Saturday, February 14, 2009

the curious case of benjamin button

see, i am keeping my word, i am writing about new movies now. this movie hasn't been released in india yet, but i got hold of a pirated version from a friend of mine and saw it. the movie is based on the short story by f. scott fitzgerald and is directed by david fincher. the story of the movie is very new if not strange; it tells the tale of benjamin button who was born an old man and actually gets younger as he ages. this movie reunites brad pitt as benjamin and cate blanchett as daisy after they acted together in babel. benjamin is abandoned after birth by his father thomas button as his mother dies after giving birth. tom leaves his son on the steps of a nursing home and is found by a black nurse,queenie played by taraji p. henson who won herself a nomination for the best supporting actress at the oscars. queenie adopts the baby and names him benjamin and cares and treats him like a normal child. the movie then revolves around benjamin's whole life - how benjamin gets a job at a boat and how he is caught up in the second world war since the boat was enlisted in the u.s navy, how his father later reconciles with him and leaves his button factory to benjamin, how he and daisy decide to live together and have a child who benjamin names caroline after his mother and how finally benjamin persuades daisy to marry another man since it would be difficult for her to raise both caroline and him, since he was getting younger as he aged. he sells his father's ancestral house and even the factory and provides for daisy and caroline and leaves new orleans for a trip around the world. however after many years when caroline is 13 benjamin goes to meet daisy at her dance studio and even gets to meet caroline and frank martin the man daisy had married. by this time benjamin looks like a teenage boy, his age closer to that of caroline's then daisy's. in the end daisy goes to the same nursing home where benjamin had grew up and looks after him since by this time he is a 5 year old boy with dementia. finally benjamin dies at the age of 85 as an infant in daisy's arms. the whole life of benjamin was read out aloud by caroline from benjamin's dairy which he had left behind with daisy. as daisy lay in her deathbed in a hospital in new orleans she asks caroline to read the dairy aloud so that caroline knows who her real father was. the movie ends with hurricane katrina raging outside downs the elctrical system and as caroline steps outside the room for a brief while, daisy breathed her last her last wish of seeing benjamin for a last time. brad pitt has won himself nominations for the best actor category for the baftas, oscars, golden globes and screen actors giuld awards. he did well but i don't think he has a chance of winning an oscar since he couldn't even win the baftas. and i personally feel that if jeffrey goines in 12 monkeys couldn't win him an oscar, i doubt whether benjamin button will. cate blanchett was ok, not the great katherine hepburn that won her the oscar as the best supporting actress oscar in the aviator, but she was ok. but the best was queenie played by taraji p. henson, she deserved the nomination; whether she'll win or not is a different issue but she did real well. well in the end i'll just say that if u have some leisure time to kill u can go watch benjamin button, it wont bore u.

Friday, February 13, 2009

dev d

i know, i know its a hindi movie but i really liked this one. i actually spent my own money to go watch a hindi movie! the story is the reguler devdas story but its the acting that actually gets you. abhay deol as devender singh dhillon aka dev was amazing, he gave one heck of a performance and deserves kudos for it. paro played by mahi gill was good as well, not the typical shy dumb girl, but a girl who has no qualms of having sex before marriageand actually asks dev to make love to her. chanda whose real name s lenny is played by kalki koechlindoesn't match mahi's performance and i would say that she was ok. her emotions were kind of plastic and one could realise that she didn't free herself completely and held back herself; her hesitancy was very eye catching. she may have spoken proper and correct hindi but the accent didn't do her any good. but i suppose if katrina kaif could make it big in bollywood why not her? theMMS scandal that made lenny turn into a sex worker wasa real life incident in delhi itself and so was dev's drinking-driving session where he ran over a number of people. dev goes to bed smoking a joint and emptying 2 bottles of vodka only to wake up in the morning for more joint,coke vodka and cigerettes. its as if dev s passionate about his drinking and drugs. the movie has it all- sex, drugs, booze, the only thing missing is rock and roll. but i would congratulate anurag kashyap for making such a bold movie - its watchable.

jai ho garibi

ya i know its been a long time since i wrote, i actually got lazy but here i am and i am gonna write about a lot of movies now that i am here. lets begin our proceedings with hottest movie in the circuit - slumdog millionaire. ok its a good movie,but not a great movie and i honestly don't agree to all the hype that has been created about it. the film is made in india and has an indian cast - thats it, the director is british,the producer ,scriptwriter everyone's british, so its basically a british movie and i dunno why we indians have to be proud of a british film.poverty certainly is more photogenic and danny boyle proves that again when he decided to turn vikas swarup's q and a into slumdog millionaire.jamal malik, a boy from the slums of mumbai participates in the nation's favourite reality tv show - who wants to be a millionaire, for what? to search for his lost love and the winnings come secondary to him. thats typical bollywood, yuck! but what surprised the whole nation was that this 'slumdog' actually answers all the questions and gets the 1 million rupees! but how could a boy from the slums possibly know any of the answers? as he is hauled of to the police station and is interrogated for suspicion of being helped from an outside source, he recounts his whole life in a flashback and how at different points of time in his life he got to learn new facts which ultimately helped him win the money and his love. the song-dance scene at the end was ABSOLUTELY unnecessary. didn't expect that from danny boyle, bet he got a bit carried away since he was making an english movie with the bollywood cast in the land of bollywood. 'jai ho' seems to have gripped the nation into frenzy, not me though; even in the uk and us since a.r.rahman won a bafta and has an oscar nomination to his name for this song. dev patel and frieda pinto were nothing extraordinary and don't deserve any special praise. they shouldn't have recieved the nominations for the best actor and the best supporting actress at the baftas. pinto has hardly 2 and a half scenes in the movie,so people are just acting stupid about them. its not that a remarkable movie to have recieved 7 baftas and 10 nominations for the oscars. it just lets the world know how wealth and poverty coexist in india and its the poverty that has captured the imagination of the outsiders yet again.