Alia Bhatt is an Indian actress and model who appears in Bollywood films. Born into a family where her parents, Mahesh Bhatt and Soni Razdan, and elder sister Pooja Bhatt were actors and filmmakers,
Rating : 6/10 Release Date : 12th February, 2016 Time : 131 minutes Director, Writer : Abhishek Kapoor; Co-Writer : Supratik Sen (based on the novel �Great Expectations� by Charles Dickens); Music : Hitesh Sonik Starring : Tabu, Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur
Soulful, romantic movies � where the hero and heroine keep expressing their love for each other, revel in deep sighs, leaving things unsaid and meaningful stares - aren�t really my type. Add shades of tragedy to them and usually they�re well nigh unwatchable for me. I went purely for Tabu and some of the visuals and I wasn�t disappointed.
It�s a pretty straight-laced translation of Great Expectations � set in Kashmir. Aditya Roy Kapur, the poor, talented artist / boy, Katrina Kaif, the gorgeous princess and Tabu the mesmeric, heart-broken wealthy �Queen�.
Kashmir never looked prettier � the autumn and snowy frames a visual delight (great work by Anay Goswami) ! The music score is super, sets the tone, the song Pashmina especially resonating. Even some of the art Aditya is shown creating is beautiful, breath-taking (some went over my head � the horse, for example - but there were others � the shikara, the black and white drawings - that were stunning). And Tabu works her magic � her look, her eyes and minimal gestures connecting a lot more than her hysterical moments.
I don�t get this kind of love � perhaps the problem is me � the one-sided, never-fading, the kind that lasts for years just on memories. Add to that the rich-poor angle, the bits about Kashmir (the bomb blasts, Indo-Pak relations) and the whole somber, brooding undertone, and you lost me
The main issue with the film though lies in the fact that, despite being only two years apart, Katrina looks like a nearby Cougar Aunty I know when romancing Aditya�and I mean this without in any way demeaning either of the two persons � it�s not that she looks old or anything � just the pair doesn�t work. She�s all grown-up, full-bodied, curvaceous woman while he�s still man-boy-child (with rippled abs, but that doesn�t change anything).
It�s not good for a romance flick, if the lead pair doesn�t click. No ?
Rating : 6/10 Release Date : 9th October, 2015 Time : 132 minutes Director, Co-Writer : Robert Zemeckis; Co-Writer : Christopher Browne based on the book by Philippe Petit �To Reach The Clouds�; Music : Alan Silvestri; Starring : Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, Cesar Domboy, Clement Sibony, Steve Valentine, James Badge Dale, Ben Schwartz, Benedict Samuel, Soleyman Pierini
Despite the movie being about a walk on a high-tension steel wire, the movie is strangely flat.
It�s about the daredevil French artiste, Phillipe Petit (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who, fascinated by a tightrope walking family during a circus trip when very young, decided he couldn�t do anything else. He basically spends the rest of his time figuring out places where he could hang his wire around Paris. Then gets in touch with Ben Kingsley, the patriarch of the tightrope walking family, to learn his secrets. He continues to search for more dangerous, exciting places to hang his wire�meets his accomplices during his illegal walks in Paris � Charlotte Le Bon, Cesar Domboy, Clement Sibony�and then one day, he sees an illustration of the upcoming World Trade Centre in New York. And he knows that�s it � that�s where he wants to walk�
The rest of the movie takes us through some of the steps, described by Joseph either by flashback or while standing on top of the Statue of Liberty.
As the audience you definitely feel awe for what he accomplished but, strangely, you feel very little of the tension. The tale is narrated in a very matter of fact way. You don�t get a sense of the personalities, the planning � everything is quite drily presented, merely happens. You have to be a little mad to do something like this but the full force of the personality and the emotion doesn�t quite transmit.
Joe lets on in the opening few minutes, that the one question he can�t answer is �Why� � he does it just because� But why would his accomplices support him, as he risks almost certain death in his attempt ? What in them makes them willing partners ? There is a lovely little twist at the end, that redeems the film somewhat and I loved a couple of the lines too � about how walking the tightrope across buildings gave it character, made them more beautiful�
Rating : 5/10 Release Date : 7th November, 2014 Time : 132 minutes Director: Ketan Mehta; Writers: Ketan Mehta, Sanjeev Dutta; Music : Sandesh Shandilya Starring : Randeep Hooda, Nandana Sen, Gaurav Dwivedi, Vipin Sharma, Paresh Rawal, Jim Boeven, Feryna Wazheir, Darshan Jariwala, Suhasini Mulay, Tom Altar, Triptha Parashar, Rashaana Shah
One day, we, in India, will learn to make biopics. Where we will be happy to take one or two defining moments in a person�s life and focus an entire film around it, rather than attempting to show someone�s entire sixty-seventy year old lifespan in a couple of hours
This one takes Raja Ravi Varma�s life, played by Randeep Hooda, and attempts to show us, in a quite episodic manner, his love for painting, his love for staying at the forefront of art, his desire to allow art, especially with the aid of technology, to transcend the otherwise physical and moral constraints faced by artists of that era. It also spends a large part of the film showing us his extremely colorful life, especially with various women � Nandana Sen getting the most attention and notoriety.
There is a lot shown in the film, historical fact, that most of us are probably not aware of. But it is a very jerky style of story-telling, where we skip from one episode to another, without really, consistently understanding the man, his thought process. The scenes involving nudity are quite aesthetically done � don�t seem gratuitous or vulgar.
If a society were to be judged for how liberal it was in its arts, there was a time when we would probably rank right up there but the sad part is, today, we would probably be scraping the bottom of the barrel. We seem to have been this way for the better part of the last couple of hundred years at least, and in some ways, maybe even regressed. Just for a great speech towards the end, delivered calmly, without histrionics, and the core idea � of letting art soar free from a judgmental society � am going to be slightly generous with my rating.
