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.

Day 2
The second day at the festival was a slow one too with me ending up seeing only one documentary that day- Bob Marley: Exodus 77 .

In this documentary, we witness the tumultuous events of 1977 through Bob Marley's songs and archival footage. It explores why Bob Marley and his music have become synonymous with struggle for freedom and resistance to oppression across the globe. The heart was in the right place for the documentary, but the execution was plain right boring and at times incoherent. A series of disjointed visuals are shown with the backdrop of Bob Marley's songs. At times I almost wished the Exodus Album was a bit smaller. After watching this one I didn't have the heart to go for any other movies that day and returned home.

Day 3
With 3 movies, Music Box, Caramel and Listening to silence, Day 3 was pretty satisfactory.

Caramel(Sukkar Banat)(2007) - Caramel is a Lebanese movie directed by Nadine Labaki, who also stars as a lead role, about the lives of five women in Beirut who meet up at a beauty salon where they discuss subjects like sex, man and motherhood. It is a plce to openly discuss their thoughts and confess private sins and pleasures: Layale is in love with a married man. Nisrine is a Muslim and getting married- but she isn't a virgin. Rima finds herself attracted to women. Jamale is not allowing herself to grow old. Rose is looking after her sister instead of herself.

Nadine Labaki, the director, shows us a city with normal people or more appropriately, normal women whose day-to-day existence makes us smile, laugh, cry, sigh or weep. And therein lies the greatness of the film. Nadine has carefully scripted a tale where she succeeds in keeping the viewer hooked from the first shot.

The beauty parlour is a middle-class location where lighting has been used skillfully and the subtle changes in lighting convey moods effectively. Close-ups of hair being snipped and the routine chore of waxing convey the beautician’s mood. Dialogues are minimal, a shrug of the shoulders, discarding a tissue, the sniping of hair every gesture every close-up manages to convey a whole gamut of emotions. No preachiness, no moralising, just a group of women, each one who’s struggling to come to terms with her life.Only two or three men figure in the whole film, Layale’s married boyfriend, Nisrine’s fiancé and Rose’s elderly suitor. They appear briefly on screen and disappear. There is no place for men in this film. It’s a women’s perspective shown by a woman and again revolves around women.

Labaki steals the show in every scene she is in with that natural charm she has and her stricking good looks. The senile and eccentric sister of Rose is, perhaps, the character which provided the most laughs in the movie. Rose breaks our heart with a performance juggling her only chance at love(so late in her life) and finally throwing it away to look after her crazy sister.

My Verdict - To fully understand the undertones of the movie one must know something about the culture in Lebanon, the oppression women there are facing. If you see the movie with a western backdrop this is just another chick-flick(though a pretty good one at that). The struggle of the five women to go through their lives are rendered as a bittersweet ordeal by making us laugh and cry at the same time. The movie takes us through a journey of self discovery and liberation of the five women in their own unique ways. The Lesbianism, extra marital affair, sex before marriage, all of it are against the customs in Lebanon and yet we find them in the movie which rebels against established customs. The movie ends with the love interest of Rima cuts her hair short symbolizing the liberation women in Lebanon are craving. The movie rightly deserves its 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Knowing - Releasing 20 March 2009
"Knowing is Everything..."

Academy Award Winner Nicolas Cage stars in KNOWING, a gripping action-thriller of global proportions about a professor who stumbles on terrifying predictions about the future and sets out to prevent them from coming true. From the director of i,Robot comes anotehr action drama with an interesting theme.

Synopsis
In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead.

Fifty years later, a new generation of students examines the capsules contents and the girls cryptic message ends up in the hands of young Caleb Myles. But it is Caleb's father, professor Ted Myles (Nicolas Cage), who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the documents chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son. When Teds attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place.

With the reluctant help of Diana Whelan and Abby, the daughter and granddaughter of the now-deceased author of the prophecies, Teds increasingly desperate efforts take him on a heart-pounding race against time until he finds himself facing the ultimate disaster and the ultimate sacrifice.

Trailer 1


Trailer 2


The Proposal - Releasing 12 June 2009
"Here comes the bribe... "

Anne Fletcher returns after a very lovable 27 Dresses and an upbeat Step Up with a new Romantic Comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. A pushy boss(Sandra Bullock) forces her young assistant(Ryan Reynolds) to marry her in order to keep her Visa status in the U.S. and avoid deportation to Canada.

Synopsis
When high-powered book editor Margaret (Sandra Bullock) faces deportation to her native Canada, the quick-thinking exec declares that she’s actually engaged to her unsuspecting put-upon assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds), who she’s tormented for years. He agrees to participate in the charade, but with a few conditions of his own. The unlikely couple heads to Alaska to meet his quirky family (Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Betty White) and the always-in-control city girl finds herself in one comedic fish-out-of-water situation after another. With an impromptu wedding in the works and an immigration official on their tails, Margaret and Andrew reluctantly vow to stick to the plan despite the precarious consequences.

After the immensely funny "Clerks" and an equally enjoyable follow up "Clerks 2" Kevin Smith comes back with a new movie "Zack and Miri make a Porno" starring foul mouthed Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. Its no surprise that the movie is about two friends, Zack and Miri, who decides to make a porno to pay their bills and keep a roof over their head.

The plot is pretty simple. Zack, who is played by Seth Rogen, is a decent enough guy with minimal ambitions for his Life(its what Seth Rogen does best). Miri is his friend since 1st grade and his roommate. They got months of bills to be payed which is made clear by the huge heap of envelopes in a box labeled "Unpaid Bills" and an empty box labeled "Paid Bills". Eventually their debt catches up with them resulting in the disconnection of their water supply and electricity. When it becomes clear that to keep a roof above their head they need to make some money and fast, Zack suggests making a porno movie. What follows is what happens to the strictly platonic (or what they thought was platonic) relationship between Zack and Miri illustrated through a series of wildly comical and offensive antics by Zack, Miri and the crew they chose for shooting the porno.

One of the first film I saw of Kevin Smith, was Chasing Amy and I loved the movie with its mix of sweet romance and crude humor. At that time I have not even heard the name,Kevin Smith. He came to my attention with the film "Clerks" which I absolutely loved. I laughed so much that tears came to my eyes watching that. Smith didn't disappoint me with Clerks 2 either. And with this latest venture "Zack and Miri make a Porno" he has proved himself again. A great mix of soft hearted RomCom and offensive humor which actually makes you laugh. Smith loves to shock his audience using the four letter word and other obscenities. Roger Ebert put it rightly when he said

"This is sort of endearing. It gives his potty-mouth routines a certain freshness; we've heard these words over and over again, but never so many of them so closely jammed together. If you bleeped this movie for broadcast TV, it would sound like a conga line of Iron Men going through a metal detector"

Seth Rogen, whom I have begun to like with a series of great films, is in his own turf in this movie. He plays Zack the way only Seth Rogen can. When I first saw him in "40-year Old Virgin" I was actually offended by most of the things he said. Then I saw "Knocked Up" and began to tolerate his obscenities.With Super Bad I started to like the guy and by the time I finished seeing Pineapple Exress the guy has grown on me so much that I actually loved him and his brand of obscene humor. In "Zack and Miri make a Porno" he is classic Seth Rogen and I love it.

Elizabeth Banks(I just love to just look at her) also was excellent in the movie. She matched Seth Rogen in the "bleep language" and yet kept her charm intact. The chemistry between them is absolutely brilliant. It was so evident in the scene where they were supposed to do "it" in front of the camera for the porno and ended up making passionate love. Zack's friend and the producer of the porno, Delaney, also deserves a mention.

(Children and those who are easily offended skip this paragraph, or rather the whole movie)
Smith is an absolutely hilarious writer.Zack and Miri tries to come up with a name for their amateur porn and with hilarious results with names like Fuckback Mountain, Dawn of the Dick, and many others I can not even write here. For me the most funny one was Delaney's suggestion to sequels of "Star Whores", "The Revenge of the Shit - the full anal final chapter". In Smith's hands amateur porn is not sexy, but hilarious. With a lot of nudity(even male nudity which is the latest trend it seems) and foul language, the movie is not for the faint of heart, but for those who can overlook the obvious obscenities, you got a great movie underneath that.

My Verdict- "Zack and Miri makes a Porno" got many things straight right from the hilariously funny poster to a very satisfying movie but still lacked when it came to an ending. Smith is an absolutely hilarious writer and it can be seen all throughout the movie except for the last ten minutes or so. He succeeds in getting genuine laughs from most of his writing even though they are offensive. But I thought he was at a loss on how to end the movie after Zack storming out of the porno shoot. The ending seemed forced, somehow unsatisfying, or cliched. But the movie is very worth watching if you can forgive the director for the last few minutes. A great mix of soft hearted RomCom and offensive humor which actually makes you laugh.Smith is an absolutely hilarious writer.With a lot of nudity(even male nudity which is the latest trend it seems) and foul language, the movie is not for the faint of heart, but for those who can overlook the obvious obscenities, you got a great movie underneath that.



The hilariously funny movie poster is available to buy at Amazon


And the soundtrack top the movie is available at Amazon for those of who want it (I have not heard the soundtrack though a couple of tracks are good)

Before you ask why i watched such a movie, let me just add that I am a sucker for Romantic Comedies-good ones that is. So when I saw My Best Friend's Wedding I naturally thought of checking out the movie. I had no big expectations- just an average RomCom. But not only the movie was below average, it was plain right boring.

Its basically about a guy called Tank, played by Dane Cook, who is a jerk who hires himself out to date women and make their ex-boyfriends look good by comparison. That all changes when he meets Kate Hudson. What follows is an unbearably cliched movie which fall flat on its face. There are bad movies, then there is "My Best Friend's Girl".

The three main characters are pitiful looser, none of whom evokes any inkling of empathy in us. Tank refers to what he is doing in the movie as "Emotional Terrorism". The only emotional terrorism i felt in the movie was done by the actors, director and script writer to us, the audience. When romcoms are concerned I lower my standards considerably because of my affection to that genre, and to think that this movie didn't even meet that is scary. When compared to this the Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever was top class.Two decades ago, director Howard Deutch made Pretty In Pink, but more recently he's made a string of stinking sequels including Grumpier Old Men, The Odd Couple II and The Whole Ten Yards. It is high time he is stopped.

This doesn't even deserve a decent review. I posted this just to warn you guys.

My Verdict - Can sum it all up in just one sentence."Avoid it at any cost". Plead with your girlfriend if she tries to drag you into this one. Beg if you want. But don't give in.

My Rating - 0 /5 .. Is it possible to give this negative??

Its Trailer Time. Time for me to write about new movie trailers. Lets get started.

1.The Ugly Truth - A romantically challenged morning show producer (Heigl) is reluctantly embroiled in a series of outrageous tests by her chauvinistic correspondent (Butler) to prove his theories on relationships and help her find love. His clever ploys, however, lead to an unexpected result. After the adorable "27 Dresses" Katherine Heigl,one of my favourite actresses(Yeah, Grey's Anatomy is my guilty pleasure :D),returns with another romantic comedy. From the trailer it looks good.
Release Date:3rd April,2009

Or Watch it in High Quality

2. He's Just Not That Into You - The Baltimore-set movie of interconnecting story arcs deals with the challenges of reading or misreading human behavior. The star studded cast involves big names such as Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Scarlett Johansson and Ben Affleck. Phew!. It deals with a number of couple and may well be interesting.
Release Date: 6th February,2009

or Watch it in High Quality

Simon Pegg in his latest outing-"How to Lose Friends and Alienate People"- hits the mark again. I don't know how many of you have seen "Shaun of the Dead" or "Hot Fuzz", both outrageously funny. Shaun of the Dead is a spoof of the famous George A. Romero's Zombie movies. Those of you who dont know what a Zombie is stop reading now and skip to the next paragraph :D. Simon Pegg's first introduction to me was Shaun of the Dead. I loved that movie and been looking forward to his next film since then. Then came "Hot Fuzz"- a story of a top London Cop transferred to Country side because of professional jealousy and teamed up with a witless new partner. Hot Fuzz was kind of a serious comedy, not a spoof-different, not as funny as Shaun of the Dead, but still very likeable. So i was in high hopes when i heard about his new movie "How to Lose People and Alienate People".


Based on the memoir of the journalist Toby Young, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is the hilarious account of the fall and rise of Sidney Young (Simon Pegg), a hapless English hack on the make in New York’s media jungle. Sidney Young is a disillusioned intellectual who both adores and despises the world of celebrity, fame and glamour. His alternative magazine, Post Modern Review, pokes fun at the media obsessed stars and bucks trends, and so when Young is offered a job at the diametrically opposed conservative New York based Sharps magazine all hell breaks loose. Sidney Young was a nobody in Britain. He is in love with the magical place where celebrities live. As he puts it: “When I was a kid, I used to think there was a special place where all the movie stars lived, a kind of Shangri-la. And if you could just get inside there, you’d be happy for ever.” In one of his numerous attempts to get close to that "magical world" he tries to get into BAFTA awards with a pig, who as he says is Babe. Eventually he ends up inan after award party hosted by Sharps Magazine and he ruins the party. Sharps editor Clayton Harding notices him and offers him a job in Sharps Magazine and he finally gets to that "Shangri-La". The adventures and romantic excursions and revelations of Sidney Young is portrayed all through the film.

If you haven't read the book then you'll love this movie. It is quite a deviation from the book. So die-hard fans of the books may find it hard to digest. Simon Pegg's sense of humour can be seen throughout the film. Unlike what the trailers project this movie is not a comedy with no narrative or storyline. As the story goes on you get engrossed in the narrative and the rise and fall of Sidney Young. The story line gets a little fuzzy towards the end but still it is a very enjoyable movie.This is an intelligent, deftly scripted, well directed and acted film which tickles your funny bones. If this is not enough reason for you, see it just to see Megan Fox(if you know what i mean):D.
The movie, unlike what the title says, is not about loosing friends and alienating people. It is about loosing principles and getting alienated from your better self and the problems they may cause.

My Rating : 3.5/5