Inception

A fantastic creation with an intellectual / fantasy feel to it. Ellen Page will be acclaimed as a great actor soon enough, Leonardo was his normal good and Joseph Gordon-Levitt was rather striking. Some of the scenes were mind-blowing and cinematically it might be one of the best creations to have come out till date. The meticulous detail with which the 'dreams' were chalked out deserves appreciation. The plot was marvelous and dreams have always fascinated humans :)

The movie is currently ranked 3rd on Imdb's Top 250 and everybody who has seen it has been raving about it.
I am a bitch.

The entire emotional angle between Leo and his wife seemed hollow. The pace with which the movie ended and the abruptness of the end did not do justice to the other characters or the story. The end was rather predictable and the sequence of escapes from each dream was pretty boring.
When I got done with this movie I was quite impressed but also quite bored because towards the last half hour I was already waiting for the movie to end.

My sense is that at times people are so blinded and perplexed by confusing, intelligent stories that they mistake a good idea for a good all-round movie. If you keep people guessing and if you manage to dazzle them with good effects combined with good direction and good acting - does it make a good movie? Superficially - Yes! But dig down deeper and you realize that Shutter Island & Fight Club - they were complete movies.
I felt something was missing by the time the movie was beginning to end and I was rather dis-satisfied with an otherwise stupendous creation.

Indian Summer

Book

March 1947:

"While all this [riots] was going on, Mountbatten had to meet the Indian leaders. For that first week, the two least compromising and highest profile among them declined his invitation... Mohammad Ali Jinnah, representing the Muslim League, remained in Bombay making inflammatory speeches. Mohandas Gandhi, representing Mohandas Gandhi, was living among the outcastes in distant Bihar, and refused to take advantage of the viceregal aircraft. "


1937:

Excerpt from published article:
"Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irresistible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawahar might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy... His conceit is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.

This powerful vilification was published under the pseudonym 'Chanakya', after an ancient political philosopher, and caused great outrage among Nehru's followers. What they did not realise was that 'Chanakya' was actually Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Introspection, honesty, wit and mischief: few other politicians in history could have written such a lucid essay in self-deconstruction. "

1947 August:

From the outset, Indian women would earn equal pay for equal work - a right not conferred upon British women until the 1970s....
But behind this image of feminist progress, lay a long, dark shadow of feminist despair. At Calcutta in 1946, and subsequently, the vengeance of the rioters had been wreaked deliberately on women. As the great migration and great slaughters following partition got underway, so too did a sustained and brutal campaign of sexual persecution. The use of rape as a weapon of war was conscious and emphatic. On every side, proud tales were told of the degradation of enemy women. Thousands of women were abducted, forcibly married to their assailants, and bundled away to the other side of the border. Many never saw their families again. Thousands more were simply used and thrown back into their villages. There were accounts of women who had been held down while their breasts and arms were cut, tattooed or branded with their rapists' names and the dates of their attacks.





- Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann

Fantastic book. Brazen and factual. Boring in parts but enjoyable nonetheless.

Everybody's Fine

Sometimes we lie because it seems like the most convenient thing to do and sometimes because we need to judge other people's convenience. People who we don't know well appear to be fine simply because we don't know them well.

This movie is rather precious as it addresses loneliness - something that will most probably be forced upon us as we age. Robert is begging for some company throughout the movie and it is not easily seen...
Another thing this movie addresses is, well, what I mentioned earlier - lying. Keep the peace my friends, it usually works out :)
Robert De Niro is a widower who now lives alone and his 4 children live all across the US. He believes that things are fine with his children but, as most things go, things are far from fine. I must say that even though things tend to be 'not fine', all in all, things have a way of becoming fine - just look at the half full glass where the other half is full of precious air.

Needless to say, towards the end, my eyes were watery.

Lakshya

Another grossly under-rated movie. This movie did not do well commercially but was outstanding because of Farhhan Akhtar's vision combined with his ability to portray that vision. I loved the way he took his time with the movie and tried his best not to succumb to commercial demands. I must also add that he did a fantastic job with Hritik Roshan. Hritik's acting in Koi Mil Gaya was appreciated but I found it too 'in my face' and he was still Hritik Roshan.
In Lakshya, Hritik as a college kid was the perfect confused college kid, Hritik as a new entrant in the army seemed correctly raw, Hritik leading his team for the final fight was the focused leader. It's only in the dance scenes that I saw Hritik Roshan and not the character.

Farhan made the Indo-Pak 'battle' classy and slightly believable and not as commercial and dramatic as Border, but therein lie the pitfalls of such a movie: The masses don't really like such movies.

Scene: An hour or so before the end, Hritik rushes to the opening of a bunker while bellowing the movie battle cry "Dhavaa" and gunning the infiltrator down :D

People forget what the movie was meant to be about: Lakshya, loosely translated to 'Goal'.
I loved Hritik's transformation from a chilled out and carefree / careless college kid to a kid trying to prove himself by joining the army to a young man in Kashmir to the man hoisting the flag at the disputed mountain peak.

Glee

You know what's missing in most movies nowadays? Heart. They may be cinematically brilliant and the actors might be better performers(?) but a certain truth is missing from even the most sincere movies today.
Glee is not a movie. Glee is a TV show which is also a musical. The TV show is such that I do end up greeting each episode with glee :)
Much of the show is nonsensical and far-fetched but that is exactly what musicals tend to be. Individual stories, songs and the performances tackle the minute miseries of our time. What this show manages to do is not easily describable but I can say that it makes me want to sit back, relax and just watch. I find it funny that I lock my door and try to dance along once in a while. The ease with which I watch it is greater than that while watching FRIENDS or Seinfeld. The show is a must watch.
The problem with TV shows is that it's difficult to sustain the same enthusiasm and art with which the first couple of seasons are created. We shall wait and see.
(Side note: The lead character - Will Schester (Matthew Morrison) - is incredibly cute and hot at the same time. The fact that he is a brilliant dancer just makes it difficult for me to remain straight.)

Drake

Finally, I've decided to write about this artist - Nick Drake. He's dead now, wish he was still creating his art :)
There is a raw emotion in his voice, which by the way is not really sweet or melodious. But it's so truthful. I can see him crying while he was singing his songs. The sad part about this is that I cannot describe the psychological superiority that he may have had.
His words are so simple and yet, amazingly powerful.
The music is just original and can make one cry.
I am disgusted at how poorly I am writing this post because this guy deserves some real words.

"So I leave the ways that are making me what I really don't want to be."

My Blueberry Nights

One of those movies which remain hidden. Could easily see this movie again :) Was sincere, painful, sweet and romantic. Once again, the direction stood out. Once again, time was utilized as it should be... slowly. Norah Jones did a pretty good job, wonder if she might take up acting as a career. The best scenes in the movie? Jude Law reaching out across the table towards a sleeping Norah, especially in the last scene of the movie. Indescribable. A must watch scene :)

I enjoyed seeing Norah miserable when her boyfriend decided to cheat on her and dump her. Enjoyed seeing Jude's ex-girlfriend (may be?) come back to him just for a goodbye. Enjoyed the cameos by Natalie Portman and Rachel Weisz (her story). Take chances my friend.

Monster's Ball

Patience is missing too often nowadays... The director did a great job of taking his time with filming each scene. Often times, loosely woven stories and bad actors make movies slow, and in this case, great acting, especially by Halle Berry, combined with a well-knit story made this movie easy to watch. When I say easy, I refer to how quickly the movie passed me by; it was, however, a movie that was subtly grotesque.
There was a guy who was going to be executed, and he liked drawing. He said that he disliked pictures - portraits were better. This statement stood out: "Truly takes a human being to see a human being".
Loved the way the movie tackled racial discrimination in the US, the way sexual satisfaction tends to make humans happy, the way we are forced to think of our plight once we grow old... This movie touched so many nuances. Wouldn't call it one of the best movies I have seen.. Would call it a very good movie. But surely, a must watch.