Vedam (2010)

In 2 months time, Allu Arjun gave one of the worst movies and one of the best movies of this decade in Tollywood.

Vedam has 5 independent stories in it which are taking place parallelly, and the characters of all the stories converge at the big climax. In my limited memory, I can't remember such a movie being made prior in Tollywood. This could be a risky subject but director Krish (Gamyam fame) pulled it off with great aplomb. I won't brief about the 5 stories but they are very different from each other and there is believability to each one of them although in various degrees.

If an award for the best performance by an ensemble cast in Tollywood is introduced next year, Vedam would be the leading contender. Nobody in the movie messed up there roles. Allu Arjun is an excellent fit in the role of Cable Raju. His performance & emotions at the end where he has a change of heart is the best that he had done until now. After the movie Arundhati, Anushka has become a clear crowd favourite. The whistles and shouts during her introduction scene were only matched by the entrance of Arjun. Anushka has nailed the role of Saroja going from funny to angry to angst with ease. She definitely is one of the best actresses in Tollywood right now. This is my first Manchu Manoj movie. He was an apt choice to play the music loving wannabe rock-star Vivek. Manoj is not only a better actor than his brother Vishnu but he is also choosing his scripts wisely. He created a good first impression on me. I haven't seen Manoj Bajpai fail as an actor and the same goes here. He gives good performance as the victimised Muslim Raheemuddin Qureishi. Nagayya as a poor weaver and Saranya as his daughter-in-law gave some honest & sincere performances as the exploited rural people who wants to educate the boy in their family.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Verdict: 9/10

The Maltese Falcon is written & directed by John Huston and adopted from Dashiell Hammett's novel of the same name. The movies star cast includes Humphrey Bogart as private investigator Sam Spade, Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo, Sydney Greenstreet as Kasper Gutman, Lee Patrick as Effie Perrine, Elisha Cook Jr. as Wilmer Cook, Gladys George as Iva Archer amongst others. There is a special cameo by Walter Huston.

The Maltese Falcon received Oscar nominations for Picture, John Huston for Adapted Screenplay & Sydney Greenstreet for Supporting Actor.

I won't give any plot details here except that this is a wonderful crime mystery that started the classic film noir period of Hollywood. The movie starts with these lines scrolling.

"In 1539, the Knights Templar of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels ----- but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day ---".

So we know that we have to find the falcon & in the process we deal with lies, murders, characters full of deceit & cunningness. You know the typical film noir settings.

The Maltese Falcon is the first movie directed by John Huston who in his illustrious career was nominated for 15 Oscars. John Huston hated the two previous movie adaptations of the novel The Maltese Falcon. He thought that there is a lot of scope for improvement. The beauty of the film is that there is not a single waste line nor a single waste shot nor a single waste performance. Everything is so perfect & each character is very well developed. I felt Huston has filtered the movie like water, over & over, until it became so perfect.

Serendipity (2001)

Verdict:  9/10

How many of us doesn't like a good love story with some humour & some melancholy. I think the romcoms of the 30s, 40s & 50s are amongst the best in Hollywood history. We have such precious gems such as Adam's Rib, Roman Holiday, It Happened One Night, My Man Friday & the list goes on. The next 3 decades saw a decline in this genre save some rare exceptions such as Annie Hall. But the last 2 decades saw a revival of sorts. I think the success of When Harry Met Sally & Pretty Woman has a lot to do with this.

I like many romcoms from the last 2 decades but if you ask me to name 3 movies that I absolutely adore from the last 21 years, I would say 10 Things I Hate About You, My Sassy Girl (not the English version but the Korean version Yeopgijeogin Geunyeo) & Serendipity.

I actually saw Serendipity for the 1st time only a year after its release. At that time I haven't seen many rom-coms & also I wasn't thinking about movies in a critical way analysing their good, bad & ugly. It was just some rom-com which I was seeing to waste some time. But by the first 15 minutes, I started to love the movie. One reason was due to the interesting start & another reason was due to Kate Beckinsale about whom I never heard of before & who will always remain my 1st Hollywood crush.

Serendipity is directed by Peter Chelsom & written by Marc Klein.

Män som hatar kvinnor / The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Verdict:  9/10

The movie has some nudity & violence.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" directed by Niels Arden Oplev, is adopted from the 1st book of the hugely popular "Millennium Trilogy" series written by Stieg Larsson. Spare a thought for Larsson because he died before any of the trilogy books were published. The movie is the biggest ever Scandinavian movie & the highest grossing movie of Europe in 2009. There are 2 more sequels to this film which have been already released in Sweden & will be released in U.S in the coming months. I didn't read the novel but as the movie is gradually unfolding, you can actually feel like reading the book. The literal translation of the swedish title is Men who hate Women.

Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) is a retired former head of a business empire as well as the head of a big dynasty. 40 years ago his niece Harriet has disappeared & her body was never found. Henrik, for whom Harriet is like a daughter, is convinced that she is murdered by some one from his own family & he employs a tainted journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) to find the murderer. Mikael gets an unlikely partner in the form of the antisocial computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) who is fighting some demons from her own past. They form an unlikely detective pair & together they must find the murderer before they themselves became the target.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)

Warning 1: Both the movie & the following review are Rated A for India & R for America. So proceed with discretion.

Warning 2: If you haven't seen the other 2 Monty Python movies, don't see repeat do not see this movie.

Verdict:  9/10

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, unlike the 2 previous movies each of which had a full length continuous plot, is a sketch comedy. The movie is directed by Terry Jones except for the opening short film 'The Crimson Permanent Assurance' which was directed by Terry Gilliam. The 6 Pythons played more than 75 roles among themselves in this movie.

The movie starts with an amazing short film called 'The Crimson Permanent Assurance' which is nothing like I've ever seen. Comparing tired old people working in a company to slaves in a slave ship & developing this into a short film! Only a Python can devise a satire like this. The old people revolting against their more efficient young bosses to take over the company is shown as the slaves revolting against their captors & taking over the ship. The old people now run the company (shown as pirate ship) & attack other big corporations & finally fall off the edge of the world. The whole sequence is so incredibly shot that I was completely left in awe. Even a Python hater should see the opening sequence which runs for roughly 16 minutes. The old actors who performed here are brilliant.

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.