say murder.

Polanski builds up the tempo and the mystery in the entire movie slowly but surely like some eerie ghost story with fabulous use of the dark – which is typical Polanski. Add to that the haunting music that keeps you squirming in your seat. But as mentioned earlier, there were times when you could not help but cringe that there were enough and more errors. Like most of the photographs seem to be too obviously photoshopped. But these are definitely over riden but the great dialogues and quite good acting on display. Ewan McGregor with his usual confused expression carries out the role of the Ghost Writer with great ease. Pierce Brosnan is at his confident arrogant self that we have come to associate with. The support cast is also quite solid. This one is a movie worth watching whether you are a Polanski fan or not. 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3376022553/

Patiala House

In marketing parlance, hype is defined as “an ingenious or questionable claim, method, etc., used in advertising, promotion, or publicity to intensify the effect” or simple put exaggerated publicity; hoopla. And why are we discussing the concept of hype? Isnt this supposed to be a blog that reviews movies and not give a lecture in marketing and choicest terms. You would be right on both counts. But how in the blazes am I supposed to explain a character called Askhay Kumar who is the least talented of all actors that Bollywood has to offer today but is still one of the highest paid actors around – and if sources are to be believed – THE HIGHEST PAID ACTOR in Bollywood today. It has been nearly a decade that we saw AK with any semblance of acting talent left in him. I am referring to his comic timing in Hera Pheri which has since then deserted him. In what can only be described as a desperate attempt to try and portray himself as a versatile actor, our man has attempted Patiala House and has come up with one of THE most insipid performances that one could have expected out of anyone. The only way he is going to get somewhere is if he ensures that the producers pick up a cast who is worse than him. On current form, it would still be difficult for AK to make any headway.

Gurtej Kahlon (Rishi Kapoor) is a man who is obsessed with the idea that all Brits are part of this large scheme that is ensuring that he and his family are treated like second grade citizens. And everything can be sorted out by shouting and screaming of course. Now all of this stems from a series of racially discriminating incidents in South Hall and the death of a key member of the community which is often referred to as Mini Punjab. Gurtej takes it upon himself to get him and his people a right to a first grade citizen life. Only, somewhere along the way he also forgets that his mission has been achieved a long time back. He continues to run Patiala House like a dictator would with no one in the family or for that matter the community being allowed to have a mind of their own. He also doesn’t let his own son Parghat Singh Kahlon aka Gattu and eventually aka Kaali (Akshay Kumar) pursue his dream of playing cricket (which he is damn good at) for England. Gattu now runs a store in South Hall. Till Simran (Anushka Sharma) and Zeeshan (Devansh Daswani) walk into his life and start asking questions. Along with the rest of the oppressed family they force Gattu to take his 2nd lease of life (he gets a call 17 years later) seriously and go for the trials. Obviously you know what will happen next.

Nikhil Advani doesn’t seem to have learnt from his CC2C debacle or for that matter his previous 2 attempts. Maybe they should make it mandatory for people to have experience before they get into mainstream direction. To make matters worse, he also takes the credit for writing the story. Its fiction but there should be some logic or consistency in the story. How can the cricket board of a country decide to sack every single player for lack of performance. At least call it out as some fraud or match fixing allegations. Just sacked. Right from the insipid titling of the movie one can make out that the next 150 minutes are going to be a bit of a challenge. There are moments when the screen light up with Anushka’s smile (does anyone in Bollywood have a better one today) and some quirky moments and yes the overall concept is endearing but that doesn’t qualify it to be even an average movie. Rishi Kapoor, I thought for the first time took his role a bit too seriously and was just that wee bit over the top. Dimple shows her class in the 3 minutes of screen time that she has and does a far better job of it than AK. I have said this earlier and I say this again – Anushka Sharma is the next big thing in Bollywood. Solid talent and huge levels of talent to boot. A bit over the top here but only a wee bit and that too in parts. Other than that, music is the only saving grace of Patiala House. Shankar Ehsaan Loy again delivers a solid performance here. Overall a 4 on 10. Oh and yes, a minor highlight of the movie would be the actress who goes by the name Selina Hotwani. How Hot I say. Have a lovely weekend folks

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EqgIh5lEu8&feature=fvst

Biutiful

I was done with watching Yeh Saali Zindagi and was desperate to actually watch some quality cinema. I knew there was a show for Biutiful @ 2030 @ PVR Mulund but as luck would have it, I was the first person to ask for a ticket. Luckily a 2nd guy came in. Here was a guy who wanted to see the movie for a second time. And he told me a story about how the movie was being screened @ the Miami Film Festival and the organizers were forced to screen it twice because of the response. Ironic that against 400+ people in each show @ Miami, we were struggling to get 4 in a show. Luckily we got to our minimum requirement of 6 to run a show and I got to watch two of the best on screen talents that this world has seen in the past few years. Both who personify the term intensity on the big screen. Both who believe in the concept of perfection like very few I have ever seen. They go by the names of Javier Bardem (Uxbal) and Alejandro González Iñárritu.


Uxbal is a 40 something man who struggles to make ends meet. He lives with his children Ana (Hanaa Bouchaib) and Mateo (Guillermo Estrella) in a matchbox houe of sorts somewhere in Barcelona. They live away from his wife, Marambra (Maricel Álvarez) because of her addictions and inability to take up the responsibility of the children. He makes his living by supplying cheap illegal immigrants as labourers or for doing odd jobs. His key contacts are the Chinese – Hai (Cheng Tai Shen) and his gay partner Liwei (Luo Jin). The Chinese supply him goods which he sells off on the streets using his African contact base. Other than all of these, Uxbal also has a peculiar skill. I really do not know how to explain this better and so I will put it as simply as I can. Uxbal can talk to the dead and communicate their final thoughts to their loved ones. He is called upon quite often to do this. He isn’t supposed to charge anything for it but accepts any money given because of his financial situation. Uxbal has prostrate cancer and has another 2 months to live.

Iñárritu, in his 4th movie, continues exploring his favourite concept – DEATH. This time around, he narrates the story in a fairly straight forward manner unlike 21 grams where he made sure that people who understood the movie hadn’t taken their eyes off the screen for a split second or like Babel where each of the 4 stories were linked to the other in some obscure or not so obscure way. This one is much cleaner but then it is Iñárritu right. So there has to be a certain amount of – for lack of any other word – poetry – on screen. I cannot describe Iñárritu’s direction in any other way with my limited knowledge of the English language and even more limited knowledge about the movies. Every single cog in the wheel seems to just come together to communicate the essence of pain that a father goes through when he knows that his children are going to be without someone to depend on when he moves on. Or the emotions that a deranged mother goes through thanks to her inability to cope up with addiction. Not forgetting to mention the desperation of an illegal immigrant to ensure that her family’s future is secured. An extremely poignant representation of emotions. Truly a very well made movie. Extremely slow but very well made. 8 on 10 for the movie. 9 for Bardem. But I don’t think he will be able to pip Colin Firth for the best actor at the Oscars.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1483905305/

Yeh Saali Zindagi

It beats me. It beats me completely. Does the use of profanity through a movie make it spunky enough? The likes of a Good Fellas – which coincidentally holds some kind of a world record for the maximum number of explitives in a movie – doesn’t become a great movie because of the profanities. It has a lot to do with the other aspects of the movie such as direction and acting to begin with. And it would be fair to assume that someone like Sudhir Mishra who has given us the likes of Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin and Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi would know better than that right. Surely an amateur critic like this one doesn’t need to point out these basics to the immensely talented director. But this amateur critic continues to see enough and more articles in the tabloids (cannot call them newspapers) that scream out from the front pages that likes of Yeh Saali Zindagi and No One Killed Jessica are creating waves with the audiences coz they are spunky movies. Does anyone pay any attention to consistency these days? Sudhir Mishra would definitely be embarrassed to see the end result of his latest so called potboiler. To point out something very basic, Priti (Chitrangadha Singh) calls Arun (Irrfan Khan) from a Bombay Vodafone number and not a Delhi number. Considering they have been in Delhi for a while and that Mobile Number Portability is not equal to circle portability as of now or when the movie was made, surely someone should have given some thought to that.


Arun is a CA par excellence who is required to keep Mehta’s (Saurabh Shukla) books in order. When Mehta cheats him of his share of the adjustments he stops working for him much to Mehta’s disgust. Mehta almost kills him but Arun refuses to join back. In the heat of the moment, Arun also decides to ask Priti to marry him. Arun had met Priti a while back when he was recovering money for Mehta from a borrower. He was instantly taken in by her but for some reason has never voiced what he feels for her to date. He now finds himself in a situation where he walks into a restaurant to see Priti coochy cooing with Shyam Singhania (Vipul Gupta) although Shyam is about to get married to Anjali who is the daughter of the Home Minster Verma. Now Verma is responsible for getting the local don, Bade (Yashpal Sharma) into jail. Bade is taken care of @ Tihar Jail by the local inspector Satbeer (Sushant Singh). He also has a soft corner for Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh) who wants to get out of the illegal business and go straight. He hasn’t been spending quality time with his wife Shanti (Aditi Rao Hydari) who is anything but peaceful about it. Completing this Egg Bhurji is Chhote (Prashant Narayanan) who is Bade’s transvestite younger brother and wants to eliminate Bade at the earliest and get his hands on all the money lying in various international bank accounts.

As mentioned earlier, Sudhir Mishra has tried to sprinkle this melee with several profanities and slang words which can be associated with Delhi but falls significantly short on the basic attributes of direction and acting. Chitrangadha Singh hasn’t acted in her life since Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi (Maybe even there she had very little screen time to probably notice). No idea what the big deal is about Arunoday Singh and Aditi Rao Hydari. They are decent but nothing as great as the tabloids seem to be calling out. YSZ saves a lot of face thanks to the immense talent of Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, Yashpal Sharma, Sushant Singh (very under rated) and Prashant Narayanan who come up with sterling performances in their respective roles. Average music and bad editing round up this mish mashed movie which could have been made so much better. 5 on 10 at best.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXuLeso_jbg

Inside Job

I have never reviewed a documentary before. I know there is always a first time for everything but I am a wee bit circumspect about how to go about doing this. There is no cast you can credit for acting or bringing the concept to life in a manner that blows your pants off. It’s actually representation of fact right? And therefore even more difficult to leave the audience with a feeling of actually having watched a movie. The capability of using factors such as editing should be even more in case of a documentary than a feature film is what I would assume. Do let me know your inputs. Would be more than glad to hear them out. Now, I wasn’t going to let my thoughts prevent me from watching “Inside Job” because I like documentaries anyways. And if it was about the Financial Meltdown that the world faced in 2008 then I am even more interested. So there was no option actually in the matter. I guess I will figure out how to get better at reviewing them as time goes by.

Narrated beautifully by Matt Damon in the ice cold, sarcastic style that he uses in most of his movies, Inside Job (IJ) takes a hard look at not just the time that the bubble burst around the 15th September 2008 with the Lehman Brothers collapse but also at the entire process that led upto it and more importantly what next? The documentary is divided into 5 parts. “How did we get here” – that covers the period from the Great Depression (1929) all the way upto the dot com bubble bursting (Y2K) – which talks about how the guys in power actually went about setting laws that were bound to fail sooner than later. “The Bubble” is Part 2 which covers the period of FY 2001 – ’07 and deals with how the entire concept of a the boom in the economy was a figment of people’s imagination. Part 3 is aptly titled “The Crisis” which covers FY 2008 and how one by one the big guys who were all in cohorts with each other slowly but surely started disintegrating. What gives IJ the edge over a lot of documentaries that I have seen in the past is that it doesn’t stop at this. It goes ahead into Part 4 which deals with “Accountability” and how the people who were responsible for the entire shit that we are in have actually gotten away scott free. And most importantly, it goes into Part 5 titled “Where are we Now”. Here the makers of the documentary give a clear call to action to almost everyone concerned by showing that despite the meltdown there is almost nothing that has been done about Financial Crimes. Shocking to say the least.

Inside Job clearly touches a chord within you that I have come to associate with good documentaries such as Farenheit 9/11. The extent of research done to come up with this Oscar nominee from last year is superb to say the least. And the makers have also managed to connect the dots to aspects such as how the education system is being influenced to move us in the wrong direction with respect to Financial / Corporate Governance. An aspect that has probably never been covered before. Even for the financially challenged like this amateur critic, IJ does a fantastic job of breaking down the complications of the industy into smaller understandable units through use of graphical and figurative representation. Excellent use of music enhances the overall feel as well.  At the end of 120 minutes, my respect for the United States (which was always low) has gone down even further. The part that’s worse is that nothing has been ever done about penalizing politicians in any part of the world. And sadly enough nothing will ever be done. Sad but True. But a must watch definitely. 7.5 on 10 definitely. Whether it would win an Oscar or not I am not sure coz I haven’t see the other ones. Definitely a front runner.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi751502873/

Scoop

“Never miss a Woody Allen movie if you have the choice” is a mental note that I had made a long long time back. I have kept upto the mental note to date. All of last afternoon post the doctor’s visit was spent in bed thanks to the antibiotics which put me off to sleep. I wouldn’t have gone to sleep had there been something reasonable playing on the tube. But the evening did have a silver lining on one channel. Zee Studio was screening “Scoop”. And adding to the eccentricities that a Woody Allen gets to the table, it stars who I consider the hottest Hollywood star – and I mean super sizzling flash point of water hot – Scarlett Johansson. Suddenly my flu had taken the back seat and almost disappeared – momentarily. About 2 hours later it was back to torment me and the antibiotics kicked in and started doing their job.

Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) is a dead man. Dead as a Dodo. In fact he is about to be buried. And in a different plane, he is being taken by The Reaper or Death (Pete Mastin), on his boat which is probably on its way to the ass end of nowhere. On the boat, Joe bumps into Jane Cook (Fenella Woolgar) who as you would have guessed by now, is also dead. Jane has a strong doubt in her head that she has been poisoned by her boss Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman) who is the millionaire son of a Lord. Jane used to be Peter’s secretary. She also believes that she was murdered because she was on the verge of confirming that Peter Lyman is the dreaded Tarot Card Killer whose resume of serial killing has recently crossed double digits. The journalist in Strombel is unable to control his instincts since he believes that he is onto something. But how can a dead journalist make any difference to the scoop of a lifetime???? Simple. He jumps of the boat of dead people. He is bound to appear somewhere after that right.

Sondra Pransky (flash point of water sizzling – Scarlett Johansson) is studying journalism and is living with her friends in London. She is an absolute amateur. So much so that she lands up getting laid by famous director Mike Tinsley (Kevin McNally) and doesn’t get anything out of him. But her life is about to change really quickly thanks to her visit to see a magic show. The Magician Sidney Waterman a.k.a. Splendini (Woody Allen) gets her on stage for his disappearing act. But Sondra is not alone in the Chinese Box. She has company. Company in the form of extremely famous but recently deceased Joe Strombel. Strombel quickly passes on the message of the scoop of the century to Sondra and urges her to take up the case like an investigative journalist would. That’s when Sondra decides to go under cover and befriends Peter Lyman as Jade Spence along with Sidney acting as her father Mr. Spence for lack of any first name. As the Tata Sky information bar would say “hilarity follows” over the next hour or so in the Spence’s attempts to expose Lyman.

A movie that is shot in typical Woody Allen style. Eccentric, unstable, funny. Woody Allen has never changed his style of acting no matter what role he is playing. He continues to awe his audiences with his capability of doing the same thing over and over again but still getting a fabulous response. One can never tire of him I guess. Scarlett Johansson can act reasonably well – yes I was watching the acting as well – but she does get a bit over what is required many a time. Hugh Jackman is quite good in his portrayal of Peter Lyman – very British – although he is Aussie by birth. Extremely watchable whether you are a Woody Allen fan or not. Easily a 7 on 10. One more if you if you dig Woody Allen.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2146763545/

Utt Pataang

If it has Vinay Pathak in it along with the usual stage performers union thrown in, one is bound to make an assumption that the movie would be a good one. And you are also quite certain that these movies will not last beyond a week coz for some reason people don’t quite see the star value – which is what sells in India. Having said that, we did have 2-3 great movies last year without any star value whatsoever – a trend that is slowly but surely picking up in India. A trend that debutante director, Srikanth V Velagaleti doesn’t quite capitalize on with some loose direction and loads of errors on consistency. Add to that his inability to hold his own with classy actors such as Vinay Pathak and Saurabh Shukla and you have yourself the version of a Parsee Akuri that has gone horribly wrong coz it wasn’t made by a Bawa. Yes, it is edible. But it could have been so much better than what it eventually turned out to be. Long way to go Shrikant Saar.


Ram (Vinay Pathak) is your average loser 35 year old – and I wonder why there are so many such movies releasing these days; maybe just to remind me that I am slowly but surely getting to a place that is referred to more often than not as “over the hill”. I hereby make a humble request to the people who are responsible for driving Bollywood and for that matter Hollywood to please move focus to much more lucrative options such as movies on the average 25 year old bimbette / dude. Nevertheless, Ram is getting over a break up with Sanjana (Mahie Gill) who is a foul mouthed (both in speech and smell), ambitious woman. She dumps Ram for someone else and is now chasing Ram to get her stuff back. Ram’s detective friend Nandu (Saurabh Shukla) is dead against Sanjana coz he senses a stench when she is around – and that’s not due to her smoking or abusive habit. He just doesn’t like her.

One evening, Ram gets a call from Nandu asking him to meet up ASAP. He reaches the Polo club and has to wait for over an hour before Nandu shows up. Nandu has been pushing Ram to get over Sanjana and find someone new. But Ram thinks his days of “picking up women” are long dead and gone. The impromptu Nandu then goes ahead and asks the girl on the next table, Koel (Mona Singh) to join them for dinner and promptly disappears after a few minutes, leaving Koel and Ram to get to know each other. Koel has just left home that morning after breaking up with Pranay, her boy friend for six years because she finds a cigarette butt with a lipstick mark on it in the back seat of the car. Did I forget to mention the used condom she finds as well… er… sorry. After some small talk and getting Koel to feel better about her life in general, Ram gets her home to sleep…. In the guest room yaar…. Corrupt minded people I say. What follows is a whole lot of confusion and chasing woven with some healthy and clean comedy.

Vinay Pathak and Saurabh Shukla are very good as always. Vinay Pathak also has a double role in the movie with the other one of an underworld don obsessed with French. The rest of the cast is extremely passé. Mona Singh hardly has a couple of dialogues which she delivers in her usual average manner. Mahie Gill goes one step closer to my opinion of her being highly over rated. She hasn’t come remotely close to her Dev D performance ever. Is this another case of succumbing in the shadow of your best performance? Stop thinking about being like Paro my dear Ms. Gill. You cannot have a role like that ever again. Delnaz Paul is at her irritating best as always. She should seriously stop acting – the sooner the better. Overall, a very loosely made movie as mentioned earlier. Could have been much better. 5 on 10 I say.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-N3rEAszYg

Sanctum

If I remember the date correctly, it was 21st December 2010 when I visited my first site for stalactites and stalagmites called the Ngigli Caves en route from Margaret River to Freemantle. We walked down about 50 metres into the earth I am guessing. At the lowest point which changes guard once every 4 hours (coz you are not allowed to stay below for longer than that time), the lady mentioned something which came back to me in a flash when I was watching Sanctum last nite. She said, “We are but a small speck”. In the same vein but with an impact and a situation that is vastly magnified, Frank (Richard Roxburgh) says to the rest of his team when all the chips seem to be down, “There is no god out here. This place doesn’t give a rats arse about us. We are just bits of dust passing through”. Sanctum is littered which several such slap on the face dialogues. One more that comes to mind is, “Panic is the vulture that sits on your shoulder”.


Frank is leading a team of half crazy nitwits whose thrill in life comes from the what most of them describe as “going where no one else has gone before” – not like Star Trek mind you. But think about it. Most of the other frontiers in life have been been already explored right? The only ones left are underground. Spelunking (cave diving) is even more unpredictable that most other adventure sport. It is a combination of mountain climbing, rappelling, abseiling and one could throw in diving as well for good measure. Things seem to be going quite well for the set of cave divers who have been @ the South Pacific's Esa-ala (Papua New Guinea to be precise) for 34 days now. Some of them haven’t seen daylight for the past 2 weeks. So the fatigue is getting to them for sure but they are hell bent on cracking the entire system of Esa-Ala at the earliest. The core team includes Frank’s son Joshua (Rhyss Wakefield), their mad financier Carl (Ioan Gruffudd), his girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson), the systems expert Crazy George (Dan Wyllie) and Judes (Allison Cratchley). Things do take a nasty turn when a cyclone comes in and floods the entire team out leaving the team with no other choice but to find their way out. En route they are pitted against their worst adversaries to date – Nature and The Unknown.

One must credit Sanctum with great advertising and a trailer that led most people to believe that it’s a James Cameron movie. Although it is produced by Cameron, the director is Alister Grierson who is a movie old but has picked up a topic that hasn’t been explored too much earlier and comes out on tops. I would love to watch the making of Sanctum to actually figure out how some of the underwater shots and those in the crevices have been taken. Sanctum is a movie that comes to you straight out of a picture postcard. Its beautifully shot and has all the right ingredients for an edge of the seat thriller. You will not complain about being short on action for sure. Warning however that it does get gory in parts and is not meant for the light hearted. Well made and must watch for the action fan – 7 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1483905305/