Calcutta News

Blessy has a whole lot to say within the confines of one film. That's not a fault if he knows how to package it within 2-2.5 hours. In Calcutta News he fails trying to shoot too many birds with one stone. A small sampling of the subjects he dabbles with in the film are as follows, prostitution, sex-racket, mental issues, ghosts, seances and mediums, growth of media, increased use of mobile technology and underworld kidnappings. It feels like the film didn't want to spare any smoking gun issues plaguing contemporary Indian society.

Bringing in Dileep as the ace news-reporter of the TV channel Calcutta News didn't save the movie either. The new improved version of Dileep with intellectual glasses and santoku sideburns could not make a media-brain out of the actor who is more comfortable playing himself - in films like Meesha Madhavan, Kalyanaraman etc. Infact that plus the use of English in Blessy's script is enough to drive a sane person away from the screen.

Blessy's English might make the British regret ever to have colonized India. I wish he had kept the dialogs to Malayalam, instead of making the characters speak in broken bits of English now and then to reiterate their socio-educational status. The diction of actors and the dubbing artists add injury to the insult. Please, it is Malayalam movie, lets the actors speak in their mother tongue. I wonder how the Bengali in the script (ample opportunities to squeeze it in since the story takes place in Calcutta) would sound to a native Bengali person?

Contemporary issues are Blessy's strong point from his film # 1 - Kaazcha, which he followed thru' with Thanmatra and Palunku. For me, of the above mentioned three films Palunku was the bearable one, even good in places. Calcutta News is riveting at the start, you have to give credit where it is due, but it becomes embarrassing to watch in the second half with mis-information, mis-interpretations and misuse of English.

Too many shortcomings to list, but it had not-so-bad camera work, songs were ok and so was Meera Jasmine and Indrajit in the roles given to them. Review: 2.5 stars
 

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In Bruges

After a long time it was refreshing to watch comedy handled by English / Irish men. Bruges, Belgium is where two English hitmen are sent to hang-out between two jobs. Bruges becomes the place of choice because their boss who sends them there had his last happy vacation in Bruges at the age of seven.

Brendon Gleeson and Colin Farrell are rather impressive as the hitmen in hiding. Ralph Fiennes comes out of his usual historical or period characters to become the crime boss. The dialog between the character is irresistibly funny, which makes me want to believe that all Irishmen might be this hilarious in real life. There is not much of a plot or a story but it is the script and the direction that makes it a winner. An Oscar nominee for script from director Martin McDonagh, In Bruges will not fail someone in search of genuine off-beat humor. For me, it was good to give a different set of laugh muscles a work-out after a long period of repetitive Hollywood comedy. Review: * * * *

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Heartbreak Kid

From the ever-comedic Farrelly Brothers comes the Ben Stiller starrer - Heartbreak Kid. It is supposedly heart-breakingly funny, but somewhere after the first half of the first half the funny gets lost on me. It becomes a romance which tries on some comedy and fails at it. Other than Rob Corddry there was nothing much entertaining in this movie for me.

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Youth without Youth

Looks to me this is the kind of film a seasoned director makes in his old age. Peppered with metaphysics, memories and music, after dispensing off the standard norms of film-making (because he has the experience and the power that comes with it.) First film Francis Ford Coppola directed after his 1997 movie, The Rainmaker, Youth without Youth is based on the novella of the same name by Romanian author Mircea Eliade.

It is surely not a film for the main-stream audience, a hit or miss with the intellectual types because confusion is often interpreted as a sign of higher intelligence that the commoners are unable to decipher. It starts off intrestingly, a seventy year old struck by deathly lighting becomes thirty years younger - that certainly sounds fun to me. After that it gets murkier and aimless - women, love, the protagonist's life-long quest to find the beginning of language etc clog up the scenes. Wonder what a Roland Emmerich or a James Cameron version of the same would have looked like?

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Thalappavu

Thalappavu is a thought-provoking take on an issue - dead and forgotten now, but thirty years ago had defined the political climate of Kerala (and certain parts of India) - the Naxal movement. This is Madhupal's debut venture as a feature film director and he definitely shows promise. It is a neatly made movie as well as an educational experience for a generation who are clueless about the history of their own land and its people. The story is adapted from the real-life relationship between a prominent Naxalite in Kerala, Varghese and a constable in Kerala Police at the time, P. Ramachandran Pillai. Prithviraj and Lal plays the roles of these two pivotal characters and have carried them off with the ease that comes naturally to good actors. Kudos to Madhupal, producer Mohan and writer Babu Janardhanan for bringing this buried snippet of history to today's audience.

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Nanny Diaries

I was impressed by the book, one of the very few in the chick-lit world I could finish reading. I had abandoned Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Shopaholic series after a couple of pages into them, but Nanny Diaries was a sociological revelation. The style of authors Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus also played a major role in sustaining my interest.

The movie didn't disappoint either. Mainly because I didn't have much expectations, it was a Hollywood movie from a successful chick fiction product and I kind of like Scarlett Johansson, if she doesn't sing. Johansson and Laura Linney were impressive in their respective roles as Nanny and Manhattan Socialite Mom. The presentation or rather the narration from an anthropological perspective added a quirky appeal to it. The frustration and the helplessness of the Nanny's situation was more evident in the book, whereas the movie was not able to fully deflect the question, "why don't the Nanny just get up and leave?" with a satisfactory answer. Oh well, the book readers always find a lot of lapses in a movie adapated from a book, this one is not that bad.

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Veruthe Oru Bharya

Veruthe Oru Movie - that'd be a good title for this movie. It was touted as one of the better films to come out in Malayalam in the recent months. Except for a plausible plot and reasonable characters it has nothing that we haven't seen before.

In fact it reminds me of so many movies from yester-years, yet in terms of quality it is nowhere near them. Films like Adaminte Variyellu, Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala, Kattathe Kilikoodu - in general many of the older films associated with domesticity come to my mind. None of them is related to Veruthe Oru Bharya in any other way other than depicting the role of women(or housewives in general) in contemporary Kerala culture. But Veruthe Oru Bharya, IMHO is a recyled product - old story in new cover. It is just a predictable re-hash of all the better movies on similar themes made before in Malayalam.

Jayaram and Gopika play the married couple in the spotlight in this moving marriage melodrama directed by Akku Akbar. To tell the truth, Gopika looks too young for the role, but I understand the director's predicament to find a 30+ year old actress in an industry populated solely with 20-22 year old heroines and 50+ year old heroes.

Another drawback(again it is a personal opinion like everything else in this blog) of this movie is how it tries to define and set rules for marital bliss. A set of unbreakable guidelines if messed with which will cause intense suffering to the parties involved as depicted in the movie. It tries to teach you a lesson for the price of your ticket. Well, I'd have gone to a school for that not to a movie theater.

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The Visitor

An interesting low-key film from Thomas McCarthy, the director of Station Agent. A college professor arrives in his New York city apartment to find that it has been rented out by some stranger to an 'illegal alien' couple.

Aliens should be correctly understood in the context. Remember the Sting song, "Englishman in New York," which goes like, "I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien,
I'm an Englishman in New York." Here Sting as you know, is not talking about his extra-terrestrial parentage but rather about his US immigration status. Same with this movie.

The clash of cultures is interesting - you have a laid back Connecticut professor who floats thru' his life aimlessly accidentally dragged into the lives and travails of a set of illegal immigrants trying hard to gain their foothold in the US. Here's a movie about a cause, carrying a message where you first identify with the characters, then live for them and in the end it converts you - mission accomplished!

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Atonement

I thought I had read Ian McEwan's Atonement sometime in the early 2000s. If I had, my forgetfulness is fabulous. I didn't remember even a wee bit of the story when I saw this movie based on the book except for one certain fact,that it was set in England. Anyway, the movie has an interesting plot and successful casting of actors including Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and three who plays various stages of the character - Briony Tallis(Saoirse Ronan, Ramola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave.) The movie is presented mostly thru' the eyes of Briony. That way it could be labeled as a coming of age movie. It is an emotional triangle involving two siblings and outsider which takes place before,during and after WW2.

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Innathe Chinthavishayam

'Thought of the Day' - English translation of the movie title inspires just one thought, Mohanlal and now Sathyan Anthikad as well should stop acting and making movies respectively. The duo has run out of magic of the movies like Sanmanassullavarkku Samadhanam, T.P.Balagopalan M.A, Nadodikkattu and Pattana Pravesham.

We have reached a stage where even veteran film-makers like Anthikkad cannot take the super-hero out of Mohanlal. Under the guise of a small-time small business owner(a garment exporter) is the good samaritan super-hero Mohanlal - who has all the time, resources, assistants, lecture-power and endless good will in the world to bring peace between three sets of warring couples. Predictable, old over-used story, dialogs and actors inhabit Innathe Chinthavishayam. If you are brave enough to waste your time in the company of 'post-2000s' Mohanlal, then this movie is all yours.

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W

Josh Brolin is good - an actor with an amazing range. I cannot even imagine Llewelyn Moss of No Country For Old Men is played by the same person who plays George W.Bush (aka W) here. But same cannot be said of Oliver Stone, the director. It seems to me that Oliver Stone sometimes delivers sometimes he will just get lazy.

W is one such lazy film. It is an efficient translation of Dubya's life in to the medium of a movie, but if it doesn't keep you bound on the seats unless you are really interested in knowing about Dubya's antics. Other than politically interested Americans, W lacks the magnetism to bring more viewers on board.

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Dev D

Dev D is a pioneer. From now on movies will be made like it, but Dev D owns the mold. In that aspect it is much like Satya which in 1998 started a trend of exploring India’s dark under-belly thru’ guns, gaalis and galis.

Director Anurag Kashyap is said to have given the lead actor Abhay Deol to create his own interpretation of the famed Hindi novel, Devdas. Dev D is the modern version of Devdas fraught with contemporary imagery - MMS, rich babas in their BMWs, sex industry which has gone high-tech and such. In the background there is the fast, crowded and rapidly transforming urban India and also the colorful and rustic India of the country-side which is not averse to change either.

The choice of actors who play the three main roles have been fitting. Both the female actresses - Mahi Gill and Kalki Koechlin could be considered true discoveries. But what makes Dev D stand apart in the crowd is its visual aesthetics and the incredible sound track that holds it together. It is a visual poem with a sound to match, irreverent to tradition, a rebel with a cause - for making bolder and better movies.

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Thirakkatha

Thirakkatha is a mish-mash of reality for creating a story that director wanted to tell - namely that of yesteryear actress, Srividya. Director Ranjith confesses his movie is partly inspired the rumored romance between Srividya and Kamal Haasan during the making of 1975 movie Apoorva Raagangal.



Into what is a biographical narrative of an actress's life, Ranjith then introduces another real-life plot where he places the said actress and the plot five years into the future, in the sets of ground breaking Malayalam movie - Manjil Virinja Pookkal. Then he presents this jalebi-meenkari combo as a product of the research done by a new, up and coming film-maker Akbar(played by Prithviraj) for his next movie project.

It is interesting to note here(some trivia on the side) that both the movies which served as inspiration to Thirakkatha were significant in a similar aspect. Apoorva Raagangal was the movie that introduced Tamil superstar Rajnikant although he only had a small role in it. Manjil Virinja Pookkal was the debut film of Mohanlal, where he was the anti-hero. Mohanlal would go on to become Malayalam superstar for the next two decades and counting.

Thirakkatha is an interesting movie because it is not over-the-top, characters seem real(too real sometimes), cinematography and dialogs are above par, compared to other recent offering in Malayalam lead characters played by Prithviraj and Priyamani are believable. A watchable movie after a long time.

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Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Hindi movies are learning to laugh at their own heroes or like the trends in fashion, old styles are becoming vogue again. No longer is the hero invincible even when wounded like so many of Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man roles in the seventies and the eighties. It is more like Raj Kapoor's bashful yet funny tramp of the fifties is making a comeback

Shahrukh Khan's Surinder Sahni in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a simpleton who harbors no high hopes or lofty ambitions for himself. He is the quintessential middle-class urban Indian who is found in large numbers in state and central govt. offices and a very self-effacing one at that. He undersells himself, but being a character in a successful Hindi movie he ends up winning (I am willing to excuse that, considering Shahrukh Khan trying to undersell himself even though it is just for a movie role, might have been a huge task for King Khan.)
But don't worry ShahRukh gets do his histrionics in Surinder Sahni's Mr.Hyde avatar - Raj. Raj is the over the top Punjabi munda, who is what the simpleton Sahni morphs into under the cover of night, to woo his wife -Tani played by Anushka Sharma. One jarring thing I found in Shahrukh-Anushka coupling is that the fresh faced youthful Ms.Sharma accentuates Shahrukh's wrinkles. She holds her ground even in the presence of the mighty Khan, but IMHO ShahRukh should probably go for more mature heroines now.

It is definitely a crowd-puller as the box office counters have attested by now. Its plus point (or minus point for you) is, it is a lot bearable that older ShahRukh Khan commercial successes like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Yash Raj Film's earlier block-busters like Dil To Paagal Hai.

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Love Story 2050

Hrithik clone Harman Baweja's debut vehicle, a generous gift from his producer-director parents. A love story that travels across time in to the futuristic land of Mumbai 2050 from Australia 2008. Priyanka Chopra does the Barbie doll routine in double role - one for 2008 and one for 2050, Harman travels in time to be there with Priyanka, always. Only redeeming fact about the movie, if you somehow manage to finish it, is that the future doesn't look cheesy card-board-ish. Thanks to hiring Oscar winners like Weta Workshop and John Cox.

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Oceans 13

Third outing by Ocean and his team. Once in a while I relish this kind of mindless Hollywood action. The quintessential Hollywood - smarty pant one-liners, stylish characters and impossible situations unresolvable in real life solved by dashing n charismatic heroes. Hollywood at Hollywood best. Only problem is, after the movie is over I'd not know what it had been about. I don't remember anything about Oceans 11 or 12, except that George Clooney was Ocean and Brad Pitt was there for additional aesthetics. 13 seems even slower, even though it is a heist movie, there is not much build up towards the final crescendo. If there was, I missed it. If you are in mood for some mindless eye candy this one's for you.

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Golmaal Returns

An absolute timepass that affords some silly laughs. It has a big star cast - Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Tusshar Kapoor, Amrita Aroa, Arshad Warsi and Shreyas Talpade. A sequel to the 2006 movie Golmaal, the comic timing of all the actors and interesting spoofs of various other movies that pepper the story line make it an appealing watch. The spoof of the Sivaji song, Athiradikkaaran, which becomes Tha Karke in Hindi is interesting, if you have watched the Tamil original.

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Ratoutille

Anything is possible in gay Paree! Dreams come true in Paris, even the dreams of rats. A story of a rat who becomes the main chef of a celebrated Paris restaurant, Ratatouille is a treat to watch for both adults and kids.

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Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!

Abhay Deol strikes again. My favorite actor to come up in Bollywood in recent years, this Deol is a bit different from his brood (comprising of his uncle Dharmendra, his cousins Sunny and Bobby Deol & Esha(?!)) and so are his films. They are quite a distinct genre in itself and cannot be pigeon-holed into hitherto known categories of Bollywood movies.

In Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye, Abhay Deol plays a street smart thief, who steals big(Mercs, beamers and the like), lives big and does it primarily for fun. Set in Delhi, it is the every man's view of India's capital city. As someone who has lived there I realize that this is the first real Dilli movie of modern times (of course there had been eighties movies like Chashme Buddoor)which portray the middle class man's Delhi. From costume to places and the typical Delhi-ite lingo, this movie has Delhi written all over it without one shot of Edwin Lutyen's Delhi.

The characters are quirky yet common, beautiful yet ordinary. Paresh Rawal plays three different roles in the movie without being repetitive. This movie has more in common with off-beat international movies than the run-of-the-mill Bollywood movies. Review: Excellent

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World Trade Center

It was touted as one of the best movies to be made about 9/11 and the name of the director, Oliver Stone, seemed to justify that claim. But a few minutes into the movie it came to me that World Trade Center is no Platoon or Natural Born Killers.

The film has Nicholas Cage as John Mclaughlin along with Michael Pena as Will Jimeno, two Port Authority police officers trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center. This is a real-life story and McLaughlin and Jimeno were the last survivors excavated out of the rubble, alive.

I am not even sure now whether it is possible to make a movie about 9/11 without an over-the-top infusion of pro-American patriotism and rhetoric. I stayed away from Flight 93, another ‘best movie’ about 9-11 because of the above mentioned reason. But even Oliver Stone doesn’t seem to have gotten it right.

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Surf's Up

An animation hit as American as apple pie despite it’s opening scenes set at ‘Shiverpool’, Antartica. There is an aspiring young surfer called Cody Maverick(voice over by Shea LeBouf), a washed up surfing icon in hiding, Geek(voice over by Jeff Bridges), Chicken Joe - the only chicken in the world who is a surfer(voice over by John Beeder) and a host of other interesting characters. The movie is composed as if it is a reality TV show tracking Cody’s rise to stardom. A movie for everyone in the family who enjoys a good laugh and some animation action.

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Chal Chala Chal

Govinda attempts to do a Mohanlal in this copy of eighties Malayalam film, Varavelpu. He doesn’t do bad, because Govinda is a natural actor with good comic sense, he doesn’t have to be Mohanlal, he can be himself and carry off a humorous role quite responsibly.

But in trying to adapt an eighties subject from a South Indian village to urban Maharashtra(Mumbai/Pune) of the twenty first century, director and script-writer concocts a product that has zero credibility. Had to stop watching Chal Chala Chal somewhere before the halfway mark.

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Away From Her

A look into the twilight years of an aging childless couple, where one of the partners is a deteriorating patient with Alzheimer’s disease. It feels like a Hallmark or HBO movie with serious undertones and there is no promise of a happy ending. It is life as it is, as it might happen in those last years if we make it that far.

Julie Christie, plays Fiona, the graceful wife who becomes a victim of AD and Gordon Pinsent plays the husband who comes in terms with this new person his wife has morphed into – for better and for worse. Here are two people who have grown into each other, comfortable in their own company but are driven apart by something much beyond their control and have to come to terms with it. Only one has to reconcile to the new situation of near abandonment, the other(the wife) is blissfully unaware of her changed behavior, thanks to her medical condition.

Directed by Sarah Polley, herself an actress, this Canadian film made it to many charts as the one of the top 50/100 movies of 2007.

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Akashagopuram

We often talk about putting together a gag gift-bag for one of our friends, the practical joker extraordinaires that we are ;-) So far, we have found two items. The criterion to be included in the gift bag is, 1)the item should look sophisticated and cool from the outside 2)once consumed it should make the 'consumer' gag but the consumer will have to consume it anyway for the fear of looking uncool.

The two items we have found worthy of inclusion are - a type of Chinese wafers, that looks like sweet innocent childhood sugar dream personified but tastes like dead decayed fish and Limburger cheese. (Trivia: In 2006 a study showing that the malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and to the smell of human feet[2]. This discovery earned Nobel Prize in Biology.)

Last week we found item #3 to be included in the gag bag - a DVD of Akashagopuram. Based on Ibsen's 'Master Builder', Akashagopuram has Mohanlal as a successful architect practicing in England. It is supposed to be a movie for the intellectuals, which rules out the possibility that I would be able to derive any enjoyment from it.

There are many directors who are not willing to adapt to the changes brought forth by the passage of time. K.P.Kumaran, the maker of this movie seems to be one such person. I mean, who wears Prada and Gucci and still talks in the flowery prose employed by 18th century playwrights? Mohanlal acts every bit like the super star he is, floating above the ordinary masses. The casting is fine, but the script is way out of touch with reality. Had it been a period piece, the ornate dialog would have been justifiable, but this is set in present day England with a set of characters who fit the landscape perfectly except when they open their mouths.

I don't know whether producers don't read the script before investing money in a film. Maybe just the mention of Mohanlal's name made them gladly empty their coffers to produce this waste of a movie.

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Kattathe Kilikoodu

In eighties, Malayalam movie magazine, Nana used to serialize scripts of movies for their readers. Kattathe Kilikoodu was one among them.

In those days, under the strict pseudo-Communist regime of my father, who had modeled it after Chinese Communists during the Cultural Revolution we as a family abstained from going to theaters to watch movies. Even the ownership of a tape-recorder was considered blasphemous. But we did watch movies, thanks to numerous film societies spawned by VSSC. The movies showed by these film societies fell into two main categories. One set which we call independent movies these days and another comprising of mainstream movies which had aged a minimum of 2-3 years after their commercial release. So to catch a piping hot Kattathe Kilikoodu in theaters soon after its release was near impossible. I opted for the next best thing - read its script in Nana.

What interested the eight year old film aficionado in me was the presence of children - the movie had four children. It centered around a family of an English professor(Gopi), his wife(Sreevidya) and their four children and a gu(e)st of wind that blows in to their family as a young female collegian(Revathy.)

Kattathe Kilikoodu is Revathy's first Malayalam film. It is hard to believe this movie, directed by Bharathan was a commercially successful movie in the eighties. It is a film of great quality, We don't make movies like this in Malayalam anymore. The casting is superb and all the actors had delivered unbelievably impressive performances.

Sreevidya's acting brings me down on bended knees. I cannot imagine that in real life, Sreevidya had a very short marital life than ended in divorce and no kids. She presents herself as the embodiment of a perfect mother, wife and home-maker. Gopi, Mohanlal, Revathy and KPAC Lalitha - all has left their indelible marks of acting on this film. Another incredible movie from Malayalam cinema's golden era.

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A Mighty Heart

Angelina Jolie is Mariane Pearl - the woman with the mighty heart. The film follows the kidnapping and the search for Wall Street Journal journalist, Daniel Pearl. The strength of this movie is its solid characters. There is the character of Mariane Pearl, the wife of Daniel Pearl and then there is Asra Nomani - Daniel's colleague from work who in a way leads the search along with Ms.Pearl. Then there is the Pakistani side - the real investigation team headed by CID chief,Javed Habib(played by Irfan Khan.) All these people are what moves the story along, because apart from the search there is not much of a story. An interesting movie because Hollywood has tried to stay out of a Hollywood movie.

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Sivaji : The Boss

My first Rajnikanth movie ever. I have seen half an hour or stray bits of Rajni movies before. A song here, a song there or a youtube clip of Rajni's superhuman antics which he employs even to light a measly cigarette. That is what I call respect. It is the first message I get from the movie messiah of the Tamil masses. Respect.

He respects even a lowly cigarette, that he gives his time and his skills to perfect the art of putting it into his mouth. This one movie has revealed to me the reason for Rajni's godly status - he respects you, you could be the lowly of the lowly and he is the filmstar who makes millions but he will show you respect where you deserve it and he doesn't mind being the butt of jokes himself. Something Malayalam superstar Mohanlal could do in the eighties before he ascended the superstar throne, not anymore.

Rajni movie requires a different set of standards to analyze. You cannot compare a Scorsese film with a Rajni film. For that matter you cannot even compare it with an RGV film(much closer home.). It'd be a classic case of mulaku bhaji vs caviar(Caviar makes me gag, so much for sophistication!)

Shivaji is entertainment for the masses. The spectrum of viewers could be varied as a farmer from Kumbhakonam to a South Indian NRI in Boston. The one thread that binds them all is their love for Rajni movies. These movies have only one aim - to showcase Rajni. There would be a namesake story, a fair doe-eyed heroine (definitely of non-Tamil origin, preferably North Indian), plenty of stylish songs featuring Tamilians' penchant for neon colors and numerous fights to showcase Rajni's pre-Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon era stunts which probably CTHD copied.

I am not going to venture into the story, because there is not much of it and the story is besides the point anyway. Shivaji was the most expensive Indian film at the time of its release, in April 2007. It was an unprecedented hit, not only in India but in all of the overseas markets it was featured. The director is S.Shankar and the music is composed by A.R.Rehman. Comedian Vivek's lines in the script have more humor than the most humorous Malayalam of the current times.

There is nothing to analyze nor is there any haloed message to bring home. This movie upholds the first principle of movie-making - to offer an escape from reality. You have the guarantee that there is no hard-biting reality, only fantasies - loud and colorful with a predictable good ending and a Superman who can do almost anything you ever wanted to.

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Slumdog Millionaire

Good things, first. It is definitely a feel good movie. A Dickensian tale about Mumbai. When it is Dickensian you've to start in the under belly of society and there has to be cute downtrodden little children. Mumbai has both - the slums and the unbelievably cute pint sized entrepreneurs.

Vikas Swarup's novel about a boy from the slums who is about to win a billion dollar in a TV quiz show caught Danny Boyle's eye. Dev Patel caught Boyle's daughter's attention thanks to his performance in a British TV series. Voila! Dev Patel lands the lead role in Slum Dog Millionaire.

It is an entertaining movie about India. A movie has to be set somewhere, right? This one is set in the slums. There is this whole hoopla about the disgusting portrayal of India in the movie. Well,it is a matter of logic and ensuring monetary returns.. If a movie has to be made about India, in India, with Indians in it by a foreigner(or an Indian) who is aiming at western markets - it has to be either about religion & self-discovery (like The Darjeeling Limited, The Guru etc) or about our biggest selling point - poverty and subsequent degradation of life in slums and/or red-light districts (like Salaam Bombay!, Water) or you have to be Merchant-Ivory. Slum Dog as the name obviously suggests falls in to the second category. For a change it has a happy ending, a nail-biting and emotional ending, just the way Indians like their movies to end. Of course, there is a happy song just before the credits roll because Danny Boyle wanted to make a quintessential Bollywood movie. Looks like he succeeded.

Except that if this 'Bollywood' movie was made by an Indian, Golden Globes wouldn't have known of its existence nor would A.R.Rahman(the music director) of the movie would've featured in the Oscar shortlist. IMHO A.R.Rahman has composed only one worse musical score than this one in the recent past and that'd be for Yuvraj.

In my view SlumDog Millionaire is the one rare movie about India that'll keep the ticket counters ringing in the West. You cannot blame Danny Boyle for making an interesting movie that the majority of the audience liked to watch. It just shows he is good at what he does. About the awards, those might be a tad overrated. O, what the heck, come on India, it could promote some slum tourism in this depressive economy.

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Mongolian Ping Pong

An idyllic film set in Mongolian childhoods. The children of the vast grassland come across a ping pong which they mistake for an ethereal pearl. It is one of those laconic foreign movies that is interesting because it shows us a window to a strange and interesting culture far beyond our worlds.

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300

The best thing about 300, in my eyes, is its graphical presentation style, visually immaculate and captivating as history itself. Based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopyle, where Spartan king Leonidas leads an army of 300 elite hoplite (because they have left behind son(s) in Sparta to carry on their names) against the massive army of Persian king Xerxes.

Zack Snyder's direction is impressive, so is Gerald Butler's physique which he worked to achieve in order to play the role of Leonidas,. But what makes the film the hit that it was is its art direction and special effects.

There is one glitch though, a serious one from my non-American eyes. The 'freedom rhetoric' that is peppered through out the film. Come on, we are not in the US of A, after 9/11, trying to mobilize troops to go fight the terrorists from Middle East. This is Sparta, in 480 BC where slaves outnumbered free Spartans. Sparta was a hostile territory for progress, sandwiched between two mountains with a land that required a lot of effort to produce some yield, slaves were Spartan's solution to work the land. Spartans spent so much time in military training because they lived in constant fear of slave uprisings. All that 9/11-ish glorified talk about 'preserving freedom and liberty' looked out of place coming from a Spartan.

Spartans were great warriors, they lived and died to defend their land and their kin. That point should have been emphasized instead of the twentieth/twenty-first century talk about fighting to preserve the values of a free world. Review - 2.5/5 (The film is an artistic achievement, but the moral direction it took fails to satisfy me.)

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Cycle

Cycle is a mediocre Malayalam movie that has come out in a period that'll be known in Indian regional cinematic history for really bad Malayalam movies. It is the film debut of Sreenivasan's son Vineeth Srinivasan who is already well known as a playback singer.

It doesn't have a story to write home about, but it does well with what it has. It has one of the 'RamjiRao'-ish plots where the main character's are trapped in a do or die situation, with a bit of comedy and romance thrown in. There are no superstars to spoil this simple broth and two youngsters who are in the lead roles act convincingly. Btw Vineeth Srinivasan's and his leading lady's wardrobe looks pathetic even to someone like me who has absolutely no fashion sense.

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Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

Once in a while Bollywood loves to throw a curve ball - this time it is called Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. It just goes to prove how 'anjaan' I am when it comes to forming an opinion about movies I am yet to watch. I had tried to stay 'grown-up' regarding the two phenomena unleashed by this film - Imran Khan mania and Genelia D'Souza making it to the top 10 of Google India Zeitgeist 2008. Imran Khan looked like his uncle Aamir Khan's clone and Genelia, well, what was the big fuss about her, we had already seen her in Boys, right? Well, the credit of all the hoopla goes to the film.

It is the usual handsome guy falls for the beautiful girl type of college romance, but it becomes interesting because it is contemporary, the dialogs are natural so are the actors and have some hummable songs thanks to A.R.Rehman. I think credit for making this run of the mill story a success goes to the writer-director, Abbas Tyrewala.

Also worth mentioning is the unique vein of comedy in the film. There is the framed and revered picture of Amar Singh Rathore(played by Naseeruddin Shah who is a talking picture a la Harry Potter) which conducts an ongoing fight from beyond the grave with his wife Savitri(played by Reena Pathak Shah, Naseeruddin Shah's real life wife) which is entertaining to say the least. Another actor with perfect comic timing is Sohail Khan, another of those unexpected funny characters and yes, don't to forget the horses - the Rajput way of fighting global warming. Review: A timepass full-fledged entertainer.

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Malabar Wedding

When Kathakali started getting old, the tourism industry of Kerala discovered Theyyam - the popular ritual dance of North Kerala, lesser known in the tourism circles but culturally much more alive than Kathakali. North Kerala or Malabar comes to the rescue once more when Malayalam movie industry has started running out of genuine Malayali cultural events as themes for their movies. This time around it is the custom of "sorakalyanam" which often accompanies weddings in North Malabar.

I do not know whether the tradition of sora-kalyanam is still going strong or not, but it was when 10-20 years ago when my cousin-brothers were getting married one by one. Sorakalyanam is an elaborate set of pranks and jokes played by the groom's friends on the newly wedded couple on their wedding day. Sometimes the jokes might get too harsh and end up in something serious, although this didn't happen very often.

Indrajith is the hero, Manukuttan - the local youth leader and organizer of several sorakalyanams. Unlike his brother Prithviraj, Indrajit has shown a wider range in his acting. Whether he is a villian, the comedian or the hero, I am yet to see him in a role that doesn't look natural on him. His team of friends in the film include Mamukkoya, Suraaj Venjarmoodu and others. The film-maker duo of Rajesh-Faisal have tried to tell a simple tale. It is one of the bearable Malayalam films of the recent times without the presence of over-bearing superstars. If not for the totally out-of-place climax and the introduction of a new character, which could have been avoided, it is an ok movie.

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Hello

If Atul Agnihotri is to become a director in his own right, he'll have to come out of the shadow of his illustrious brother-in-law, Salman Khan. Till then he has no chance of redemption as a film-maker. Compromising creativity by keeping it all in the family doesn't seem to be the likely path to success.

Hello, what was with the helicopter, Salman Khan and a team of safar-suited security guys surrounding him at the start of the movie? Even J.K.Rowling, she of the wizards, witches, evil Voldemort and a billion dollar empire travels less obtrusively. Salman Khan conveniently forgets the character he has to play. This is the trade mark of all his movies - he is never the character, he is always the megastar, Sallu Khan. And the opening song - whoa! I'd assume the fantasy of a writer would more be in line with writing a best-selling book or winning the Nobel for literature or at least a Booker and not gyrating bare chested with a bevy of blonds on the dance floor. But then writers are not Salman Khan, what do they know?

Blame me, I had some expectations for the movie after reading Chetan Bhagat's novel, One Night @ The Call Center on which the movie is based. The story was tailor-made for Bollywood. In the hands of a good director, it'd have been a definite hit. The theme was contemporary, the characters were young and vibrant and to the gratification of the Indian psyche even God had a role!

The script by Bhagat and Agnihotri is patchy at the best. There are some good lines but they never find their mark. The casting is horrible! When you read the book(yah, reading is the crime, I should've skipped that and just watched movie), the characters were in the 20-25 age group - right out of college and straight in to the BPO band-wagon, thanks to big bucks.

What do we have in the film - a group of aging lions who are trying to fit into teeny bopper clothes. Sohail Khan and Gul Panag are the worst. Gul Panag is a good actress, but what is she doing here in the clothes that belongs to a roadside show-off ten years younger to her? And Vroom, the character played by Sohail Khan, was a dare devil biker in his early twenties. Early twenties and Sohail Khan?!!! That was a lifetime ago that he might not even remember how it felt like. Sharmaan Joshi is bearable. Esha Koppiker and Amrita Arora could be easily forgotten. The only success achieved by the casting team is Sharad Saxena as military uncle. Dilip Taahil as the evil boss is ok. But none of this is as bad as casting Salman Khan as an author. His father might have been one, but Salman clearly didn't inherit his writer genes.

The movie outplays the book when it comes to anti-American rhetoric. (My review of the book is here.) Maybe it was a ploy to get the money from the nationalistic crowd, looks like that didn't work either.Review: A complete letdown.

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Welcome to Sajjanpur

Ok, this is what happens when old timers decide to wear new clothes of the new times. I am trying to think of Shyam Benegal of Yatra, Mandi and Bhumika. Sajjanpur is far cry from all those, although the camera is still firmly planted in the heartland of India. I had never thought of his 2001 film, Zubeida as a genuine Benegal, from my perspective it belonged to Khalid Mohamed.. For me this is the real Benegal movie after almost a decade.

The strong alternate Indian movie current of the 80s has lost its momentum. Ketan Mehta, Govind Nihalani, Shyam Benegal - all the aging stalwarts of Hindi indies have been resting on their laurels. Meanwhile many commercial Bollywood movies have been bold and successful enough to cross into the territory of Independent films which is indeed a welcome change.

With Sajjanpur,we have an example how these older generation of film-makers would fare if they were to make a comeback. If you just look at the box-office statistics, Benegal's adaptation as a post-2000 Bollywood director can be touted as a success. But if I were to compare Welcome to Sajjanpur's quality with his earlier works, I'd rate this as a canned Bollywood product.

Sajjanpur is a typical northern Indian village but I as watched the movie it was hard not being able to shake off the feeling that it was just a set of a village. All the villagers who start moving as soon as the camera pans into the scene were just extras draped in the accepted contemporary rural attire. Shreyas Talpade, the hero of the movie, a letter-writer who helped illiterate people by writing their mails and postcards, comes out a little too polished with his clean shaven looks. Most of the actors played parts well (Amrita Rao, Ila Arun, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Yashpal Sharma, Divya Dutta) but something didn't jive. Was it their pancake make-up which looked out of place or their clothes which didn't seem to have been worn more than once, something about that village was not right.

The story is an interesting one. It has tried to bring to focus certain topical issues yet the same time remains entertaining.Review : 3 stars

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Rock On

Rock On has a straight forward title, it is about Rock or rather an Indian rock band. The story is of current interest. In the mid 2000s local rock bands started exploding on the Indian music scene. You'd say it is not a new phenomenon. Yes, we did have Indus Creed and Indian Ocean in the nineties. But now there is a plethora of rock bands out there and many of them can draw a sizable crowd of followers irrespective of the language of their songs.

The glaring difference between the real rock bands and the rock-band in Rock On is the songs. The band in the movie is called Magik and is comprised of Farhan Akhtar as the lead singer, Aditya, Arjun Rampal on lead guitar as Joseph Mascerenhas with Purab Kohli(KD) and Luke Kenny(Rob) making up the rest of the team. It is well-made film, not-so-bad script and camera and the actors don't overdo either.

My problem with it? It falls flat on its premise. With such pathetic songs there is no way they could've been a successful rock band. Rock doesn't mean you interject some jarring guitar chords every now and then. I wish they had used a real rock band for composing the music for the film. Anyway Rock On did make an impression on the masses and the producers seem to have gotten back their money's worth.
Review: 3 stars.

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Chak De India

I went through a barrage of movies last month and do not have an ounce of motivation to write reviews except for one - probably the best Bollywood movie I've seen in a while after Aamir - the film that made me hit the computer key board again is Chak De India. This Shah Rukh Khan starrer, with a predictable story line about the rise of an under-dog sports team is one of the well-made, perfectly balanced movies in the recent years.

Like the story, the movie is also the triumph of team effort. You have the Bollywood superstar King Khan, his signature 'King' mannerisms toned down to the bare minimum or practically naught. The film-makers have put together a believable team of girls as the national Women's hockey team picked from various parts of India. I do not know how they went about casting this team, it is so diverse and perfectly cast that it is hard to believe this is not a real team! I reserve my best of the best awards to the script-writer Jaideep Sahni and the director Shimit Amin - they are the ones who had the power to make or break this movie and they did what they wanted to do!

It is a run-of-the-mill story about an under-dog team coming from behind and beating the odds and giving a fitting reply to its detractors. Hindi movies have successfully tried to showcase the underdog sports-person, like in Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander(which was a well-adapted copy of Breaking Away) but Jo Jeeta... was not a true sports film. It had ample Bollywood romance and villainy, buxom girls prancing around trees and dreamy-eyed boys chasing them, sports just added an additional flavor like the desi-favorite Cassata icecream. Then there was Lagaan(India's Oscar entry in 2002) where I'd say Aamir Khan directed his role himself instead of the director, Ashutosh Gowariker. Lagaan because of its sweet 'syrupiness' didn't make as much an impact on me as it did on the rest of the Indian populace, but it was a well-made film that made use of our nation's cricket fever and penchant for breaking off into songs at the drop of a err..ball.

On the contrary Chak De India has nothing but sports and for a change, it is not cricket! India's national game - field hockey finally gets its due and a Bollywood movie starring Shah Rukh Khan! It is the game which won India it's first Olympic gold (Men's hockey,1928 Amsterdam) but is often forgotten under the shadow of the other more popular game in India - cricket.

Chak De India is a loaded movie, the messages it tries to pass on are subtly conveyed, quite opposite to what the conventional Bollywood wisdom would advise. The movie is one of the few which has taken up the cause of the dark horse without explicitly coming on to your face with its messages. In fact there is more than one dark horse. Field hockey is one, women as a gender is another, being the representative of a misunderstood minority(Kabir Khan - the role of the coach played by Shah Rukh Khan) is another.

None of these issues are thrust on to the viewer. If you belong to 'time-pass' denomination you might never see the issues the film tries to bring to light and would be able view it as a pure entertainment package tinged with excitement of a sports event. If you are the serious kind, it has material for intellectual rumination as well. The success (it was the third highest grossing movie of 2007) of the movie is that it was able to tap into both kind of audience,which is a very rare event in Hindi film-dom.

Although the title is Chak De "India", thanks to the story and the script there is no over-the-top nationalistic jingoism. That is what amazes me the most about this movie, its restraint on a subject which could've easily been over-done, like a perfectly cooked shrimp(:-P) in this aspect Review: Chak de!

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Sing is Kinng

From Punjab, Southern Extension aka Bollywood comes the quintessential Panju flick(it is purported to be a Hindi movie) - Singh is Kinng starring Punjab da puttar Akshay Kumar(aka Rajiv Bhatia in real life.) Singh is Kinng is known to have boosted tourist industry in Egypt, Australia and reduced the tourist inflow to Punjab, India (it is just a place full of Sardars, just like Birmingham,UK or Toronto,Canada) - nothing special about it since Makki di roti and Sarson da Saag are available everywhere these days.

Total time pass if you can make the time pass admiring color-coordinated Sardar attire or listen to Katrina Kaif's lilting Hindi or just find some humor(there is some, if you take the trouble) in the dialogs of the coterie surrounding Akshay Kumar. Review: If you nothing else to do, Singh might be able to entertain you with Snoop Dog for around two hours.

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Bhargavacharitham Moonam Khandam

It is not so often that you see Malayalam movies with plots lifted from Hollywood. One that comes to mind is Thoovalsparsham, but then even Hollywood borrowed it from the original French version called Three Men and a Cradle. This time it is the funny movie - Analyze This where the mafia don seeks psychiatric help for his shaky hands.

Mammootty plays Robert De Niro's mob boss character, while Billy Crystal's psychiatrist morphs into Sreenivasan in the Malayalam version. Story and screenplay is credited to Sreenivasan, but this is one of the few times that Sreenivasan has failed to impress me. There is occasional glimmers of brilliance in the script, but they are few and far-between. There is an over-powering element of artificiality in the entire movie, whether it be the pshychiatrist's dialogs or mafia don's costumes. Review:Bearable, barely.

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Bachna Ae Haseeno

An eye-candy movie if you like Ranbir or Deepika. The movie tries to pour Ranbir into the same mold which proved successful for his father, of the guitar totting, flirtatious lover boy. What is absent in the son is his father’s colorful sweaters which are replaced by the rapper-bling necessary to earn street-cred in twenty-first century.

Three leading ladies - Minissha Lamba, Bipasha Basu and Deepika Padukone line up for Ranbir. Ranbir Raj Kapoor is Raj, a happy go lucky young man who is happy and lucky in love during various stages of his life. But not all his ladies turn to be as lucky as him except for the last one to make an entry, Deepika. The story spans three continents, just for the sake of picturesque songs and the plot-line could’ve done without the intercontinental jumps. But who cares, we get to see all the scenic locales from around the planet without leaving the couch in the company of beautiful people. Paisa wasool.

Two observations: Ranbir is trying to lock on the name Raj. He is Raj in all the movies I’ve seen of him. King Khan has been the last one who had a copyright on the name the last time I checked. Ofcourse Ranbir can proclaim that the Raj mania started with his grand-father, the original and the real Raj Kapoor. Ranbir also inherits it as his real-life middle name from his grandfather, thereby claiming he is the rightful owner of the name, Raj. Anyway Rahuls can rest in peace for some time at least, while we become inundated with on-screen Rajs.

The other Khan territory Ranbir is trying to encroach into is that of Salman Khan’s semi nakedness. The only Bollywood actor on whose torso a shirt never seemed to stick for long was Salman, now Ranbir has been bitten by the same bug. Well, all I can say is Ranbir’s is a bit more bearable than Salman’s body which looks like the playground of steroids.

Back to the movie. It has hummable songs set in Switzerland, Italy, Australia and India. The title of the movie and the title song 'Bachna Ae Haseeno' is from 1977 movie Hum Kissise Kum Nahin, starring Ranbir’s dad Rishi Kapoor and set to music by R.D.Burman. They seemed to be bend upon making him junior Rishi Kapoor at all costs. Director Siddharth Raj Anand has made an ok, saleable Bollywood movie which started off way too sweet for the tongue but made it up later on. Review: Timepass regular Bollywood fare.

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