The salvation of humanity lies in its shame...

Solyaris (1972)

This is an old classic with is regular slow pattern, long camera holds and raw editing. My friend who is a fan of the seventies and eighties will love this. I would beg to differ, till the last half hour of the film.

The movie is boring for a guy like me, who watches slick and fast movies like Sin City and A Wednessday. But I'm also a man of patience. You need to give every director a chance to put forth his vision and be patient with his work. Only after he says "the end" are you allowed to rip his case apart. I wouldn't do that to Andrei Tarkovsky!

The movie starts off as a sci-fi thriller where a psychologist is sent to a spaceship where only three disturbed inhabitants live, over the solaris ocean. This ocean is an ever changing body which produces magnectic fields to produce the so-called hallucinations. It actually brings out the deepest and darkest fears and griefs of these people and produces them in a real, animate form.

Let me explain - the psychologist meets his wife on this ship who had died ten years ago beacuse of a mistake of the psychologist. He could never forgive himself. He develops an emotional and physical bond with this "wife" But both of them know that she isn't human. Infact she has no recollection of anything more than what he knows about her. She is a fiction of his imagination, only for real. She doesnt feel emotion, doesn't sleep or eat. Even when the psychologist gets rid of her, a new "wife" comes the next day.

This is how every person on the spaceship is tormented till they eventually commit suicide. In this psychobabble, philosophy and psychology are mixed to form one of the most brilliant endings of a movie I've seen in recent times. The story in the last half hour just hits you and you are left thinking of the unanswerable question in life : What is life?

The psychologist eventually lands on a solaris island where he meets his father (with whom he obviously has conflicts!) He chooses to stay in a world of illusion than to face the reality. A sort of cocoon of protection, a bubble ready to burst, a great line yet to be written...

Rate - 3.5/5

Tolstoy - Sleep is one of the great levellers. A king sleeps like a pauper and a pauper sleeps like a king!

A different teen movie, I swear!

The girl next door (2004)

Elisha Cuthbert. I can't say anything else because she carries the movie on her back. (I wanted to name other body parts but then this blog would go in a different direction) As kids, we found her to be a goddess. But now that I saw this movie again (I can't believe I saw this movie again!) I think she is, well, allright!

The good thing about the movie is the unpredictable storyline. Well done. To have a typical teen college movie setting, and then to include a porn star in it... and then to come out of all the mess.... needs brains. And the movie is quite believable.

The guy who plays Kelly (the pimp) has done a good job, but I've never seen him in any other thing, on earth or elsewhere! One hit wonder types! (apparently he is featured in movies like Dreamcatcher, Hitman, Live free or die hard!)

Rate - 1.5/5

Another Jason Statham movie!

Transporter 3 (2008)

Why O why, did I go for this movie? Action, Jason, sequel (Well, we all know sequels suck. But I haven't seen the previous two!) I saw the movie because of Amogh. And I made him pay for it. (No gay innuendos!)

A baseless car crashing movie with some good fight scenes and an absolutely unecessary love story element. I mean we really could've done without the actress and used the money to hire better writers to write a better story, or atleast a better ending, that leaves people in a jaw drop when they leave the theatre. The only thing that dropped when I left the theatre is my belief in spontaneous movie plans!

Whatever said, I think I've kinda started liking this Jason Statham guy. Though he can't act for nuts, he has an awesome body and an equally husky voice to go with it. He fits his roles like Death Race where he doesn't really have to do much. Or maybe I've just seen a lot of his movies lately (Death Race, Transporter 3, The Italian Job and Lock, stock and two smoking barrels)

Audi vs Mercedes is the only upside of the film.

Rate - 1.5/5

Come, fall in love...with your brother's bride!

Sorry bhai (2008)

This is one of the boldest movies Indian cinema has ever produced. Director Onir proves his mettle in directing extremely sensitive subjects with absolute ease and a flow which lacks any artificiality. His previous film, My brother Nikhil, was about a homosexual swimmer who contracted AIDS and lived his last days with his loving sister.

This movie has two basic colour tones - blue and white. And the influence of oceans and beaches is sketched all over Onir's movies. Gives the film a very fresh and raw feel. The film is shot with minimal background score and the story is gripping.

The characters - Boman Irani is by far the most lovable of the cast. He is very cute playing the playful dad in his own way. I just hate Shabana Azmi, but her acting skills can't be denied. She plays the nagging mother who nags only because she means well for her children. Sharman Joshi has excellent comic timing, but doesn't look like a psychisist who plays the saxophone and is the perfect man. Talking about perfect, actress Chitrangadha Sen is. She is hot, has brains and money (She is the real life wife to golfer Jeev Milkha Singh) Brand new addition to my hot list. After Hazaaron khwashein aisi, she returns with a good performance. That leaves us to the smallest character in the movie, Sanjay Suri, who is incidentally also the producer. No wonder he kept his role as short as possible, he wanted the movie to work!

But I'm afraid that ain't gonna happen. This movie is conceptually ahead of its time for Indian ausdiences. A man falling in love with his future sister - in - law won't be well taken by the public. But I guess you should watch the movie to find out how hot Chitrangadha really is!

Rate - 2.5/5

Trivia - Chitrangadha Sen has acted in three bollywood movies. Hazaroon khwashien aisi, Sorry bhai and..? Kal

Masterpiece of maddness

One flew over the cuckoo's nest (1975)

This is one of the classics of modern cinema and I dare to differ! Jack Nicholson is the saviour of the asylum and the mentor of the mountain of a man, a red Indian, who is the one who eventually flew over the cuckoo's nest without getting caught!

Being a psychiatrist, I deeply identify with the movie and do not find the nurse a tryant at all. Uptill the point where she makes Billy feel guilty of having sex with a woman just to show her dominance. I think that shit was really fucked up! (I must be high to use this language!)

People have raved and raved about this movie, its brilliant scripting and scuptous acting by Jack, so I'm going to talk about something different. How every character in the movie has a different personality disoreder and how it has been flawlessly potrayed in the movie. Nowhere in the movie has a character deviated from acting his disoreder for the sake of the story. The story has not developed characters of its own, but the characters has developed a story of their own. In my point of view, the most important aspect of a film is the storytelling, and this film stands that test with truth, honesty and justice to each character. Even the Indian who kills Jack Nicholson in the end is justified due his disorder of being repressed by the society and chooses to be in eternal solemn of silence forever.

Jack Nicholson is one of the few actors who has a sly / wicked / joyous / playful smile. It can be interpreted in as many ways as the characters that he has potrayed in his inumerable films. This film is all about the array of human personality traits (which are so very well studied in the mentally ill)

It is a masterpiece etched in cinematic history for its paranormal charcterization and its sheer rebellious nature. The modern society is rebellious to its very core, and anything which appeals to this primitive urge of ours is very easily identified with and remembered by us for a very long time to come. So is this movie. Marvelous!

Rate - 4.5/5