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The book overall was not special, but had enough heart to convey a fine coming of age tale. It was also a bit of a slow burn with drifting away from the main plot line many times before meeting back to towards the tail end to finish the story. The movie version feels like it is rushing and plodding at different times to reach its end, not knowing what to use from the more than enough material from the book to tell a tale.

The first movie based on a John Green's novel 'The fault in our stars' had a little fantasy about its plot, which made suspension of disbelief happen naturally for the audience to enjoy the story. Unfortunately for John Green's other novel 'Paper Towns' it had to get things right about reality.

And to make it into a PG-13 movie is hard. Everything has to dumbed down and put into appropriately classified boxed up stereotype. There is even a gimmick guest appearance from Ansel Elgort from the 'Fault in our stars'.

The movie version should not been such a miss-hit. But the story in the book drifts away many times into long and unnecessary conversations between Q, Ben and Radar while playing games in their room or at the school. These conversations are important for the audience to bond with the three endearing characters. It slows the pace down but helps the book reach its not so stunning climax. The book also helps understand Margo's relationship with her parent's better, which is important to understand her constant vanishing act.

The cast fails to deliver the dialogs convincingly and make everything look stiff. Worst off Cara Delevingne, the reason of all the trouble the hero gets in just days before his final exams, should definitely raise her acting level in her next project Suicide Squad to not terminate that franchise at the word go. Except for Justin Smith's Radar all everyone fails to have any kind of timing.

The film comes off as having a very lazy production hoping to find success on the back off John Green's reader following; but thankfully they too disowned this serving.

When Miss Zellweger's character Dorothy sobbingly tells Jerry Maguire, 'You had me at Hello' after abruptly ending Jerry's 'You complete me' speech, it all seems completely corny in now very typical Cameron Crowe style. Or in Almost Famous, when Miss Penny Lane says to William 'It's all happening' and when Lester Bangs talks about 'Industry of Cool'; when out of context, just one word, corny.

But all those dialogs became memorable as they were part of well written stories and characters. Most of these Cameron Crowe dialogs are now oft repeated pop culture references.

In one of the multiple endings of Mr. Crowe's new movie 'Aloha', Bradley Cooper's character Brian Gilchrest is standing outside a dance class watching one of the girls, performing a Hawaiian dance routine, who after a brief moment bursts in tears and comes out to give a warm hug to Mr. Cooper. The audience by now must have lost track of what the movie is about. Even if they are paying the highest amount of attention, they may not be able to shed a tear of joy with the two protagonists. Nothing that is played out within the 105 minutes running time has done anything to conjure up to the emotional hug towards the finale.

And it is same for the rest of the endings. The prophecy revealed earlier this year in the Sony email hacks comes true and it is for real that 'Aloha' the new feature by Mr. Cameron Crowe is a confused mess.

Mr. Crowe gets into his Elizabethtown mode and comes up with a movie worse than the 2005 Orlando-Kirsten starrer Dramedy. A male protagonist juggling multiple things like ex-girlfriends & her family and reviving his failing military contractor career is teamed up with pixie-dream girl who is supposed to be of Hawaiian-Asian heritage, but is as white as they come because this is a Hollywood production.

The casting is least of this film's problem. The character's barely act as per the situation. John Krasinski brings up the laughs but his character makes no sense. John plays Rachel McAdam's husband, who does not speak much and mostly expresses his emotion by touching or hugging. But when his marriage is falling apart, you would expect his character to straighten up but the movie just ties the ending happily without addressing John's character's frustrating silence trait.

One also cannot blame the written characters if the situations and plot lines are thin as a paper. Apparently Mr. Crowe researched in Hawaii for many years while writing the script. And it shows that he is trying to say something about USA's "approach" towards Hawaii and is trying showcase Hawaiian culture. But all he could muster is some mystical folklore and background dancers to showcase Hawaii.

Emma Stone's character Allison Ng is supposed to represents the Hawaiian perspective, but it is completely lost on the audience. All we see is a Emma Stone speaking about some alien exotic culture that she is fascinated with. She fails to immerse in her character for obvious reasons and later on in the movie she is the Pixie dream girl who is going to change Mr. Brokenhearted Cooper's career and life.

Bill Murray's Eli Musk character is so underwritten that the finale's satellite launch gives the film the b-grade sci-fi stench.

Miss McAdam tries hard to bring out some emotional touch to scenes with her barely present opposite characters of Bradley and John, but the disjointed editing fails her completely. Creaking doors, staring kids and other characters without any dialogs; the editing creates a whole another mess to the already fallen apart situation.

This film in the ends takes down with it the most anticipated words on the movie posters of the late nineties and early 2000; A Cameron Crowe Film. Mr. Crowe's next movie has to be something special to pull in some audience at the cinemas playing it, as Aloha feels like a final goodbye from the audience to him.

Aimee Finicky could be that girl/boy in school who focuses on their academic and always tries to make way for their future.

It is a dream for Amiee(a girl) to have Sutter, an outgoing party hopping high school charmer, showing interest in her. Her dream may seem like a nightmare for many in the audience. Going literally through physical pain and emotional trauma and disappointment, one really wishes having an intervention for her. Because by viewing through any vantage point, this relation if just started at the end the movie 'The Spectacular Now', seems only destined to be turbulent.

These flawed but deeply lovable and real characters, such as Aimee and Sutter, are the ones that are responsible for the positive reaction to 'The Spectacular Now' at the yearly festival circuit grind that an independent movie goes through. Among the audience for an early screening of the movie there were more than a few disgruntled audience members.

Adapted from a novel with the same name, the movie is filled with overwhelming genuine teen romance moments. It is also pleads innocence for the decisions made by its teen adult leads that makes the movie hop off through their times during the final year of school.

Broken up recently from his longtime high school sweet heart Cassidy (played by Brie Larson); Mr. Keely may be on a high school rebound. Sutter Keely's life takes a turn for the tragic for his spectacular now lifestyle when drunken and passed out he meets Aimee, on a neighborhood front lawn the morning after he discovers Cassidy dating with school Footballer Marcus.

Aimee being mostly an unknown entity for her entire school life appears gullible to Sutter's boyish charm. Her attraction to Sutter comes at a cost of her only friend Kristal, a friendship that heavily relies on Aimee being a pushover.

As Sutter's influence on Aimee increases, he gets her to start drinking and prods her to take a stand against her mother, who uses Aimee to get away from her daily early morning paper delivery profession. Aimee overwhelmed by the life changing experience and relationship decides to commit to Sutter even further their High School arrangement.

Her request for Sutter to consider moving with her to Philadelphia for further studies shows off her growing confidence within her and in the relationship. While Sutter quietly makes the transition of being tamed into have deep affections for a person of opposite sex.

On Aimee's insistence Sutter confronts his mother and sister to provide contact of his abandoned from childhood father. The long awaited visit to his father's place provides Sutter a vision for the future to his own 'spectacular now' life agenda. With his father spouting the very same banality of living the life now; Sutter realizes where his life might be heading towards.

Aimee's love and affection towards Sutter after the anti-climactic Father-Son re-union finally breaks the bubble for Sutter to make him realize that it is time to embrace adulthood.

Mr. Ponsoldt's primary skills seem to be depiction of alcoholism and it consequence after last year's 'Smashed' and 'The Spectacular Now'. Sutter's short interaction with his father and realization that his father's alcoholism is a cautionary tale for him brings out the best out of the director.

Additionally, the romance and its poignant and touching moments is where Mr. Ponsoldt triumphs over the novel. The novel by Mr. Tharp sketches far more complex and real characters and brings out an emotionally numbing end to Sutter's spectacular now theory. But Mr. Ponsoldt gives us a slice of high school romance that rarely looks so truthful in cinemas.

Although the movie's ending is a far cry from the novel's numbing vision, Mr. Ponsoldt's version of the end is edgier enough for a Hollywood film which brings out the best from it talented young leads Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley.

Though the romantic leads hog the movie, a shout out has to be given to Brie Larson for her role of Cassidy, a character which makes all the right choices in life for herself. Brie Larson makes sure her character does not devolves into a snippy popular high school girl.

'The Spectacular Now' avoids being a Hollywood Rom-com and is a welcome addition to the coming-of-age genre that always has a new tale to narrate.

The Indian film industry's most loud and noisy version Bollywood has survived most of the last three decades without telling any story to its audience. The only creative aspect of Bollywood has been its lilting music which is created by those not so good looking talented singers and musicians who are left to watch beautiful( fare skinned) actresses and actors with chiseled body(Steroids) dance and lip sync over their hard work. So whenever a story does drop by in front of them they stumble and fail to narrate it in front of their audience.

'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' is one those important true stories that needed to be told by someone other than Bollywood. With its very prejudice and narrow minded thinking it fails to liberate an inspirational personal life story beyond their myopic views.

Milkha Singh, the Indian athlete who was one of the few bright spots during the early years of independent India was like his nation lived its childhood in bloody tragedy of partition. Born in a Sikh community in pre-partition Multan, Milkha survived the partition with his elder sister along with her abusive husband.

Milkha goes on to survive the hard ships in the refugee camp in new born India by hook or crook. His persona comes off as lively and mischievous. In a very prolonged flashback we are shown his small town love affair and his tryst with the law. The director uses these sequences to insert the usual Bollywood machismo with girls shying from kisses & hugs along with tons of humorous sequences that are inconsequential to the storyline.

All these flashbacks are narrated to the secretary of Prime Minister Nehru during his journey by train to Chandigarh to meet Milkha Singh personally at the behest of Mr. Nehru. He is meeting Milkha to convince him to go to Pakistan for the Indo-Pak friendship games to be held in Lahore. He is accompanied by Milkha's athletic Coach in the Army and his current Indian national team coach who are trying to narrate Milkha's reason for not visiting Pakistan.

His refusal is due to his childhood traumas based in Multan i.e. now in Pakistan. He watched his father's head being chopped by Islamic fanatics after his father forced him to run away from the massacre. He does not feel any strain of friendship towards the neighboring state.

While the narration is about his refusal to go to Pakistan, there is no reference to it for over two hours into the movie until the Secretary himself stops the coaches in between to make them aware of his and audiences dilemma that what has been narrated has very little to do with Mr. Milkha Singh's refusal to head to Pakistan.

Throughout the narration we see Milkha join the Indian Army and dance with his colleagues in the dormitory, he grows up being a small time burglar and falls in love with the village beauty and sing and dream and then when he goes to Melbourne Olympics, he falls for a Blonde Australian and they sing and dance. By this time the murmurs and the desperation inside the movie theater is palpable as it is already over two hours. When the movie finally reaches its climax after over 180 minutes we witness a fleeting moment of a real historical sports movie with a race in Lahore that include Asian Champion Abdul Khaliq. The interjecting images of the race watched by Pakistani dictator Ayub Khan (who confers Milkha with the title 'Flying Sikh') and listened around India through Radio it is an easy win for Milkha but an important personal win. And the moment passes away as all the side characters begin to do Bhangra dance for the 100th times as they did for many other inconsequential sequences and occasions.

But nothing less is expected from Bollywood makers who are diagnosed with narrative mood swings that could be compared to a bi-polar person. They never stay in the moment of a storyline and try to squeeze out every existing emotion one way or the other.

Apart from the sharply written character of Milkha i.e. comparable to his sharply chiseled body none of the characters hold together for more than few minutes. They are either left praising Milkha or being jealous or falling head over heels to fall in love with him. Pakistani athletes are characterized as they way Indians feel they would behave with flaring nostrils and deep disdain for anything Indian (may be Abdul Khaliq did act arrogantly in front of Milkha).

But it has to do with some deep rooted feeling for white blonde among the film makers, for the way they portrayed Milkha's two love stories. While his village love is shown in a very asexual manner, where when the couple goes away for privacy they make childish gestures of love towards each other alone, but with the Australian it is filled with sex and booze from first night. May be they do go far off from village to make out, but for Bollywood to show intimacy it is easy way round to hook up with a blonde white woman.

Such views and forced dramatization of a very personal story discourages the narrative of the film to go along coherently. Unfortunately Bollywood manages to bring down the story of a national hero to its knees and successfully fares well where every other forgettable Bollywood movies fare; in its moments. In moments during Milkha racing from the pains of running bare feet to running for life, 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' finds its footing that are rare and too few in myriad of drama and Bhangra.

It was quite a conundrum in the movie theater while watching 'The Bling Ring'. Were we about to sympathize with Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay, Megan and all? It was getting very close to that because nothing is as lowly as a life of wannabes and wannabes were what the Bling ring members can be best described. Wannabes get hyper excited if they see anything they wished to be or be in. Their life is a quest to replicate into a person they are obsessed with; no matter where there actual life circumstance is leading them towards. And what they become is a train wreck of a personality.

I and very sure the rest of audience were dumbfounded to witness the kind of lifestyle these five teens of the Bling ring gang from the Los Angeles vicinity were leaving. The ring master Rebecca (Katie Chang) is on a lookout for a partner and she finds one in a socially awkward schoolmate Marc. They both are seen at the beginning of the movie strolling around wealthy neighborhoods stealing from cars left open. They use there unlawful treasure to party around with their school pal Chloe who is the most laid back of all the ring members.

And then are the adopted sisters Nicki and Sam (played impressively by Emma Watson and Taissa Farmiga respectively); who make it a point to be seen in most happening parties in Hollywood. They are pushing their careers in Hollywood glamor world and their only goal is to be a Hollywood Celebrity. They are depressing to watch as there social and family life observed from anywhere drains down to be shallow at all levels of human emotions. They regularly hang out with Rebecca and co at these parties.

It is Rebecca who is obsessed with clothing and jewelry wore by celebrities and soon begins to look for celebrity home addresses on Google with help of Marc. They start with their idol Paris Hilton and find her house key on the front entrance mattress. Once they get in her house, it is like their mother ship is calling as they navigate through Paris Hilton's materialistic wealth.

Once Chloe, Nicki and Sam hear off these adventures in their idols temple precious, they are in and ready for their wildest dreams to come true. All together they search through Google for their fashion icon's addresses and rob them one by one, while entering Paris Hilton's house reported five times. Their nightly Hollywood adventures make them prime-time news material because it is important for us the society to know whether the celebrities we worship have their precious clothing junks secured.

Within few months the investigators get their hands on all of them (well not all) because these Hollywood Robin hoods brag a little too much about adventures around the party circuit. With prime-time spotlight on these robberies the investigators are able to track the Bling ring with their stolen possession on their own Facebook page.

And is justice is done? Well society loves Robin Hood and some of us are thankful they were not stealing from some poor bloke. But these kids were from wealthy household and were punch drunk on their celebrity obsessed life. Audiences are left to scorn the most on the two sisters who now have their own reality show. Their remorse to their crimes is just as shallow as their life and somehow it is justified. They are famous because of their crimes which have pushed their careers. Marc brags about him getting hundreds of friend's request after police convicted him for the celebrity robbery.

It is here that the audiences are baffled because the celebrities whom these teenagers went on to rob are the one who crave such obsession to sell their precious junk. And these houses were filled with possessions to cover a small island population. If the security cameras would not have captured the images of these kids robbing into their homes; then none of these people would have known if anything out of the huge pile of fashion line is missing from their wardrobe.

So in the end those are worthless robberies triggered by teen obsessions and need not have been prime time news after all. This is where Sophia Coppola jumps in and holds a mirror in front of the audience to show the society we leave in. Our attention and priorities are revolved around everything famous rather than everything worth to be famous. She slyly injects enough news reels from last decade which we all paid attention to but were in fact nothing but celebrity junk fed to a celebrity obsessed society.

Clearly at some level we were all having a great time with the adventures of the bling ring. Though everyone in the cast played there role perfectly (maybe because they all are also in real part of the Hollywood celebrity circuit) but credit should go to Miss Coppola who brings her usual piercing slow look of lives of these teenagers unraveling in the face of hardcore celebrity worshiping culture. In the end they all succeed to be celebrities in their own right.

Some stories are field with land mines and not told in assured manner, you may just lose your audience forever. Ask Shyamalan, if you feel cocky about your storytelling method. Staying clear of those mine fields and unraveling a story with firm grip needs concentration and bold decisions. And Danny Boyle will always be your man to carry out these difficult tasks without compromising the storytelling or undermining audience intelligence. After going through this mind-bender I am unable to tell anyone who is the central character of the film as it shifts its focus quite a few times. The story is twisted quite a few times for the audience losing a few threads, but Mr. Boyle makes sure we pick up the story by the end of the film.

At an elite auction center, an employee of the auctioneer (James McAvoy) is planning a heist of the most precious of painting during the time of the auction. His duty at the Auction center as an employee is to protect the prized item in a situation of a robbery attempt during the auction (conflict of agenda!). When the robbery takes place, Simon (James) carries the painting in the back room to dump it into a safety vault. And while the whole robbery is played out he ends up taking a hit on the head. That incidents massive bleeding leads to coma and back to consciousness without any knowledge of the sequence of events after he took the hit. This becomes a problem because only he knows the location of the painting.

After consulting with doctors the gang's members force Simon get treatment from hypnosis specialist of his choice. Upon realizing her patient is wired inside his clothes, the specialist (Rosario Dawson) suspect foul play and after a quick background search contacts the gang bosses to get her share of the spoils. This marks the beginning of convoluted events in which loyalty and love is tested for each and every character involved.

One of the many positives of the storyline is that none of the characters could be described in black and white. Every character is sympathized regardless of their deeds and whatever they must have done in the past the movie lends a happy ending to their personal stories. In the cast it is Rosario Dawson, who outsmarts her male colleagues in all departments. I seriously thought she does not that much confident to excel in such a complex character. Her character is richly written with a past and a slow twist in her intent.

In the end, a movie that was supposed to be revolving around Simon, takes a turn to focus on the hypnosis specialist. The twist & turn and extra special care to uncover the truth puts this Danny Boyle gem in the category of the 1995 special 'The Usual Suspect' in my good books.

It may not win any awards or accolades as Mr. Boyle's previous two films, but will be able hold its own ground in director's treasure chest of masterful movies of the past and future.

As I sat through the final gala event of the Indian film festival in Los Angeles, I witness a sea of NRI theatrics to promote and celebrate there film communities beloved cinematic achievements. It is there night to celebrate two of finest exports of not so artistically talented community of Indian Americans in North America. 'Midnight's children' is the movie they are trying to celebrate today. I am saying trying because unfortunate as it may be this one has turned out to be cold turkey.

Based on the celebrated novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie the movie version is staunchly conservative as it decidedly sticks honest with the book's narrative. May be Mr. Rushdie did not wish to tinker anything to his beloved book and he is entitled to do whatever he wishes to with its film version. Unfortunately for the audience, Mr. Rushdie along with Miss Deepa Mehta has served something that is too much to consume in approximately two and half hour of the films running time. The movie has a life trajectory beginning with main character Salim's grandfather's love story in British India Kashmir in 1917 and ends in Independent India's Mumbai in the seventies with Salim's young son. In between the movie is a mess of character's coming in and out of the movie with break neck speed.

The film is fable and a tribute to the Nehruvian (Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's style of politics) India's broken secular promises. Salim is a boy born at the stroke of midnight of India's Independence from British occupation. He is supposed to be the son of Indian Muslim family but is actually the son of a local Mumbai street singer who had affair with a British gentleman during his empire's final days. The street singer dies during child birth. The hospital nurse Mary, because of her social beliefs regarding the nation's so called Independence, decides to switch the newborn son of the poor street singer to the rich born kid of a Muslim couple.

The destinies of the two new born are not only entangled by the switch but also with the gift that they possess along with every other children who are born on the stroke of midnight with a new born nation with promises of its richly diverse population.

Each of those new born children are metaphor for the nation's promises of what it can achieve if those natural gifts are used effectively for better means. They all possess different powers with Salim being able to telepathically communicate with each one of the Midnight's Children. While the couple's real kid who ends up with the husband of the street singer is named Shiva who possesses the powerful destructive powers, while Parvati is a magician who is destined to be Salim's soul mate. Salim's destiny is forever bonded with the nation of his birth and hence we are taken to a journey through modern Indian history.

The source material for the film is a literary classic, so there is no doubt that Miss Mehta has been brought down by the wait of expectations. She gave no space for any character development and the second rate cast does not do any favor to the films flow. Unfortunately, the worst of the lot is the main lead Satya Babha who plays the grown up Salim. A small actor in American sitcom, Satya did not have any facial expression or emotions that could light up even the most well written scenes. He fails to carry the film on his shoulders and makes it a stretch for the audience to continue with the film. The only noteworthy and perfect though stereotypical performance is Seema Biswas's Miss Mary.

Some of the best parts of the novel is the Bangladesh war and Indira Gandhi's emergency days. Unfortunately in the movie version no sense of history is evoked during those sequences and to those who may have very scant knowledge of those events may remain disillusioned.

Miss Mehta mentioned during her introductory speech; how Mr. Rushdie got annoyed when some audience member at Toronto film festival compared the film with Forrest Gump. Even I would be annoyed. Forrest Gump maintained a smooth flow even with its long generational trajectory and allowed character development by concentrating on only the main character rather than his entire family tree. But Midnight's Children ends up becoming a fast paced narration of the novel that deserved a better movie version.

Mr. Rushdie and Miss Mehta spoiled a perfect opportunity to create a memorable journey through modern Indian history and placed this cobbled screen adaption as footnote in their respective careers.

During the final reel of this supposedly masterful observation about the degradation of American culture, Ashley Benson's character 'Brit' calls up her mother to assure her that she is fine and has had a wonderful experience in which she discovered herself. She explains that her experiences during Spring Break in Florida enabled her to discover herself and was glad that she was away from reality. I do not know about Brit but in reality everyone goes on a spring break to have a good time. How miserable your life has to be to find enlightenment on a spring break. Reality in this dull piece of film making, story is very thin. The director was definitely away from reality. He just forgot he was supposed to tell a story. The 95 minutes of runtime feels bloated with misogyny and the director would have served better if he had made a short film.

Let's get to the myths surrounding this movie. First of all there is no observation of any kind regarding any culture. Each and every culture has gangsters and thieves in a large party town. Each year college students from across America go to beach-side areas at the advent of spring coinciding with a certain one week college breaks between the semesters. They go to party and try to have a great time before the business end of their college semesters. No one is going there to look out for danger nor anyone is turned on by guns and gangsters. There is definitely a large amount of activity that is considered immoral. But that is easy target if the director wants to say it is a slippery slope.

We all have seen what spring break down in Florida is and are aware what goes on over there. But still the director and James Franco insist the movie to be culturally important for this generation with new age story telling method that is an inspiration to new film makers. I am praying for next generation of audience if this is what we are served as culture examination because this movie reminded me of those B grade movies like Wild Orchid that had stories situated at places with loose morals.

What did the director achieved by showing topless girls again and again getting drunk and forced to get drunk other than enforcing a cultural stereotype. Showing those images over and over with interjecting storyline about four small town girls creates a perverted image that girls ask to be exploited. And those small town girls are frustrated with their quiet life and have some immature fantasy about an exciting life. It is supposed to be comedy but becomes a very dark exploitative movie. The male counterpart to these college going spring breakers are missing and are portrayed by extras who are enjoying and having good time next to submissive girls. Any stories about male college student's behavior in Hollywood are always frat boy comedies in which boys will be boys image is enforced to laugh off their antics. But over here boys are the victims of robbery by these girls who are constantly mentioned as bitches.

The countless images of female body flesh and drugs along with showing the girls take a leak on the street with gleeful excitement was anything but mature filmmaking. If the director's argument is such kind of behavior is common hence have to be shown then at least revolve it around a story. Audience has not come over to witness exhibitionist dumb behavior with James Franco's character 'Alien' constantly whispering 'Spriing break y'll'. How irritating James Franco has become after everyone thoroughly enjoyed '127 hours'!

The reality is every kind of perversion trick was used. The stunt casting of Disney darlings Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens to piggy back movie's publicity on their popularity was ill conceived. Due to their pop culture image the antics of their characters definitely came off as dumb and they fail to shore up any audience interest or sympathy (if they needed any) for their characters.

The exploits of these female characters by being submissive and naive in male dominated world does not require deep observation to conclude this movie being director's male fantasy. But in between the audience end up with four dumb characters who decide whether to stay in a certain situation or not only if they are physically threatened or shot. Until then they think a breaded and tattooed guy named alien talking about rape and gang bang is perfectly fine gentleman to hang out with.

Film history has much folklore and just like our movies they come out of the most creative but imaginative minds in Hollywood. If you stretch the imaginative part a little more it can turn any potential masterpiece into a gimmick. If it would not been for two masterful performances by Mr. Hopkins and Ms. Mirren as Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock; this could well be placed in the laughing stock section.

Mind you, 'Hitchcock' the new film that takes an anecdotal view at Sir Alfred Hitchcock's life during the making of his finest works 'Psycho' is enjoyable. Unfortunately, what the audience is served can best be described as a clever gimmick. It is certainly enjoyable and creative, but is audience really looking through a viewing glass of history or is this some feeble imagination of the makers who are clearly mesmerized by Mr. Hitchcock's histrionics. In his every eccentric behavior, the director provides a sympathetic look.

What are these movies meant to do? If it is to entertain at the cost of reality then why bother to base it on a real person. To be more precise; after watching 'Hitchcock', I am more enamored by the HBO TV-movie 'The Girl' about Hitchcock's relationship with Tippi Hedren during the making of the 'The Bird'. At least, it did not go to great lengths to give explanation to Hitchcock's eccentricity and showed how it affected Tippi. In 'Hitchcock', Janet Leigh is threateningly attacked with knife by Hitchcock to make her look more scarred for the famous or infamous (oh I don't know how it works) shower curtain scene. And after that it's all forgotten about how Janet felt regarding that incident. Instead it all becomes about Hitchcock (or the makers) trying to give rhyme and reason to the audience about such behavior.

The curiosity to know the story behind one of the greats 'Psycho' dies down when all we get jokes and funny anecdotes. They are all cleverly placed for the audience to be deviated from realizing no real story is taking place that must have affected the future lives of all the characters. Our thirst to know more about any legendary secrets have led to footnotes of these actor's and maker's life into a movie.

If that was not all; we are given an absolutely trivial scene in the end about how Mr. Hitchcock gets the clue for his next project 'The Bird'. In all fairness, audience would not be bored to this funny and manipulative take on eccentric Mr. Hitchcock.

For more reviews visit http://cinemadose.blogspot.com/

I love coming of age movies. They have been my go to movies for over a decade. A real world experience that molds a person's character for rest of his/her life is a universal subject that would never dry up. But then there is this book called 'Life of Pi' that I came across and provided more than my staple coming of age diet and take me through a journey of faith and beliefs. This book acts as a disguise to be spiritual (given that is set in India), but at the core is a coming of age story of a boy finding answers of faith and beyond having born in a nation of millions of gods. And to turn this book into a captivating movie, we have Mr. Ang Lee; who clearly love challenges.

Set in India and made by Hollywood studio; you should expect the simplistic description of a very complex nation and its affair with religions of the world. But Mr. Lee manages to breeze through the shallow storyline based in India. Almost all of the situations and scenarios about young boy Pi's life in Pondicherry, India are created to suit the taste buds of western audiences. As we watch the young Pi grow in dreamy India along with a soulfully spoken narrative by Irfan Khan in background; we instantly are lost in the color and the mood of the film. We never look beyond those colors into reality and we are ready to accept anything.

But as we move on from Anglo India into open sea; faith and personal beliefs of Pi collides with nature's fury. After Pi Patel's father, a zoo owner decides to move his family in Canada and sell the animals to a North American zoo for a good prize; they begin their journey. The entire family along with all the animals travels through a Japanese cargo ship across the oceans. There they have encounter with a borderline racist French cook and a very gentle Buddhist. There reel time is only for one sequence, but there presence and importance will be felt late in the movie. As the journey of the ship abruptly ends in a very violent ocean; Pi is survived on a life boat with an injured zebra, an Orangutan, a Hyena and a Bengal Tiger.

And from here on the journey could not be more breath taking and satisfying. It literally and astonishingly unbelievable with Pi surviving on a life boat with these animals and they are animals. They will do anything to survive like humans. The mystery of the journey and whether you believe in the memories of the adult Pi about his experiences across the vast ocean will make you rethink about all the mystical fantasies that we have ever came across.

The story already hooks the audience into the ongoing proceedings and Mr. Lee's breathtaking visuals puts 'Avatar' in its place & carries you through a journey of vast beauty across our planet. After Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, Mr. Lee successfully trumps those monumental achievements in Cinema history with this visual masterpiece that deserves compulsory 3D viewing.

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Being a phenomenon among teens and tweens can guarantee your box office success, no matter how bad is your production. But to guarantee you increase beyond your target audience you need to smart up. Where Twilight sets the bar, you expect others to follow suit. You hire bunch of good looking dudes & girls (who happen to be extremely talented) and dumb them down until you think they are just sticks in good looking clothes. But little did we know, some of them were taking notes of the mistakes Twilight series committed and made sure there movie version of another book phenomenon does not make the audiences roll their eyes over and over again.

How good was Hunger Games can be measured by the audience reaction to the anticipated scene they had read in the book and yet gasp on every scene that struck a chord by its penchant melodrama between all the bloodshed. Truth to be told, the bloodshed was minimal in the movie version compared to all the gory details of each death in the book. This was still a packaged product to attract young to very young audience and would not expect 'Battle Royale' kind of gore. But the movie still packs a punch amid all the melodrama.

Even if you are not interested in the teen love triangle being played out, you would find the politics interesting. It's pretty amusing how the pundits from Left and right of American political spectrum came to the conclusion that the movie justifies their political stand against one another. All in all, an entertaining movie that provided something for everyone to enjoy. That said the success does make the maker's task easier and provides a loyal audience for its following sequels. One hopes they do not just concentrate on marketing and focus on keeping the quality of their product consistently good.

India does have an underground rock culture, but it has not been able to generate a mass appeal that rock music enjoys in the west and rightly so. India is the land having its own traditional music culture and if there is any place for another music culture in the commercial music industry, it has been hijacked by the pretend to be anything industry Bollywood. It churns out music that appeals to vast majority of people but does not create music stars as they are not photogenic for an image obsessed industry. Hence even a musician's music and voice has been legitimately hijacked by publicity whores of Bollywood.

Speaking of image, rock music artists somehow have etched an image of him standing with an electric guitar on stage with rest of the world swooning or jumping over whatever tunes the musician spews out or in case of Bollywood's latest offering 'Rockstar'; India's latest teen heartthrob standing with a guitar in his hands pretending to play it and spew out some catchy music sung by none other than A R Rehman. Nothing wrong with it and largely effective even without providing concession to Bollywood over details of the art form they are pretending to show exists in India.

Rockstar is directed by India's commercial film-maker Imtiaz Ali, who won the license to make whatever he wants jackpot when his rom-com movie 'Jab we met' became a blockbuster and middle class India's favorite go- to movie. Thankfully, he has not miss-used his freedom like Sanjay Leela Bhansali and has been able to keep a semblance of depth in his work. The movie about a rockstar (stage name Jordan) rising from the abyss of India's lower middle class is a delight to watch mainly because the characters have been rooted in reality. His inspiration to be a rock star and his rise as a musician has moments of truth and go a long way in diminishing the gap between reality and fiction.

But one very important of the movie fails to lift itself above fiction. Nargis Fakhri's Heer as Jordan's love and reason for many angst ridden songs efficiently fulfills her goal to turn her character from fiction to farce. As the movie focuses its complete attention on the romance between Jordan and Heer, it desperately tries to cling on its hope on Ranbir Kapoor's performance and Rehman's yet another perfect score. But Nargis never really is able to act her way through a very important character in the film and evaporates all hopes of making this a memorable film of 2011.

More blame has to be taken by Imtiaz Ali for his casting fetish for fare skinned foreign born models who are never ambitious to become an able actor. They use this golden opportunity to further their goals to maximize profits for being fair skinned in an increasingly insecure middle class India. But if Imtiaz had any short term goals for the film, I guess they have been achieved with the satisfying box office run. As far as India's Rockstar is concerned he also is lost after a little while into the second half of this movie. Rehman though composed some impressive array of tunes does not really gets a grip of the rock culture in India as it won't have a mass appeal. But rock music becomes just an excuse to confirm the super star status of Ranbir Kapoor.

Whereas the movie is concerned, it is not at all the farce that was achieved in 2008 with 'Rock on!!' and is far more polished than that misguided middle class dream wagon. 'Rockstar' has its moments in the first half and has its disappointments in the sad final reel.

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So this movie does scare you enough to have your money worth. But Paranormal Activity 3 has to be the most inaccurate prequel to the storyline of the first two movies. Frankly the trailer was more accurate than the movie itself. From what I decipher from the first two movies, during their childhood, Christie and Katie's parent died when their house was burned down. They did spoke about being raised by their grandmother, but nothing related to it. Well, the script writers changed the script completely and still managed to win over.

By now the fans of the most surprising movie franchise of the decade knows that Christie and Katie had experienced incidents of paranormal nature during their childhood. The story thus takes place during their childhood, staying with their mother Julie and her boyfriend Dennis who coincidently for the sake of us all happens to be a guess what, movie-maker. He shoots marriage videos and Christie and Katie's mother has given him his own editing room inside the house.

Now, we got the cameras and a natural enthusiast, who loves shooting videos. So let just get down to scary business and set the cameras up; but before that, sex tape! Yay! Nope wait, just as it really hots up there is an earthquake and the couple flees the room, leaving us to witness some strange wave of dust falling from the ceiling. After that Dennis concludes immediately that there is something wrong in their new home. Julie plays the role of the usual naysayer, but manages to pull off the biggest fake scare of all during the early sequences. But that ends up being the biggest scare of the movie before the final reel rolls in.

As Dennis sets up multiple cameras in search of the invisible member of the family, young Kristie has him 'Toby' playing with her some tricks during midnight hours. Toby leaves with the young girls in their dark storage room and happens to dislike cameras a lot. His antics begin to rage and somehow become very camera friendly, especially for the camera set on the moving base of a portable fan. To watch him at one position and as the camera switches back to the same point finding no movement of him is more funny trickery than scary. And it all continues till Julie had enough of it when Dennis presents a theory that her family past had members in some witch coven and Toby brings down the kitchen. Frankly both were a stretch for the audience as well as it takes the storyline in a very different direction but in good fun.

Many people expected audience to be exhausted of these camera tricks and stories based on our childhood's bedtime scares. But the paranormal activity movies have become a habit for the blood thirsty horror fans, which are drained of good horror movies recently. Off course, sometime we all hope that Dennis would put down the camera and help his scared kid or wife hanging in thin air; but then we won't have a movie to enjoy. It is good fun and a decent time at the cinema where you watch a horror movie get scared and somehow come out of the theatre smiling.

Four months earlier you begin to watch a trailer about a buddy comedy about cancer with Seth Rogen. The trailer makes you laugh your way into watching the movie four months later. But the movie is not what you expected and thankfully the trailers are deceiving to make you believe that Seth Rogen is going to play a commanding role in a movie dealing with cancer. Seth Rogen holds his place firmly in the movie and brings his style of trashy humor but more often or less restrained than his other comedies. What you do surprisingly get is '50/50' the feel good movie of the year starring Seth Rogen.

Adam (Joseph Gordan-Lewitt) is a 27 year old working for a private Radio channel company along with Seth Rogen. Adam has a girlfriend with whom his relationship can be described as platonic at least by Seth Rogen's standards. His girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a paragon of selfishness and clearly has a hold on naïve Adam. When Adam discovers that he has a cancerous tumor growing in his spine, he tells Rachael she could bail herself out of their relationship. But Rachael surprises him and the audience by sticking with him, taking care of him, helping him confide about his disease with his parents and also getting him a new dog Skeletor.

Seth Rogen despises her and hence is more than happy to catch her cheating on Adam with a bearded Hippie. As soon as Adam forces Rachael out of his life, Seth takes over. At each step Seth gives Adam only one advice to get laid and tries to get him laid but more importantly for him getting himself laid using Adam. Adam is shown too kind to embrace the potent of his illness to get him laid frequently.

But Adam responds to two old men who he meets during his Hospital visits to undergo treatment. Those two men become his support system helping each other with sweets filled with weed and smoking medicinal marijuana with Seth Rogen dutifully getting high among with the three cancer buddies.

The audiences are provided a surprisingly poignant and perfect new relationship Adam slowly and naturally gets involved with his therapist. Anna Kendrick who plays the character of Dr. Katherine McKay surely knows how to use her awkward girlish behavior to manipulate the audience. She may not be the best actress around but knows how to work her way up to win the viewer's favor. Dr. McKay is a 24 year old therapist helping Adam deal with the trauma of his life threatening disease. But her inexperience adds another angle and Adam find himself slowly and naturally falling for her caring approach towards him.

The story could not be more straight forward and could be included in the category of Patch Adam. But Seth Rogen runs over the minefield of clichés carefully and we witness a very personal and poetic story told with heartfelt poignancy. '50/50' is told with a floating pace that creates a poetic rhythm to the scenes.

The story succeeds in covering all aspects of the patient's pain and trauma while keeping it light hearted. Adam's relationship with his overbearing but affable Mother and dealing with his father's senile amnesia provides memorable moments during the final reel. It is a disease that is hard to be laughed away but Will Reiser's script keeps situation and moments as real as possible and succeeds in keeping the audience smiling all the way through a very happy ending.

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When the movie The Ring was released in 2002, it was regarded as one of the best horror movie in ages. Due to which we saw so many fan-boy websites and discussion boards sprung over to explore the minuscule details and theories of that movie.

And now after three years we see the sequel which shows how foolish the makers are to be able to spoil such a global franchise. The audience found themselves asking each other that whether it was the sequel of The Ring or Scary Movie 3. By the way there is no need for anything from the scary movie franchise for this one because The Ring Two makes fool of it and its loyal fan base.

The movie starts with the murder of a teenage boy by Samara in front of his girlfriend or no the girl was about to become a scapegoat for that boy as he was trying to show her the tape before his time is up which is only five minutes away but the girl is a nerd or smart, she puts on the tape and closes her eyes. And Rachel who now works for a paper in the very small town where that incident happened gets to know about it and when she sees the body of the boy she realizes that the curse is spreading and has reached too close for her comfort. So she steals the tape from the boy's house and burns it so that the curse thus not spread. But because of her doing that or some emotional need for a mother Samara possesses Aidan Rachel's son and the most disastrous sequel of the decade begins.

After the possession the movie takes a detour into evil spirit territory, which leaves the audience cracking themselves up over the movies proceeding. We see CGI deer's attacking Rachel's car, after this nadir one would expect the director could not go any lower. But we are wrong and we witness one cringe worthy sequence after another, which halts the movies proceeding during its first half. At the beginning of the second half the movie ups the tempo with the suspense about Samara's mother, but at each step the reasoning of the unfolding events shows clear disconnect to logic that put the final nail in the coffin for the most promising horror franchise of this decade.

This was an unexpected and disappointing shock for its fan base with the suspense leaving much to desire, the movie even fails to conjure a note worth scary moment. The makers try to lift the movie's sagging energy by putting Samara on steroids as moves and climb up the well with pace & extreme flexibility with hilarious effect.

Finally, if you are wondering why the herd of deer may have attacked Rachel's car then there is something you will find in the basement of the Morgan's; who were supposed to be horse breeders if I can recall!

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There are two ways Larry Crowne could have been made, one the star studded studio presentation that is being served to the viewing audience currently and other a simple and a rather more independent movie with no stars. The latter version would have received a limited released and eventually slipped through audience memory, the same fate that the real version is witnessing. At least the latter one would not had taken down the movie careers of our beloved Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts with it into the drains. Not that their respective fading movie careers are all but over but this debacle sure have put a question mark to the choice of movies they want to attach their names with.

Larry Crowne is a goodie two shoes innocent salesman at a local megastore in Texas, who is fired from his job because he does not have a college degree. This leads him to a college for further studies, where he meets the grumpy lady professor Julia Roberts. As the movie 'progresses', their relationship blossoms and finally they would hopefully get together and Larry would get the college degree which he needs.

So what is the movie about? It is just happen so that we sit through waiting for Larry to complete his first semester of college. To use the scenario of job loss in this current job climate could have people misconstrued that this is a humorous look at the middle class American's economic dilemmas. But it's none of that and we are introduced to one fictional and quirky character after another. With Tom Hanks at the helm it would have been easy to cast Cedric, The Entertainer and Taraji Henson as neighbors to Tom Hanks. They are wasted completely along with many known names such as Meryll Streeps daughter Grace Gummer as Larry's Classmate. But as Larry Crowne goes through his middle age college teen experience; he encounters a spunky teen Talia played by a very beautiful and talented actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She introduces Larry to her scooter gang lead by her boyfriend Wilmer Valderama who is not so happy with Larry and Talia's budding friendship. Larry fits in perfectly in the gang as he has just bought a scooter from Cedric's Garage sale. So everything is set for a nice ride to nowhere. Julia Roberts relationship to Bryan Cranston, who dutifully feels his off time feeding to the needs of his porn viewing addiction, is about to fall apart and Larry will come to her rescue on a scooter. After that there is nothing substantial to write about this film.

The movie would not put you to sleep for very long time at least. Tom Hanks manages to create several funny sequences that would keep you warm and charmed for few moments. But these scenes are few and far between, especially ECON 101 lectures of an astute Chinese Professor that Larry attends with few distractions. As soon as the movie turns to character development, the movie exposes its lack of story and direction. None of the scenes provides a way forward for the storyline and shows clear disconnect between each other.

As far as the actors are concerned; audience are advised to take the attention off from a lazy Julia Roberts performance and the very old Forrest Gump, to focus on the charming Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She makes sure the viewers do not lose interest from even the most clichéd sequences between her Larry and her boyfriend Valderama. The rest can forget they were even part of this movie, as they quickly forgotten by the movie's storyline itself.

Larry Crowne never looked interesting in its Trailers too, but the mega star pair of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts kept a faint hope alive among me and many of their fans that it cannot be that bad if those two are in. But within first fifteen minutes the hope fades away as we sit through a middle age crisis of a fading Tom Hanks and his teacher.

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At the beginning the audience is given a panoramic view of a hilly housing jungle of Columbia and you expect to witness a story of revenge set against a violent sub culture of Columbia. And then you realize it will be an all American action movie with many Hispanic actors.

So our warrior princess Cataleya (Zoe Saldana from New Jersey) is the super Heroine of the Columbian kind. She can do anything, literally. Her stunts feel more suitable for a cat woman and her use of weapons will put Rambo and Commando to shame.

Before becoming a killer; she is just a small girl with incredible potential to be a future assassin. She witnesses the murder of her parents by the mafia with whom her father worked with previously and she manages to chase away the killers off with impeccable precision. She reaches the US embassy and vomits out a micro-chip that her father gave her to return it to the embassy official.

The Americans take her to USA, where she escapes from the officials and reaches to her uncle's place in Chicago. Her uncle takes her under his wings, tells her the importance of school before becoming a killer, by shooting at a random car outside the school in broad daylight, without getting arrested by the police that arrives at the crime scene. She learns her lesson and the audience learn their lesson that this will be a campy affair from here on.

So our girl finally becomes an assassin and takes on the crime world. She has a high security house, a storage place for weapons where two beastly dogs do as she orders them to do and a lover who is such a push over that he does not even know her real name and drops off the idea of forcing her to reveal, as soon as she removes her first piece of clothing. Before we witness her entry on silver screen; Cataleya has already committed over twenty murders without giving FBI any clue. No one knows who is committing these murders even when she always tags her kill with a drawing of the flower Cataleya grown only in Columbia (Awww...). All these murders are of someone who is related with her parent's murderer; so that they would receive the message that the goddess of death from Columbia is coming over for them. These mafia kingpins have now settled in Miami under the protection of CIA; hence definitely no Columbia anymore. So will she reach them before FBI corner her and arrest her? To know watch Columbiana, the very average nineties style American action movie with a cool name to make audience believe that it is more than a revenge drama; which it is not.

Cataleya gets the things done in her fashion quite easily and has no troubles getting to the conclusion; other than a personal tragedy involving characters that had already vanished from the storyline. The FBI is shown powerless and is more or less shown as good old fashioned investigators who are always late to save the unlucky victims. When required the movie tries to posture as an intense drama and when needed with an escape route for Cataleya; it brings humor to the action sequence. Cataleya will stop for no one and will get her revenge so that the audience can go home.

Apart from Zoe Saldana's singular act; everyone's a prop to make her look better. These are the kind of summer movies with pumped up action balloon that fizzles out from the audience's mind; right after the end credits start to roll. In the end, there is no Colombia in Columbiana, but just a Colombian flavor to an American movie diet.

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There is a recurring adjective that is attached with Mila Kunis's character Jamie which is used by all her sex partners to their advantage i.e. she is emotionally damage. According to Justin Timberlake's character even Magnum P.I cannot solve the case of what's going through Jamie's head when she thinks relationships. What makes a person emotionally damaged is not really elaborated in the movie. She is raised by a single mother, but the quest to know who her father was, is more or less laughed off. While she breaks up with her relationship with Andy Sandberg, it seems she has enough admirers as Shaun White is shown as one of her secret admirer and she also has a passionate set of friends with whom she parties around. So what exactly is her state of being emotionally damaged related to? Or is it a statement that would help the director bring some complications with her friend that provides sexual benefits Justin Timberlake! That might be the case in this totally romantic comedy film.

The new romantic comedy 'Friends with benefits', which does not shy away from taking a shot at mocking at every romantic comedy clichés, more or less falls into trappings of the romantic genre from the beginning. Mila Kunis (Jamie), a corporate headhunter in New York, is just out of a relationship with SNL fame Andy Sandberg, while an upcoming blogger in Los Angeles, Justin Timberlake (Dylan) is also dealing with a break up with his girlfriend played by Emma Stone. When Jamie sets up an interview for Dylan at GQ magazine, he comes up in New York and meets Jamie for the first time at the airport. Right from the beginning Jamie performs all the cute stunts a romantic comedy female lead is expected to but also balances out by mocking Hollywood's take on romance and New York. Soon after Dylan moves into NY City to take up the job, Jamie gets him into her friends circle and they both start hanging out together watching Hollywood Romantic comedies and mocking it. But they both are missing sexual intimacy in their lives and since Jamie is emotionally damaged and Dylan claims to be emotionally unavailable they both decide to have just a sexual relationship without any emotions involved.

It's all fine and dandy till all the sex lasts for them and unfortunately for the audience as well. Once the sex dries up the movie just goes south and we are introduced to all the regular clichéd family characters. As Dylan takes Jamie to his home in Los Angeles for the 4th of July weekend, we are introduced to Dylan's good hearted elder sister Jenna Elfman (Annie) and her magic obsessed son Sam and more importantly Dylan's Alzheimer inflicted father Mr. Harper played earnestly by Richard Jenkins. The stories about Dylan's not so happy childhood is what eventually melts the heart of our emotionally damaged Jamie and they go on to have their first sexual encounter added with emotions. But these emotions are only noticed by the emotionally damaged girl, while emotionally unavailable boy clearly ignores and start off a chain reaction of complications in their friendship. So this is what is served as suspense romantic complications to our audience and since this is a pre-determined summer blockbuster the eye candy and emotionally hopeless couple have to get back together. How? Well with the usual Hollywood charm and pot full of cliché ridden sequences.

For a movie that mocked the romantic comedy genre at regular intervals during the first half of the movie, it was quiet an irony that it had to use more or less the clichés from that same genre to bring the movie around its eventual happy ending. And for all the dissing of Katherine Heigl by Mila Kunis, she is the new Ms. Heigl for romantic comedies. Easy on eyes with magnetic screen presence Ms. Kunis has the charm to breeze through the clichés of this particular genre of films. Justin Timberlake also provides an insight of what to expect in the future in his acting career as he also elegantly passes romantic comedy test.

As for the film, apart from the intimate relationship and scenes between Justin and Mila, it always seems to be hanging on extreme to carry some laughs. Woody Harrelson plays its Gay sports editor part with good amount of enthusiasm, but Patricia Clarkson as Mila's flirtatious sex obsessed mother just tries to be extreme and we should be thankful that few scenes from the promotional videos were edited out from the final reel. While there is another extreme moment between Justin and his wild date who tries to act as being wild in bed by licking and smelling Mr. Timberlake's armpit, which neither grosses out nor induces laughter but guarantees yawn from the audience.

To an audience who has seen it all in this year's romantic comedy hit 'No strings attached', which was also about friends 'hooking up' just for the pleasure of the whole act; Friends with benefit has nothing new or better to offer. It glides along on the charm of its two leads, but fails to hide its flaws as a good romantic comedy entertainer.

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Moments are captured and touch our heart. They can be as banal and nostalgic as a human touch or remembering your closed one, but if captured in an emotive manner would reflect accurately with the audience mood and emotions. For such emotions we have our usual critics, who would make a movie look like some rehash trying to cash in on audience nostalgia. But they are wrong this time around. To discard this summer's big movie ticket 'Super 8' as 'E.T on steroids' or some others gag insults is plain ignorance and bias to their own false sense of nostalgia and pride for those eighties memorable Spielberg movies. The movie that takes its audience back in the seventies along with memories of E.T, Close Encounter of the third kind and Goonies surely was lapped up by the young audience of eighties over the past few weeks, but was also appreciated by the new generation.

Mr. JJ Abrams latest monster thriller (with a pretty similar looking monster from Cloverfield) takes you back to the seventies small town America, where a recent work place tragedy has unsettled the family equations of a father son duo. The work place tragedy takes the life of Joe Lamb's mother (Joel Courtney), which complicates his relation with his very seventies Hollywood father Jackson Lamb (Kyle Chandler) who is the town deputy sheriff. Joe has a healthy bunch of friends that adds a certain childish charm to the movie.

As the summer vacation starts, Joe begins to dedicate his entire summer holidays to help finish a short zombie movie that is being made by his friend Charles. His excitement about the movie grows further with the involvement of Alice (Elle Fanning), though his father is excited neither about him wasting his summer making monster movies or his friendship with Alice.

During their first night of shooting with Alice at the local railway station, the zombie movie takes a turn for something very grim and real, as a military train is deliberately derailed by the local school professor. As Joe and his friends run for their lives they live the super 8 cameras and equipment stranded at the destroyed station. As they flee from the scene of tragedy they gather their equipment before the military arrives. Flustered and scared by the whole event they decide to not speak about it to anyone.

As the news of the crash spreads Jackson tries to find out what was in the cargo that was derailed, but the military personal do not let any details known to him during his visit. But soon the deputy realizes the town has a much bigger problem than the crash train to deal with, as the town witnesses' sudden disappearance of electrical appliances along with human's vanishing.

As the paranoia about the events related to the crash spreads over the town, the deputy takes the matter into his own hand and tries to know more about the crash through intercepting military frequencies. Through the military intercepts Jackson uncovers that the armed forces are planning to begin operation 'Walking Distance' inside their town Lillian. What he does not realize is that the military is ready to go at any extent to keep their motives secret and hence further pays the prize.

While the military is busy finding their lost asset before the locals find out, Joe and his friends use the chaotic scenes around the town as production values for their movie. As their movie shoot progresses there is a blooming romance between Joe and Alice that has stern opposition of their respective father, due to the families entangled past related to the death of Joe's mother.

While all emotional drama is being played out, the military's biggest secret, the alien monster is on the loose and the military is finding it difficult to trace and capture him. While the alien is nowhere to be seen by anyone, Joe and Charles have the Super 8 camera that has captured the footage from the accident that will uncover the mystery surrounding the train accident. The search and the eventual rescue of the alien by Joe and his friends becomes a joyride that was not witnessed by this generation on the silver screen.

Super 8, time after time give a shout out to its inspiration i.e. 'E.T' and 'Close Encounter of the Third Kind', something that will be appreciated by the fans of those movies. But what truly strikes a chord with the audience is the emotional relation Joe has with his Mother which Mr. Abrams successfully binds with the film's final conclusion.

The maker uses all the clichés available to spike the emotions around the drama and succeeds to avoid and possible trappings. The music is another high note that is used passionately around the evolving scenes. Super 8 has successfully recreated the magic of the seventies and has given further impetus to Spielberg's brand of movies.

Here comes a movie again and for India it's like an event that is taking place once in a blue moon. They are going all over the town saying its new India that is playing on screen. The young are being giddy about all the things they are hearing in the movie and the old are sweating about all the things they are hearing in the movie!

Basically on screen it's the same old India but what happened is that Bollywood's cherry just got popped and though it's not once in a blue moon thing but at least will take place just once. For those who are sweating, the loss of innocence has come around too late to accept the change and for those who are welcoming the new spring, have apparently tasted blood. The young think they found adulthood and more so acceptance of their way of life. Well may be. I thought we don't need movies to show what is fair or unfair in the world. But that's how the Mumbai film industry has positioned itself in the Indian society, as being the apostle of all things good and righteous.

For years it was good versus evil and our matinée heroes (to be in the real world, our actors) postured themselves as idols among Indian society. But time and again they keep finding themselves to be at the wrong side of the law in the real world and thus putting their followers in disbelief. And then begins the process of redeeming themselves in a new avatar. For decades they are looked on to set the trends for each passing generation, but now is a right time to shed the hypocrisy and redeem themselves as humans and not as idols or trend setters.

At a certain level, the outrage of the older generation towards the movie Delhi Belly is understandable. They lived in a society for better half of their life, where people visible on silver screens or (after early eighties) TV screens were treated like VIP's and attributes of the characters they present were viewed as social justification. Their outrage is justifiably proportional to the quality of the movie and celebrity status of the makers or actors. Hence this hysterical outpouring (to which I myself must be guilty) in favor for and against a thoroughly entertaining but to be fair barely provocative movie Delhi Belly, which is inadvertently accused of giving social acceptance to cussing in public domain. As if a whole generation was waiting for someone to give approval.

Delhi Belly a movie about three friends and roommates caught in a perplexing situation is the first of a proper adult comedy from Bollywood (not India) in the category of movies like The Hangover (but still no nudity). Tashi (played by Imran Khan) and his two friends live a filth ridden life in the squalor of suburban Delhi. Tashi has a fiancée who is pretty much the Bollywood version of a dumb bimbo Sonia (Shehnaz Tressurywalla), who as a favor to her air hostess co-worker helps an east European diamond smuggler by smuggling out the diamond stash through Delhi airport, which she also has to transport to the eventual client who are a small time Delhi gangsters lead by the dependable Vijay Raz. Sonia assigns Tashi the job to deliver the unknown package to the given address, which he asks his roommate to deliver. The fat roommate with his own mission of a stakeout at a whorehouse to get some clicks of his landlords rendezvous with a sex worker as bait to extort money. While on the stakeout he has some pretty suspicious chicken piece from the local street vendor, which eventually leads to some serious bowel problems. His bout of Delhi Belly forces him to handover the package to the third roommate along with his stool test sample to be submitted at the doctor's clinic, which as understandable gets mixed up that leaves the bunch of gang members staring at someone's feces rather than some million rupee diamonds. As the visibly enraged gangsters go around the city to find who played foul on them, they eventually land at our three protagonist's doorstep. After some absurd series of event our heroes run away with the diamonds. How they eventually get out of the mess becomes the small but entertaining joy ride of the film.

Among the many things tried differently from the regular Hindi movies is the length of 103 minutes, which the director fails to use efficiently as the movie plot really begins when the first half of the movie has run its course. A wasteful romantic angle of Vir Das's character is hilarious but adds nothing to the storyline other than the shedding of Vir Das's hideous Afro hair style.

What really makes the movie stand out from the regular Bollywood fare is the open and casual use of foul & colorful language and sexual moments for the purpose of generating laughter. None of the few sexual encounters are used for titillation purpose which the Mahesh Bhatt & family think is their national duty.

By the end a nation is divided, with few worried of what is next in store i.e. a series of adult comedies, few to be very ridiculous and be their just to provoke until the nation gets it out of its system. But a generation of movie goers should realize the artists are there to entertain and at the best provide a fact of life & times that we live in.

Along with the Bollywood fans, the icons themselves should realize their standing in the society as just entertainers rather than well, god.

Bollywood is an entertainment industry and its only goal should be if not make fine movies then to only entertain the viewers like Delhi Belly and be the reflection of the society's trends rather than setting trends for it.

The Hollywood summer has dawned upon us and the first set of movies has been predictably thrust upon us with loads of sequels along with the much anticipated sequel of Hangover 2. Hangover 2 will be a subject of discussion in next week's review. But currently among the crop of movies released is an apparent chick flick called 'Bridesmaid', which by the title itself should be a turn off for men.

But contrary to the repeated studio chick flick cliché, this one deserves to be called the sequel to 2008 blockbuster The Hangover, rather than the rehashed turkey that is to be presented to the paying audience next week.

The wedding scenario that is done to death gets a fresh look and this one does not hide behind the curtains of sugar coated humor. Co-written by SNL veteran Kristen Wiig and produced by guy flicks veteran Judd Apatow, Bridemaid produces some shock inducing laughter's in sequences that generally would require the viewing men to grow a vagina to go through the entire wedding season. Kristen stops at nothing from a hilarious food poisoning emergency during the wedding dress shopping to virtual breakdown of one the bridesmaid during the pre-wedding all ladies social gathering, the movie just turns the entire wedding episode upside down.

The ever miserable love life of Annie (Kristen Wiig) becomes to a virtual breakdown of her life during the wedding of her 'since childhood' best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). Her unprofessional work ethic at jewelry store left aside; Annie is pretty much miserable in everything. Jon Hamm is the latest of her boyfriends that she has been dealing with; who uses her as 'f**k-buddies' in his own words. She is sharing an apartment with British siblings who are outrageous in their own rights. Finally, for her the bottom point in her life would if she moves in with her mother, no prizes for guessing that whether it happens after all.

Things really start to unravel when the wedding festivities begins with Lillian aligning Annie with a blockbuster team of Bridesmaids for her wedding. Special mention for Melissa McCarthy who steals the show during the movie characters every comic turn. Ellie Kemper and Wendi McLendon- Covey provide enough support to deserve their place in the movie. But it is rivalry between ultra-suave & rich Helen (Rose Byrne) and Annie to be the Maid of Honor that provides the background for crazy wedding rides. The sequences of their rivalry are some of the best cat fight you would witness without reaching to an actual physical fight. The movie manages to pull off a genuine romantic angle to Annie's story with a budding romance with a highway patrol police officer who more than obliges to pull over Annie for her various driving offences.

Bridesmaids provokes enough laughter from its audience to make them forget about the Hangover they are or would receive while watching Hangover part II; which is if not funny and original then is at least a cautionary tale for the makers of Bridesmaids to tread the waters of franchising the movie only after a few after thoughts about not slaying the chicken that lay golden eggs. A final mention to Kristen Wiig and her brand of comedy; it deserves to be mentioned among the likes Tina Fey and Julie- Louis Dreyfus.

When Mark Zuckerberg's friend Eduardo pointedly put forwards his point to Mr. Zuckerberg, while testifying for his claims of corporate embezzlement by Mr. Zuckerberg, that he was his only friend and that his facebook friend's list are worthless, you realize the time's that we live in; where each one of us has created a virtual world for ourselves to satisfy our social needs. We have an apparent friends list of over 200 to 400 friends, but fail to realize we are sitting in our room all alone. These are the fine intimate scenes and moments in the movie 'The Social Network ', that makes you feel that this has got something to do with how you lead your life is what makes this movie an iconic movie of the first decade of the 21st century.

Directed by the always underrated Mr. David Fincher of 'Fight Club', 'Seven', 'Zodiac' and 'The curious case of Benjamin Button'; this is the movie that should fetch him an Oscar and for everyone involved with this movie. The Social Network relives the story of the creation of a website and company, which defines this generation, from a college dorm room. The controversial natures of its creation notwithstanding, the movie without taking sides, tells the tale honestly and with great compose. The controversial co-founder of Facebook and the main protagonist character of the movie Mark Zuckerberg played by Jesse Eisenberg, seems to have his own story to tell about friendship, which is ironic since he is more or less controlling the social lives of millions of people. As a Harvard under graduate student, Mark was on the sidelines of the Harvard's social scene, when he decides to do something substantial to get attention, after his girlfriend breaks up with him. His little website about comparing woman's face with each other draws lot of attention and a suspension; but also leads him to the Winklevoss twins who have an idea of a social networking site (exclusive for people with mailing ID of harward.edu). Till that step, things are smooth, but soon takes the turn to controversial, with each side having its own versions of the story of a time in their lives that would change social networking forever. As Mr. Zuckerberg went on to create the facebook along with his other roommates, he starts grabbing attention from girls who normally would ignore him. But as he expands his website to other colleges, the website grabs the attention of Napster founder and recently bankrupted Sean Parker, who takes facebook to a new level and isolates Mark from his best friend and co-founder of facebook Eduardo who is a business major and had made the early investments for the website. What we see in the movie is the side by side hearings of two lawsuits against Mr. Zuckerberg. One from the Winklevoss twins for stealing their 'idea' and another from Mark's former best friend Eduardo for deceitful dilution of Eduardo's business share in the company. The director pitches the story towards the audience without judgment against any individual.

The razor sharp dialogues of the screenplay are used to pull the audiences in the conversation between characters that are sometimes highly technical but thanks to writer Aaron Sorkin not out of reach of the general public. The great casting cannot be described in any more way, except giving a standout mention to Jesse Eisenberg who played Mark Zuckerberg. In times of heartbreaks he made a generation felt his angst and in times of defending himself he let the world sympathize, feel he was a cheat as well as admire his genius.

Speaking about how this generation felt about Mark Zuckerberg's portrayal in the film, it is very much felt it reflected something more to them than the older generation. His was a story of great entrepreneur success in this capitalist world. A socially viable invention that is of some need to all and still all what it is to him is a business, a commanding position that a generation craves to be at this age (and also to be the youngest billionaire in the world). That he treated women like farm animals (or the movie as a whole treated women like meat) meant nothing to the audience. He found success in this dog eat dog world and is sitting on top of the pile. His success made him friendless (at least in the movie) was not a matter of concern since last check his facebook page has 2,912,375 friends. And as in the final moments of the movie, as Mark sits in front of his laptop while sending a friend's request to a special long lost girl and as he sits through clicking the refresh button, waiting for a reply to the request; it defines a generation that is including Mark is waiting for one thing in society, acceptance.

Morning Glory directed by Roger Mitchell can simply be described as a run of the mill romantic comedies based on a career driven girl. We have seen them before, the very latest being 'The Devil wears Prada'. These comedies basically are stress busters and its main job is to provide paper thin reality mixed with usual clichéd filled scenario's that have been used in the last two decades more frequently than the average audience would come to watch a romantic comedy. This said, this one is able to lift itself up from being a potential mediocre product with the help of one Ms. Rachel McAdams.

'Morning Glory' is a movie about a career girl ( Miss McAdams) in New Jersey, who has just been 'Let go' from her job as a producer of a morning news show at a local TV station in NJ. Her not so encouraging mother (Cliché no. 1: Parental pressure) tries to convey to her that the childhood dreams of being a TV producer of a morning show known as 'The Today Show' on NBC, is beginning to look foolish. But our sprightly career girl has no intentions of calling off her dreams and keeps trying to land a job on any TV station. 'Any TV station' over here is a TV network called IBS. IBS's morning show is apparently 4th in the ranking behind that of NBC, ABC and CBS. They are target of public ridicule and the job of the producer of that show would be paid a minuscule amount of compensation. And currently the show is on the verge of getting canceled (Cliché no.2 an almost impossible task to achieve), unless the ratings would show considerable improvement in the next quarter.

Bright Miss McAdams has taken this job, which has a creepy sex crazed male host along with self obsessed attention seeking former Miss Arizona played by a wastefully casted Dianne Keaton. Our career girl, manages to hit the first home run by firing the creepy host and hire a TV news reporting legend a certain Mr. Pomeroy, played by Harrison Ford (I won't say wasteful, but the character did not required Mr. Fords full array of acting chops). Mr. Pomeroy is least interested in the job and has no intentions of helping Miss McAdams in her task of reviving the down in the dumps show. But he is arm twisted by Miss McAdams to take the gig, by finding out a glitch in his contract with IBS that he won't be able to recover millions in compensation if he is without a gig for the rest of his contract. The crux of the first half of this so called comedy is based on the daily chaos of the working of the show starting from very early morning. Miss McAdams also succeeds in finding a boyfriend at IBS (Cliché no. 3: the boyfriend, so that when the going goes tough, the director will have the platform to show the human effects of a demanding career! Phew!), who had earlier worked with Mr. Pomeroy and considers him as the 3rd worst person in the world.

The second half of the most anticipated romantic comedy of 2010 is entirely based on how Ms McAdams revives the shows fate by going through an emotional roller coaster and ending up with an offer for her dream job. The entire movie has nothing innovative to boost and even the quarrels between the two wasted stars Mr. Ford and Ms. Keaton is served cold. But all said the movie is anything, other than unbearable.

Rachel McAdams is the star and this is her film and everyone else (I don't even feel I need to mention any of those characters or actors, they were forgetful) including a certain Mr. Ford and Ms. Keaton play second seed in this fluffy piece. From the first reel, when she goes for a dinner date at six o'clock in the evening due to her very early morning schedule to the last reel when she has to take her career's ultimate decision, Ms. McAdams carries the movie with grace, charm and spontaneous energy. The lazy writing of the characters is given a break for two characters of Ms. McAdams and Mr. Jeff Goldblum as the managing director of the channel.

All said and done, Ms. McAdams deserves all the success that she would get in her movie career, but this isn't her break out movie and she can be satisfied that this lazy piece may have spoiled few reputations due to expectations from the movie, but has raised no questions about Ms. McAdams acting abilities.

Jason Reitman is a wonderful director and one of my favorites. He can take on the most serious of issues and turn it around to make us smile and enjoy a movie about the issue without deviating away from reality. He has managed this with Juno and one should appreciate the morals of his story telling that however flawed the characters of his movie are from the outside for the society, there is simmering humanity in all of them. Jason has brought the same style of storytelling back in his latest 'Up in the Air'.

'Up in the Air' is about Ryan Bigham played by George Clooney, who is a downsizing expert, which in today's corporate job scenario means Satan's messenger. His job is to travel around the country to various corporate offices firing workers on behalf of their employers. He lives a life in a suitcase and travels across the country for almost the entire year. Due to which he has a fractured relationship with his near ones which in this case are his sisters. But he cherishes his life away from home and has a playful time flying in the air counting his record touching flying hours across United States.

As opposite to leading a lonely life, he actually relishes the idea of meeting new people and has a transnational love affair with a fellow frequent flier 'Alex' played by Vera Farmiga.

Things start to unravel when his company hires a rookie with an innovative idea 'Natalie', who succeeds in selling her idea of firing people across the country through web conference calls. Anna Kendrick's 'Natalie' comes out as arrogant and she is of the opinion that there is no humane way of firing someone hence the company should not bother about the human factor about their jobs. This new idea becomes a confrontational point between the Company Boss Jason Bateman along with Natalie and Ryan who now is assigned to take Natalie on a cross country tour displaying her company's job profile i.e. firing other employees. How the experience of their jobs affects these characters is what forms the rest of movie. Well Almost!

'Up in the Air' starts well and has an innovative way of telling stories. His usual first character narration is solidly given by Mr. Clooney, but the topical issue of corporate downsizing needed a touch of reality which Jason provides by casting real employees who have lost their job during the economic meltdown. Viewers are able to feel the eventual guilt in the characters eyes about their job profile.

But the movie at its rear end loses its credibility and drifts away from the central topic to focus on Ryan's personal story. His sudden about turn at the airport to go at his sister's wedding along with a date with Alex is filmed with excruciating detail that covers third-fourth of the movie's final reel. The movie fails to lift itself away from a sudden Romantic comedy drift to end the movie with a certain incomplete agenda. Jason fails to conclude anything substantial from his story other than the conclusion of the movie's romantic track, which also shows some shocking predictable sequence.

'Up in the Air' can be said to be Mr. Reitman's most real movie to date after the dark and sarcastic 'Thank You for smoking' and the sugary coated 'Juno'. But it fails to elevate itself to be a movie of any social importance.

Anthologies to the cities can always be described by the clichéd words as soulful, soothing and floating. And that's what the many creators of this city touring Anthology franchise made New York look like. Though stories were real and enough depth, it failed to capture the essence of the city that it meant to pay tribute.

'New York, I love you' is the second of the anthology franchise after the Parris version. Its idea of telling multiple intertwined stories of the people who live and shape the personality of a particular city seems an idea you can celebrate. But the New York version just does not seem to celebrate the cities energy or its people.

As the stories go, they are pretty much same old one with a few exceptions. The conservative Jewish and Jain unfulfilled love story, along with the story of Orlando Bloom's loner take with Christina Ricci stands out as something different and unique. But the movies overall dullness makes us want to beg for something cheery and it comes in the way of a Brett Ratner piece of a blind date prom night that turns out to be the only single piece of story with a humor in it.

The rest of the stories comes as contrived and non sensible. The piece directed by Natalie Portman (she is not gifted to be behind cameras) is the worst short story I have seen, where the whole plot does not even begin to shape up. The rest definitely fare better than Natalie's piece about a little girl and her male nanny/dad having a good time at Central Park.

The biggest insult the movie does to the city is its drone pace. You cannot help but to look for something to relax and go to sleep for a while. New York never looked so bored. Off course they wanted to stop and take a moment to look into the people's life in New York looking for love. But not make them look so bored about the city. The movie fails to take the city's pace (which is something that dictates certain aspects of New Yorkers life) into its stride.

Even if the stories fall flat, the makers do their best to capture different corners of New York other than Manhattan and present it to the viewing public. But that is not good enough to capture any one's attention or to pay tribute to such energetic city, New York that deserved better.