Gulabi Gang

At the end of Gulabi Gang, I was embarrassed.  Embarassed lesser because I had, in my review of Gulaab Gang, called it out to be a fictionalized account.  I should have used fictionalized and severely over dramatized and supremely over the top as adjectives.  Even then, I would have barely managed to scratch the surface of how Soumik Sen has trivialized the true story of Sampat Pal Devi (even though he claimed otherwise).

Walking with Dinosaurs 3D

So my good friend and soon to be collaborator Srinath Bharadwaj posted his views on Walking With Dinosaurs a little over 12 hours back and I threw back my head to say, “He’s a new kid.  He is obviously over excited about a Dinosaur movie.  It will be yet another dinosaur tale with all sorts of corny puns that leave you a tad exasperated but with good effects”.  In fact I had already written my summary line on that thought.

Fire in The Blood

How much do you know about the Pharmaceutical business? Other than the fact that it is by far THE most profitable business in the world? It has a whole lot of Medical Representatives who go door to door in not the most attractive job in the world.  Other than some big names like Glaxo or Pfizer or Cipla.  Not much I am guessing.

When Hari Got Married

This is going to be a very difficult one to write.  While I love this genre of cinema i.e. The Documentary, writing about the story can be completed in one line, in this case – The story of the wedding of a Taxi Driver in a village of Himachal Pradesh.  Well, I have to write more, so I am going to give it a shot and hope that it comes out as a well written article and not a meek attempt.

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/