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.