I entered my workplace at around 4 pm. I knew it was IT. IT as in my first breakthrough performance to see the other side of the night right throughout the entire time. There have been prior occasions when I have seen the sun rise from the dark and even times when I have just sat in my room and witnessed the night take a descent. But most of those times were under heavy influence of alcohol (read vodka), Pink Floyd and a fair amount of mad engineers going gaga over either the hottie in the circuit or even discussing career plans at length. And trust me, alcohol helps. (I am in no way promoting alcoholism, it’s just that it has had a deep influence in letting my expressions ventilate more smoothly). And here was I. Staring at the cubicles painted in white and sky blue with tubes glowing above the desks. The AC must be set at almost 18 degrees and the walk to my seat was through the long corridor where I take left after the second sectioned opening. The long corridor led to the Toilet, and to the left of it was the Pantry. Nobody dared to ask what was at the right of the end of the corridor. What was troubling me more than anything else was the sheer magnitude of the number of hours I had to spend until I was to be set FREE. Yes, it was a sort of a prison for me, and I had no companions to console me- no alcohol, no Pink Floyd. Yes, the Engineers are here also, but in no way am I discussing my career plans with them. So how do I resist all of this? CAFFEINE!! Read the rest of this post »

God Bless Sean Penn!
God Bless Hal Holbrook!

Into the Wild it is. Sean Penn brings John Krakauer’s best-seller to the screen based on the life of Chris McCandless, a 22 year old who donates all of his savings of $24,000 to Oxfam, abandons all his possessions as well as identity and thumbs his way to Alaska.Why does he do so? Because he wants to detach himself from the shackles of money, career, the rat-race and rather get lost in the unpredictable, dangerous American outbacks and experience FREEDOM, all in the style of his literary heroes -Jack London and Henry David Thoreau. And as Chris(portrayed by Emile Hirsch) says ,”I don’t want money,give me truth”, and that is what we get it.Amazingly, we are not made to gulp it down forcibly. But in the reels of Sean Penn, we witness what made Chris to take such a decision- to abandon a secure lifestyle to choose to hit the road by himself. Was he a spoilt child or an introspective and thoughtful person?It is a tragedy no doubt,for Chris himself who dies of starvation and poisoning , his parents who do not get a trace of him until they discover his dead body years after he left, and also for the old man who wanted to adopt him as his grandson. But at the end of it all, the Light did shine. The questions that were raised have been left unanswered, but in the narration of Chris’ sister Carine (Jena Malone), we begin to understand the anguish of the upbringing of a dysfunctional family and its harsh consequences. But Penn prefers to keep it miles away from being preachy in any way and rather tell the beautiful tale of Chris in the breathtaking outbacks of Alaska and his endearing quest for Idealism - that’s the word. (Check out the screenshots after the jump) Read the rest of this post »

When a movie can prove that you need not know the language to understand the grief embedded within the person in front of you, that’s when I say it has transcended the limits of being an entertainment medium and escalated to a whole new level. To me, watching Marc Foster’s onscreen adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel “The Kite Runner” has been such a proof. Who would have thought that a movie with completely unknown faces, languages switching from Russian to Dari to Pashtu to English, and two kids with the most innocent eyes could steal the show? And please, let us not even attempt to compare it with the written work. The barometer which tries to measure a film’s ability to completely adapt each page of a book would always say that the movie fell short on many aspects. The Kite Runner is no exception to that. But the story comes through with as flying colors as the Kite of Amir Jan and the sincere spirit of Hassan, his Kite Runner.

The Story: I am one of those who haven’t read the book. And for me, what was shown was what I got, and not something for which I expected. Without giving much away (although, I believe millions must have already either read the book or seen the film), the story revolves around Amir , born to a rich family in pre-Soviet Kabul and how he comes in terms to get rid of his guilt of not having helped his best friend-Hassan. The story begins in the Late 70’s Kabul where Hassan and Amir spend their childhood as best pals, competing in Kite Flying festivals and Hassan serves as Amir’s Kite Runner. Hassan gets bullied by a group who sexually assault him as he is a Hazara and should not be in the company of someone like Amir. Amir witnesses the event but cannot defend Hassan. He even distances himself from Hassan by accusing him of theft. The Hazara family leaves the Khan family, and even the Khan family have to leave their grand haveli due to the Soviet invasion. They flee to Pakistan, and then eventually to California, America. Years later, Amir still strives to pursue a career in writing and marries the daughter of General Taheri, Soraya. Amir’s father passes away due to ill-health, while Amir manages to get his first book published. He receives a call from Rahim Khan at Peshawar who wants him to come back for a reason. Read the rest of this post »

Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Ke Liye (KKL) has finally hit the Indian screens after raking in crores of Rupees at the Pakistani box-office and winning rave reviews simultaneously at film festival circuits worldwide. It is indeed a historic event that after almost four decades, a Pakistani movie is being released in India. However, I’d not like to call it a movie concerning only Pakistanis. At heart, KKL is very much a global story. The story of the never ending battle between beliefs of the fundamentalists and the liberals. Khuda Ke Liye questions each and every aspect of the Muslim ideology and clears all clouds of myth related to Muslims in a post 9-11 world where Pakis and Sardars are assumed to be associates of a terrorist organisation conspiring on a terror attack on America.

This entire debate of Islamic fundamentalism has been portrayed beautifully in a story of three characters. Mansoor and Sarmad are brothers who have a budding musical career and reside in Lahore. Sarmad is faced by Mullah Tahiri, who instigates him to join the Jehadi league and presents in front of him, an orthodox interpretation of Islam as a religion which considers music and arts as haraam and denies basic human rights to the woman kind. Sarmad falls prey to Mullah’s sermons and starts sticking on to the salwar attire, starts growing a beard and even insists on his Ammi to wear a Hijab. On the other hand, we have the liberal Mansoor, Sarmad’s brother, who leaves for the US to pursue his higher studies in music at GoodEnough College in Chicago. At the wake of 9-11, Mansoor falls prey to the highly suspicious American feds who treat him as one of the Talibans and pick on each and every detail of Mansoor’s stuff left in his apartment. The third protagonist is Mary, born to a Pakistani father in London, and who wants to get married to a Brit. Her father conspires to get her married secretly to a Paki, without her consent. He takes her to Pakistan and with help from Mullah Tahiri, marries her to Sarmad in a remote village on the borders of Afghanistan, so that she can’t escape. This entire episode of Mary being captivated in an open prison, being deprived of her right of choosing a life, and all of this brought upon her by her own father shocked me to the core. Not only that, when she tries to escape, she is “punished” by being loaded by the burden of parenthood. All in the name of God as prescribed by Mullah for Sarmad. And Sarmad- he is forcibly taken to war and has to prove his “mardaangee” by killing someone. And yet again, all in the name of God. As the chapters of the story unfold, we even get to experience the serene music of Mansoor at his California Music School. The plot travels through three nations - Pakistan, England and the USA to convey the message of how twisted minds and their even more twisted interpretations can unleash chaos on a world that is already filled with chaos . Read the rest of this post »

Get ready for some real pot-mouthed ladies. I mean onscreen. Girls here don’t shy away from speculating the count of BJ’s and rampantly indulge in BJ jokes. They snort the white powder and drink till they drop. Welcome to the Jungle of the 21st century heroine. She is no longer the girl in the sari, but is suffering from the “pink thong, black lung” syndrome. Another addition to the cast is the stereotypical effeminate designer whose panic is “ejected” in his histrionics. And yeah, still more BJ jokes. And the guys;now they only say “FUCK” when they are either angry or offended. Not like we do-e.g. Fuck No,Fuck yes, Fuck may be. You get it. But that’s just where Bhram (an Illusion) begins. Antara Tyagi (Sheetal Menon) is a model troubled by casting couch predators and more than that, her dark past. She keeps wandering in her past and keeps away from male company. That’s until she is hit on by saadda hunk Shaan (Dino Morea) who is the brother of an investment banking tycoon Dev Rawal (Milind Soman ). The narrative jumps directly to the action area by adapting a non-linear flow, loaded with flashbacks and all jumbled up.

::::::::::::::::Spoiler Alert:::::::::::::::::

The plot encircles around these few characters: Shaan, Dev, Antara and her past. Everything else is pretty much an accessory. Shaan falls in love with the weird and introvert Antara. Antara doesn’t know that her life is coming a full circle with the entry of Shaan in her life(I would like to interrupt here to ask: Why do Indian movies have (almost) always followed the format of a first half which ends with a couple of events summing down to a suspense with an intermission in between? Is it because they want us to think over during the pee break as to what is gonna happen in the next episode? Ooh! how smart are we!!). The first half of the movie juggles from one sub-plot to another and sometimes entangles the puzzle even more, rather than solving it. So here’s what happens - Shaan brings Antara to meet his family- Bhaiya and Bhabhi- Antara accuses Dev to be the rapist and murderer of her sister, an event which happened 10 years ago in ‘Unnees Sau Teeranve” (1993) on her birthday. Second interruption: I would like to take a moment here for myself to pat my own back. I noticed a goof-up here. Antara’s sister drives her in a Maruti Suzuki WagonR to meet Dev in the resort. It’s 1993, and no Maruti Suzuki WagonR had been produced then by the manufacturers. Thank you! Now sit down and read further. Read the rest of this post »

Juno was highly recommended to me by a friend of mine. He even praised it so much by going to the length of calling it “the Little Miss Sunshine of 2007”. I had my hopes high and my expectations were soaring. And Juno meets every single one of them, and even manages to excel at certain points. Love, life, romance –all of that, in a pregnant teenager, who loves to strum the six strings and is the smartest woman (Yes woman) I have ever seen onscreen: Juno is all of that. And the movie envelopes all these aspects in a wonderful feel-good way, which doesn’t seem at all artificial. Juno is all but real, and still somehow brings that innocent smile on your face, similar to the one when you watch Dexter’s Laboratory, not that this has anything to do with science, well anatomy yes. Ughh!! You’re making me confused.

I can just spend hours gushing about the “awesomeness” of the performances and the movie as a whole. But well that would put my writing skills to the test. I’d rather tell you that Juno puts a strange effect in you. Read the rest of this post »