Guy Richie who is best known for his fast paced, slightly comical and wildly stylish, brain twisting British crime thrillers, Lock Stock and Smoking Barrel and Snatch being his best. I've been a fan of his works and loved his style of film making( I'm conveniently forgetting Swept Away)and been looking forward to a good movie from him. I saw Rock'n'Rolla couple of days back and I think Guy Ritchie is in the right direction for a comeback after the disastrous Swept Away. This made me take a more detailed look at his new adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. I've heard about the project and it struck me as odd that Guy Ritchie will choose such a topic for a movie and was apprehensive about it. What I didn't think of was the possibility that instead of Guy Ritchie conforming to Sherlock Holmes, he might just modify Sherlock Holmes to his style.

I saw an article and a still from the movie in NewYork Times that completely put things in perspective.
I think the picture speaks for itself. Thats Sherlock Holmes we see in the movie with blood on his bare chest and Robert Downey Jr showing off his well chiseled abs. Well for all those who pictured Sherlock Holmes as a quite, passive, think tank Guy Ritchie's version of Sherlock Holmes is gonna give a rude shock. I for one think it is absolute genius using Sherlock Holmes' boxing and sword fencing background to good use. Here is a little excerpt from the article:

IN a filthy, dank labyrinth of rooms below the streets of the East End, Sherlock Holmes was solving a case. That is, Robert Downey Jr., playing Holmes in the forthcoming film “Sherlock Holmes,” was engaged in hand-to-hand, foot-to-stomach combat with a very big and very bad villain (Robert Maillet). Bam! Pow! Ouch! Both characters would end up knocked out on the floor, along with Holmes’s trusty sidekick, Dr. John Watson, played by Jude Law.

Filmed in December, the scene presented a sharp corrective to the popular cinematic view of Holmes, at least the one propagated by the old films featuring the wonderfully named British actor Basil Rathbone. That Holmes occasionally wielded guns, leapt out of carriages and rushed through the fog with Errol Flynnesque panache, but mostly he was a giant brain inside a tweed suit, sexlessly debonair in the way Hollywood liked its leading men in the 1930s and 1940s. His Watson, played by Nigel Bruce, was a lumpy, good-natured, birdbrained foil for Holmes’s brittle brilliance.

The Sherlock Holmes of “Sherlock Holmes,” which is scheduled for release on Nov. 13, will not be wearing a deerstalker hat. Nor will he be wearing an Inverness overcoat, the kind with the dashing cloak that hangs over the shoulders as extra protection against the English rain. Sometimes — as in one fight scene — he will not even be wearing a shirt. (This gives Mr. Downey a chance to show off his admirably chiseled abs.)

Sure, he will still be smarter than everyone within a three-planet radius, and he will retain his uncanny ability to intuit whole life stories from the tiniest speck of dust on a shoe. But he will do those things while being a man of action, a chaser, shooter and pummeler of criminals — “like James Bond in 1891,” Joel Silver, one of the film’s producers, said last fall.

This might me the Sherlock Holmes that the new generation like and love. Just the idea is exciting. A movie in which we can see incredibly amazing deductive abilities of Sherlock and a little bit of action too along the way. Die Hard Sherlock fans will most probably hate this, and those who are already familiar with him will find it difficult to adapt to this new Sherlock, but the new minds-those who are unfamiliar with the concept of Sherlock holmes will most probably love this one. Can't wait for this movie to release.

Khaled Hossieni's Kite Runner is a book I read recently and absolutely loved. I went to the library for months in search of this book which inevitably will always be out in circulation. Eventually I lend it from one of my friends and read it- and what an experience it was. The Kite Runner goes way up there with "To Kill a Mockingbird" for me (except on the intellectual part, I meant the emotional one). So you can guess my expectations when I decided to watch the movie based on the same book and also how my expectations were shattered even 30 minutes into the movie.

Plot: ‘The Kite Runner’ is the film of the international bestselling book which tells the story of Amir, a well-to-do boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who is haunted by the guilt of betraying his childhood friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. It is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of the monarchy in Afghanistan through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the Taliban regime.

Review: This movie just underlined my firm belief that some books are best left untouched by the movie world. Books which deal predominantly in monologues and thought are almost next to impossible to render into a great movie. I never saw "To Kill a Mockingbird" movie cause I had read the book before and I had no idea how a film true to the book can be made. I thought Kite Runner may be different especially in the very able hands of Marc Forster(Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace). But I was rudely shocked back to reality to find a film that lacks both the emotional turmoil of the protagonist and the skewed friendship between the two boys. Anyone who has read the book will almost definitely hate the movie for destroying a beautiful work of art.

The movie feels rushed, and forced in almost every frame. Every scene was delivered without conviction and I was almost irritated at many points to see beautiful moments(in the book) utterly destroyed, or omitted. Subtlety is not at all present in the movie. The screenplay made the characters say out loud many things that the audience should have made to realise themselves. Somethings loose their beauty when said out loud. The blatant expose of the characters thought irked me. A monologue or narration would have been immensely helpful in dealing with such a book, but somehow the director thought that he will be able to pull off a great movie just because the book was great.

The movie omits many many important and emotional moments all through out the movie but yet it never looses an opportunity to show "Big Bad Russia" in the most derogatory light possible within the framework of the movie. It always amazes me how Americans never looses a single opportunity to establish Russia is a bad guy. In a movie where no emphasis is given to develop the characters, the movie seems so interested in the particular political stance of the protagonists father - obviously Anti Russian, or/and Anti-Communist. Where the book handled the situation trithfully and didn't stress much on the political implications, the movie seems so interestd in showing its political stance at every possible situation.

One of the most touching and shocking scenes in the book, for me, was Hassan's Death. In the book it is written so beautifully that I could almost see the events unravelling. The director, which is so eager to finish the movie and go home I suppose, just mentions the event in passing. A guy says "Hassan is dead" and thats it. I was absolutly stunned at that point. Similarly the ending in the book was so beautifully meloncholic and yet hopeful, whereas the movie emphasizes the CGI Kite flying antics more than any human emotional changes. Even the parts where the Afghanistan of today is shown with its Taliban, the movie falters and falls on its face. The single scene which stood out was the one at the orphanage and the outburst or the Manager there. That single scene was better than the whole movie, and that actor's performance was better than anybody else's in the movie.

The movie is nothing like what I saw when I read the book. Every 10 minutes in the movie something would stand out as jarring or out of place. While the book was about the emotional journey and the unique friendship of the protagonist, the movie is very happy to show off CGI Kite flying techniques and somewhat beautiful landscape. Soraya, the protagonist's wife had an important role in the book, whereas in the movie it is reduced to just a sideshow. If I hadn't read the book I wouldn't have understood the emotional state of the characters at any point of the movie.

My Verdict-I can't seem to stop finding faults with this movie, but I think I'm gonna stop. I have no idea what was going through the director's mind when he made the movie. One may find the movie tolerable if they haven't read the book, but those who have read watch it to see how bad the movie rendition is and gloat over having read the book first. I didn't feel nothing all through the movie except irateness and boredom. The movie quotes lines from the book often, but that doesn't save the movie, not by a long shot. Kite Runner the movie is absolutely a movie that you can pass(I even encourage you to pass).

Ever since I saw a part of this film on HBO I've been wanting to see it completely and yesterday finally that happened. This relatively unknown HBO original movie "The Fever", adapted from actor/writer Wallace Shawn's play of the same name, is a look into the poor of the world, Communism, Marxism, Revolution, Capitalism, Socialism, and many more things. This movie is not every one's cup of tea, but for those who can watch a serious movie, endure a one and a half hour monologue(not at all boring), are in for the treat of their life and may well see life in a totally different way after seeing this movie. You either hate this movie or love it.

Plot
Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave stars in this HBO Films adaptation of writer/actor Wallace Shawn's deeply personal stage play about the high cost of enlightenment, and the ever-widening gap between those who have and those who have not. Redgrave plays a nameless woman from a privileged world, suffering from a sense of disconnection from her comfortable life, who travels to a country (also nameless) in the throes of civil war. Suddenly deliriously ill, she collapses in a hotel bathroom, and, confronts an internal chorus of conflicting voices: dreams of comfort from her past, images of physical and economic violence, accusations of indifference, and cold-blooded arguments in favor of oppression. The central question: what, if anything, is a morally consistent way to live in the world as it is? Directed by Carlo Nero and featuring Angelina Jolie, Michael Moore, and Rade Serbedzija.

Review
Some say the global population is divided into the haves and the have-nots. Wallace Shawn seems to think so, since one of his recurring themes -- possibly his most insistent -- is the guilt of the haves. In the movie Vanessa Redgraves plays a character who becomes aware that there are people in the world that work just as hard as she had in her lifetime who have less. Far less. The movie is predominantly her monologue and her inner ramblings which provide food for thought. In a foreign country and in the midst of a fever, she examines her upbringing, her circumstances, and her shock that not everyone who works hard attains prosperity.

Capitalism preaches happiness through material purchases. Commodities such as fancy clothes that accentuate one's shallow character, edible underwear, ballet performances, superficial theater performances that exaggerate the life styles of the rich and the wannabe rich flock the markets for those who are made to think their salvation lies in buying more and more. But how many stop to think the background of the "Goods", the commodities? A simple inquiry into what materials mean to us, what ties us to the rest of humanity, the relationships created by the market system will also reveal what kind of people we are made to be.

In the movie Redgraves gets a copy of "Das Capital" by Karl Marx and she admits that most of it goes right past her head but the part about the workers affected her deeply. The capital doesn't care about the workers. It just want to extract the maximum from all the workers not caring about how the workers live or how they survive. We never pause to think of the workers behind all those "Goods" we consume, how they live, how they are exploited. By doing so we are also part of the vastly unjust system of the world in which we thrive on the poor. We are enjoying advantages at the expense of the poor. The movie asks what right does we have to enjoy such privileges. The first answer that comes to many may be cause they work hard. The movie also opens our eyes to the naked truth that the poor people work as hard as or even harder than us but still receive much less than we do. Why is our work more valuable than their work? Why does we get paid enough to spend on unwanted luxuries doing less work when the poor work harder than us and still get not enough to survive every day.

The movie has a piece of animated sequence that shows us how our ancestors oppressed the poor, deprived them of their opportunity to prosper by violent methods and presented those to us right from the moment we were born. This is true in so many levels. The rich has always been oppressing the poor, though its is much less apparent nowadays. The Capitalist has taken over the world and is wrecking havoc among all the nations that it has a hold on by making the rich-poor divide even larger. The money is getting concentrated on a few rich rendering the poor more poor. In any country there may be a few people who earn a thousand times more than hardworking poor people, doing nothing. This is fundamentally unjust and it pains to acknowledge that every one of us is part of that oppression knowingly or unknowingly.

There is a scene with Micheal Moore and the conversation about the delicious ice cream. It is such a powerful scene. After starting to see the Capitalist world from a newly found Socialist eye, Redgraves goes to a country a friend of hers describes as a beautiful country with lovable people. That unnamed country has undergone a recent revolution and the capitalist oppressors were thrown out of power. The people there are happy, if not rich. The particular conversation I'm talking about is one that deals with the dilemma faced by the government over the distribution of milk. On one hand they can give the milk to the children who needs it, and on the other hand it can be given to the tourists and thus make a better impression about the country and thereby better world relations. How will a government decide a trade off between these two?

Redgraves then travels to the neighboring country where revolution is still in its rudimentary stages on the suggestion from Micheal Moore. The stark contrast between the two countries are shown clearly. In the first country Redgraves was greeted with garlands while in the second country she is greeted with Kalashnikovs and beggars. While the people in the first country were happy, in the second country the people were bitter, oppressed and on the verge on armed revolution. There she meets Angelina Jolie a young revolutionary whose sister was raped and killed by the soldiers. Redgraves learns of the oppression the people are facing from the military government from Angelina Jolie.

She tries to return of her old life and forget about all these things but she is unable to do so and eventually she returns to that poor oppressed country once more and that is where in the midst of a fever she has the revelation and decides to dissect her personality. Redgraves is torn between becoming a true honest, respectable human being or accepting the capitalist animal side that will benefit from the grand theft rampant in a market system. All she has to do is either submit to her system created personality, close her eyes to the truth and eat, drink be happy in the face of global looting and rape – the easy choice-, or face torture, misery and even death, just like millions of others are going through every day who have the courage to stand up and resist to the unjust, criminal and illegitimate capitalist system. This dilemma of relationships between two sides of her personality, the truth and the lies of our market driven system is portrayed perfectly in this film.

My Verdict- This is a purely intellectual movie, and can be enjoyed only if you believe in some ideals, or are willing to be introduced to them. May it be Capitalism, or Socialism, both can enjoy the movie from opposite ends of the spectrum- Socialists being on the favorable side. Watch the movie only if you are prepared to question the way of life you have been so accustomed to. Watch the movie is you have something more than sympathy towards the poor. This is not a movie for an average movie goer expecting entertainment, instead watch it as food for thought-cause I promise you, once you watch the movie you will definitely think about it for quite sometime(be it favoring the views expressed or rebuking it). This is a must watch movie for anyone who is concerned with anything other than his/her own little life. An eye opener to a whole new spectrum of thoughts.

I'll come clean right from the start. I saw this movie expecting an all out comedy that gives no respect to story but just fun. I had no idea who were behind this movie, just saw Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly and with their reputation I expected another "Employee of the Month". I was in for a surprise, which I came to know only after finishing the movie, that the movie was written and directed by Steve Conrad(yeah that's right Pursuit of Happyness).

Plot
At 33, Doug Stauber is ready for a promotion. He's married, wants to buy a house, and is assistant manager at a Chicago supermarket that's building a new store in his neighborhood. His boss tells him he's a shoe in to manage the new store, then, a rival appears - Richard Wehlner, transferred from Canada. Richard has a deeper resume than Doug, is really nice, has a wife and daughter, and wants the promotion to manager, too. How should Doug behave toward Richard - as a friend, a colleague, a competitor, or an enemy? Richard, it seems, has demons and a past, but with the help of motivational tapes, he's resolved to succeed. Corporate and personal tests await the two men

Review
Do not watch this movie expecting another "Pursuit of Happyness" but instead go in with no expectations whatsoever and you may well like this movie, as I did. This movie had all the ingredients to make a silly one-upmanship no better than Employee of the Month, but writer/director chooses a totally alternate and much more lovable path. Its a fresh change to see a movie that satires something but still keep in touch with the reality of the world.

In the movie both the characters have their own problems and situations to compete for the new job. Doug(Sean William Scott) with his dream of moving out of their cramped apartment with paper-thin walls and into a new house and Richard(John C. Reilly) a recovering drug addict who has moved from Canada with his wife and daughter to make a living. Both of them are nice guys who are forced into a game of one-upmanship for the sole spot as the full manager at the new store. The writer shows both the character treading on the grey area but still we find ourselves rooting for Doug, who is a painfully nice guy who really needs the promotion.

Sean William Scott, the guy who made Stifler famous, is a totally different character altogether. Ever since American Pie, I've loved this guy though he didn't get many good roles after American Pie(Evolution is one of his better roles). But this is a role in which he could show off his subtle comedic talents and he is great. I can almost say this is his career best outing yet. Scott reins his goofy grin into something slightly rigid and almost panicked. John C. Reilly, whom I absolutely hated after watching Step Brothers, regained some points in my book with a complicated role which he played with subtlety. We feel sorry for both the characters and forgive their antics with a warm hearted nod of the head. Some of the most funny bits come from Jenna Fischer, Doug's incredibly sweet and supportive wife in the movie, with her one line remarks about their neighbor's "banjo" playing

Steve Conrad is definitely a better writer than a Director. The movie's writing and acting was pretty good but the direction was pretty ordinary. There is not one scene that impressed me visually. He stumbles a bit but still doesn't drop the ball delivering a fine ending. If someone other than him directed the movie this would have been a much more enjoyable experience than it is now.

My Verdict- It's been a long time since I've seen a comedy that balances broad farce and actual humanity with such wit, warmth, and weirdness. It's not as raunchy as the (awesome) stuff from the Apatow crew, and it's not as endearingly artsy as Wes Anderson's (also awesome) films, but The Promotion is a supremely satisfying little mixture of festival-flick "smallness" and big-budget "funny". When it comes to comedies about corporate gamesmanship and career assassination, The Promotion doesn't blaze any trails. What makes this film worthwhile is its willingness to display the protagonists as decent human beings despite their dog-eat-dog circumstances. There are enough laughs to justify it being labeled as a comedy but a stronger storyline than one normally associates with this kind of film. It's an enjoyable diversion amidst the big guns of summer.



DVDs are available to buy at Amazon. Get it now

Firaaq is an Urdu word that means both separation and quest. Firaaq is an ensemble film takes place over a 24-hour period; a month after a horrific communal carnage of the 2002 Gujarat riots, where as many as 2,000 people–mostly Muslim–were killed. The riots were a Hindu backlash to the Godhra train burning where Muslims were accused of burning up a car with 58 Hindu pilgrims inside.

The film traces the emotional journeys of 'ordinary people'. A middle class housewife closes the door on a victim and struggles to overcome her guilt. The loyalties of two best friends are tested in the times of fear and suspicion. A bunch of young men having suffered the riots seeks revenge to fight their helplessness and anger. A modern-day Hindu-Muslim couple struggles between the instinct to hide their identity and the desire to assert it.

Nanditha Das, the debut director and acclaimed actress, has dealt with the human side of this sensitive issue and pulled off an incredible feat of giving it the depth it needed within a timeframe of 24 hours. Firaaq grew out of Das' persistent social engagements with human rights issues as also her own concerns about the impact of violence on all of us, our lives and our relationships.

A film which portrays the atrocities that were going on in post riot Gujarat- the hunting of Muslims by Hindus as well as Law enforcement agencies, the fear in Muslim minds, the discriminatory social injustice towards Muslims- must be shown to a broader audience, at least, to enlighten the common man about what is going on in Gujarat.

The Hindu-Muslim couple in the movie(which according to me was the most striking story along with the boy Mohsin), especially the Muslim(Samir), is divided on where to stand when it comes to his identity. He is scared to say he is a Muslim, but yet in his heart he wants to assert it. This character shows how the middle-class Muslim in India feels. He says he has to think twice about praising some Pakistani cricket player, lest he is branded as a Pakistani spy. The Hindu Fascists in India have created an atmosphere in which it is impossible for a Muslim to lead a normal undiscriminating life.

The feeling that all Muslims are Pakisthani spies, or terrorists is spreading through the Indian psyche, unconsciously, and its an alarming trend. The Muslims in India are no less Indian than all the rest of them. Just because a minority in the Muslim community resort to Jihadi ways doesn't give us the right to brand the whole Muslim community as Terrorists. The film has brought out the common Indian psyche through the character of a tea shop owner who thought Samir a Hindu. Towards the end of the film, the character decides to assert he is a Muslim. The tea shop owner who was very cordial and friendly to the character turns on his heels and became indifferent to him the moment he learned Samir is a Muslim. This is something that could very well happen in India provided the massive brainwashing going on here.

Of all the characters in the movie, the 8 year old Mohsin was probably the most heart wrenching with his sorrowful eyes which speaks more than anything. The movie brings out clearly how a 8 year old is introduced to the intricacies of religious divide and how he absorbs the calamities around him. He gets taken into a home by a housewife to take care of him and she introduces him as Mohan(a Hindu name) to her mildly Hindu Fascist family. Mohsin soon leaves the house in fear of the husband, and when confronted by some Hindu bullies in the street he tells them his name is Mohan. Can you imagine a state in which even a Muslim name is dangerous? And more importantly, a mere 8 year old knows this. That is the deteriorating condition in India(not the whole, but some parts).

The final act was actually quite chilling, and I felt it could cut either way, depending on your outlook. One, that it is of hope, that with the next generation lies opportunity to bury the past and forge a new future ahead filled with better understanding, and the appreciation that such violence should never occur again. On the other hand, it reminds of how impressionable a young mind is, and through the wandering within a camp, taking in the sights of the aftermath of atrocities committed, that the seeds of revenge could have been innately planted, and being ready for improper indoctrination for further atrocities to be committed, some time in the future.

A little discussed fact of massive violence is that it’s not over when the fighting stops. It’s just smoldering like a volcano returning to dormancy after an eruption. There’s a haze of fear and loathing still thick in the community. It happened with Jews who survived the camps trying to return home after WWII only to find they weren’t anymore wanted then they were during the war. The enduring displacement was maybe the biggest reason for establishing Israel, which shifted the war to a smoldering tension, and occasional eruption, with Palestine. It’s the same five years after the Gujarat riots between Hindu and Muslim Indians. It's extremely difficult, but not impossible, to break the stranglehold that violence begets more violence.

Every once in a blue moon, a movie comes which captures the heart of the common audience as well as get the critics raving about it. Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" is just that. From the genre skipping director Danny Boyle, who brought us the hard hitting drama "Shallow Grave" , the exemplary"Train Spotting", the fast moving Zombie thriller "28 days Later", comes another emotional roller coaster which takes us through the highs and lows of Jamal Malik, a kid from a Mumbai slum.

Plot
The slumdog of the title is 18-year-old Jamal (Dev Patel), a survivor from the streets of Mumbai, India, who is starring on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In the course of his fantastic run on the show, he has come under suspicion for cheating. The police begin torturing him to get him to confess. How could a street kid with no formal education know such obscure answers as what American statesman is on the $100 bill? (Plot Courtsey: Lori Hoffman)

Review
And thus starts the journey through Jamal's life and how he came to know the answers to all those questions. The story is laid out before us in three layers- one is the immediate present where police officers are interrogating Jamal for fraud, another is the quiz show that happened the day before, and the third one is Jamal's recalling of his tumultous life. The three threads are woven dexterously revealing just enough to keep the story going. For every question he answers in the show he reveals a little more about his life and how he got to know the answers.

Resisting the temptation to reveal more of the plot, we're moving on to whats good in the film. Simon Beaufoy has done a great job scripting the movie, adapting it from the Vikas Swarup novel "Q&A". I haven't read the novel, and so I don't know how much faithful the movie is to the book; but it doesn't matter cause I don't think I will like the book better since I've seen the movie first. The dialogues were subtle, but yet quite revealing the gamut of emotions the characters are going through.

The direction and camera was admirable. The sheer color and energy of the movie gets you the Indian feel. The movie is 100% Indian, but yet made by an Irish Director. We have to give credit to Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandon(who co-directed the movie) for getting the real feel of India and for not turning this one into a western friendly flick. Like an american lady says in the movie-"real India". The captivating movements of the camera got me riveted to the screen without missing even short periods of silence.

The performances on the acting front just blew me away. The youngest Jamal, played by Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, did really well for a kid his age. Full credits to the directors for extracting such a natural performances from young kids. Dev Patel sizzled the screen with an amazing performance as Jamal. Freida Pinto also does a really good job as Jamal's love interest Lathika. Irfan Khan, who is said to be one of India's best actors, is thoroughly believable as the inspector who interrogates Jamal. Anil Kapoor also did a pretty good job as the charismatic game show host. As I have reviewed the Soundtrack of the movie earlier, I guess there is no need to repeat how great the soundtrack is and what it does to the overall feel of the movie.

Danny Boyle's love for complicated characters is really evident in the movie and the best example for that is Jamal's brother Salim. He is a complex character who harbours love for his brother, and at the same time gets jealous when Lathika gets close to Jamal. With an inherent mean streak in him, Salim inevitably falls into the underworld, but still has some good in his heart. He is a character who is forced by his circumstances into what he is.

The movie is a modern day fairy tale, a rags to riches journey of a boy, a classic love story, and many more. The movie depends on Love and Destiny to carry the story forward and they did that just beautifully. Jamal's undying love for Lathika, right from the day his mother is killed in an anti-Muslim riot by the Hindu fascists, is endearingly lovable. Jamal never once gives up his love for her, not for one moment. They get separated many times in the movie, but Jamal's persistence and love for Lathika brings them together again and again until they are finally free of the obstacles in their way.

There are some "in your face" shocking scenes, such as s*it covered young Jamal, that comes across as endearing. The sheer honesty of the film captivated my attention. Jamal and his brother does not even know what Taj Mahal is and that is very true in most of the real world cases. How will a Slum kid with no formal education, who tries to go through the next day somehow, know what Taj Mahal is. One of the questions asked in the show is the words engraved in front of India's national symbol. The options are so simple that even a 5 year old kid would answer that, but Jamal doesn't. When asked about this he promptly asks a series of questions to the inspector to which he knows the answer, but the inspector doesn't, like the cost of "Pani Puri" in a particular shop.

My Verdict- The movie, simply put, is fantastic. An Indian movie that is worthy of an International stage(Yes, I said Indian movie. Even though the director is Irish, the movie is 100% Indian, but without the songs, dance and cliches). With 4 Golden Globe nominations, 2 Screen Actors Guild nominations, 3 National Board of Review wins, 3 wins and 3 nominations in British Independent Film Awards and an array of other wins Slumdog Millionaire gives us the perfect mix of cinematic aesthetics and public affection.The climax was so tense that I almost fell off the edge of my seat. This is one movie you don't want to miss. The movie is so surreal, that is feels real.



Political Rant (forgive me but I had to)
In this modern day Indian Fairy Tale, Love and Destiny has a very big part to play. But underneath the Love and Destiny plot, there lies a more profound look into the lives of children from slums, how they are exploited, and how they live their lives. The movie honestly brings out the educational and economic divide that is present in India. It shows us there is a whole other section of the society who are well under the poverty line and struggle to get from one day to the next. The thing about the economic development in India( for that matter most of the world) is that the rich keeps getting richer and the poor poorer. The nations which boast of economic development should really look at the growing hunger indices of their countries. Economic policies of the countries should be formulated so that the gap between the poor and the rich should be reduced not increased. I'm so not happy at the way our world is running.

After the heart wrenching drama "Pursuit of Happyness" Gabriele Muccino and Will Smith come together for another drama, Seven Pounds. Is it another "Pursuit of Happyness"? No it is not.

Plot (without spoilers)
Ben(Will Smith) is an IRS agent who is deeply depressed and guilt-ridden for the mistakes from his past. He decides to change the lives of three strangers. Among those he contacts are a blind telemarketer (Woody Harrelson), a battered single mom (Elpidia Carrillo) and, most importantly, Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a woman in desperate need of a heart transplant with whom he inevitably fall in love.

Review
It is really hard to write a review of Seven Pounds without spoilers, which are not much anyways(I figured out most of the story half way through the movie). Anyways for all those who are spoiler-phobic I can try to refrain from as many details as I can while still making sense.

The biggest problem with the movie is the script. The writer tried to weave a mystery plot with an emotional one and as a result comes up short at both. The result is neither emotional, nor mysterious. In most of the scenes that are supposed to make us emotional we will be unable to do so because we will have no idea why the character is so emotional. But that would have been acceptable if the plot was truly mysterious. The plot falls short there again. From the supposedly incomprehensible flashbacks, we pretty much figure out the whole story, in the first fifteen minutes. All through the movie I was confused to see the movie as a mystery or an emotional drama. And I was also wondering if the writer takes his audience for fools to expect everybody will be surprised by the climax.

I went in to the theatre expecting another Pursuit of Happyness, but was thoroughly disappointed. Gabriele Muccino did a good job in making such a flimsy script into a passable movie. Though the movie was visually pleasing, the story, and the way it is handles totally ruined it. Will Smith puts on another Oscar worthy performance though I wondered sometimes if he is trying too hard. Unlike in "Pursuit of Happyness" Will Smith's charater is perpetually sad, or moody making it a little hard to like him. His charisma shows through in a couple of scenes by overall he is a moody emotional man.

With a performance that tugs all the strings of your heart, Rosario Dawson captures you as Emily Posa, a girl suffering from congenital heart disease. Quiet, broken and yet so full of yearning for life, Emily is the one bit of heart and soul in this film. And in bringing Emily to life, Dawson gives what can easily be described as a career best performance. She is the subtle balance to Smith’s sap-session, lighting the film up every time she unleashes her infectious smile. Through her performance, we cannot help but to connect with Emily’s pain as she struggles with near-terminal heart failure and celebrate those quiet, happy moments she shares as she begins to fall for the mysterious Ben. But the outstanding performance of Rosario Dawson is not enough to save the movie.

My Verdict - With a premise that is intriguing and unique the writer-director could have done much more. Will Smith teaming up with Gabriele Muccino will make us believe another "Pursuit of Happyness" is on the cards. But you are going to be really disappointed. The only two things that are worthy of a "watch" are the performances by Rosario Dawson and Will Smith. The plot holes will leave you gaping, the ending will leave you confused and the "big surprise" of Seven Pounds is that you get the "big surprise" pushed in your face in the first 15 minutes. Will Smith definitely broke his $100 million streak with this melodramatic, convoluted movie and he is not definitely not getting an Oscar for this one. Grant Nieporte should go back to writing sitcoms, where he belongs.



The soundtrack can be bought at Amazon And for all you Will Smith fans the 11x17 poster for the movie is available at Amazon

After a long wait, I finally had a chance to watch the much talked about Mongol, which recently bagged the Best Foreign Language award by the The National Board of Review. The movie, directed by Sergei Bodrov, tells us the childhood and early manhood of the Mongolian Ruler, Genghis Khan, who ruled half of the known world in the 1200's.

The movie opens with a Mongolian proverb- "Do not scorn the weak cub, For he may turn out to be a son of a tiger". We follow Temudgin, which was his real name before he was bestowed the ceremonious title of Khan, right from when he was 9 years old. The directors firm belief that to understand a man you have to understand the child is reflected well here. We see 9 year old Temudgin being taken to the Merkit clan by his father to choose his bride. They stay over at a friend's clan overnight and Temudgin ends up choosing 10 year old Borte as his wife, and thus sparking the fuse to violence which scars most of his childhood.

The enmity provoked by Temudgin choosing Borte sparks off a series of events which led to the poisoning of his father on the way back, and the usurping of the Khan title by the old man's rival Targutai. Targutai vows to kill Temudgin once he gets older and thus begins a life on the run, and a cycle of capturing and escaping which scars his childhood.

After a quick leap in time we meet Temudgin, who is a young man now, who finds his wife, Borte after long years. But their happiness is soon cut short by the Merkit showing up and capturing Borte. Temudgin soon turns to his childhood friend, Jamukha, to help him win Borte back, in spite of Jamukha's advice to get a new woman and forget about Borte. With the help of Jamukha he goes on to rescue Borte, and then through a series of events become the "Khan of Khans" in Mongolia.

It isn't easy to change the face of a known historic figure so drastically and actually pull it off. The fist thing that comes to our mind when we hear about Genghis Khan is an image of a barbaric despot who kills everybody kin and enemy alike. Till now every director who has tackled the subject of Genghis Khan has pictured his to be a maniacal barbarian who doesn't even have an ounce of mercy. But Sergei Bodrov shows us the other side of the man we know as Genghis Khan- the undying romantic, the caring father, the loyal friend.

Temudgin is portrayed as a doting husband to Borte. He is seen treating her as an equal, listening to her advice, and putting love before career in many occasions. He accepts her children, begot by other men raping her, without even an angered face. He is seen as a caring and loving father to his children enlightening us on the possibility that contrary to the popular portrayal of Genghis Khan, he might as well be a "man" after all.

Since it is a Genghis Khan movie, the battle scenes, blood and gore are unavoidable. The director treats the battle scenes with just the enough amount of style to get us excited and at the same time avoiding the battle overshadow the characterizing he has done deftly. The cinematography is simply breathtaking utilizing the desolate, yet beautiful, spots in Mongolia. Black horse-riding mongols riding across the horizons of beautiful Mongolia is a sight in itself to behold. The rise of Temudgin to Genghis Khan is shown with uncanny ability. Temudgin, who is shown to be different in his steely stubbornness and pride which makes him surrender to no one, captures your heart just like Mel Gibson did in his epic Braveheart.

My Verdict - The movie, directed by Sergei Bodrov, tells us the childhood and early manhood of the Mongolian Ruler, Genghis Khan, who ruled half of the known world in the 1200's. It isn't easy to change the face of a known historic figure so drastically and actually pull it off. The cinematography is simply breathtaking utilizing the desolate, yet beautiful, spots in Mongolia. Black horse-riding mongols riding across the horizons of beautiful Mongolia is a sight in itself to behold. Temudgin, who is shown to be different in his steely stubbornness and pride which makes him surrender to no one, captures your heart just like Mel Gibson did in his epic Braveheart. But don't go in to see another Braveheart cause in Mongol, the human side of the story is given more weightage over the battle. What this movie does to the barbaric image Hollywood was so glad in stamping Genghis Khan is yet to be seen. If anyone who doesn't know anything about Genghis Khan goes into the theater to see this movie, he will have a whole new image of Genghis Khan- stubborn, prideful, excellent strategist, caring father, loving husband.



Buy the DVD and watch it at home, or store away in your collection. It is a movie worth that position. You can buy it here at Amazon

After waiting for a long time I finally decided to watch American Gangster, a film over which the critics went ga-ga. Along with a star studded cast including Oscar Winners Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe, the Oscar winner director, Ridley Scott, teams up with Oscar winner Steven Zaillian, who have written many a hits including Mission Impossible and Schindler's List, brings a real story to life in this film which has been called by the RollingStones the black "Scarface" or the Harlem "Godfather".

In 1968 Harlem, drug kingpin "Bumpy" Johnson (Clarence Williams III) philosophizes to his driver/collector Frank Lucas (Washington) about the toll of discount appliance stores and fast food. "This is what's wrong with America. It's gotten so big, you just can't find your way," Johnson opines. "Where's the pride of ownership? Where's the personal service?" Shortly Bumpy suffers a heart attack and dies. Soon after Bumpy's death Frank seizes the opportunity and keeping Bumpy's lecture about eliminating the middle men he sets up his own drug trafficking route right from the source, Vietnam.

Along with the other plot another parallel plot about Richie Roberts(Russel Crowe), who plays the last honest cop in a time where the majority of the police were corrupt. He soon becomes the leader of the Essex County Narcotic Squad. He decides to go for the top dogs in the game and soon gets locked on Lucas Frank when, contrary to his ordinary custom, he wears a $50,000 dollar chinchilla coat-and-hat combo to an event at the behest of his Puerto Rican beauty queen wife.

My Verdict- Although it would be blasphemy to compare it to Godfather, American Gangster is pretty good in its own way. The 158 minute movie does tend to be on the slower side for most of the part, but picks up pace towards the end. The thing that stands out in this movie are the performances by the two protagonists Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe. Denzel Washington dazzles the screen in a performance that may be deemed the best in his career. Denzel oscillates from one masterful display of emotion to another with an ease that doesn't come as a surprise to those who know him. Russel Crowe also put up an excellent performance, if not his best to date. Steven Zaillian comes up with an incredibly detailed screenplay which is well developed in an enthralling film by the Gladiator director, Ridley Scott. The plots are intertwined beautifully rendering a confrontation towards the end between the Lucas and Richie in which sparks fly. Anyone who loves good movies won't be disappointed by getting a DVD and watch it if you had missed it when it was on theaters.

My Rating - 4/5

Buy it from Amazon here -American Gangster (2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition)

In the second part of the Trailer Time series some other interesting trailer I came across.

1. Watchmen- I had posted a trailer to this movie in a previous post.A new Watchmen trailer hit the net sometime ago. The more I see the trailers that are coming out the more I'm expecting big things from the movie. Hope the "300" director won't disappoint us.
Release Date: March 9, 2009


or Watch it in High Quality

2.Argentine and Guerrilla - The "Argentine" is a 2008 biopic about Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Benicio del Toro as Che. The film covers the Cuban revolution, depicting how Guevara and other revolutionaries under the leadership of Fidel Castro, toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The film comprises the first half of a two part examination of Guevara's revolutionary saga, with the second part Guerrilla. In the second movie "Guerrilla" after helping overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, Guevara moved on to foment revolutions in Africa and South America, eventually being captured and killed by counter-insurgency rangers in the mountains of Bolivia, backed by the CIA. Both films were screened together at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, as one four hour motion picture entitled Che.
Release Date: 24th January, 2009




3.Star Trek - I was never a Star Trek fan and was positively appalled by the only movie I saw of the Star Trek- Star Trek:Nemesis. But saw the new trailer and it looks really good. Its a chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.
Release Date: 8th May,2009

From the makers of the heart wrenching drama "Pursuit of Happyness" comes another drama - Seven Pounds.

Gabriele Muccino returns after his phenomenal success of "Pursuit of Happyness" with a new drama about Ben(Will Smith), an IRS agent, who is deeply depressed and guilt-ridden for the mistakes from his past. He decides to change the lives of seven strangers and in the process meet Emily(Rosario Dawson) which complicated his plans.

Releases in the US on 19th December, 2008. Over here in India only on 9th January, 2009.