Aisha (2010)

When "Aisha" was released, I had dismissed it off as a wannabe rom-com. Plus it had Sonam Kapoor - an actress I don’t particularly enjoy watching despite her excellent dressing sense.

I watched most of the movie when it played on one of the TV channels recently. Independently, I also watched the controversial Koffee with Karan episode in which Sonam appeared along with Deepika Padukone. She took sides with Deepika and not Ranbir, and that appealed to old-fashioned me.

In case you didn’t know, I love filmy gossip.

Coming back to the movie, what worked for me was the setting of the film, and the music. I think the makers have got the act right in terms of expensive clothes, décor of the houses, lifestyles of the super-rich in Delhi, and the hobbies they pursue – watching Aisha bake cakes was fun.

Who exactly is Aisha Kapoor? The daughter of a well-to-do father, she is obsessed with finding the right life partner for her friends. She thinks everybody is a “bechaari” who is waiting to be rescued by her, and is judgmental about how her friends should lead their lives and who their life partner should be. At this point, I started getting interested in the movie for I have often been advised by friends on marriage. Like Aisha, they always knew (know?) better than me as to what I want from life, and my life partner.

From being someone who is loved by all, Aisha goes on to realize that her friends think of her as shallow, selfish and judgmental. Her best friend Pinky Bose is tired of towing the line in accordance to her wishes. Newbie Shefali questions her when she almost says that being middle-class, Shefali isn’t good enough for rich dude and Aisha’s friend Arjun (Abhay Deol).

I liked watching Aisha get jealous and irritable when Arjun’s friend Aarti is with him. I laughed when I saw how she was dressed when she goes to meet her sister and newborn niece Anoushka in a hospital in Mumbai (she wears a coat and short dress – this is one scene when I would have liked to see her dressed casually in jeans).

I love the placement of this song (and the song) in the movie.



At the end of the movie, I could relate to Aisha Kapoor despite her world being far removed from my own.

Guzaarish (2010)

When I first saw the trailer of “Guzaarish”, I made up my mind not to watch the movie. The colours used in the movie were putting me off, for they spread a sense of unnecessary gloom. I remarked to the sibling that Sanjay Leela Bhansali must start making use of lighter shades in his movies – “Black”, “Saawariya” and “Guzaarish” are all dripping in black, dark blue, grey and to some extent in maroon and red.

The sibling arrived in Delhi in the middle of the month, and insisted that we watch the movie. Given the way things were, we had one weekend with us when movie-watching looked a possibility.

I was in no mood to shed tears on my birthday, and with the sole exception of “Saawariya”, I have shed copious tears while watching all of Bhansali’s films. The sibling’s insistence made me watch this movie on my birthday in the theatre. Did I cry? Of course I did. I also experienced a sense of lightness I haven’t felt in a long, long time.

The movie is reportedly based on The Sea Inside starring Javier Bardem, the lead actor of Vicky Cristina Barcelona. I am curious to watch this movie now – the lead character in this movie battled his condition for 28 years, and Bardem is shown to age significantly.

Clearly, making the expressive and handsome Hrithik age so significantly would not have worked, so his character fights his battle for 14 years instead of 28. Hrithik plays Ethan Mascarenhas, a magician based in Goa who becomes a quadriplegic after an accident during his magic show. After undergoing multiple surgeries and battling his largely immobile body for 14 years, he decides that he has had enough and wants to be granted euthanasia. Euthanasia becomes “Ethanasia” – his own battle to die with dignity.

Aishwarya plays Sofia D’Souza, his nurse of 12 years. She is married to an abusive man, and receives her divorce towards the end of the movie. She loves Ethan silently.

Aditya Roy Kapur (brother of Siddharth Roy Kapur, UTV) plays Omar Siddiqui, a young magician who comes to Ethan to learn the tricks of the trade. He introduces a light-heartedness that Ethan’s home has forgotten.

There are flaws in the story-telling. Ash Chandler didn’t fit the character he played – he didn’t look the part of the father of a grown-up son. Bhansali also introduces an unreal world – women in Goa who dress as though they belong to Spain (or a place I don’t quite know), courtroom scenes where lawyers make utterly unconvincing and extremely emotional arguments, and a radio programme that first acts as a lifeline to others and is then used to campaign for “Ethanasia”.

Why am I still writing about this movie then?

My legs can move and I can run if I want to. I can move away from dripping rain water. I can turn the pages of a book while reading. I can give a warm hug to people. Gifts that I have taken for granted, repeatedly.

I liked the interpretation of love in this movie. There is sensitivity and maturity. Sofia’s silent love is selfish to the extent that she wants Ethan to live – when he wishes to end his suffering and die. She forgets what it is like to have a life without taking care of Ethan (a gem of a scene is when she finds herself thinking over Omar’s suggestion of taking half-a-day off – he tells her to spend time with her family, go to a play etc). She enjoys breaking into an unexpected dance (Ethan and Omar are left in raptures after seeing her move oh so gracefully), she tries hard to smoke to give him company and ends up coughing, she plays along and makes sexual sounds when he suggests that he is aroused by her rubbing of his (immobile, sensation-less) legs.

The dance is etched in my mind too.



Her silent love is selfless because she is able to put Ethan before herself, take care of him for 12 years without expecting anything in return. It is also selfless because she is able to take the extreme step of putting an end to his suffering herself – she is a trained nurse.

Spoiler alert: a moment of magic is when Ethan proposes marriage to her. Sofia didn’t expect it. Neither did I.

English was liberally used in this movie, and a wry sense of humour is evident.

Omar: “Can I give you a hug?”
Ethan: “I already have enough attachments.” He is surrounded by machines that take care of his bodily functions.

There is magic if you keep your eyes open.

For a tongue-in-cheek review, visit this link. For a well-written review, visit this link. For more photographs, go here.

Playing with shadows

I read Haroun and the Sea of Stories a while ago. I didn’t know that the book was meant for children, and had bought it because it has been written by Salman Rushdie. Among other stuff, this delightful book describes shadows in an imaginative manner – read it if you get a chance.

Shadow play was the highlight of this boring film.



Remember DDLJ?

Simran's mother (played by Farida Jalal) asks Raj (played by SRK) - “Kaisi ladki chahiye tumhe?” (or to that effect) In the background, Simran (played by Kajol) looks wide-eyed at Raj knowing his propensity for giving clever answers. Raj says, “Yoon samjhiye bas aap hi ki parchaai ho!”

If you didn’t know about the Raj-Simran affair, you would merely smile. Farida Jalal does exactly that.

Post sessions in dreamland

At a time when I am cut off from the latest Bollywood and Hollywood fare, I have been watching all sorts of films from years gone by.

DDLJ has finally found a successor in my list of all-time, anytime movies. Jab We Met it is!

Why does a pretty girl like Kristen Stewart frequently star in horror and/or vampire movies? I have watched Twilight and part of The Messengers, and think she is perfect material for a romcom.

Heroines who are nice get taken for granted, and eventually start displaying passive-aggressive behaviour. I am not the only one who thinks this way – the makers of Bride Wars seem to agree with me. It is a pity that the movie wasn’t as watchable as I thought it would be – Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson are usually fine performers. Have you watched Hathaway in Becoming Jane?

The Sixth Sense remains an incredibly watchable film, even when one knows the ending beforehand. What if one could indeed see dead people who don’t know that they are dead? For one, the world would feel incredibly crowded.

I like the following lines from the movie.

Malcolm: “What do those ghosts want when they talk to you? Think real careful now, Cole...”

Cole: “Just help.”

Malcolm: “Yes! I think that's right! I think they all want that. Even the scary ones... Everyone wants to be heard. Everyone.”

Those who are alive want to be heard too - isn’t it?

Teaser post: Anjaana Anjaani (2010)

I usually don’t comment on movies before they are released. Given my track record when it comes to Ranbir Kapoor, it is time to make an exception again.

This is the promo of Anjaana Anjaani. The reference to ‘All is well’ reminded me of 3 Idiots. The dialogue feels clichéd already.

Then, Lucky Ali came to the rescue. He has lent his voice to Ranbir Kapoor for the second time (the first time, it was in Bachna Ae Haseeno), and it works! Come to think of it, the shelf life of playback singers defies expectations. Lucky Ali’s birth year is 1958, while that of Ranbir Kapoor is 1982.



I will be watching this movie post its release on 24 September. Will you?

Aitraaz (2004) / Disclosure (1994)

In a recent study conducted by ET-Synovate, every fifth worker in India is subjected to sexual harassment, with Bengaluru emerging as the leader with 51% respondents saying ‘yes’ to the question, “Have you personally faced any kind of sexual harassment at the workplace?” The other cities included Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Pune.

The study made it to the front page of ET on 22 August 2010. Did you read it?

I have just one point to make. In each city, the survey was administered to 75 respondents. Isn't it too small a number for a survey of this nature?

When I was in Bengaluru in 2004, I had gone to watch the Hindi remake of Disclosure (1994) with couple of friends from school. The remake was called Aitraaz. I enjoyed Priyanka Chopra’s performance, liked the casting of Askhay Kumar as the victim of sexual harassment, and found Paresh Rawal’s lawyer act annoying.

I also found the ending too convenient - the character played by Priyanka Chopra commits suicide post the ruling (the case is fought by none other than the victim’s lawyer wife, played by Kareena Kapoor). Someone obsessed with power would give up on life so easily?

Last weekend, I watched the original starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. This well-written movie is based on the novel by Michael Crichton. The victim gets further victimized at the workplace (for instance, his access to data is revoked), his wife gets upset and she expresses her hurt privately while standing by him throughout, he receives unexpected help from an anonymous person, and he engages a lady lawyer who fights harassment cases for male victims.

Douglas’s character came across as too cocksure despite being the victim – this is probably the only weakness in the movie.

Michael Crichton passed away in 2008 from throat cancer, and now Michael Douglas has been diagnosed with the same disease. Douglas, I hope you take to chemotherapy well. Prayers are being sent from here.

And you gentle reader, link the following – Rain Man, Disclosure, and Wag the Dog?

Shutter Island (2010)

Given that I enjoyed The Aviator and The Departed, nothing could have prevented me from watching the latest collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio soon after it was released. Not the lukewarm reviews it received from critics. Not my boss’s review, “You just might like it. I didn’t particularly care for it.” Things were proceeding in accordance to schedule when I ran into an unexpected problem. The movie stopped playing at the closest theatre rather soon, and the show timings at theatres farther away did not suit me.

Recently, my boss lent me the DVD and I am glad to have watched this under-hyped movie after I watched Inception.

Shutter Island is based on a book of the same name, and was originally scheduled to be released in late 2009. The economic downturn (ED) apparently had a role to play in the delayed release; I am not sure what exactly ED’s role was though. The budget doesn’t look compromised, and there seems to be as much water as Scorsese required for narrating the story.

The intelligent man who can work with anagrams, DiCaprio’s character is a US Marshal who is sent to Ashecliff hospital in Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a lady prisoner. As the movie draws to an end, it becomes clear that it is he who is undergoing psychiatric treatment at the hospital post the murder of his wife.

He kills his wife.

She drowns their three children.

Save for a few scenes (set on the Island) that drag, the movie is paced well. I particularly liked the ending when DiCaprio utters, “Which would be worse, to live like a monster, or die as a good man?” Watch the movie to see the context.



Much like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese has excellent taste in music. At the end of the movie, Dinah Washington’s ‘This Bitter Earth’ plays.



Post watching this movie, I have two wishes. The first one is that DiCaprio should open his Oscar count in 2010, and for his powerhouse performance in Shutter Island.

The second is that Woody Allen should consider working with DiCaprio again – Allen is capable of making him smile, and of making me laugh. For the record, I am yet to watch Celebrity in which Allen cast DiCaprio a dozen years ago.

Inception (2010)

A few days before she arrived in Delhi for her shortest visit till date, the sibling told me that we must watch Inception together. I am a fan of Caprio and Nolan’s filmmaking has appealed to me in the past (remember the Dark Knight?), so it was easy to say yes to her.

By the time she arrived, things looked different. My unusually tight schedule at work was swallowing weekends in its wake, and it was no different when she was here. I had forgotten about the movie and had not read the reviews.

She reminded me of my promise, and we hastily booked tickets in the morning. On our way to the theatre, she saw what has happened to CP and I suspect that she has still not recovered from the sight.

It took me a while to recover from the movie, surreal as it is.

The movie is about a corporate heist set in the world of dreams. The protagonist Dom Cobb, played by Caprio, is entrusted with the seemingly impossible task of planting an idea in a man’s dream, getting him to believe that it is his own idea, and then watching the execution of the idea. What is Cobb’s original job profile? He extracts dreams from people, and steals their inaccessible thoughts.

The manner in which Nolan shows dreams within dreams and all of them following a logical sequence shows his mastery in translation of abstract ideas. As with his previous movies, it takes a while to understand what is being said. Once that phase is taken care of, the movie grips you. I particularly liked the scene with the glass doors being created in the maze, the dream set in the hotel where gravity (the one associated with physics) doesn’t exist for a while, the dream set in the snowbound place, and the ending that is left open to interpretation.



Sometimes, it takes force to make one’s mind open to different ideas. I have not been a fan of sci-fi movies, but am developing a taste for them now. The Matrix is now part of my list of movies-to-be-watched.

Raajneeti (2010)

Last week, a day before Raajneeti was to be released, the sibling called up sounding excited. “Anu, I am going to watch Raajneeti later tonight. A friend has got tickets to the preview show!” Post the movie she told me, “Ranbir is very good in the movie. Watch it soon!”

It was an ordinary day yesterday when I sat down to book tickets. I got mixed up with the dates, and booked tickets for the wrong date. PVR ensured I did go – the tickets were non-refundable.

Raajneeti is based on two great stories – the Mahabharata, and the Godfather. If you are a fan of even one of them, you will try to draw parallels to the original. It is not a bad thing to indulge in – the movie is quite long, and gives ample time to get distracted.

The characters are based on Mahabharata, the setting is in Madhya Pradesh, and some scenes are inspired from the Godfather. The sibling felt that the Mahabharata angle should not have existed – it serves little purpose according to her. To me, this is the reason why I would watch the movie again, if at all.

I particularly liked the performances by Ranbir Kapoor (he plays Samar Pratap, with traces of Arjun and Michael Corleone) and Nana Patekar (he plays Brij Gopal, clearly a tribute to Krishna).

Samar’s character is ruthless, and one can see that right from the time he deals with Indu (played by Katrina Kaif). He does not hesitate in making use of her as a pawn in the chessboard of politics, for he does not love her. However, there is tenderness in him when he deals with his American girlfriend Sarah (played by Sarah Thompson) who, incidentally, has seen violence in Ireland. After her death and the elections, he moves back to the US and takes care of Sarah’s mother. I felt no sympathy for his character – this is when I realized that Kapoor has come up with a powerhouse performance.

Arjun Rampal surprised me with his portrayal of Prithvi Pratap, the elder brother of Samar Pratap. I was mentally preparing myself to write him off as too good looking to be playing a hardcore politician and thus not fitting the role, but he gave me a pleasant shock by mouthing foul words like a pro and portraying the impulsiveness of his character rather well.

Post the movie, the following questions lingered on my mind.

What happens to the character played by Shruti Seth? What was on Jha’s mind when he developed this role?

Karna is a noble character. Is this the reason Jha chose the tired-looking Ajay Devgn to play the role?

Did I miss this song in the movie?



Commercial success is enjoyable, isn’t it?

Woody Allen

Readers of this blog would know that I enjoy Allen’s style of filmmaking. I have watched Mighty Aphrodite, Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and the latest is Hollywood Ending.



It does not matter if you haven’t watched his movies. You can still enjoy his one-liners.

“It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.”

“When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room.”

“Death doesn't really worry me that much, I'm not frightened about it... I just don't want to be there when it happens.”

TIME read my mind when the following interview was done as part of TIME’s 10 questions, for I have wondered what it would be like to engage in a conversation with Allen. I had expected that I would roll with laughter. Instead, I was left feeling thoughtful.

Take a look.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Miranda Priestly: “…But I was very very impressed by how intently you tried to warn me. I never thought I would say this, Andrea, but I really, I see a great deal of myself in you. You can see beyond what people want, and what they need and you can choose for yourself.”

Andy Sachs: “I don't think I'm like that. I couldn't do what you did to Nigel, Miranda. I couldn't do something like that.”

Miranda Priestly: “You already did. To Emily.”

Andy Sachs: “That's not what I... no, that was different. I didn't have a choice.”

Miranda Priestly: “No, no, you chose. You chose to get ahead. You want this life. Those choices are necessary.”

A very enjoyable piece of story-telling, Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley and Anna Hathway’s Andrea Sachs are the chief characters. Post the movie I wondered what it would be like to be Miranda and Andrea. Would I ever have the guts to give something different a try – the way Andrea does – and then quit it? What are the choices I am going to make in order to last in the corporate world for as long as Miranda does?

Away from Her (2006)

On May 1, my plan for the evening was to wrap up all work in time for the 9 p.m. movie – Body of Lies was going to be screened. I was surfing channels prior to that, and then I across Away from Her. I had already missed the initial parts, but I started watching the movie since Julie Christie was familiar (she was in Finding Neverland).

A 45-year old marriage is the centre of its story, and the movie shows how the Alzheimer’s disease changes equations and definitions of love. Christie plays Fiona who suffers from Alzheimer’s, and she takes the decision to move to a nursing home given her deteriorating condition. One of the ‘rules’ placed by the home is that there should be no outside contact for the first 30 days of stay.

After a month when Grant (Fiona's husband) comes to meet her, he finds that Fiona has forgotten him and has now become affectionate towards a mute man named Aubrey bound on a wheelchair. Aubrey’s wife Marian withdraws him from the nursing home after a few days because of lack of funds, and then Grant watches Fiona’s condition worsen considerably. He then decides to approach Marian and asks her to allow Aubrey to visit Fiona at the nursing center. In the process, he develops a relationship with Marian.

Three scenes stayed with me.

While speaking to Kristy the nurse, Grant conveys that he feels Fiona is paying him back for his past infidelities by getting attracted to another man. The conversation goes this way:

Grant: “Well I sometimes wonder”

Kristy: “You wonder what?”

Grant: “I wonder whether she isn’t putting on some kind of charade.”

Kristy: “A what?”

Grant: “Some kind of act. Maybe a kind of punishment.”

Kristy: “Now why would she do that.”

Grant is watching Fiona have lunch with Aubrey. A young girl, Monica, has come to visit her grandfather and is bored out of her wits. She sits next to him, and they then engage in a conversation.

Monica: “So...why aren’t you sitting with her?

Grant: “Oh... I’ve learned to give her a little bit of space. She’s in love with the man she’s sitting with. I don’t like to disturb her. I just...like to see her I suppose. I like to make sure that she’s doing well….I suppose it seems rather pathetic.”

Monica: “If the guy I’m dating right now? If he was like you? I should be so lucky.”

When Grant is reading out from a book about Iceland. “Iceland is... It’s in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s an island. It’s the youngest country in the world. It’s constantly erupting. Volcanos and earthquakes. It’s always...shaking itself off.” This brought home the recent images that I had seen.

Would I recommend watching the movie? Yes! It is a moving (and at times difficult) account of how the definition of love changes over years.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

I am a fan of both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and I know that both actors have grown tremendously since Titanic. I was convinced that Sam Mendes is a gifted director after watching American Beauty. It is not often that dysfunctional families get a chance to tell their story without trying too hard, and he told the story of Lester Burnham and his family particularly well.

All of this implies that Revolutionary Road is a movie that I should have watched over a year ago. However, after reading the storyline, I did not want to watch it just then.

I watched it when it played on HBO on 2 May this year. I did not manage to read the book on which it is based.

Caprio plays Frank Wheeler, and Winslet plays April Wheeler – an American family who lives on Revolutionary Road. Frank is a dreamer who has reconciled to his life (that takes the same path as his father), and April is the spirited lady who is determined to infuse life into, well, her life after the birth of two children.

In the midst of insipidity, April comes across an old photograph of Frank taken when he was in Paris. She then makes a plan to move the family to Paris – she would support the family by taking a secretarial position in a Government agency, and Frank would finally get the chance to have some time and think about what he really wants to do. After expressing initial reservations, Frank agrees to the unrealistic plan.

Then April discovers that she is pregnant with their third child, becomes irritable and tells Frank so after his insistence that something is not well with her. April knows Frank, and knows that he would not allow her to have the baby in France. She wants to abort her third child because she feels the child is hampering her plans – her chance of experiencing something different. Frank thinks the abortion is a disgusting idea, and tells her so. She is 10 weeks pregnant when this happens.

The tension between Frank and April is palpable and I could feel it in my living room, as if it was all happening right in front of me. Days go by, and April decides to undergo a (botched) self-performed abortion.

She loses her life.

The director’s sublime touch is noticeable in the scenes when Frank confesses to April (the night after she sleeps with their neighbour) that he has had an affair and she asking him why did he tell her now (displaying her indifference), when April threatens to scream if Frank touches her and then proceeds to scream the house down, where Frank and April have breakfast together for the last time, and where Howard Givings turns down the volume of his hearing aid after hearing his wife speak nastily regarding the Wheelers (after initially praising them to everybody she knew).

The movie left me feeling very sad. Tolstoy’s words came back to me – “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own.”

I thought of Frank and April long after the movie ended - the lead actors had made them come alive with their brilliant performances.

I was bewildered watching April get attached to her plans. Plans are meant to help you lead your life. They are not life itself.

Up in the Air (2009)

The sibling is currently in town, and gave me the news that she had already watched Depp’s latest starrer – Alice in Wonderland. A look of dismay later, I zeroed down on the alternative, also based on a book.

The tickets were booked, the weather was hot, and the two of us set off with the pact that I wouldn’t buy her food or drinks. Don’t ask why.



Set in the land of frequent-flyers, Clooney and Farmiga play their characters Ryan and Alex so well that you forget that they are not for real. Their banter is witty and lively, and the chemistry is evident.

However, things are not meant to be. He realizes that her reality is far removed from his own, and falls silent when she tells him over a phone-call in a matter-of-fact way that she was a grown up, and would meet him again if he wanted to. The conversation also included this bit.

Ryan Bingham: I thought I was a part of your life.

Alex Goran: I thought we signed up for the same thing... I thought our relationship was perfectly clear. You are an escape. You're a break from our normal lives. You're a parenthesis.

Ryan Bingham: I'm a parenthesis?

There is also the character called Natalie (played by Anna Kendrick). She is from Cornell, has bright ideas on how the business of telling people that they have lost their jobs should be run, works with Ryan, gets a chance to execute her ideas, receives a dose of reality in the process, follows a boy and gets dumped by text, and moves on.

Like Alex, she gives Ryan a dose of reality too.

The movie is worth watching, more than once.

Karthik Calling Karthik (2010)

My introduction to this film was this song playing on one of the TV channels.



It gave me the impression that the film was fresh and fun.

Farhan Akthar plays Karthik Narayan, the CA – IIM graduate who works for a construction company. He has an eye for detail, and the ability to stretch. He also has the ability to never say no, which his boss makes use of to saddle him with more work. Shonali Mukherjee (Deepika Padukone) is the girl he likes. She works in the same office, and has never noticed him.

Things change when he receives a call from Karthik, and begins to stand up for himself. In the process, the viewer is shown glimpses of schizophrenia . At no stage is his disorder glamourised, and I thought this was the strength of the film. There were moments in the second half that would have benefitted from better editing.

A nice touch was to introduce Escher - his work finds a place of honour in Karthik’s house towards the end of the film.

The question on my mind is - could this be a true account?

Theories of negativity

I find that in its various forms, neuroticism is highly infectious - just like optimism - and is best stayed away from, unlike optimism. Hence I am surprised when actors choose neurotic characters to play. Does it have a simple explanation – "This role will help me win awards!” Does neuroticism increase when one repeatedly plays extreme characters?

I watched parts of this movie when the sibling and my Chinese DVD player were both around. There were also mentions of doomsday with reference to the recession. Over a year later, things look different. The sibling is away, the player has been replaced, and the recession is doing selective rounds of good byes.

What remains the same is my opinion on Wall Street – it is a must watch – and this line, “The most valuable commodity I know of is information”. Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, is a man who believes greed is good and if something is waiting to be exploited, one must. Charlie Sheen plays the young trader who looks up to GG, and gets carried away in the process.

The manner in which Douglas played GG got me thinking of Gail Wynand.



In the movie The Assassination of Richard Nixon, Sean Penn’s character is obsessed with integrity in a convoluted fashion. The obsession leads him to leave one job after another, resulting in tumultuous times in his personal life for there is little integrity in reality. He lands his latest job by saying that he is married when he is actually separated, and performs incredibly well. However, he ends up losing his job - it was a non negotiable pre-condition that married men would be employed as salesmen as they look more stable. He then wires into his head that President Nixon is responsible for all that has happened to him and from there on, things go downhill.



What about dealing with the insane negative? Nothing less than a superhero would do.

Avatar (2009). Imagination meets patience meets technology.

Who remains king? The story!



I was a teenager when Titanic was released in India in March 1998. There was sufficient buzz generated by the movie (released in the US in December 1997), and I went to the theatre to do advance booking of tickets. The plan was to watch the movie with two classmates from school, and the sibling. I was very disappointed on seeing the ‘Houseful’ sign on my arrival, and the serpentine queues. I had school the next day, and the plan to buy tickets had to be postponed.

My mother got me the tickets when I was away in school.

The movie meant so much to me that I frowned at my giggly classmate. Coming to think of it, I even remember the scene – she was laughing when the cutlery was falling off the shelves, and I couldn’t fathom what was making her laugh.

I read and re-read the 12th Std. English lesson on the sinking ship; in a case of perfect timing, NCERT’s lesson was available. I borrowed the OST audio cassette from another classmate. I made a scrapbook containing every news article I could find, every picture I could obtain. I bought a poster and saved it for over a year before it found a place of honour in my room in Mumbai. I spoke of management lessons to be learnt from the sinking of this ship in the first formal presentation I had to make at b-school.

A dozen years post Titanic, Caprio and Winslet are counted among the best performers in Hollywood. I have changed in my own way.

When Avatar was released last month, I knew that this was going to be a solo watch. I decided to watch it when my parents were travelling. I had been warned to keep my expectations in check for the story reportedly had nothing new to offer, and I entered the theatre not knowing what to expect. What I was curious to see was the revamped theatre – it left me disappointed with its colour scheme (with lots of gold) and layout.

I got bored with the predictable start and the monotonous dialogues. By the interval, something unexpected happened. The bridge of my nose started hurting with the plastic glasses, and I had to hold them at a distance.

I had also started liking Navis, and their world set in Pandora. I am happy that Cameron waited for technology to be ready to capture what he had in mind – the stunning visuals make the movie-watching experience worthwhile.

3 Idiots (2009)

For those of you who have watched 3 Idiots, isn’t Ladakh looking gorgeous? Minor query for those of you who have visited the place - is it really as desolate as it appears?

Rajkumar Hirani has the ability to tell a story well. He uses a combination of simplicity and humour, has a focused approach on what he has to say, and ends his movie by saying, “The moral of the story is…”. Well, almost. Incidentally, these qualities are the hallmark of a good teacher. RH, did you ever want to become one?

In case you are finding the story difficult to understand, perhaps reading this would help. Chetan, I have not forgotten you and I assure you that my vast readership of 15 readers, give or take 10, will not forget you either.

Showing that salt water conducts electricity, the helicopter with the camera, the usage of the vacuum tube to aid the delivery of the baby – it felt really good to see concepts in use, and the careful detailing. Science, I know we have repeatedly expressed interest in each other. Time to rekindle the flame?!

Don’t you think Shreya has modulated her voice to suit Kareena to a tee?



Speaking of Farhan the photographer (played by Madhavan), would you consider doing what he did? Say fiddle-dee-dee to the world, care only about what your parents have to say on your choice of profession, and then go ahead to convert your passion into your profession? I did give it a thought. Watching and writing about Federer does not fit the bill.

Good going, Raju the engineer. Sharman brought alive the fear of failure that haunts him, and made his journey towards improving his self-belief look completely believable. I loved his performance.

Why do characters played or backed by Aamir in movies related to our education system end up topping the class, or winning the first prize in the Art competition? Is it to say that unconventional methods can be adopted, but you need to be the topper all the same?

As the movie progresses, watch Aamir relax into his role as Rancho. He starts taking himself less seriously, and is seriously cute in his nerdy, bespectacled look.

Go watch. Go.