Swades

I have been watching a lot of movies lately(in the past month)- thanks to a delay with proceedings at my project- Paparazzi, Taking Lives & Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid on HBO, Waqt, Sarkar, D, Black and Swades on DVD. The pick of them all was Swades by Ashutosh Gowarikar(The maker of the Academy award nominated ' Lagaan'). The movie follows an NRI Scientist Mohan Bhargava(working at NASA's Goddard space flight center in the suburbs of Washington D.C)played by Shah Rukh and his journey in search of that metaphysical and elusive place called "home". The movie tackles many social issues prevalent in modern day India such as rural poverty, illiteracy, lack of basic infrastructure & hygiene and even child marriage. SRK's performance lacks intensity. The movies strengths were the background scores by AR Rahman, the elegant picturization of songs and the simple narration. The movie was inspiring, polemic and sure is worth the time.

Black directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali stars Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukerji and Ayesha Kapoor. The movie again was a masterpiece by Bhansali, it makes you realise that a different world exists where people who are unfortunate than yourself manages to pull through life against all odds. The movie's cinematography by Ravi K. Chandran was upto international standards. An excellent oscar nominated material.

Paparazzi starring Cole Hauser is the story of an up and coming movie star who becomes a victim of the Paparazzi and when one of their ventures nearly costs his and his family's lives he decides to exact a crafty and complex revenge. I wasnt expecting much out of this movie and it turned out to be 'pretty decent'.

Taking lives is a psychotic crime thriller starring Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawk. A very predictable plot but defenitely not avoidable, especially if you are an Angelina Joile Fan.

Sarkar is a Ram Gopal Varma gangster flick with all his stereotypical elements, slow yet gripping narration and brilliant screenplay as always. The movie starts with a testimonial that the director like millions, was inspired by 'The Godfather' and his movie is a tribute to the classic. Amitabh has done justice to the role of the 'Sarkar' and lives upto expectations donning Brando's role. Abhishek tries really hard but does not really come close to the Mike potrayed brilliantly by Pacino.

D- Another gangster flick, seems to be ghost directed by Varma, the king of the genre. Randeep Hooda potrays the dreaded criminal Dawood Ibrahim, the movie attempts to elavate Dawood status as this smooth & suave mastermind. Hooda has done justice to Deshu's role donned by Devgan in the Sequel 'Company'. If you liked company you will like this as well.

Waqt- Starring Amitabh and Akshay Kumar is avoidable and so is Anacondas: The Hunt For The Blood Orchid.