Do You Know What Time It Is? (2008)

"What Time Is It?" asks Prof Brian Cox at the end of the BBC Horizon program Do you know what time it is?

Some of the answers given by physicists are 

Prof Irwin Shapiro:      That depends. Are you talking about Universal time? Are you talking about Eastern time?

Prof Steven Beckwith: It's 13.7 billion years. That's what time it is.

Dr Dennis McCarthy:   It's not an easy question to answer.

Dr Fay Dowker:           A great time to be a physicist.

Prof Saul Perlmutter:  Just about time to go home & have dinner.

Prof Max Tegmark:     It's a great question although some great questions actually turn out to be trick ones. 

Prof Neil Turok:          The time today is something we have no idea about.

Prof Brian Cox:           We might not be in a position at this moment in time with our current understanding of nature to even understand what it is that we are asking.

& the greatest answer of all

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly! 

Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity. 

Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah! 

Followers: He is! He is the Messiah! 

Brian: Now, fuck off! 

[silence] 

Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

Verdict:  10/10

The amazingly mad Pythons (Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin) return for their 2nd movie Monty Python's Life of Brian after their hilarious 1st movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The movie is a cheeky irreverent satire about religiosity & to some extent politics.

Love, Sex aur Dhokha (2010)

Verdict:  9/10

Love, Sex aur Dhokha (LSD) is the 3rd movie directed by Dibakar Banerjee after the hit comedy Khosla ka Ghosla & the entertaining Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!. All the actors were newcomers. The movie is produced by Ekta Kapoor ((who, if you are an Indian you would know, is responsible for the daily psychological torture of millions of Indians (mostly males)).

The movie has 3 stories each representing a part of the title. All the 3 stories are shot in a voyeuristic manner. The first story deals with a richgirl-poorboy love story & is shot from the perspective of a handheld amateur video camera. Most of the humour in LSD is in the first story. The base for the second story is MMS sex clips & is shot from a CCTV camera angle. The third one is about the casting couch & is filmed mainly through the view point of a sting/hidden camera. Although the 3 stories are independent of each other, the characters in the 3 stories are connected. The film itself is non linear in nature as the three stories are running simultaneously.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Verdict:  8/10

God:               What are you doing now? 

King Arthur:   Averting our eyes, oh Lord. 

God:         Well, don't. It's just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. Now knock it off!

Monty Python is a very famous British comedy group which started in the early seventies. The group comprises of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The Monty Python has a cult following worldwide. Infact the goup was so famous that the word Pythonesque (see the dictionary) was coined after the group. They were also responsible for the word spam. A dinosaur was named after the group's name. Each of the 6 members has an asteroid named after them. 

Setting the basic info & trivia aside, Monty Python and the Holy Grail has all the six members of the group playing the principal leads, infact every one of them performs multiple roles. The movie is directed by two of the group's members Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Verdict:  6/10

Jennifer's Body is directed by Karyn Kusama & written by Oscar winning Screenwriter Diablo Cody. Cody won the Oscar for one of my favourites Juno. The movie stars Megan Fox & Amanda Seyfried in the lead roles. Johnny Simmons, Adam Brody, J.K.Simmons among others are in the supporting roles.


The movie is a comedy thriller set in the high school background. Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) is the high school hottie who although behaves very confident from outside, is actually a very insecure person. Her best friend from childhood is Anita "Needy" Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) who is the quintessential gawky, nerdy student typically present in every high school movie. One day Jennifer takes Needy to a rock show by a minor band. After a big fire accident, the rock band under the impression that Jennifer is a virgin takes her with them, offers her as a sacrifice to Satan in exchange for fame & money.

This Is It (2009)

Verdict:  8/10

“If you enter this world knowing you are loved and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.”  

  --- Michael Jackson.

This Is It was actually the name of a planned series of 50 concerts to be held in London by the King of Pop, one of the greatest entertainers, Michael Jackson. But with the unfortunate death of him, the concerts were stalled. AEG Live were the concert promoters & in an attempt to salvage whatever they could, AEG sold over 100 hours of rehearsal footage to Columbia. This footage was actually intended for Michael's personal library & was never thought to be released as a film.

Environment & Etiquette - My Experience

By environment, I don't mean the current global warming, pollution & other environmental problems. What I mean is the effect that proper surroundings bring to the movie viewing experience.

I had a very unique experience last week when I went to watch Alice in Wonderland (3D).

The Bad

That was the opening day morning show. My first surprise of the day was when I saw only 20-30 people in the theatre. Considering Johnny Depp's popularity here, the attendance was a real surprise. I was happy for a while as I was the only one in my row. The show started, I put my 3D glasses on. But wait a second, the movie started in 2D. I thought perhaps the movie will be in 3D after Alice goes to Wonderland. So I removed my glasses. After 5 mins, two people came, sat adjacent to me. The typical late comer questions followed - How much time had passed since the movie started? Did we miss anything?

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

First things first. Say big CHEERS to me because this is my first blog of any kind.

Verdict:  Alice in Wonderland (3D) -- 7/10       

       Alice in Wonderland (2D) -- 6/10

The first thing one should know about the movie Alice in Wonderland is that it is not the traditional story that we know. Directed by Tim Burton, the movie starts with the young Alice being told by her father that her Wonderland glimpses are only her imaginations. The movie cuts to the now grownup Alice (Mia Wasikowska) going to attend a Victorian party. Unknown to Alice is the fact that it is a surprise party planned for her engagement with the son of her deceased father's business partner. Alice is not particularly happy with this and when she sees the White Rabbit, she follows it by instinct to the Rabbit Hole & falls into the amazing Wonderland called as Underland in the movie.

Alice doesn't remember any of her childhood visits. Everything is new to her and she even pinches herself to check whether she is in a dream. She meets all the Wonderland characters which include the smoking Caterpillar (voiced by Alan Rickman, who plays Professor Snape in Harry Potter series), the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the Knave of Hearts (Crispin Glover), the White Queen (Anne Hathway), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp). The Red Queen has taken control of Wonderland. How Alice remembers her past visits and helps the good people creatures of Wonderland in defeating the Red Queen forms the remaining story.