Kshay

Revolutionary Road meets Trainspotting in India. Not suggesting that the creators of this movie copied from any other movie - am just referring to how deeply thought-provoking, social, intense and terribly depressing this movie was.
An absolutely wonderful creation shot in black and white - good idea though because it focuses attention on the characters. I haven't heard such wonderful use of music in a while now and the story was simple yet filmed in a brilliant way. Even with the use of expressionism, the director didn't tire the audience as it happened in that god-awful movie: The Tree of Life.
Rasika Dugal was awesome and it was her movie through and through.

Thoughts:
Why was the sculptor kid such an angry boy?
Why was Chhaya obsessed with the stone?
Why did Laxmi always look at Chhaya?
Could losing a child during pregnancy be that disturbing?
Would Chhaya have been the same if she would not have cared for the neighbour's kid in the beginning of the movie?
Why was Arvind oblivious to everything?
Is India finally becoming like the West, where social support is difficult to find?
If life really is that difficult, why do people struggle through it?
Would a dead spouse be better than a dead self?

I went for this movie because a friend recommended it. I didn't know the meaning of Kshay until I came back home after the movie. The progression towards the end.
"Do you know what a woman goes through when her child has died and she will never know what it would be like to ever give birth to one of her own? Do you know what it's like when she is left all alone at home with nothing to do with her life?"

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

This loosely translates to : Let it be, friends. Means: Ah fk.. just let it be...
I saw this movie today after ages! So happy that it is now easily available on DVD through Flipkart.
Albert Pinto ko gussa kyon aata hai (from N. Shah's earlier movie) referenced in a ridiculous scene and of course the end where Shah Jahan enters a Mahabharat play. "Say Sorry"
Aaaahhh... I'm laughing while typing this out :)
Satish Shah, Om Puri, the late Ravi Baswani, Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapoor dole out amazing performances.
Can't believe that this movie is almost 30 years old now. Timeless. Classic. Cult.
Sure, it's not a fantastic movie in the cinematic sense, but it's a movie that oozes of India; the India that was and still is.

Dosar

I love human relations. The movie kept things vague and kept one engrossed with the questions or comments: "What is she going to do/ say? How is he going to respond? Why is this woman suffering an abusive husband? Who was Mita? Yeah sure, now he wants her back... Who are these two? Yeah, the prostitute makes sense... I think."
Wonderful symbolism and art meshed with a good story. Don't know why he did a B/W film, but read somewhere that he did it just for kicks...
"Here's the pack of condoms; my wife won't need it. Your husband might." Ghosh seems to do a wonderful job with personalities and close-ups. Aaaah... Bengali movies...

The Avengers

I grin and rub my hands together with glee. "Doth thy mother know thou weareth her drapes?" Ha!!!!
The Avengers... OMG... This was such a fun fun movie. Gosh, loved it. Sure there were inconsistencies but oooh laaaa laaaa... love the fun!!!! Bruce Banner was cast brilliantly with Mark Ruffalo. Iron Man rocks and RDJ is perfect :). Scarlett J in red hair :D. Thor!!! Captain America was so so... I guess the Americans would like him more than the rest of the world. Oh but they made the movie so so cool!!! I am young again!!!!
Good usage of 2.5 hours. Quite a bit of work seems to have gone into production - believe the 3D was actually shot/ created really well for a change. The Hulk was awesome!!!!
Oh and yes, don't know why it released here before it did in the US.

Dahan

I met someone who recommended a bunch of bengali movies. I saw Dahan last night. Fabulous movie - there is beauty in its creation, in its characters, in their emotions, in the nuances of being Indian/ Bengali. I liked how the director did not make it a 'powerful' movie about rape, but rather about molestation born out of an act of instinct. I loved the grandmother in the movie.
There was a story about how many years ago, someone from her (grandmother's) family forgot a wallet full of money in the cab. Everybody was upset. In the morning, the cab driver returned with the wallet. Everybody was happy and rejoicing and distributing sweets and giving a tip to the cabbie. "They reacted as though stealing the wallet was the natural thing and returning it was something special."
I loved that story because it is thought-provoking.
Coming back to the movie... characters were thoroughly controlled. The husbands/ boyfriends were quintessential MCPs and may be a little more than that. When Romita (victim) thought about divorce, it wasn't made a big issue in the movie, but the snap response was, what will the people think? Think how much your parents spent on the marriage? Polash (Romita's husband) shied away from the incident and hoped to not face it in society; as a defense mechanism, he diverted his angst towards Romita and accused her of having pre-marital relations with the molesters. May be she was raped? That's the story which floated about in the community.
It was odd, how I thought the movie would be about the plight of a girl who had been molested and when  I sat through the movie, the plight was shared by every character in the movie but based on the perceived thoughts of others in the community.
We Indians grow up with a cultural burden based on how society perceives events; luckily, things are changing in cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore but not as much as they should.
I am also reading Swami Vivekanand's letters right now and I see that the Hindu culture had a wonderful influence on Indian development, but somewhere, society has indeed become such an overwhelming force which dictates most people's behaviour based on what is the right or the wrong thing to do.
Strawberry fields forever. Nothing's gonna change my world. I am happy to be a Mumbai-ite. Thank you Rituparno Ghosh.

The Artist

So they decided to make a silent movie in 2011/12 and it won the Oscar for best movie. Well deserved! The silent movie managed to grip my attention throughout and I don't know why... I have a feeling that if it was a 'talkie', it wouldn't have been that powerful a movie.
I was simply mesmerized with the detailing and the sets and even the behaviour of people throughout the movie. The font in the newspapers, the clothing, the hair of the women, the cars, the homes, the sidewalks... The bulky actor suited the 1920s, the actress - Berenice Bejo - OMG!! I was quite impressed by her performance. She oozed of sex appeal, her body language cried of oomph and damn, she had one expressive face. There were moments in the movie where I literally gasped when she would strike a pose or express an emotion.
The story was simple. A leading proud actor falls behind the times. "Talking" movies would soon replace the era of silent movies - similar to how 3D movies will soon kill 2D movies - and this guy is a silent movie actor; the audience now wants new, young faces. Dude slips into depression along with the economy (1929/30); Berenice Bejo loves him secretly.. climax scenes... It's not an extraordinary plot, but it's a fantastic motion picture. The old ways were simple, and life seemed to proceed along just fine... movie makes one think along those lines...

Addendum: Berenice Bejo did not win the best supporting actress award at the Oscars but daym... some of her poses in that skinny frame of hers with those wonderful eyes and high bones of the face... ooooo laa laaaa

J. Edgar

One of the beauties of hollywood lies in the justice it can serve to historical movies. The biopic J. Edgar may well go down in history as a memorable creation. It was hard to imagine such an authentic recreation of the past. Leonardo is, as always, stupendous but somewhere, he ought-did himself. And it's not about the makeup, it's about scenes that become memorable.
When he cries in fear and calls Miss Gandy into his office, he makes her promise to keep safe the secret files.
To be honest, yes it was slow and might be considered boring by some. Comments from an audience member such as, "That is so gay.", during such a movie ruin the experience.
The movie did justice to portraying J. Edgar's motivations, personal flaws, progress through his personal life, his insecurities and his emotional disorders.
My ability to write about movies has deteriorated, if ever it was any good. :)

The Pursuit of Happyness

Few movies I have loved as I have this one. The viewer may well forget that it is the same Will Smith from Independence Day. The story is a quintessential rags to riches story, without the riches; that is because the story ends as soon as the protagonist gets a job :)
The story is about Chris Gardner who had above-average intelligence, circumstances led him to a life as a salesman, living with his wife/ partner and his son; it's a true story of a guy by the same name. Troubles with his wife/ partner, difficulties accepting his situation, his reliance on an obsolete technology he is trying to sell, his experiences trying to make ends meet (quite literally) and his journey through a six-month unpaid internship forms the basis for this movie's story.
He loses a shoe when he is hit by a car as he is chasing a 'bum' who had stolen his portable bone density scanner.
He is forced to live in the restroom of a subway train station.
He arrives for a job interview with white paint on his face after being released from jail - the crime, unpaid parking tickets.

Will Smith played an outstanding part, unbelievably convincing and quite heartening. Favourite quotes (aah, I love them):
Christopher Gardner: It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

Christopher Gardner: This part of my life... this little part, is called happiness.

One of my all-time favourites.