but somewhere it must've touched aparna sen that she decided to turn the book into a movie. rahul bose and aparna sen were really good in 'antaheen' and even her previous directorial venture 'mr and mrs iyer'. having seen previous movies of this duo, i am waiting to watch this movie. here's what rajeev masand had to say about the movieIt's the charming love story of Snehamoy, a mild-mannered schoolteacher in the Sunderbans (played by Rahul Bose), and Miyage, a chatty girl in a faraway Japanese village (played by Chigasu Takuku), who start out as pen-pals, fall in love, then get married and stay committed for 17 years without ever meeting face-to-face. Their romance unfolds through a series of letters and occasional phone calls.
Aparna Sen's assured touches come through in scenes like the lively kite competition between Snehamoy and the villagers, which escalates into something of an Indo-Jap tussle. Or the scene in which Snehamoy accompanies Sandhya to the market where the ease between them reminds you of a long-married couple.
This isn’t a love story with grand sweep and passion. It’s a minimalist rendering of a chaste, almost surreal love. But Sen makes us believe in it because she tells the story with great empathy and affection.
the other movie that i am really interested in watching is 'date night'. tina fey is a fine actress and her comic timing is superb. so, i am hoping this movie will make me laugh and enjoy. even masand promises the same in his reviewIn the end it's up to the two leads, who strike up a comfortable chemistry, to make the most of this tired premise. And to be fair, they succeed to some extent. Entirely convincing as a pair of Regular Joes who're just as surprised as we are to find themselves at the centre of this mess, Carell and Fey turn Date Night into an easy enough evening out at the movies.
we all know of the legends of WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and bush's rhetoric on it. 'green zone' deals with this, where-in matt damon is on a mission to iraq to find WMD's. masand calls this an average war drama in his reviewRelying on his trademark hyperkinetic camerawork to shoot the film's breathless chases and non-stop combat scenes, Greengrass lends a sense of visceral immediacy to the action that makes Green Zone more engaging than your average war drama.
The actors struggle to pull off cool, but given those CGI-enhanced action scenes, the ill-fitting leather costumes, and the puerile dialogue, cool is impossible to achieve. Even the obvious inspiration from Mission Impossible, Matrix and the Bourne movies doesn't seem to help director Kookie Gulati in constructing a half-convincing tale.
It's hard to say what's most ridiculous - the plot which has everyone chasing a coin which has the chip or the amount of posturing these actors are indulging in.
we all saw jadoo come down to our planet in a spaceship, and it wasn't that good looking to be paired opposite to hrithik roshan. but jacqueline fernandez in 'jaane kahan se ayi hai' is just the kinda material that we need from outer space, charming and graceful. so, when transcends to earth and into ritesh's mundane life, he is more than trilled to escprt her like a tour guide. but this tour isn't all that fun, as said by our reviewers. anupama chopra saysThe laughs deflate at an alarming rate. Instead we are made to suffer feeble match-making efforts, the clichéd journey from friendship to love, the usual misunderstandings and even a last minute chase to Tara’s spaceship so that the soul-mates, Tara and Rakesh are united.
There's so much mushy dialogue that even the guys who write those Hallmark cards would feel uncontrollably sick; and just the basic plotting of the romantic track is too corny and juvenile to inspire any real sympathy for the characters involved. It doesn't help that Ritesh and Jacqueline lack the spark to keep you hooked to their romance.
The trio kept in mind, the growth of the characters Jesse and Celine, the age and the maturity factor, and they came up with a beautiful screenplay. The movie was titled Before Sunset and it released in 2004. This movie was again shot with a steadicam, just like the prequel; and had those long shots, only this time the venue was Paris.
The movie starts in a bookstore in Paris called Shakespeare & Co. Bookstore where Jesse is addressing a small gathering of journalists who have come to interview him on the promotion tour of his newly written book This Time. When asked if the book is autobiographical, Jesse cleverly quotes Thomas Wolfe and begins “…he says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives, and that, uh, anybody who sits down to write is gonna use the clay of their own life, that you can’t avoid that“. But when the journalist is adamant on knowing if he actually met a French woman, about which the book is, he says …Yes. Just when he is answering those queries he spots Celine and he wants to be done with the questions soon so he can catch-up with her after 9 long years.
I recalled that Kunal Kohli’s movie Hum-Tum had the same opening sequence. I cross-checked the release dates of the two movies and it turns out that Hum-Tum released just 3 weeks before this movie. Is this ‘book launch interview’ sequence a mere coincidence or what?Anyways, after the interview Jesse has a flight to catch and he has time only until 7.30pm to spend with Celine. Celine clearly has lost weight, while Jesse looks a lot mature with his moustache and goaty. They start walking to a coffee shop and Celine tells Jesse that the bookstore was her favourite one and she frequents it, thats how she was aware of his visit. When Jesse asks if she has read the book; Celine says that she has read it twice and she found it really very romantic and compliments him on his wonderful writing.
Now comes the awkward moment, Celine asks Jesse if he had come to Vienna after 6 months, as promised before parting. This was just like An Affair To Remember … though I will not reveal anything more, all I can say is things don’t remain the same hereafter.
The two move on to talk about other things as they have a lot to catch-up with…like how is life and how things have changed in the past 9 years. Celine informs Jesse that she works for Green Cross which is an environmental organization and they work on issues like clean water, disarmament of chemical weapons and that she had been to India a year ago working on a water treatment plant and she mentions how the cotton industry is a major source of pollution. That felt good, India being referenced in an American movie set in Paris, albeit not a good picture. She goes onto say “we’re moving all our industry to developing nations. We can get cheap labor free of any environmental laws. OK, the weapon industry is booming. Five million people die every year from preventable water disease. So, how is the world getting any better?“
I love such conversations, I mean, why do they show in every other movie how boys and girls discuss only relationships, sunsigns, horoscopes, looks and make-up. Grow up, show some real conversation as above.
Jesse and Celine reach a coffee-shop and make themselves comfortable. Thats when Celine reveals that she was in New York University from ‘96 to ‘99. And Jesse is just shocked to hear that because he has been in NY since ‘98 and was wondering how they never crossed paths. That’s destiny for you. Two lovers who were supposed to meet in Vienna after 6 months of their first meeting, they don’t meet even in NY[though Jesse mentions that a few days before his wedding he did feel that he had spotted Celine in a Deli] and finally they see each other again in Paris.
In the coffeshop they discuss about how their personal appearance has changed, about Celine’s life and studies in US and how Jesse was a drummer in a rock-band. Jesse mentions about how he doubts the Buddhist viewpoint on desire … “its what all those Buddhist guys say, right? You know, liberate yourself from desire and you’ll find that you already have everything you need“. While still on topic of religion and Buddhism, Celine talks about one of her boyfriends who visited monasteries of Asia because “each time he went to one of those monasteries, a monk offered to suck his cock. True story!“. This had me in splits.
They pay the coffee bill and are back on the streets, in a garden. Jesse reminsces about the night that they had spent in Vienna, and they just mess with each other on the question of whether or not they had made love that night; because they both recall the night differently. Celine then speaks about her complicated relationship with her mom and granny and how its been difficult for her to cope-up with her granny’s death. She says “Memory is a wonderful thing, if you don’t have to, uh, deal with the past“.
They finally come down to discussing about their personal lives. Jesse tells her about his wife who teaches and a 4 yr old son named Henry. Celine tells him that she is seeing a photo-journalist who covers wars and that keeps him out-of-town most of the times. They realize how they have not just grown apart, but also grown old…mature and responsible.
Celine and Jesse take a small boatride and she tells him things about Eiffel tower and cathedrals. He confesses that he wrote the book so that he could record every detail of their meeting and the wonderful time they spent together. Celine is happy to hear this because she herself is not the kind of person who can move-on with the snap of a finger; she lingers around old memories. Towards the end of this chat they exchange phone numbers so that they can keep in touch and they wonder why they did not do this nine years ago.
Time is running out, Jesse calls for his car and since he wants to make maximum use of time, he suggests that they go to her apartment. While they are in the car Celine gets emotional talking about all her ex-boyfriends who walked away from her life …”But what does it mean the right man? The love of your life? The concept is absurd; the idea that we can only be complete with another person is…EVIL! RIGHT?“. To pacify her, Jesse says “You can’t do that, you can’t live your life trying to avoid pain“. The car halts at her apartment.
What I truely love about the movie is the fact that the characters remained true-to-life; Richard Linklater did not try to make it a happy-ending. He has shown a real-life situation about how people meet, drift apart and how things between them change; how they handle the change. The conversation is crisp and the dialogues are excellent, worth quoting from. As usual, each shot blends into the next one without any jitters; and the camera focus is excellent. Since its shot in real-time, it gives us the feeling of moving along with the character, always attached; it’s to the credit of writer/director Richard Linklater.
In the last few scenes, in Celine’s apartment, she seats him and sings him a waltz and Jesse wonders if she has written those lines for him. Later they put on some music and she dances to the song; she reminds him about his flight. The movie again ends in ambiguity because we don’t really know what happens next, whether Jesse takes the flight or not!
This post was first published on PFC
Owing to enormous pressure from fans and other eminent personalities, Sania Mirza has decided to call off her wedding with Pak cricketer Shoaib Malik. In fact, reports also say that right-wing activists who protested outside her residence, on the day her marriage news broke-out, have issued a threat and called her anti-national. Not just right-wingers, but Islamic fundamentalists who had earlier issued a fatwa on her for playing tennis in skimpy skirts, have renewed the threat on her for breaking an arranged marriage with her previous fiance Sohrab and finding love elsewhere in Shoaib Malik. Sania was depressed by such fierce reaction from all quarters, and she made this decision. And I hope I have been successful in fooling you because its 1st April today. Happy Fool's Day.
Coming to their sporting career, neither Sania nor Shoaib are relevant in their sports. Shoaib was a copy-cat of Saqlain Mushtaq to begin with and he seemed to have no prospects until his bat started doing the talking; but that was a thing of the past. As of today, he has been issued a ban for a year, lost his captaincy and will be seen playing inconsequential matches to keep the kitchen stove burning. But this is the least of my grouses. What I detest about Shoaib is his unabashed Islamic behavior at the presentation ceremony of T20 World Cup final when Pak lost to India. Shoaib went on to apologize to all "muslims of the world" for not having won the cup. How dare this unholy b@$tard try to make Pak the whole-and-sole representative of "all muslims". He does not even know that India has more muslim population than Pakistan. He does not know that muslims in India have achieved greatness in all fields, be it science & technology [APJ Kalam], be it business[Azim Premji], be it movies [all Khans], be it music [Zakir Hussain, AR Rahman], be it sports [Azhar, Sania herself], be it politics or any other field. I was actually amazed that not many people took exception to this statement from Shoaib. This reflects not only Pak's insecurities but also their narrow-mindedness.
Its been exactly 40 years and 40 days since 'Love Story' was first published. The publication of this novel was more of an afterthought than a piece of original literary work. The movie 'Love Story' whose screenplay was written by Erich Segal, was later adapted it into a novel which would serve as a pre-cursor to the movie and help in promoting the film. Hence, the novel came out on 14th Feb, 1970 while the movie released later, in December of the same year.
In 2001, Jeeva directed a movie 12B starring Sham and Jyothika. The movie starts with Shakti preparing to attend a job interview. While Shakti is at the bus stop, waiting for the bus number 12B, destiny has other plans for him. He spots a charming girl, forgets all about the interview and starts pursuing her. Its obvious that he misses the bus. Is this going to be a life altering turn? Well, the director takes us through parallel series of events which shows us how Shakti’s life turns out having missed the bus; and having taken the bus and attended the interview.
Both scenarios have different outcomes and with their own set of complications. In the situation where she misses the train, she calls for a cab and while boarding in her purse gets snatched. She gets injured in her struggle to get back the purse and she finally lands in a hospital. This entire string of events gives her boyfriend enough time to fool around with another woman.
The movie actually tells the story of a strict communist regime through Witek. By taking Witek, played superbly by Boguslaw Linda, through three different paths, Kieslowski gives out the message that no one could’ve escaped brushing against the system. This political message is handled with subtlety where Witek, a medical student who is supposed to be apolitical, still gets embroiled in the affairs of the state and in different capacities.
# The good people sleep better, while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.Today, 14th March, is Aamir Khan's birthday. I wish him a very Happy Birthday.
I have wanted to write this article from a long time, to be precise after the release of Mann. Eventually, after the release and the super-success of Ghajini I have got down to writing it. There is something with Aamir and movie remakes, he has consistently been a part of movies which are remakes. Its definitely not his fault that he has featured in them, its the writer-director who were looking for a quick and readymade storylines and of course the producer for easy money. And let me also say that he is not the only star to feature in remakes, as we all know, but the quality of the remakes is what differentiates him from the rest. Why I have analysed him is because, out of the 40 odd movies that he has made, nearly 10 of them have been remakes which is like 25%. Let me go ahead and write down about these movies in a chronological manner of their release wrt Aamir’s filmography.
In 1992, Mansoor Khan took a lot of inspiration from this movie and made Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. I have used the word ‘inspiration’ because the movie was not a scene-to-scene remake. Lots of new things were introduced, but the plot, storyline and the spirit of the original was kept intact. Mansoor wrote a brilliant screenplay and dialogues by Nasir Hussain were really good, they breathed a life into the Sanjaylal character played by Aamir Khan. They retained the sub-plot of Aamir faking his identity and calling himself a Xavier student so he can go around with Devika[Pooja Bedi] and ultimately she gets to know the truth. The friendship of Sanjaylal and Anjali[Ayesha Jhulka] was handled with maturity and utmost honesty. Mansoor Khan introduced an emotional quotient attaching a prestige to the Annual Cycle Race and added the nostalgia of Sanjaylal’s dad[Kulbhushan Kharbanda] having won the race once upon a time. And the burden of bringing home the cup rested on Ratanlal [Mamik], Sanjay’s elder brother. But when Ratanlal is severely injured from an accident inflicted upon by the Rajput College boys, Sanjaylal takes it upon himself to bring home the coveted honor and take revenge against the Rajput College boys. The movie won the Filmfare for Best Film. Aamir was excellent in the movie, to say the least.
In 1993 a movie titled after a popular Dev Anand song released, the movie was Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. It was again the combination of Robin Bhat-Mahesh Bhat who systematically copied the movie scene-by-scene. The only thing that they changed was that, the kids were Aamir Khan’s nephews and nieces and not his own. And Aamir becomes the caretaker of the kids after the sad demise of his sister and brother-in-law in a car crash. They also introduced the character Mishraji [Mushtaq Khan] who had returned from Japan after getting trained in assembly-line production; and they made use of this by adding the twist of having to deliver the bulk order of 1 lakh shirts. Apart from this, rest of the movie remained faithful to the original. It was so faithful that the Cinzia character’s Italian dialogues were translated to suit Juhi Chawla’s tamil character Vyjayanthi. The concert, mouth-organ playing kid, taking the kids to visit the museum, Vyjayanthi’s advise of treating the kids with maturity were all the same as in the original. All the kids did a great job, especially Kunal Khemu who went onto become an actor. Aamir was also the Assisstant Director of this movie, in fact this was the phase when Mahesh Bhat was considered to be the most busy director, so busy that he was supposedly giving instructions over the phone; that was the reason for Aamir to step-in as Assisstant Director. This did not stop the movie from winning the Filmfare for Best Actress, Best Film and Best Lyricist[Sameer].
Mansoor Khan could not resist this movie as well. In 1995 he remade this movie and titled it ‘Akele Hum Akele Tum’. He just changed the fields of interest, i.e., Aamir Khan as Rohit is a promising singer who sings for a club and awaiting his opportunity to sing in a movie. His love interest Kiran, played by Manisha Koirala, is learning classical music. She is a fan of Rohit and she makes it to one of his New Year shows where they meet and falling in love seems inevitable. Soon after the breezy romance they get married and realise that life is not easy. Kiran is ambitious and she is not willing to sacrifice her singing so she walks out on him, leaving Rohit with his son Sunil, played by Aadil. How Rohit and Sunil manage together and how Kiran comes back into their lives to reclaim Sunil forms rest of the courtroom drama. Aamir gave a very well restrained performance but the same cannot be said of Manisha. The movie had some good songs but was marred by plagiarism where Anu Malik lifted the famous Last Christmas song of George Michael. Also, there was a rubbish spoofing of Nadeem-Shravan duo; Shafi Inamdar and Harish Patel played the crook music directors Amar-Kaushal, who are after Rohit’s composition. I am not sure whose idea it was, TIPS guys or Anu Malik but it was in bad taste. Anyways, the movie bombed at the box-office. Only Aamir and Adil’s performance added some value to the otherwise dull movie.
Even after all this, we still had Aamir in line to pay tribute to Godfather. So, he acted his part in Atank Hi Atank which released in 1995. He played the role of Michael, which Al Pacino had played. In fact, it was quite fascinating to see Aamir with a moustache and his wet-hair all combed back, he looked like he meant business. This movie had Rajnikanth playing Sonny, I think the only time that Aamir and Rajni have ever worked together. But none of this could save the movie at the box-office.
