Monster

I feel like a dork for not having watched Monster before watching North Country, I mean what the hell was I thinking!! Charlize Theron as Aileen Wurnos really freaked me out. Thank god I knew what the real Charlize Theron looked, otherwise I would have had a difficult time believing that it wasn’t the real Aileen Wurnos who was playing the lead. The movie is a biography of Aileen Wurnos, the first woman serial killer who was sentenced to death through lethal injection. Abandoned before birth by her father and then later by her mother, Aileen Wurnos became sexually active at the tender age of 13. She did not finish high school and later survived by prostituting. However after being viciously raped by one client, she poured all her hatred and aversion towards men by killing most of her later clients and then robbing them. Neglected by people most of her life and ignored because of her looks, she took a liking towards a young Selby Wall played by Cristina Ricci whom she meets at a gay bar, when Selby lets her sleep in her room and proclaims her to be beautiful. She becomes very protective of the young girl and both of them start living off Aileen’s prostitution earnings at a motel. Charlize Theron showed the world that she is here to stay and later becomes one of the highest paid actresses. She won the best actress Oscar and also the Golden Globe in 2003 for her portrayal of the unattractive, mentally ill Wurnos. For the role she put on 30 pounds and wore prosthetic teeth; her make up was a ‘complete transformation’. What Theron achieved wasn’t just a performance, it was an embodiment. Christina Ricci also received favourable reviews in her portrayal as Selby Wall. In her acceptance speech at the Oscars Theron hailed Ricci as the ‘unsung hero of the movie’. Theron’s uncanny resemblance with Wurnos did nauseate me at times, but that shouldnot stop you people from catching this Patty Jenkins creation.

Rachel Getting Married

I always knew that Anne Hathaway had great potential and with this movie I’m convinced that Hollywood is in safe hands at the hands of this breed of newcomers; and Anne Hathaway belongs to this new breed. If you think she was good in The Princess Diaries, in The Devil Wears Prada and even in the side role as Jake Gyllenhall’s wife in Brokeback Mountain, well she sure has achieved greatness in Rachel Getting Married. She has grown up, no more romantic flicks for this young prodigy, she’s all set to ride the waves, or well whatever that means. The story was what hit me, other than Hathaway’s acting that is. And at the end you just can’t help feeling sorry for her character. Kymberley or simply Kym is a recovering drug addict, portrayed by Hathaway who gets permission to go out of rehab for a few days to be a part of her elder sister, Rachel’s wedding played by Romemary Dewitt. This concept was very touching to me, because normally when people come out of rehab, their family donot want anything to do with them. So Kym comes back home and her father and sister is happy to see her. But that is when things start going downhill. I’m very sorry to say it, but I hated Rachel like anything, well basically I hated everyone in Kym’s family. They were so preoccupied with Rachel’s wedding that people forgot that here is a girl who is just out of rehab for a few days and who needs all the attention and care that she did not get for the last few years. Did they care about her feelings, what she thought, what she wanted to say, how hard it was for her to be with her family, how badly she wanted to feel accepted, how much she wanted to say that was sorry, but nobody would let her, no one was ready to listen to what she had to say. As we progress through the movie, we witness the tragedy that had encompassed Kym’s family when she was 16 which resulted in her parents’ divorce and her confinement to the rehab. Her mother pushes both her daughters away and her father tries hard to make Kym comfortable, make her feel accepted, but still falls short of her expectations. She wants someone to be there with her, for her but everyone misapprehends her. As a result she resolves to lying at times which acts as her defense mechanism at times; but in this hue and cry the real Kym gets lost. Need I say more about Hathaway’s performance? I think you’d better make up your own mind. She received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal as Kymberley . She is the reason why you should watch the movie in the first place. At 26, she has achieved that greatness which actors even at 45 find intricate to achieve. The movie is a triumph of ambience and Hathaway especially worked at a very high level. It goes deep into joy and pain of being human. The film’s greatest asset is the sense of cringing realism. Hathaway might have portrayed like a brat, screaming for attention, but we can’t help but feel for what she has been through. Her nervous laughter, edginess and quick temper with her need for attention and vulnerability is what keeps us hooked to the fag end.

Vicky, Cristina Barcelona

yup, another movie with penelope cruz in it, but as i said i have become a fan of her and this movie makes it even more worth it. as in my last review i had stated that cruz is the muse for almadovar; and now after yet another scarlett johansson starred woody allen movie, we can safely conclude that what cruz is to almadovar, johannson is to allen. i am a bit disappointed with Vicky, Cristina Barcelona; not the usual woody allen brilliance is achieved in this particuler work. the main plot is so common - two best friends who tell each other everything are incidentally on a vacation in Barcelona. the sub- plots are different and i would even say intriguing but still it just wasn't enough. i saw no great acting skills from anyone else other than cruz that is. where was javier bardem, winner of the best supporting actor oscar in 2008?where was scarlett johannson? and the most amazing thing was that out of all the main characters, cruz had the least amount of screen space, but she delivered her role to perfection. she was just impeccable as the genius artist who is always in love with her husband and hence is fiercely protective of him but as we all know all geniuses have their crazy stain within them which brings out her jealousy when she she her husband with other women even though they are divorced.her derangement comes out at certain times in the film and it is during these times that she swiftly moves back and forth from english to spanish ; when she blazes onscreen in the movie,she lets forth a dizzying combination of english and spanish and even if we don't understand what she is saying literally without the subtitles, emotionally we can understand everything that she says and that beneath her beauty lies a fierce spirit of not giving up.i just feel sad that there was not any more scope for cruz to show what more she could do with her facial expressions or to show that she is the one, people, she has arrived! i would say rebecca hall did a much better job than johansson or maybe thats just the way i feel. i would just ask you to watch the movie for penelope cruz's sake, she is the one! over all Vicky, Cristina Barcelona is a witty and ambiguous movie that's simultaneously intoxicating and suffused with sadness and doubt.

Volver

It is no wonder that Pedro Almadovar announced that Penelope Cruz was his muse; there could be no one else who would inspire Almadovar more than what Cruz does. I previously had not seen too much of Penelope, but after watching Volver, I became her fan. No one could have done it better. Though the subtitles kept me busy and there were times when I missed the facial expression on Cruz’s face, but she did one heck of a job. The mother-daughter relationship is beautifully portrayed here; between Raimunda and her mother and also between Raimunda and her daughter Paula. Tragedy encompasses the whole family which has brutal consequences, but inspite of all that they face, the women do not reject life, but accepts all the challenges that life throws towards them. To me it was Penelope Cruz all through the movie and it is no wonder that she bagged the nomination for the best actress at the 2008 Oscars. She was just…..I’m at a loss for adjectives. This magical tragicomic melodrama may be Almodovar's most restrained work to date, but it still features his trademarks: a strong attention to color and detail, a celebration of the trials and tribulations of women. The lovely Penelope Cruz has shone more brightly than ever as she does here. I realize that it is a hard movie to lay your hands on, but if you do, please do not let it go, because you would be a total idiot if you did not watch this great piece of art.

Wanted

I know that I already mentioned that I am a huge fan of Angelina Jolie but after watching Wanted I did repent for watching it. Yes I repented. Wanted is such a mindless action movie with no story whatsoever. I am totally clueless as to why the big names like James Mcavoy, Angelina Jolie, and Morgan Freeman agreed to do this kind of a commercial flick. None of them actually acted; they entered the scene, delivered their lines, packed a few punches fired a few bullets and went out. Sloan played by Freeman is the head of an assassination fraternity who goes corrupt and starts assassinating people to meet his own selfish ends so that he can always stay the boss. Mcavoy’s father, who was also a member of this fraternity finds out and leaves to stop Sloan at this corrupt business. Sloan’s existence is threatened since he is the best assassin that the fraternity possessed. So to get rid of the father the fraternity hires the son, trains him to be an assassin to kill his father by feeding him another story. The son manages to kill the father but later comes to know about the truth and thus sets out for revenge and manages to kill Sloan – the end. Such mindless shit man! And what role did Angelina play? Oh she did play a super cool assassin with a lot of tattoos on her body, who manages to manoeuvre her car through traffic which is running at a 160 miles per hour and is also an awesome shot. That’s it, she just helped train Wesley (Mcavoy) and later assisted him in his initial missions. I have never been so very disappointed with an Angelina movie before but Wanted disappointed me big time. Infact if I were you I would even skip this review that I have written about Wanted because it is just a waste of time. So you can afford to miss it.

Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

Another hugely anticipated summer blockbuster, but I’m afraid that it disappointed me greatly, even more than the terminator salvation. While in the hall I was like, what the hell man? I actually paid money to see this shit? I think that david Yates just murdered the book, not that I’m a huge fan of harry potter but still….. yes I agree and am quite aware of the fact that making a movie out of a 600 page book is a big task, a huge, massive task to be honest; but once you have accepted the challenge you gotta make sure that you get through the challenge. And Yates was not upto the challenge. with so many permutations and combinations, additions and cuttings the original story was quite lost. cutting out a few scenes, I get, but adding some portions which were totally so not in the book, that I don’t get. Like when did bellatrix and greyback attack the weasley house in the book? so not necessary. And now lets come to the acting, god knows why Daniel Radcliffe is being paid a million dollars? Or is it pounds? Don’t actually remember which, but either way its way too much than what he deserves. I mean lets face it folks, do you actually call that acting? I don’t think so! He has no bloody expressions on his face, not a single one! What rupert’s doing or well did so far, is kinda ok, like emma.
Tom Felton did quite well in the previous movies, but he just had too little screen space here to work his charm. The only people who actually played their parts convincingly were Helena Bonham Carter as the deranged, female, death-eater, bellatrix lestrange and Evanna Lynch as luna lovegood; she did well; with that faraway look in her eyes and her soft voice, she did pretty decent. Well I wouldn’t wanna discourage you by this entry, go ahead by all means and see the movie and make up your mind yourself. But I just thought it was a waste of time, truly, the worst of the lot I would say.

Gia

Gia is one of angelina jolie's early works;it is a television movie on the life of the super-model gia marie carangi. the movie portrays gia,as a 17 year old girl from philadelphia who rises to a great height in the world of fashion as a super-model,being portrayed in most of the fashion magazines of the times - vogue,cosmopolitan, and her eventual decline due to getting addicted to heroin and finally her death from AIDS which she contracted after sharing the same neddle with a heroin junkie. as i said before, i am all biased about angelina jolie and i got nothing but praises for her in her portrayal as gia. she won the golden globe for the best actress category in a TV mini series;this movie,along with the golden globe set her career along the right course. she was young when she did gia,only 23 years old and had just finished up with 'hackers' and got married to her co-star johnny lee miller. during those early days of her acting career, she would get inside the character so intensely that directors declared that she was very difficult to work with. during the shooting of gia,jolie would call back home and tell her then husband,'don't call me,i'm alone,i'm gay,i'ma junkie,i have AIDS and i'm gonna die quite soon.' gia carangi was one of the first lesbian supermodels to have walked the ramp and jolie had to play the dominant lesbian partner in the movie. she did a magnificent job of portraying a supermodel,who had everything in life but was not happy in life; to act out the rejected lover because of her drug habits and also play the role of the daughter who craves for her mother's presence but is unable to connect to her due her abandonment is really something to watch out for.jolie said that she identified herself with gia in bits and pieces from her real life. she was abandoned by her father and was this wild child child with tattoos in her teenage life.so if u get hold of it,please do watch it;its the way to stardom for angelina jolie. she was really amazing. and once again i must thank my dear friend who supplied me with this movie so that i get to see what an awesome actress angelins jolie is.she was fierce in her portrayal - filling the part with nerve,charm and desperation.

Terminator Salvation

one of the most anticipated movies of 2009 was terminator salvation.but i must say i wasnt too awed by it. how can one imagine terminator without arnie?i never can but one must not let go off chances when one is being shown hollywood movies for free.in this case a very good friend of mine took me to watch terminator salvation and paid for the tickets.the movie is the fourth of the terminator lot;judgement day has taken place and the machines percieve the humans as threats to their existence and is bent on eradicating humanity.john connor played by christian bale is one of the leader of a team who leads his team to resist this eradication.there is no use trying to tell the story because there is very little 'story' as we call it. its basically action that we are paying to watch,extravagant action and fighting scenes between the machines and the humans. the story cathes up in the second half when we are shown that john's purpose is to save kyle reese,his father from the future,who has been taken prisoner by the machines.i would rate the movie as average;to me the best was the the second one - terminator:judgement day,where we had arnie off course and also linda hamilton as sarah connor and eddie furlow as the young john connor.christian bale was just the reguler action hero,nothing extraordinary and his acting was one dimensional.without arnie the fim lost its dramatic element which was present in the previous three;it was predictable and flat. even if it was hugely anticipated it became one of the worst big budget summer release for quite some time.

The Changeling

well i am sorry again for my prolonged absence was away because of my part 1 exams. they ended on the 2nd of july but after that i must admit i got lazy. this time i am going to write about one of the movie which was present at the 2009 oscars - the changeling directed by clint eastswood.well before i begin lets get one thing straight,i WORSHIP angelina jolie.she is just one amazing woman who has gone through a lot in her life;and i am happy to say that i have seen most of her movies. the story is set in the early 1930's in the city of los angeles, which was known at that time the city of angels;but ironically in this very city of angels lived a group of people who did everything in their power to change this city into a city of nightmares.christine collins,played by jolie is a single working mother,who comes home from work one evening and finds her son,walter missing. even if the police are informed about the imcident walter still remains missing and months go by. it is at time that reverend Gustav Briegleb played by malkovich publicizes Christine's plight against the lapd for its incompetence, corruption and the extrajudicial punishment meted out by its "Gun Squad", led by Chief James E. Davis played by feroe. with most of the people turning against government the police,after months of searching claims to have found walter collins. even though 'walter' claims to be her son,christine realises that she has been handed out a totally different boy to take care of. she is forced to take care of this child but is very unwilling to do so and when she tells the captain of the physical discrepancies which exist between 'walter' and walter and questions their mode of working,she in turn is questioned about her capabilities as a mother and is forced into the psychopathic ward at the la county hospital. however with the growing pressure of the reverend and the people who believes in christine's innocence the police once again are made to search for a number of missing boys in the county.during this investigation they come across a serial killer,Gordon Northcott who was the one who kidnapped all these young boys and tortured them to death.he was assisted by his nephew who was a canadian and thus was under police custody for illegally crossing over. he told the detectives about his uncle's deed which resulted in northcott's capture, his trial and finally his sentence to death. now i must say i am totally biased against jolie and i mean totally. to me nothing she does can be wrong or even mediocre. to me she is and always be this great and wonderful woman that walked on this earth.the movie was good,after all it is a clint eastwood movie we are talking about.so was angelina jolie's performance;she won herself nominations for the best actress for the baftas,the oscars,chicago film critic's association awards,14th critic's choice awards,2009 empire awards,the golden globes,irish film and television awards,london film critic's circle awards,rembrandt awards,screen actors guild awards;she won the the best actress award for the satellite award and the 2008 saturn award.jolie's performance was forceful but understated;she shed her movie star persona to appear vulnerable and resolute as christine collins.the mental trauma that christine had to went through when she was locked up in the mental ward was similar to what she had previously portrayed in girl,interrupted which won her the oscar for the best supporting actress category when she was only 24.now i agree that this performance of hers was no way near to lisa rowe,but as i said that i am biased about her;so i just hoped,hope against hope that maybe this time she would actually win the oscar for the best actress. but the fact that she didnt proves that the academy chose wisely when they voted for kate winslet.if you are jolie fan like me i would its definitely a must watch and even if you are not i would suggest to give it a try after all its a clint eastwood movie and if you are a movie buff, u dont find his stuff boring;the story is told in such a manner that only a hardened cynic will be left unmoved by the haunting and sorrowful saga.

North Country

This movie made me realize that men are actually scared of women. Well nothing personal against the guys out there but its what I perceived. I don’t think the guys are gonna take it too kindly but as I said before its nothing personal and its definitely not an attack or anything on their masculinity or anything, so please don’t get me wrong. North Country is based on the real life incident in the iron mines of north Minnesota, how women were sexually harassed by their male coworkers. The time is the early 1990’s and there is a worldwide crisis of jobs. It is at such times that women decide to come out from their houses and get work for themselves. The only place where the pay is good in north Minnesota is the iron mines but it is dominated by the men. Even though the pay is good, the work involves a lot of risk which is why the proportion of men to women working in the mines, even in the 1990’s is 30:1. Now why I said that men are scared coz this is the time that they felt or thought that the women were gonna take away their jobs, steal away their livelihood, the only one that they had in the neighborhood. But what they didn’t realize was that the women had equal rights to earn a living and fend for themselves. The movie revolves around the life of josie aimes played by charlize theron, a young mother of 2 kids who leaves her abusive husband and comes back to her home state and starts working in the iron mines. Her father has been a miner all his life and he doesn’t take it too kindly of his daughter’s working at the mines. This strains their relationship further, since their relationship is not a happy one. From her first day at her new work place, she notices that her male co workers aren’t too delighted to have them around and makes horrible vulgar jokes at their cost which amounts to sexual harassment. But it’s the men who run the show and the women workers cannot protest about their miserable working conditions. But josie decides she has had enough of their stupid jokes and sues the management of the mine for sexual harassment and as always happens, she wins. So that’s basically the story, but there were quite a few flaws in the movie according to me. For example josie’s life: if an abusive husband is not enough, with whom she has a daughter, she was sexually abused by one of her teachers at school and as a result of which she gave birth to a son; and now she’s sexually harassed at her work place. I mean it seemed that all the bad things happened to one person only. And the most important flaw was the lawsuit: how could she win it? I mean I know that lawyers are s’posed to be great talkers but how can you just talk your way to victory when you have no evidence, no proof on your side. The film however also explores the troubled relationship between a son and a mother (josie) and also between a daughter (josie) and a father. But I should say that theron’s performance disappointed me and she clearly did not deserve the oscar nomination for the best actress category. After all, my expectations from her was high after she portrayed the ‘monster’ aileen wuornos.

Mystic River

Oh God! This movie… what should I say… haunts me. I dunno whether ‘haunt’ is the right word or not, but boy after watching this movie, all I could hear was the background music of Mystic River, scored by clint eastwood and see the faces of sean penn and tim robbins. Hats off to them! It’s no wonder that both of them earned an oscar at the 2003 academy awards for the best actor and the best supporting actor category respectively. Mystic River is adapted from the novel with the same name written by dennis lehane and directed by clint eastwood. The movie begins with 3 friends jimmy, sean and dave playing hockey on the streets of boston. It’s evident that the three of them are really close friends but they move apart after a tragic incident. On that fateful day, dave was picked up by a ‘cop’ for destructing public property. This guy was no actual cop and dave was taken hostage where he was sexually abused. After 4 days in captivity, dave manages to escape but things are never normal for him. The three friends drift apart; thus a friendship which was supposed to be for a lifetime, turned into a mere acquaintance. Years pass by when another tragic and horrific incident reconnects these 3 friends: jimmy’s 19 year old daughter, Catherine is brutally murdered, dave is a suspect and sean played by kevin bacon is one of the investigating officers. Tim robbins my God! He was just mind blowing as the troubled dave: a sexually abused child, now a 30 something old father of a son who still has nightmares about that tragic incident that robbed him off his childhood and innocence, whose wife doesn’t know of his ugly past- he was just great. Sean penn as the father of the murdered teen, the local mob boss was good too, but he had a negative stint in his character, this brash punk attitude that made me dislike him. But the best part of the movie I must say has to be the ending, such an unexpected one, it just takes you by surprise. It’s as if someone grabs you from behind and you are scared, speechless shocked everything. And it is for this reason that clint eastwood is clint eastwood and which is why we were supplied with such gem of a movies like million dollar baby, letters from iwo jima, flags of our fathers and now gran torino. And when the movie ends, all you see, all u hear is dave’s face and the background score titled ‘Mystic River’. At least I did.

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.

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.