Ishq

Lead Actors: Nithin, Nithya Menon

In short:

Awesome! Go watch it!

The longer version:

One of the best romantic Telugu movies of recent times (after Ye Maya Chesave, and better than it).

The first half of the movie is like every girl’s (guy’s too?) dream romance. Though very predictable, the nice blend of homour and romance makes it a treat to watch. The flow is amazing - nothing distracts you from the story, no unnecessary elements; the focus is just on the lead characters and the story.

Things I liked in this movie:

• The ‘Oh Priya Priya’ song...can’t stop humming it
• The storyline – which sticks to its purpose and does not deviate or let the audience’s attention deviate 
• Nitin shedding off his kiddish image – the look and characterization in this movie suits him much better. I hardly noticed him in other movies – I won’t forget this one for some time!
• Nitya Menon – The heroine with a brain, not a dumb hapless creature. Thank God, not from a village reeking of faction!
• The chemistry between the lead actors is awesome
• The lead actors act their age and don’t try to pretend to be silly teenagers in love 
• The villain – Again Thank God nothing to do with faction. He isn’t a perverted mad man either. Just another ordinary human with some negative qualities more than others
• The wedding scenes in the first half – the people in the wedding are shown like ordinary people and not clowns or dumb people
• The humor – sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious, sometimes a simple dialogue or action  takes you by surprise and you go LOLing
• How the hero goes head-on to face the problem and introduces himself to the villain

Things that could have been better:

• Trying to avoid the very clichéd strategies seen in so many movies to deal with the heroine’s family/ villain in the second half
• Songs – The songs are much better than in many movies of recent times, but only a few are memorable
• The hero’s intro…again so very clichéd
• The 'villiany' villian in the climax (not the villian mentioned above) - typical movie style; not really required?
• Lemme think…  :D

My Rating: 3.5/5

The Social Network

Lead actors: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella

Some liked the movie, some said the movie wasn’t very good and not worth watching…but how could I miss a movie on my favorite pastime?

I tried to watch the movie in the theatre…but that never happened as I could not get anyone to accompany me for it…and watching alone in the theatre – well, maybe I’ll have to start doing that soon. And as always, after a lot of planning to watch it on the big screen, I ended up watching it on the puny laptop screen (not even a TV screen :( ) 

Coming to the point now - the movie was fabulous. Bang on the point, no unnecessary scenes (at least not more than 5 mins of the total run time); the movie’s focus is ‘Perfect’.

The actors fit extremely well in the skins of the characters. I was apprehensive about Justin Timberlake starring in the movie – given his popularity, I thought his stardom would override the character he was playing, but was I wrong! Though I’m a fan of his, I was irritated by him at the end of the movie. When I look at a pic of him now, I’m bound to remember this character more than his hit numbers. It takes awesome talent to do that!

(While watching the movie, at one point, I remembered that I had a pic with Justin Timberlake at Madame Taussads and had put it on Facebook, and felt a sudden urge to delete it! I was embarrassed for a second for taking a pic with his wax replica!)

Hmm…before I create impressions about this character, this role wasn’t exactly bad, it is in fact significant and one of the roles which encourages Mark Zuckerberg (about whom the movie is actually about, but we’ll come to that later ;) ), it’s only a bit irritating.

Though the movie is about Mark Zuckerberg, he is not the central point in the movie, at least I did not feel so…no one character dominates, it is the plot that dominates the movie, as it should be…as it is in reality.

No one is good or bad in the movie, all are grey characters - including Mark. Everyone seems to be right, and it is for law to decide who is right-er :P

Loved a dialogue in the movie where Mark says that people are interested to know more about their friends, would love to have all the info about their friends in one place and maybe discover unknown facets of known people (that wasn’t the exact dialogue, I screwed it up a bit).

Verdict: A must-watch whether you ‘Facebook’ or not (I wonder if anyone falls in that category)

Rating: 4/5

P. S. : There is one thing I did not like about the movie though; the girls are shown in poor light and do not have any significant role…was there absolutely no female contribution to FB? (not Erica Albright kinda contribution, maybe coding or something useful) Well, if that is how it happened in reality, I can’t help it, can I?

Inception

Need to make a declaration before starting off with the review (to avoid embarrassment, in case the readers assume that I did not watch the movie till now :P) - I watched the movie LAST WEEK and on the IMAX SCREEN. Just didn’t have the time/ was too lazy when I had the time, to write the review.

There…now that that’s done, I’ll start off with the review :D

Breaking into another person’s mind, through their dreams and extracting info – how awesome is that? Especially when the dreams seem so real, and it’s hard to distinguish between dreams and reality – awesome idea. And what if you can go into another deeper dream though a dream; creating layers of dreams – my reaction is just this - :-O

This movie IS like The Matrix, and very different from it at the same time. The concept of dreams/ illusion created by the Matrix and the way the protagonists enter and exit this realm as per their whim is similar in both the movies. But, Inception is not as complex/ cryptic as The Matrix (3 movies versus 1 – obviously makers of The Matrix trilogy had a lot more to showcase). Inception is more mature and relies entirely on its plot to create the awe factor, unlike The Matrix trilogy which used action stunts blah blah…

So what do dreams have to do with a word like ‘inception’? The protagonists in the movie are on a mission – to plant a certain idea deep in the mind of the heir of a business empire, such that his mind will surely act upon it, as if the idea really occurred only to him – this process being called an 'Inception’.

Things I loved in the movie:

• The very concept of inception – I’ve no words to appreciate such an awesome idea

• The idea of ‘kick’ – very very innovative and sometimes funny to watch

• The scene where the architect (played by Ellen Page) ‘rolls’ the street (in her induction)

• The wittiness of Eames – ‘the forger’ (Tom Hardy) and the pranks he plays on Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Oh ya, and both of them are so cute, in their own ways ;)

• The scene where Arthur ties up all the others in the hotel in the 2nd level of the dream

• The background score - perfectly complemented the movie

• The ending scene – wassup with the spinning top? Too bad we can’t see what happened to it.

I was annoyed by the character of Mal (Marion Cotillard) and felt it dragged a bit. While watching the scene where Mal kills herself, I was like “Stupid, idiotic woman, what are you thinking?” and just short of hurling abuses at her :P

Couldn’t help but notice, Leonardo DiCaprio looks quite ‘elderly’ now, his boyish looks have disappeared…something I thought impossible to occur :(

Verdict: One of the best movies in recent times, go watch it if you didn't, to avoid future embarrassment :P

Rating: 4.5/5

I wish I could do an Inception and plant ideas in everyone's heads to comment on my blogs!  :(

Vedam

Lead actors: Allu Arjun, Manoj Manchu, Anushka Shetty, Manoj Bajpai, Lekha Washington, Deeksha Seth, Saranya

Watched the movie almost two weeks back and missed the first half hour of the movie. Yet, here goes!

Vedam tracks 5 stories to give the audience a simple a message; that the greatest ‘vedam’ is nothing but to live and let live. The 5 stories sometimes seem like a stark contrast to each other, and sometimes complement each other. The biggest disappointment though is that the message (what I wrote above) isn’t lucidly shown in the movie.

I just caught that line from a song from the movie and somehow it went deep into my head and I watched the movie from that perspective and felt that the movie wanted to convey the same. I don’t know why I gave so much importance to that line, it wasn’t exactly highlighted, and maybe the point I got wasn't what the director wanted to convey!

Well, if that is the point or IF there is any other point, then the movie does a pretty lousy job at conveying it. Those who didn’t notice that line will find the movie to be a hotch-potch of stories with nothing much in common except the very clichéd climax.

Coming to the story, Allu Arjun plays a guy who dreams of bungalows but lives in a slum. He has this uber-rich girlfriend (Deeksha Seth) who thinks he is the same (this guy manages the show that way) and plans to introduce him to her mom at a party. But…the ticket to the party costs about 30K for 2! So what does our hero do? He decides to steal to make the money!

Manoj Manchu and his rock band have to head to Bangalore for a concert – their biggest break ever. They miss their flight and hence decide to go by car. After a crazy attempt to overtake a lorry who’s driver mocks him, they end-up with a flat tyre. This guy is left with a girl from the band (Lekha Washington) while the others set off to get the tyre repaired. A bunch of people soon show up and force them to marry or tie a rakhi. This guy gets into a fight with them and is almost killed…

Manoj Bajpai is a Muslim (that needs to be explicitly mentioned for the story) who loses his to-be-born child when he gets into a brawl with a Hindu procession. He then decides to fly away to another country to run away from the place which caused tragedy in his life, but the police land at his door a day before his departure and arrest him and his nephews on the grounds that they are terrorists. Well, he isn’t! So he protests, but to no avail…

A poor farmer sells off his kidney to pay some dues. Now this guy suggests the same thing to his niece (Saranya) to release her son from bondage labor and get him educated. There two naïve people are told to lie that they are related to the kidney recipient, but they screw it up and are kicked out….but these people NEED the money.

Anushka Shetty plays the role of a prostitute who escapes from the place along with a transvestite. But they both keep landing in trouble and when escaping from a place the transvestite is stabbed!

Well, after a lot of twists and turns in the plot, the 5 tracks end up at a hospital! And the hospital is attacked by terrorists!

I liked the 5 stories and each was given its own importance. Many are of the opinion that the Anushka Shetty role was completely unnecessary, but I think it was included to convey that transvestites are humans too. I appreciate the fact that Allu Arjun, Manchu Manoj, Anushka Shetty agreed to play those roles and shared the stage with the others.

The 5 stories start off brilliantly. The Allu Arjun and the kidney-transplant plots were the best. I felt that the other 3 tracks lost their steam somewhere in all those twists and turns. The climax is, as I said, clichéd, fails to impress and hardly has an impact.

Well, atleast they tried something different and innovative, I would love to see more such (and better) movies in Telugu.

Verdict: A good one, better than most of the movies these days. Should be watched for its uniqueness

Rating: 3/5

The Matrix Trilogy

The Matrix

Mr. Anderson (Keanu Reeves) lives a pretty ordinary life except that he is a hacker (by the name of ‘Neo’) and is curious to know what ‘The Matrix’ is. Enter Trinity and Morpheus, and THE TRUTH is revealed to him.

Here’s the truth…

******Warning: Spoilers ahead******

The world Mr. Anderson grew up and lives in is FAKE. The people and places and even the year he thinks it is – all are fake, it was all an illusion created by ‘The Matrix’.

After the creation of AI by mankind, machines grew powerful and soon there was a war between man and machine. The machines ran on solar power, so humans created impenetrable black clouds to cut off the power-supply for the machines.

And what did the machines do? They overpowered humans, plugged them into towers and used the body heat generated as power!!! Humans are now not born, but ‘grown’ in farms!

And….‘The Matrix’ is a set of programs that create the illusion of a real world to all those plugged in – to keep them in control!

So, Mr. Anderson aka Neo wakes up from the illusion and finds himself in some gooey liquid and plugged into the tower and is astonished to find hundreds of rows of such plugged in humans in hundreds of towers!!!

My reaction at this point: I was dumbfounded; kinda short of fainting with astonishment and simultaneously could not help but worship the writers of this story, WHAT AN IDEA! Oh my! The best scene ever! The best concept ever! (Hope, really hope it isn’t copied from somewhere).

Neo is rescued from the matrix by Morpheus and Trinity and he is trained for combat by loading programs into his head as well as learning how the rules of the matrix can be broken/ bent in the illusionary world, coz they have to defeat and avoid being killed by ‘the agents’ – programs to eliminate such people in the Matrix…the deadliest of whom/ which is Mr. Smith.

Morpheus believes that Neo is ‘The One’ – who supposedly will destroy The Matrix and grant freedom to mankind, as ‘The Oracle’ prophesizes so. ‘The Oracle’ is a sweet old lady who can foresee the future…or so they think…

Is Neo really ‘The One’?

The Matrix Reloaded

Neo has learnt the tricks of the Matrix and is now hard to catch/ beat.

But…

Neo is repeatedly haunted by a nightmare - which he fears will come true, and danger is close as a swarm of sentinels (machines that search for and kill any free human being they find) is fast approaching Zion, keen to destroy the entire city.

(‘Zion’, built near the Earth’s core, is the only free-human city left. This city is just mentioned but not shown in the first movie.)

The only way Neo can stop this is to reach The Source, but first he has to find ‘The Keymaker’…who is in the hands of ‘The Merovingian’ - a distasteful, arrogant, uncooperative idiot (as you will discover while watching the movie)

Will Neo get to The Source? What is at The Source? Will Neo’s nightmare come true? What is the fate of Zion and mankind? :-O

More of the truth is revealed and this time it extends far…beyond anyone’s, even Morpheus’s imagination…

(:D just a tiny attempt to rouse curiosity in those who didn't watch the movie :D :D :D )

The Matrix Revolutions

Is Neo ‘The One’? If he is, Mr. Smith is his exact opposite.

The Oracle says ‘The power of The One extends beyond The Matrix’…

Neo and co. are pondering over the consequences of the decision Neo took at the end of The Matrix Reloaded…

Mr. Smith is cloning himself like crazy…

Zion is preparing for war…

The Oracle has played all her cards…

The Sentinels attack Zion; Zion puts up a good fight and just when Zion is about to heave a sigh of relief, scores of sentinels loom over Zion eliminating any hope of winning the war. The only thing that can save them is a miracle.

Movie Analysis:

The Matrix was released in 1999…and I watched it in 2010…before I cursed myself for not watching this movie then, I realized what my age was in 1999 and forgave myself :P. Somehow this movie was never telecast on TV; at least in the recent past, and I never found the movie’s CD/ DVD :(

Guess what I see in the library on the day I take the membership…!

Good that I watched all three movies at once… wonder how those who watched the movie in 1999 contained their curiosity till 2003! (The sequels were released then.)

A LOT of thought has gone into making this trilogy and a dunderhead like me had to see it twice to get it into my head. Things are not so obvious and direct in these movies. The meaning of each scene/ dialogue is so deep, I don't think I figured them all out yet.

The Oracle, I feel, is the main character in this story, not Neo…it is she who contols the main characters, and her prophesies are just to set them into action and bring out the results that SHE wants. She tells each one what they need to know, not necessarily the future or the truth.

Agent Smith is another fascinating character. He can give you the jitters just with his sly looks and mean, sarcastic tone. I love the way he says 'Mr. Anderson' :D

Morpheus is portrayed as this demi-god who knows the truth in The Matrix, but his importance is reduced and he is overshadowed by Neo in the sequels. I felt he should've been given more importance and the character should've been better sketched in the sequels.

Trinity - I agree with her character and the amount of importance given to it. She fits just right in the trilogy.

The Matrix is the best of the trilogy. The sequels continue the story fascinatingly but somehow the awe factor drops a little.

The graphics in the movie are mind-blowing. They did not look even 1% fake/ animated and perfectly complemented the screenplay.

The stunts and action sequences are amazing. I personally hate fights and action sequences, but there were instances where I re-watched some action sequences from this trilogy. I especially liked the chasing-fight sequence with The Twins in The Matrix Reloaded and the final fight with Mr. Smith in The Matrix Revolutions.

This movie is a masterpiece. It makes James Cameron's and Steven Spielberg's movies look like Cartoon Network stuff.

Verdict: Awesome movie! Watch it right away!

Rating: 4.5/5

Ratatouille

Lead Actors: A rat and a boy!

Directors: Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava

The movie is about a rat that wants to be a chef!

If you find the above sentence absurd, no use reading further :P

Remy is a unique rat...a rat with an appreciation for fine taste. Remy gets inspired by  the famous chef Gusteau, having read his cookery books and aspires to be chef someday. But how can an animal whose very presence is scorned in the kitchen, rule it?

It so happens that Remy ends up all alone and bumps into the garbage boy in Gusteau’s restaurant (Linguini). How this chance meeting turns around the fate of Linguini as well as Remy forms the rest of the story.

 I felt Remy was such a cute little rat, so tiny, so furry and that cute little pink nose! I wish Remy was my pet :D Linguini’s character as that of a timid and gullible young lad is well-etched.

The portrayal of the collaboration and friendship between Linguini and Remy is adorable and sometimes humorous too! I loved the scene where Linguini lets go off Remy from the bottle after taking a promise that they would work together and Remy runs away from Linguini and then feels bad for the boy and comes back.

The animators did a great job in animating France (where the story is based), you can feel and see the beauty of the city though it's an animation. The food looks so delicious in the movie; I bet you’ll feel like trying out those dishes! The climax of the movie features a dish named ‘Ratatouille’ (hence the name of the movie); it looked so very yummy that I ended up Googling for the recipe. I must say I was very disappointed by the way the dish looked in reality! Hats off to the animators!

(Caution: I’m partial towards animation movies)

Verdict: A really cute movie that makes you feel good!

Rating: 3/5

 

Ye Maya Chesave

Lead Actors: Naga Chaitanya, Samantha
Director: Gautam Menon

First impressions:

- Samantha is so cute!

- Naga Chaitanya now knows how to act (somewat)

- The music is awesome; it’s dreamy and transforms you into another world

- Too many hugs and smooches

Boy (Karthik, played by Naga Chaitanya) sees girl (Jesse, played by Samantha) , falls for her and pursues her, the girl avoids the boy, the girl starts liking boy, then she says ‘just friends’, then she starts liking him again, then she hates him, then she falls for him, then she hates him again, then she likes him again, then she avoids him…….!!! Oh ya n I forgot to mention, every now and then she keeps referring to her dad – this is what the storyline would look like if you compress it!

I held my head in my hands and almost cried for the torture Jesse was subjecting me to throughout the second part of the movie. I felt like banging my head to something when I saw her in the climax! (sob!)

Now coming to the positive aspects of the movie, the music (by A. R. Rahman) is remarkable and does a LOT for the movie. All the songs are good; my fav are ‘Manasa’, ‘Kundanapu Bomma’ and ‘Ee Hridayam’. The style of narration, atypical for a Telugu movie, is remarkable; the movie’s all about the narrative. The scenes shot in exotic locales are really beautiful and are a treat for the eyes.

The chemistry in the movie is great – the chemistry I’m referring to is the one between the narration, music and exotic locations :P

This is not the type of movie that can/ should be watched with your parents/ siblings; unless they are very open-minded and you are open minded enough to watch such movies with them. Thinking of it now, I think even the ‘parents’/ ‘siblings’ of Karthik and Jesse did not know why they were in the movie! No wonder I saw just gangs of girls/ gangs of boys/ couples at the theatre! I did not find anyone above 50 years of age!

Was it a good decision to watch the movie? Well, I’m just about as sure as Jesse!

Verdict: Watch once in the theatre for the chemistry (the one I referred to)

Rating: 2/5 for the movie. (4/5 for the movie minus the dowdy story)

Quarantine

Lead Actors: Jennifer Carpenter
Director: John Erick Dowdle

A reporter (Jennifer Carpenter) is sent along with a cameraman to a fire station to film the activities of the firemen on the job. The crew has a pretty good time getting to know the firemen and doing things like sliding down the famous fireman’s pole.

The firemen get a call and they rush to a building with the crew tagging along where an old woman is sick and has apparently gone crazy and is attacking the other people. They soon realize that the old lady is infected with some disease and the people whom she bit start to fall ill and some even die.

While all this is happening, the building is sealed by the police with the residents, firemen and the reporting crew inside the building and these guys don’t have a clue about what’s going on. The infected people soon start attacking and biting the others and our reporter and cameraman are stuck in this mad frenzy. A resident tries to escape from a window, but he is shot dead by a sniper, indicating the graveness of the infection in the building.

It turns out that a strain of rabies that rapidly infects humans is what’s causing all this mayhem. The infected people turn into zombie like creatures and attack and eat other humans! (Yuck!) The concept of zombies may still be exciting to the film maker (gross makeup on some second rate artistes would do the job, eliminating the need to spend millions to animate some other scary creatures), but I can vouch that viewers hardly find the idea thrilling anymore.

The reporter and the cameraman survive till the end of the movie, the cameraman is killed first and the movie ends with the reporter being dragged away into the darkness.

The movie is shot from the cameraman’s point of view; everything is as seen through his lens. The last few minutes have the camera in the night mode. It was quite chilling to watch the movie, it’s good that there wasn’t too much of gore but the suspense wasn’t entirely effective; I never once got startled even though I was watching it all alone at night.

I thought the lead actress overacted in many places. In one situation, when things start to go really really bad in the movie, she starts panicking and trembling with fear in such a fashion that I found this part an ordeal to sit through and was irritated to watch all the over-action.

Verdict: An ok movie that can be watched for time pass. Not really scary.
My Rating: 2/5

What Happens in Vegas

Lead Actors: Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher
Director: Tom Vaughan

Joy (Cameron Diaz) stock-broker who’s recently had a breakup goes to Vegas to chill out with her best friend. Jack Fuller (Ashton Kutcher), a carpenter who’s been fired by his own father too lands up in Vegas with his friend at the same time.

They meet when they both are given the same room by mistake and end up partying together. The next morning, Joy wakes up to realize that she and Jack got married in their drunken stupor! Joy and Jack talk to each other and are relieved to find that neither of them wants to continue with the marriage and decide to annul it.

Just after their decision Jack uses Joy’s quarter in the slot machine and he wins a jackpot of 3,000,000! Joy then demands jack half the money as she is now his wife :D. They try to divorce but the judge, a person who finds such marriages and attitudes distasteful tells the couple to try to make their marriage work for six months, he threatens that else he wouldn’t let either of them get their hands on the jackpot money.

Joy then moves into Jack’s place and the rest of the story is about how they both try to outsmart, irritate, and even hurt the other to make them flee from the marriage/ jackpot. It isn’t tough to guess that they both finally fall in love with each other and ‘What Happens in Vegas’, stays long after Vegas too!

The movie is somewhat ok but does manage to elicit some laughs, esp. the scenes at the marriage counselor. In one scene, Jack’s friends hit him to portray to the counselor that he was abused by Joy; Jack appears with bruises and starts to whine about Joy when she coolly shows the counselor a video of the hitting – you should see the expression on Ashton Kutcher’s face (lol)

Verdict: A romantic comedy which is quite funny, but hardly romantic

My Rating: 2/5

Wanted

Lead Actors: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman
Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Wesley (James McAvoy) is a guy with a dull routine job and life. One fine day an assassin, Fox (Angelina Jolie), tells him that he is the son of an assassin and a gun-fight and a car-chase with another man (who supposedly is trying to kill Wesley and/ or the assassin) ensues. After warding-off the attacker, he is taken to the location of ‘The Fraternity’ where Sloan (Morgan Freeman) tells him that Wesley’s father was an assassin who worked with them and Wesley is supposed to inherit all that his father left; weapons, money, ‘legacy’ and all. He is also told that he is one of the few people on earth who have the ability of enormous speed and extremely quick reflexes when stressed; when the heart rate increases to abnormal levels (which Wesley so far thinks are just panic attacks).

Wesley chooses his normal way of life, but when he sees his bank balance at his desk, a sudden change (probably some feeling of super-confidence and I-needn’t-do-this-stupid-job-and-take-all-this-crap-coz-I-have-all-the-money-in-the-world) comes over him and he shouts at his boss and hits his backstabbing-friend with a keyboard and walks out of his office and into ‘The Fraternity’.

Wesley learns that the persons to be murdered are chosen based on some code hidden in a piece of fabric produced by a loom! This part is really silly, they should’ve thought of a better idea for where the names of the people come from. Sloan tells Wesley that these are the people who would cause destruction soon and hence they have to be killed to prevent it.

Wesley is then trained by Fox (albeit brutally, grossly) to be a professional assassin and the cute guy at the desk turns into a cold-blooded, high-precision murderer.

A lot of twists and turns and surprises follow, which better be watched than read.

This is one movie that I watched from the beginning to end with my mouth wide open in amazement (a couple of flies did go into my mouth and they had the time to come out unscathed too, so I’m still a vegetarian :P)

The way the movie was made is awesome – dark, treacherous and so out of this world – I got a feeling that what they were doing is pretty cool and powerful! I usually hate action stunts - they look very deliberate and impossible and make me wonder if I’m watching a movie or a circus and I was impressed with the action scenes in this movie; so imagine how good and well-shot they must be. I loved the curving of the bullets, I wonder if it's really possible :D

I just love it when I watch a movie without even the slightest inkling of what it is about/ who stars in it, and end up loving it!!!

N btw, move over Tom Hanks, my fav is now James McAvoy :D :D :D

Verdict: Those who like action movies/ Angelina Jolie/ James McAvoy :P will love it!

My Rating: 4/5

3 Idiots

Lead Actors: Aamir Khan, Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor
Director: Rajkumar Hirani

A rib-tickling film on three students in an engineering college – that about sums it up.

The movie is a must-watch, the situations are so funny and the dialogues are smartly written. It’s a very enjoyable movie experience. Aamir, Madhavan and Sharman manage to look like college students and I was very impressed by that; I was spooked that I would have to watch old botox-filled faces acting as college students; a-la in the Telugu movies! :P

A majority of the scenes in the movie make you ROFL. There are some senti-scenes which I did not like - I guess Bollywood cannot do without a good dose of sentiment, and these scenes are real tear-jerkers for sensitive people.

The movie is very much based on Chetan Bhagat’s first novel ‘Five-point Someone’.

The Chetan Bhagat credit issue is turning out to be very ugly and I did not expect something like this from the makers of such a huge film. As a person who read the book, I can vouch that the movie is not just ‘inspired’, but is more than 50% from book. Throwing in a few more characters and some scenes (some were totally unnecessary, esp. the delivery scene) does not make the movie just an ‘inspiration’ of the book. Of course, normally, when film makers say they are ‘inspired’ by a movie of another language, it simple means it’s a remake! I guess this trend is ‘inspiring’ the making of movies based on novels too!

All in all, the movie is ok, but the fun of the thought of the movie is lost due to the credit issue. Crediting the author at the end is in my view in really bad taste, coz in the theatre in which I saw the movie, the credits at the end weren’t even shown.
If this is the fate of a renowned author, imagine the plight of the unknown writers!

As a parting note – It is said that if you think too much about something, you become that. So I guess that’s what happened to the people associated with the movie!

Verdict: A must-watch for the comedy.
My Rating: 2.5/5, (I would’ve given a 3.5/5, but -1 bcoz of the issue :P)

Avatar

Lead Actors: Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver

Director: James Cameron

My curiosity for this movie drove me to watching this movie in a crappy theatre;  (I watched it on the 3rd day : ( ).

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) and some others are transferred into their ‘Avatars’ to convince the Na’vi of Pandora to evacuate a site, which supposedly is a source of some extremely valuable mineral. It so happens that actually it was Jake Sully’s twin who was in the mission and an Avatar was created for him, but he dies and so Jake is summoned to transform into the Avatar as the neurological structure of the created Avatar should match with the person who is being transferred into it.

Jake (in his Avatar) runs into the princess of the Na’vi (Zoë Saldaña) and the Na’vi decide to teach Jake their ways, instead of killing him. Now begins the journey of Jake (as well as the audience) into the world of the Na’vi, where they live in perfect harmony with nature.

The strong-point of the movie is most definitely the graphics – the representation of the world of Na’vi is awesome. I liked the floating mountains the most. The Avatars themselves are remarkable - their height, the strong build and the funny glowing dots on their faces, and yeah, the even more funny plait! :D

Another thing worth mentioning is that the characterization is not lost in all the graphics and story-telling and the movie manages to make the audience feel empathy for the characters. I couldn’t help but cheer out loud when a pilot, Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez), swoops into the scene firing tons of bullets to fight the baddies and when Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephan Lang) orders attacks on the Na’vi, I was so irritated at his determination to destruct their world, that at one point near the climax, I wanted to leap out at the screen and strangle him!!!

Watching the movie was a wonderful experience – even in 2D, in a stupid theatre. Can’t wait to watch it in 3D!

Verdict: Watch it for the graphics
My Rating: 4/5

P. S. - I watched the movie for the second time in 3 D and I did not find much difference between watching it in 2D and 3D. It was a real pain to watch it the second time :(

Arya 2

Lead actors: Allu Arjun, Navdeep, Kajal Aggarwal, Shradda Das
Director: Sukumar

It was really exciting for me to watch this movie on the first day of its release; it's only the second movie that I watched on the first day - the other one being 'Annavaram'. I'm the kind who would go for a movie only after trusted sources have confirmed that a movie is worth watching, so me actually going for a movie on the first  day is BIG.

The movie lives up to its name and can be called a true sequel to 'Arya'. This tale of  friendship and love has a very appealing blend of emotion, comedy and whackiness.

The first half of the movie seemed to drag, but the second half was fast paced and I did not lose interest for even a moment. And like every telugu movie, this one too has a good dose of Rayalaseema, bombs and knife-brandishing goons. And of course the father of  the 'heroine' is big and bad (in this movie hez actually sorta good) and has a big moustache.

The story is well written and has plennnty of twists and turns. In some scenes you might expect something serious to happen, but it turns out to be hilarious; surprises wait at every nook and corner of the film and have the audience in splits!

Navdeep is his usual cute self and Kajal is sweet in the movie. Allu Arjun plays his part as a weirdo cum 'Mr. Perfect' well and his dance moves are awesome, though I felt some dance moves were more like desperate attempts to show some circus feats and did not gel well with the music, I also felt as if Allu Arjun was trying to imitate Michael Jackson in some instances; in acting, attire as well as dancing ( I should've expected it - the begininning titles of the movie showed a tribute to the pop-star).

I loved the way friendship was portrayed in the film; Arya 2 is more about friendship than just a love story. The music too is good and I'm in love with the 'I love you' song.

Verdict: If you liked 'Arya' and can bear all the whackiness of Allu Arjun you will definitely like this movie.
My Rating: 3/5

Knowing

Lead actors: Nicholas Cage, Chandler Canterbury

Director: Alex Proyas

Since this movie was starring Nicholas Cage and is sci-fi, I had high expectations on it. The movie was a big disappointment; I wonder why I thought of watching it in the first place.

Throw in a bunch of characters, including some children of course (hey what’s sci-fi without at least one kid?), a freaky girl, a mysterious letter, some symbolism, a few talisman stones, a couple of disasters, a group of aliens and a horde of people to run around in the background screaming and there you have it- Knowing.

The movie begins in an elementary school in 1959 where a class of students is asked to submit their drawings, to be locked in a time capsule, scheduled to be opened 50 years later. One freaky-looking girl fills up her sheet with random numbers instead of drawing something.

50 years later, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), son of a professor at MIT, John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), is studying in the same elementary school. At the 50th anniversary celebrations, the time capsule is opened and the drawings are distributed to the children and guess what, the sheet with the random numbers ends up with Caleb. John sees the paper, does some searching on the internet and voila - an interesting revelation - the sheet contains some startling info!

This was when I thought, ‘Awesome!’ and readied myself for some excitement! And then, and then - the movie falls flat on its face.

It’s so distressing that the concept which had a great potential was made in such a pathetic way. The characterizations are abysmal- I didn’t understand what the characters were up to and why, and after sometime I stopped caring about what they were doing and continued to watch the movie just because it involved nothing more than just staring at the screen with an absolutely blank head and of course because I had no other work :D. Nicholas Cage did not quite fit well in the role of a confused professor.

I felt that this movie was a hotchpotch of several other movies and tried to show too many things in the same story. The aliens are too similar to the ones in A.I., the freaky 1959 school girl resembled any freaky girl in a typical horror film, the portrayal of the feelings of the characters at tense moments, a-la Signs, fails miserably and some scenes remind you of those from disaster movies. With a running time of 2 hours, this movie is an ordeal to sit through- if you use your head that is. The climax is no less absurd.

The only strong point of the movie is its visual effects, though not many. Some scenes were aesthetically shot.

Verdict: Can be watched once for its visual effects.
My Rating: 1.5/5

A Beautiful Mind

Lead actors: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly

Director: Ron Howard

I watched this movie on TV, without even a slightest idea about its story. And I’m glad I did ‘coz otherwise I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did.

----The rest of the content of the blog post has spoilers and I recommend you not to read further if you don’t have an idea about the story and intend to watch the movie----

The movie begins with John Nash (Russell Crowe) arriving as a graduate student at the Princeton University. Though somewhat nerdy, he finds a best friend in his roommate Charles Herman (Paul Bettany). After graduation he is offered a job at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He later falls in love with and marries one of his students Alicia Larde (Jennifer Connelly).

One fine day, he is approached by a Pentagon agent (Ed Harris) to decipher some complex secret codes. Nash breaks the code mentally with ease and is soon absorbed by the Pentagon to act as their secret agent and decipher codes for them. He even receives a chip an implant in his arm from the Pentagon.

All’s going well until one day when Russian agents track down Nash and chase him, and even fire at him. Panic-stricken, Nash rushes home and asks his wife to leave the place and go away from the danger.

The next day as he is delivering a lecture at the Harvard University, a bunch of people sedate him and forcefully take him to a psychiatric facility. Nash cries out that the doctor is a fake and is in fact a Russian agent. The doctor speaks to Alicia and says that Nash is schizophrenic and when she finds it hard to believe, even says, “John thinks I'm a Russian spy. Is that what you think?” (I was like, ‘Of course, you ARE a Russian spy! Now leave that poor brilliant professor alone!’)

Now cut to another scene where Nash is tearing off the skin from his arm and crying, “The implant's gone. I can't find it. It's gone”. (Now it hits me hard- that John Nash is in fact schizophrenic and the Pentagon stuff was his hallucination. At this point of time, the film had me so confused, I could no longer make out what was real and what was a part of Nash’s hallucination in the movie!). As it turns out, even Nash’s best friend at Princeton, Charles, never existed!

The rest of the story traces how Nash deals with schizophrenia and works his way to achieving the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.

The movie is based on the life of John Forbes Nash whose breakthroughs in game theory, differential geometry, and partial differential equations are in use in many fields even today. It is said though that the story deviates a lot from the actual facts in John Nash’s life.

A Beautiful Mind explores the beauty, complexity as well as the vulnerability of the human mind. It’s an unparalleled master-piece and is my all-time favorite.

Verdict: A must-watch.

My Rating: 4.5/5

What’s your Raashee?

Lead actors: Harman Baweja, Priyanka chopra (in 12 roles)
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Music: Sohail Sen

The film is about Yogesh Patel (played by Harman), who has to look for a suitable girl to get married to in a matter of days to get his family out of financial troubles. Having read a book on the zodiac signs, he decides to meet one girl belonging to each sign (played by Priyanka) to look for an appropriate life-partner.

Priyanka gives a commendable performance. She gets into the skin of each character and portrays them with ease. Never during the whole length of the movie did I feel that it was the same person in different attires. Priyanka more than manages to create a unique impression about each girl she represents. Harman plays his part aptly as the confused lad who is bowled over by most of the girls he meets.

Another impressive thing about the movie is that although Priyanka renders so many roles, she does not dominate the screen space and perfectly complements Harman’s role.

Of the 12 girls who were supposed to represent their zodiac signs, a couple of them were shown in poor light. This is totally justified when it comes to the script of the movie- to eliminate some probable matches for Yogesh, but it might hurt the viewers of those zodiac signs a wee bit.

The length of the movie is bothersome and some scenes involving goons and Yogesh’s uncle are hardly funny and the film could do without them.

As for the music, from the whopping number of songs in the movie (13 songs!), I found some to be mediocre, some were peppy and watch able and I was smitten by only one song- ‘Bikhri Bikhri’- which is slow and mellifluous.

Verdict: What’s your Rashee? can be watched once.
My Rating: 2/5