Memories in March-Good old Rituporno

Simple story, sensitive acting, display of emotions, and a great background score. Good to get back Rituporno Ghosh, the filmaker I liked in Unishey April, Utsav and Dahan. Thank God we got rid of the famous actors  (??) Bipasha, Amitav, Aishwaria Rai. Welcome back Dipti Naval and long live Raima Sen.

Sometimes the producers give him a rare chance like this one to do his own stuff I guess.....I hope we see many more of his brilliant creation in days to come. Abstractness balanced with sensiblity.

Iti Mrinalini...life's oridinary tales yet so touching

Like a walk down memory lane, got carried away with Mrinalini in her journey to the past, got seriously entangled in the emotional roller coaster of her relationships, her pain, her joy, her failures, her endeavors. It was so endearing, the changes of a girl to a woman, to a lady love to a muse. Loved it so much, that the climax was too shocking and I still feel I wanted to walk with her the rest of her life, to hear her ordinary stories of life's many battles won and lost. In many ways she was just like me and you, believing and disbelieving in love and looking for a a simple honest man to stand beside her for a while. I never wanted the story to end....perhaps after a while it becomes the story of our lives too

Black Swan: Mermerised and lost

Psychological drama wrapped into graceful ballet performances, pretty elegant and complicated stuff. Natalia Portman is stunning in her role, no wonder she claimed the Oscar.

The story is beautiful in its own way, like a story in a ballet, you get the essence but not the details. Portman plays Nina , a girl tied up by her Mom's stiffling love and protection. She splits into alter egos and lives in a make beleive world. She creates characters and scenarios to fit her dark fantasy and desire, but on the cover she tries to be the nice, petite, simple girl. Her mom's love for ballet, her untimely exit from her career when she became pregnant with Nina, turned her into a overpowering parent. She tries to live a second life through Nina. Nina's craving for perfection is moulded, nurtured and imposed by her mother. She is a trapped soul who craves to be normal and relaxed but she cannot, not even through her dance, till her mentor Thomas ignites the spark in her, a sensual urge to love herself and live her life. As the ballet unfolds its saga of good and evil clashing with each other, so does Nina's alter egos. As the white swan claims her own life so does she, seeking her freedom in her death

7 Khoon Maaf: Forgetable, Unforgiveable

The movie is made with much love and passion but it may fall flat with some viewers, a bit like me. I kept wondering what was missing.

The story of a woman,marrying the wrong man every time, almost 7 times. She slowly turns into a killer, little by little Susanna changes from an innocent beauty looking for love to a protagonist killing for love-lessness. Her soft exterior hardens with every marriage, her belief in love, life and God takes a beating each time a man strikes a blow, betrays her trust. She lives on.

Her admirer Arun (Vivaan) spins the tale of this intriguing lady, who he was in awe as a kid and charmed in his youth to a woman he feared as an adult. Every man she falls in love with, ends up being overwhelmed with her charm, her coy, her independence. Their manhood feels challenged in her presence. They want to take over her spirit  guess, by first marrying her, then humiliating her, cheating on her, abusing her, lying to her, lusting for her. But she destroys them all. Against all sins committed against her, she passes the judgement of death.

I love to watch Vishal Bharadwaj's movies. They are so intense in drama and style. Just one critical comment and why I cannot forgive him this time. In his need for commercial success, he uses a cast of  stars like Priyanka Chopra, Neel Nitin Mukesh and John Abraham in the first half of the movie, who drags the movie down with their shallow performance against a superb second half with impressive performance by Anu Kapoor, Irfan Khan and Nassiruddin Shah. A talent like Konkona Sen was utterly not used. VB's earlier works like Omkara was the same, but thanks to Saif and Konkona's extensive screen presence, low grade performance of Kareena and Bipasa was less obvious. Maqbool would be closer to my heart from that perspective. I definitely missed someone like Tabu in this film. I am sure if she played Susanna, the movie would have left a lasting impression.

7 Khoon Maaf, a movie, is like a bottle of wine you will pick from a wine list, you taste and find it ok, and after emptying the bottle, you wish that the taste was little more fuller, it was bit more smooth and it wouldn't leave a tinge of hangover. I am sure the only cure for this slight hangover is the lovely lyrics by Gulzar and the music spun around them.

Harry Met Sally- Forever super like

Watched Harry met Sally again. Fell in love again, fell in love with love again. The couple we adored and grew up with. Their crazy love story, so unreal,yet so real. Music that lingers in your head and a smile that never leaves you through the movie and long time after. The whole old time fashion is so hideous today, yet the charm of Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal touches your heart.

We all have been there, looking into somebody's eyes and wondering for a split second, is he/she the "one". Some are lucky to have met the "one", sometimes the "one" is looking for another one. Its all about love, falling in and out of it. A perfect Valentine's day treat. A movie made to be loved forever, a movie that in its own simple way make you beleive in love all over again. Always a 5/5, just for its everlasting magic. Watch it anytime...with someONE or with an ice cream.

No Strings Attached-strikes a cord

Dream come true. Dating Ashton Kucher just for sex, no one had it this good. Natalie Portman looked way too size zero..but the chemistry between the leads flowed easily. There were slpastick moments but the director did a good job of balancing the leads and the supporting cast. Easy story, odd relation, but it definitely strikes a cord with every independent person's dream relation. Lots of nudity and eye candy moments. Just enjoy it and go with the flow. Definitely a 3/5 with an extra 0.5 for Ashton exposing his tush.
You will definitely leave the theatre with a smile on your face and a thought in your head....this is a such a cool idea (or is it).

Dhobi-Ghat: Amateur

I love watching movies. I watch across the length and breadth of genres. Satyajit Ray is my favourite film maker. When he passed away I was in tears. I felt I lost someone so close to my heart. It was 23rd April 1992, I was 15. Even if I were 25 or 35 or 65 years old, I would have felt the same loss, simply because I was in love with his movie making, story telling, camera work, casting and music. I can watch them again and again and still they will have a story to tell , a frame to be re discovered.

I loved 3 idiots too. Laughed and laughed till the end. One thing I know for sure is that, there is nothing like commercial and art movie, there is only good movie, mediocre and bad. Dhobi Ghat is somewhere in the middle lower bracket. (2/5)

I went for the 9:30pm show in Jakarta, to watch this much awaited movie, I liked the trailer a lot. Sadly, I simply came back with a headache, literally due to the jarring camera work of some scenes that were so crucial for the movie (or that's what the director thought)...but hardly made me think of a second watch. A straight line story, twisted and turned to form an abstract art, made up people, nothing close to reality. Nothing touches the heart, soul or even the eyes. Pretentious every bit of it. Amir khan never looked so out of place and uncomfortable in any movie (except for 1 scene where he looks up at the ceiling in despair). Shai and Munna, no idea what they had in mind or heart. Why Agnes said some made up lines, why the bored housewife spilled some unnecessary comments, why Kitu Gidwani's charm was wasted, why the smoking, why the bai and her daughter was shown in such light, why all the fake NRI angle.

A debut ante film maker, trying too hard to please her audience, but unsure of the ingredients needed, so she tries it all. Mumbai captured in cliched downpour, ganpati visarjan, slums, railway tracks and hint of underworld. The only thing I related to as a ex Mumbaikar, were the houses, the shoddy 1BK , the decent 1BHK to the upper class 3BHKs and the roadside pav bhaji, anytime of the day.

Kiran Rao, maam with all due respect,you definitely had a story to tell, a camera that captured still life (or some good photographer who took those shots)...and a nice simple ending with few and minor glimpses of brilliant work speckled here and there. But that's about it. I just wished that the simple climax could have been the inspiration for the entire film. This simple nice story about entangled relations could have been shot in some other way, against the backdrop of my favourite city Mumbai. In way that that I could have fallen in love with the city and its people all over again.The soul was missing.

As for casting, Prateik is definitely good (Munna) and I would love to see more of him, Monica (shai) too did a good job. Loved the tiny bit of Kitu Gidwani.

I can watch Pother Panchali many times and also for that matter, 3 Idiots. If I wanted pain and reality to hit me on the face, I will watch life as it pass by, why spend some quality time, huddled in a super cold movie hall, and watch some made up characters, trying so hard to emulate life with all their intellectual prowess and fail. I am sure this movie will be highly acclaimed and win accolades in film festivals (c. Emperor's New Clothes). But dont know how many heart or mind it will really touch. Or how many will go back to the theatres to see it again. I won't.