After so much fanfare the movie ended up being a disappointment. As the movie started I had this feeling (which I seem to get regularly while watching Hindi movies nowadays) that I have seen all this somewhere before. After some hard thinking, it turned out that the starting plot of the movie was eerily similar to Woody Allen’s ‘Match Point’. But somewhere on the way it started deviating from that plot and merged into the plot of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘True Romance’. Bollywood script writers are getting smart these days. Blending and mixing. If only they knew how to do it better! The last 15 minutes were the worst! It was slower than watching paint dry. You knew what was going to happen, and the director seemed to be bent on killing you softly while unveiling his masala melodrama. Ouch!

Outside after the show, it was raining heavily. And that ended up making me totally over the moon with nostalgia. That regular routine we had almost every other evening after college – dropping off my friends at their homes, the lonely 10km drive to my house, the sound of the rain drops and the perfect old mallu songs on the radio. Atleast the movie gave me a chance to do all that once again. The saving grace!

But I hear a lot of dissent growing against the movie. I read articles like this and this. I hear some of my friends and colleagues telling me it is bad advertising for India. Maybe it is. But are we all really blind? Or experts at putting things under the carpet. I guess every single one of us understands that these things still happen in India. It is not falsifying facts, it is just showing the negative part of the truth. Yes even I am proud and overwhelmed by the strides India has made in technology, space exploration, IT, pharmaceuticals, spirituality, business.. But doesn’t all that gloss simply hide the patches of rust underneath?

For me Slumdog is a movie that also acts as a reminder. A constructive criticism on how we manage to ignore some bare facts about our country. Take pride in glory, but don’t ignore the dirt.

1. WALL-E (2008)
I have rarely been impressed by any movie like I have been with WALL-E. The range of emotions and character traits portrayed by a Robot – unbelievable. Truly one of best feel good movies ever!

2. Short Circuit (1986)
I remember watching this as a kid in the very early 90′s when it came on TV. Those days the only channel we had available was the good old Doordarshan and this came as part of a series unimaginatively called as the ‘English Film Series’ in which they slaughtered a movie into 15 minute episodes and telecast them every Wednesday(?) from 6:15 to 6:30. Wow.. those were the days! (zzz .. Back from nostalgic dreams..) I recently downloaded (oops, am I in trouble?) a print of this and have to say, I still had the same amount of fun watching this now as then. This was the inspiration behind this post too. Not as spectacularly crafted as WALL-E, but yet ‘Johnny-5′ I am your fan too!

3. Bicentennial Man (1999)
Stellar performance by Robin Williams as ‘Andrew’ the robot who ‘lives’ for 200 years. A real epic based on Issac Asimov’s novella and very underrated in my opinion.

4. AI (2001)
There has to be a Spielberg in any movie list, shoudn’t it? Haley Joel Osment as a 11 year old Robo-kid who yearns for his mothers love has done another spectacular job with this one. The most sentimental of all robot movies.

5. The Terminator (1984) and T2 – Judgement Day (1994)
Arnold with his classic punch lines – ‘I’ll be back’. Incredible plot to say the least.

Honourable mentions :
Star Wars (1977) and its se/prequels – I wouldn’t say this is a true robo-movie, so have not included in the list. But R2-D2 and C-3PO did impress me a lot!
Forbidden Planet (1956) – Robby the robot! Great classic.
I, Robot (2004) – Sonny. The best looking robot of the lot and that final ‘wink’ is unforgettable.
*Batteries not Included (1987) – A bunch of robots save an apartment block – cute!

“Yes, beautiful stars! Better see!”

I had a light bulb flashing over my head, when I was watching Hitchcock’s classic “Vertigo” yesterday. The first half of the movie reminded me of the pyscho-thriller “Manichithrathazhu” (which was ripped off into Kannada as Apta Mithra, Tamil as the horrible Chandramukhi and recently in Hindi as Bhool Bhulaiyya). However to be honest I don’t think the movie was really a rip off. The plot went in a totally different direction and the worst you can say is maybe the mallu movie was inspired in part by the concept (which was a relief, I didn’t really like the idea that one of my favourite movies was a rip off). But that isn’t the case with the list of movies I present below:

1. Thalavattom (1986) vs One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) : This was almost a direct lift with a romantic plot added and some adjustments made to suite the locale differences. Even then I have to say Mohanlal has done a good job with this one. Both movies have that great quality of providing you with some emotional distress that lingers in your mind.

2. Nirnayam (1995) vs Fugitive (1991) : Well a rip off can’t be more direct than this. Nirnayam was just an OK masala flick for me, the movie is most famous for the looks of Mohanlal and the incredibly stupid scene of him driving (flying) an ambulance over a few police jeeps. Was also ripped off in Telugu and Hindi as “Criminal”, but it did have that great song – “Tu mile.. dil khile..”

3. Life is Beautiful (2000) vs Dead Poets Society (1989) : Another direct lift, pretty poor too I should say for an actor of the caliber of Mohanlal. The original was such a brilliant movie. Robbin Williams was too good in it.

4. Ayushkalam (1992) vs Ghost (1990) : Not a direct lift, but the general plot and concept are too similar to forgive. But incredibly both movies are really enjoyable to watch.

5. Thooval Sparsham (1990) vs 3 Men and a Baby (1987) : If you have seen the mallu movie, the title of the English original should be enough to note that it is stolen (or inspired if you may!). Recently was remade into Hindi as “Hey Baby”

The list must be longer than I think. There are a lot of B-grade mallu movies, that are culprits too.. I don’t even bother to put them here! :D The whole point is, is there so much shortage of good stories? There is enough talent in the industry to produce good movies, so do we really need to get “inspired” from the west? I don’t understand…

But it was not bad. This is one Sci-Fi movie worth seeing. The plot, set about 50 years in the future, revolves around the 8 member crew of a spaceship Icarus which is on a journey to the Sun. Their mission is to bring the dying Sun back to life, by exploding a bomb the size of Manhattan island.

The best thing about the movie is that the cast and crew have done brilliantly to make it all look real and believable. The acting is excellent by the entire cast especially Chris Evans (“Mace”) and Cillian Murphy (“Capa”). The graphics are awesome too, and to some extent it creates a world which you won’t think is graphics at all. But they have not gone overboard with all that. They are all well within the limits of imaginable reality. Same goes with the characters. They are not depicted as super humans, who either have no emotions or have too many emotions as is the case with many other Sci-Fi flicks. This one though, they do feel like real human beings, who are just doing their job, making mistakes like everyone of us do.

[[Warning : Spoilers ahead]]
Now to whats bad. The plot is excellent, the movie is excellent, till about 75% of it all. Then comes the part about the intrusion of the captain from a previous failed mission. Apparently he has gone nuts and wants to sabotage the mission. The way he is shown is all crap. Too many unnecessary effects, too much blurring, they make it bad. The limits of reality are breached here. I don’t really understand why this element was treated so. Hmm. That made it disappointing.

Generally though it is nice to watch. The movie is kind of like a mix of Armageddon and Forbidden Planet, that’s what I thought. My friend was telling, she had this triumphant-good feeling after the end of Armageddon, but with this one that feeling was absent. Well.. do you really see a Sci-Fi fiction to get this good feeling? Hmm. it all depends on your perspective.

Overall I give it a 7 on 10. Worth a watch.

There are some flashes of brilliance in the movie. The scene in which Sophie’s parent’s gets killed is one of the best I have ever seen. Kudos to Ron Howard for that shot! Technically the movie was sound and the location choices were excellent. But there aren’t too many more good things I can point out about the movie though. I would have expected much more from the team that made Apollo 13 and the likes. Well, Tom Hanks didn’t have much acting to do, just delivering long dialogues as if he was reading passages from the novel. Audrey Tautau was disappointing too. She was amazing in Amelie, but in this her acting seemed a bit artificial. Paul Bettany is an exception here. His role as Silas the albino is commendable.

The part I least liked about the novel was the over-dramatic ending. This was made even more over-dramatic and dragged out in the movie. Even the theatre audience, who have seen many a masala climax, seemed to agree with hoots, sighs and loud wise-cracks.

I wouldn’t recommend this movie unless you are die-hard fan of the book and want to see how everything translates on screen or if you can’t resist the temptations, and is too curious to find out what all the hype is about.

So my review: An ordinary movie, nothing amazing. 6 on 10 :)

Here go my recommendations for the worst movies ever made, that you should probably never spend money to see in a theatre.

God! We have seen enough bad films, that “Rashtram” doesn’t even feature in the worst 5! Scary!!

Special effects as expected were quite awesome. It all seemed so magically realistic, the level of detail is quite amazing. At some point you really can’t identify what is real and what is graphics. The trademark light saber sequences are better than ever. I particularly liked the fight sequence between Obi-Van Kenobi and General Grievous.

Coming to the story, well not that great. Annakin changed into Darth Vader just a bit too quickly for my liking. Hmmm… the much hyped most “dramatic” character transformation in movie history could have been a little more convincing, in my humble opinion. The movie wasn’t paced properly at all. There are times when you felt it was really dragging on and on and at other occassions everything happens at light speed.

But if you are Star Wars fan, or maybe even if you are not, I think it is a must see. At the very least you get to know how all the pieces fall together and set the stage for one of best trilogies ever. I would give this a 7 on 10.