A movie blogpost was long overdue as I have seen a lot of movies in recent past, so here are few that I can still recall, I have seen atleast 10 times more then I can actually recall :-)

Warning : Long Post but I'll try and write as few lines as possible.

Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004) ****1/2

A movie that touched my soul, it's the most intelligent romance I have ever seen. It's a movie about two strangers who meet on a train (Jab We Met ishtyle) and decide to spend some more time with each other, ending up falling in love only to be parted in the End. The second part "Before Sunset" gives you more hope and ironically it was made 9 years after the prequel, a must watch for all romantics.

10000 BC **

What a waste of time, a friend of mine rightly said Dus Hazaar B@$#n C#$d, you can’t like it specially after you have seen Apocalypto.

Jodha Akbar ***

I'll direct you to best review of the Movie "Boka Choda Akbar" here. As of me I found the movie a passe, Aishwarya made my day ;-)

Mithya ***1/2

I love it when I get to see such kind of movies from the stable of Bollywood, Indian movies have come of age and it's a treat to watch such movies. It's a movie about a struggling actor whose face resembles to an underworld Don. Obviously the next thing would be role reversal like DON, but this movie has it's own set of twists and some really bizarre characters. A must watch for Hindi cinema lovers.

Into the Wild ***1/2

Remember Cast Away in which Tom Hanks gets stuck on a island after a plane crash and has to spent years away all alone, the only difference is that in "Into the Wild" the main character casts away from Human Civilization by choice. After finishing graduation top student and an athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his entire $24000 savings to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness. It wasn't hard to me to believe that the movie was based on a real character as I have met few men and women who love being away from the world. A very well made movie and has got it's share of Oscar nominations this year.

American Gangster ****

A true story about a black Gangster who beats all the odds and climbs to the top by finding a unique way of smuggling drugs inside American territory, a domain dominated by Italians . Denzel Washington is as usual at his best and Russell Crowe does a good job in being the Detective in pursuit. Unfortunately the only Oscar nomination this movie got was for Art Direction.

No Country for old men ****1/2

What would you do if you accidentally reach the site of a Gang war where every gangster is dead and there's a bag full of money for taking, if you need it you'll take it of course. But then what if there is an assassin at your tail, someone who enjoys killing, who is the best at what he does and never gives up. You have no choice but to end up Dead in the end even after giving a hell of a fight, it is a very well made movie and keeps you at the edge of your seat all along. The sociopath killer Javier Bardem ended up winning Oscar for the best supporting actor in this movie, this movie also took the best direction and best movie award for this year.

We Own the night ***

Another movie that brings the business of drugs into the limelight but with a twist, it's about a night club manager played by Joaquin Phoenix who while trying to help his family of cops catch a drug lord gets trapped into the game and puts his life in danger. Eva Mendes plays his girlfriend and looks hot as usual (remember Hitch), it's definitely a good one time watch.

Juno ****1/2

Juno O Juno, well if you ask me this is the best movie that was made last year and I just loved it. The main protagonist 16 years Juno played by Ellen Page gets pregnant with a child fathered by another 16 year old Paulie Bleeker. Although she initially opts for abortion but a last minute change of heart makes her find a suitable couple for adoption. The way the plot and characters are defined make the movie fun. Ellen got herself nominated for the Best Actress category but the only award Juno got is for the Best Screenplay, this movie definitely deserved more.

Meet the Spartans **

A filthy, shitty, worthless piece of crap movie. An utter waste of time, a rare Hollywood movie that can be compared to Ramgopal Verma ki Aag.

Bee Movie ***

A silly animation movie that's made to make you laugh and that's what you do or at least it makes you smile.

Balls of Fury ***

It's a funny n crazy movie about a former Table Tennis champ who gets an opportunity to become the greatest player ever and with Kung fu style of teaching and inspiration in the form of Maggie Q even I could've done wonders if I could get her on my team;-)

Resident Evil: Extinction ***1/2

Boy O boy Milla Jovovich is back again with her Guns blazing blades swinging action and for all the Zombies...go into hiding if you want to survive. Another amazing movie from the Resident Evil series, I am eagerly waiting for the sequel to this one and rumor is that it may be called Resident Evil: Afterlife.

Atonement ****

This movie is based on the book by Ian McEwan that goes by the same name and was nominated for the bookers prize. The story is set in three main areas, an English country house in 1935, war torn France in 1940 and London 1940. Keira Knightley and James McAvoy have done amazingly well while playing the passionately in love couple and obviously she looks great :-) .. Funny part is due to my bad English vocabulary I didn't know the meaning of the word Atonement before the movie got over, what an apt title for a delightful movie.

The Kite Runner ****

Yet another favorite book of mine made into a movie and a rare one that did justice to the book. It's a very intriguing story about Amir and his servants son Hassan who is the best Kite runner in Kabul, the story changes when Amir is unable to stand up to protect Hassan from getting raped by a bunch of rowdy kids. Due to the Russian invasion Amir and his father leave Afghanistan for America and the twist comes when Amir had to return to Afghanistan to rescue Hassan's son from Taliban militia some 25 years later.

Superbad ***1/2

One of the better American sexual comedies I have seen in a long time, the situation involving buying booze with the fake ID that says "McLovin" is priceless (find picture). Definitely the funniest movie I have seen since Borat.

Knocked Up ***

It is a nice situational comedy where an idiot Ben Stone played by Seth Rogen knocks up gorgeous Katherine Heigl on a drunken first date. The situation is forgotten once she realizes her mistake in the morning only to worsen when she realizes that she got pregnant that night. Though Ben is all wrong for her in every way she gives him another chance, the movie is fun from there onwards and even though all your practical sense says they should not be together there is a happy ending in the end.

The Golden Compass ***

Like a true fan of this genre of movies I liked it, I loved the bear fight, I loved the concept of your souls/spirits walking besides you in different shapes instead of residing in your body like in our world, I loved the imagination and creativity of the makers, I loved the costumes, the visuals, the city, the streets, the landscapes and the amazing special effects. They could've done more justice to the story though as it feels patchy. Waiting eagerly for the next installment.

Alvin and Chipmunks ***

I guess it all started with Space Jam at least that's what I remember as the first movie with Real and Animated characters side by side and it got perfected with Stuart little. Now everyone including me just loved the chipmunks and there songs, nice fun movie.

The Warlords ***

Though this movie had all the action a Jet Li movie promises it was a bit of a let down for me, the story was interesting and action scenes were exciting but the character development was not done properly. The only character developed to an extent out of the three was Jet Li's character who gets driven by war and other lusts and creates a mess in the end.

Wedding Daze ***

It's a movie about a guy whose girl friend dies of heart attack as soon as he proposes to her. After drowning in sadness and to escape his weary life he randomly proposes to a waitress as a challenge who immediately says yes to escape from an unwanted proposal she received last night. The awkward romance between them with some wacky relatives and friends thrown in makes this slapstick comedy a good one time watch.

Rambo IV ***

What action movie series comes to you mind when you think of your childhood, well I think of Terminator, Rocky, Predator, Die Hard, Robocop, Lethal Weapon, Aliens, Star Wars, James Bond Series and somewhere at the top RAMBO. I loved the mindless fighting and the strange accent of Sylvester Stallone, though Rambo never had a story line this part disappointed me in the build up of the climax…... the excitement just wasn't the same though the action was the goriest I saw in a long time guts and blood flying everywhere. But for a die hard Rambo fan like me it was still a treat to relive my childhood :-)

Across the universe....

One of the few musicals I liked.....beautiful story beautifully and psychedelically told...naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...na na .na nana nanana Hey Jude........naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa na na nananana nanana Hey Jude.......

BTW Evan Rachel Woods who played Lucy in the movie is the same girl who starred in one of my all time favorite music videos by Greenday "Wake me up When September Ends".....click on the link to check it out she definitely knows how to make you cry....

My rating ********** :)

Man Push Cart


You have been fed all your life about better standards of living in US by Bollywood romantics and Hollywood thrillers but there comes along a movie which makes you wonder if life in US is as easy as portrayed to us while growing up.

Man Push Cart is an unforgettable portrait of a Pakistani street vendor trying to keep his soul alive on the streets of New York.
As the story unfolds you realize that Ahmed (the push cart vendor) was once a huge pop star in Pakistan and you immediately feel that in the end he will find his zeal and go back to doing what is does best....singing. But then this story is based on reality and thank goodness it wasn't a Bollywood movie.
Waiting forward to see more movies of this writer-director, Ramin Bahrani.
A must watch!!!!!!

Movies...Movies and more Movies......

I recently saw so many amazing movies that they definitely need a mention on my blog....

Babel

A truly international movie with a combination of serious humor, the filmmakers did an excellent job in weaving these four stories together; this movie did win its well deserved share of Golden Globes and is a movie to watch out for sweeping many Oscars.

Borat

This movie is nasty, contains really Gross-out humor so don’t watch it if you can get easily offended, now warning apart this movie is funny to the guts. Its plot revolves around a TV reporter named Borat from Kazakhstan, who sets out to discover American culture and falls in love with Pamela Anderson instead. There is also a hilarious nude fight sequence over Pamela that’s one of a kind, the movie is all about how different his country’s culture is where sleeping with your own sister is not considered a taboo…every cultural misunderstanding is a treat to watch......

Déjà vu

The first thing that pulled me towards this movie is its name as I experience Déjà vu’s all the time…this is a action sci-fi thriller where Denzel Washington plays a cop (again) and he has done really exceptional work in his gripping investigation of a bomb blast. A must watch…….

Rocky Balboa

Here’s our own Rocky Balboa coming out of retirement to compete with the present heavyweight champion Dixon. The movie is not that great if you compare with it’s previous parts, but for die hard Rocky fans like me it was a treat to watch….Love you Stallone……great ending to the great Rocky Epic….what a life!!!!

Dhoom 2

Aish Aish Aish Aish Aish Aish and Bips were treat to watch…rest of the movie was so so…..

Next in Line----GURU, DreamGirls, Crank, Fearless, WTC and lot more ;-)

Children of Heaven (Bacheha-Ye aseman)

Usually I don't write movie reviews but this movie touched my heart, it is a really sweet story of two Iranian brother and sister (Ali and Zohra) who live in poverty with there parents. The story starts when Ali accidentally loses Zohra's shoes and the kids are afraid to tell there parents, they come up with a plan to share Ali's shoes (Zohra wears them in morning and Ali in the Afternoon according to there school timings) till the time they figure something out. There only hope in the end is a marathon race for which the 3rd prize is a pair of sneakers and Ali plans to take part in it but comes first after a tough try of coming third. I bet this movie will wet your eyes as this has to be the sweetest adventure story ever written.

Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica........

What can I say but these are the two movies I saw recently....though I only saw the latter while I was completely drunk and could've watched any movie...lucky enuf i watched this one cause at the end of it I was still totally completely drunk and I still can't say whether I liked it or not as I am CONFUSED.......and to top it all I am CONFUSED about Brokeback Mountain as well...though the most confusing thing about Brokeback was the Texan accent.....but you have to see it to believe what Ang Lee is capable of......he actually made me want to be gay......hey don't make a mistake @ calling me gay cause in the interval a girl from a group of seven commented....."wht is this guy doing alone here ...is he a GAY?" to which I simply turned around Schezwan Popcorn in one hand and a Diet Pepsi in other and said "No lady I am a pukka Lesbian" and believe me I have never seen a face change colors so quickly when all of her friends just bursted out laughing......they even stopped there ooooohhhhss when the next gay scene came..........
But now I can see why Crash won the best Oscar and why Brokeback didn’t...cause the latter is easiest to hate.......even gay population would hate this movie because of the way the character of "Heath Ledger" always ran away from accepting his destiny wanting to lead a normal life in turn screwing up his wife from behind.........though the realization did dawned on him at the end.........
Well Transamerica is a movie about a male to female transsexual who is about to go for a surgery to get a brand new Vagina but finds out that he has a 17 year old son who is in jail on charges of prostitution....whose aim in life is to go to LA and star in a gay porno flick....well the main story lies in the journey to LA when our transsexual offers his(or should I say her) kid a car ride to LA without disclosing her true identity.....it is a movie with a happy but a bit confusing ending as bith of them end up getting what they want from life......
Well if you are reading this for a review point of view I will say watch it on your own risk as both of these are hard hitting movies on shades of modern male sexuality and believe me they are watched more by women rather than males.......there was an article in TOI last week that said Bangalore men hate Brokeback........and I wanted to write Women of the world loved it....take example of the oohs and aahs coming from the group of girls in my back row of the theatre......

Brokeback ***1/2
Transamerica ***

(An article from web)Why Brokeback lost to Crash

For movie lovers, Oscar watchers, and a lot of gay men and women, this has to be a night that will go down in the history as one of big disappointment -- almost at par with the night when John Kerry lost to George W Bush.
Brokeback Mountain was supposed to sweep the Oscars. Ang Lee's tragic and beautifully rendered love story (which just happens to deal with the love affair between two cowboys) seemed to have the Best Picture win locked. No other movie last year could match up to Brokeback's success and critical praise.
Oscars: Complete Coverage
Ever since Brokeback won the top award at the Venice Film Festival in September (and since I saw the film in early September at the Telluride Film Festival), the buzz was very strong about that film – a groundbreaking story set in the vast, sweeping, visually stunning landscape of Wyoming (the film was actually shot in Alberta, Canada). It opened in the US in early December and the possibility of a Brokeback win seemed even more certain.
And Brokeback truly deserved to win tonight. For Lee's controlled and detailed direction; Annie Proulx's moving short story; Larry McMutry and Diana Ossana's strong screenplay adaptation; and its theme -- a romance between two men, like it has never been shown before in Hollywood.
It also deserved to win for Heath Ledger's quiet, devastating and heart-wrenching performance as a man left alone with his memories. Ledger is simply fantastic in Brokeback.
Crash beats Brokeback
Unfortunately, Ledger was not going to win the Best Actor award. That was a sure win for Philip Seymour Hoffman for his equally well-deserved, but a lot more showy performance in Capote. The other sure win was for Hollywood's golden girl Reese Witherspoon in the role of June Carter in Walk The Line.
Then, a few weeks ago, a word started appearing in the press. A five letter word that spelt Crash. Just last week, Entertainment Weekly pointed out that although Brokeback had won the Golden Globe and the Producers, Directors and Writers Guild awards, it had lost one crucial race. The Screen Actors Guild award had gone to the ensemble team of Crash. And maybe, just maybe, Crash might win the Best Film Oscar.
On the red carpet
'Like a speeding Ferrari you didn't see coming, Crash has rammed its way into possible win territory,' the Weekly said. But the magazine's critics still maintained that Brokeback had a slight edge.
Then on Friday -- several days after the close of the academy's voting -- David Carr wrote a scary prediction in The New York Times, which unfortunately came true: 'But Los Angelenos, a good chunk of the Academy, have a crush on Crash, the parable of race and class that memorialises the city they drive through everyday.'
But Carr also said that if the Academy votes for Brokeback, it will demonstrate its tolerant and progressive values.
We will never know how many more Academy voters picked Crash over Brokeback. But this much is clear: While Crash is a fine and important film, in choosing Crash over Brokeback, the Academy members showed their conservative, safe and non-controversial side.
How the Academy works
The Academy members may occasionally give Oscars to breakthrough performances -- such as Hilary Swank as a woman who wants to live like a boy in Boys Don't Cry, or Tom Hanks as a successful white man dying of AIDS in Philadelphia, or Charlize Theron as a lesbian serial killer in Monster.
And 37years ago, the academy did the most daring -- it gave the Best Film award to John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy -- another gay themed film. But today's Academy is mostly uncomfortable with a film that deals with real love between two men.
This is the same Academy that chose the worthy South African film Tsotsi as the Best Foreign Film -- over an even better-constructed and moving, but more controversial Palestinian film Paradise Now, which shows the human side of suicide bombers.
There were reported signature campaigns against Paradise Now among the pro-Israel lobby within the Academy. And that conservative wing of the lobby managed to get more people to cast their votes for Tsotsi.
Winners at a glance
There were some real important wins tonight. Taiwan-born Ang Lee was recognised as the Best Director not just for his masterful work in making Brokeback, but also for his long range of a most impressive and diverse filmmaking career.
Lee started with small indie films like Pushing Hands and The Wedding Banquet, but then he went on to direct films that dealt with American suburbia (The Ice Storm), English period drama (the brilliant Sense And Sensibility) and Chinese martial arts (the awesome Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Lee is also such a humble and a warm man. It was good to see him win tonight.
The Supporting Actor awards tonight were expected, but still very well deserved. The always smooth and charming George Clooney put on weight and looked dishevelled in Syriana. He carried the weight of the film on his back. And so did Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardner. Weisz's character and performance was so important for the success of the film that one wonders why the studio did not promote her name in the Best Actress category.
I suppose Brokeback's supporters will get over the film's loss tonight. How many people remember the other big Oscar upset in 1999 when Shakespeare In Love beat a more deserving Saving Private Ryan?
There are a lot of Brokeback backers in the US and abroad, and we can still maintain it is a great film. It is a milestone movie in the history of cinema that broke a lot of barriers.
But in a democratic system there can be only one winner. Just over a year ago millions of Americans voted for Kerry, but eventually the other (and some might say the less deserving) candidate won.

CRASH

I was lucky enuf to catch Crash this Saturday and it's no surprise now that it won an Oscar for the best movie. It's a movie based in post 9/11 LA and has several central characters constituting the different races and ethnic backgrounds……...there fears and confusions.
The subject is handled so well in this movie that I felt as it could easily have been the story of any big metropolitan city(especially India)....of course no other city can have so much hatred against Blacks, Latino's , Middle Eastern, Chinese etc etc …..and best part is that there hatred is shown against each other. The scenes like a small girl getting shot, car rescue by Matt Dillon and a nigger getting shot by a good cop are just unforgettable. The way all the characters go through the transition in there life is what this movie all about. I would easily give **** to this one.....