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.

"do you know how i got these scars?"

"no but i know how you got these!". and wham! batman is on top of the joker.the dark knight! truly , do i even need to write anything about it 'coz for those of you who have seen it you all very well know what am i talking about.it is so very different from the batman begins. and ledger did one heck of a job before his death.bale stands nowhere near him in the movie.he was good , no doubt about that , but ledger was a class apart.it's too bad that he isnot here to see what an immortal piece of work he did which has further increased his fan followings. nicholson too was really good as joker but he had that polished aristocratic look rather than the pscopathic look that ledger so brilliantly portrayed.i feel that there was a bit of a flaw in the casting - maggie gyllenhaal as rachel dawes? you gotta be kidding me! she tried her best but somehow i couldnot imagine that 5'9" brunette as rachel. she just didn't fit in rachel's shoes. katie was so much better. another person who needs mentioning is aaron ekchart as harvey dent as the district attorney of gotham. this new district attorney and live-in-boyfriend of rachel has made gotham a safe place in recent times. he was good too , not great maybe but definitely good. while he's busy putting the bad guys behind bars , the joker has plans of his own. he kills the police commissioner and the judge prevailing over the case of the mob. even while he's being interrogated by batman or rather beaten the hell out of him he uses his connections to kidnapp dent and dawes. however he tells them the address of the godowns where they are being held hostage. while batman rushes to save rachel and gordon to save dent unknown to both of them that the joker had switched their places and its dent whom batman reaches. he arrives just in time to save him before the bombs tear apart the godown. however his face catches fire and we witness the birth of a new villain - two face. however gordon fails to save rachel and she dies in the blast.even though the sudden twists in the story is gripping i think that the most melodramatic one is the death of rachel.the action scenes were really cool too but that's what you should expect from the creator of memento and insomnia , right?

the great ray!

who can call themselves a movie freak without mentioning the great ray?frankly no one should. well i saw the last movie by ray "agantuk" for a sixth time but every time i see it i feel the great loss of the great film maker. or should i say the greatest indian film maker? i think that it was utpal dutt's best work too. hats off to that dude! man he rocked. and if any of you wanna learn how to be rude to people you can just follow the footsteps of dhritiman chatterjee. man , was he rude or what! the other casts include mamata shankar and dipankar de while ravi ghosh and ajit bannerjee just had a cameo role. the story is somewhat like this , utpal dutt ran away from home as a young man and arrives back to india after 35 years wanting to visit his niece (shankar) before he starts off for australia.the problem revolves around his identity since his niece doesn't remember her uncle and is apprenhensive whether this guy is actually his uncle or not. it turns out that he is and he had come to india mainly to give her the share of money that utpal dutt's father had left him.it was an awesome movie and there's only one thing that i can say bow down , bow down to the man , to the man!