Great Expectations (1998)

Recently, I got a chance to watch this movie on Romedy Now. I haven’t read the book, and I remember stills from this movie – it was released in 1998, and it reminded me of days when I was mad after Titanic and its stars. I still had about twenty minutes to go before the movie ended, and I couldn’t stay up. Gwyneth Paltrow’s acting came across as unbelievably cold, and I am not sure whether this was a deliberate choice.

I recommend the movie – there are enough moments that left me surprised and glued (for example, the introduction of Ms. Dinsmoor played by Anne Bancroft), the music is really good, the usage of voiceover is interesting and there are beautiful lines like this one.

“I'm not going to tell the story the way it happened. I'm going to tell it the way I remember it.”

Finn (Ethan Hawke) is the narrator of this story. I wonder what it would be like to hear the same story from Lustig (Rober De Niro).

Watch the trailer.

Born Free (1966)

Soon after we came back from Srinagar last year, the then-Yokefellow and I went to a shop in South Mumbai that sold pirated CDs of movies and sitcoms. The sibling had also accompanied us – I was scheduled to buy her birthday gift that day. “Born Free” was one among the CDs – I can’t recollect now whether it was my choice.

The movie is based on a real incident and starred a much-in-love real life couple (Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers) as the Adamsons who raise an orphaned lion cub Elsa to adulthood.  Joy (played by Virginia) wants to release Elsa back into the wild, where she truly belongs. This is not an easy task, as Joy and George go on to discover. Post the movie, the actors became committed animal rights activists and they established the Born Free Foundation. As for the real George and Joy Adamson, they separated - George was apparently interested in lions and Joy was interested in cheetahs.

I’d highly recommend this movie – the scenes with the lions are shot very well, and the music is very good.

After watching the movie, in the course of some conversation, I got this text – “Poor Elsa. I will train you.” I said something related to Simba from The Lion King, and left it at that.