Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

The thing that I enjoy most about Wes Anderson films is that they each feel like a great adventure and in this sense I think Moonrise Kingdom is his best yet. It tells that tale of Sam, an orphan on scout camp, and Suzy, a misunderstood girl, as they run away together. At first I found the two actors playing the kids to be kind of limp but after a few minutes I warmed to them and I actually think they were both pretty good overall, particularly Jared Gilman who plays Sam and even more so knowing that it's the first acting he's ever done. The rest of the cast are all pursuing or helping them in some way and there a couple of sub-plots with the island's policeman (played by Bruce Willis) and the parents of Suzy (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).

I thought that the rest of the cast was great. In fairness I am a bit biased because I love Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis and Frances McDormand but even so I have to say that they were all really good, especially Edward Norton who plays the scout master, and Bill Murray. There are also a couple of minor roles for Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keital and Tilda Swinton who were also a lot of fun. Everyone in the cast fits into their role really well which is obviously exactly what you want, but not only is that the case for the main roles but also for the less important ones, like the scout troupe (especially Sam's 'enemy'), Suzy's three brothers or the oddball narrator.

Cinematography wise I didn't think this movie was particularly spectacular, especially in comparison to other Wes Anderson movies like 'The Life Aquatic' or 'The Royal Tenenbaums'. There were a couple of shots that were cool though, some really long zoom outs (which sounds clichéd but it worked) and the doll house type ones that I love and think are awesome.

I wouldn't expect to wet your pants laughing at any moment in 'Moonrise Kingdom' but it is funny. There are a couple of laugh out loud moments and as a whole the jokes are pretty sharp and intelligently done. The reason I like the humour in this movie is that it's a part of the ambiance and feel of it, it won't make you crack up but it will make you have a smile on your face for pretty much the whole thing and leave you feeling strangely happy.

That kind of ambiance is really why the movie is so good, and is possibly Wes Anderson's best movie. The whole story is this fantastic blend of reality and child-like dreaming and it's wonderful. At times I felt kind of nostalgic and sad that I'm not a kid anymore. On the other hand it feels like a tribute to those myths and dreams of being a child and it works so well. This is the kind of film that I feel I could watch over and over again, each time spotting something new but also feeling good and enjoying the overall purpose.

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Palo Alto (2013)

Shy, sensitive April is the class virgin, torn between an illicit flirtation with her soccer coach Mr. B and an unrequited crush on sweet stoner Teddy. Emily, meanwhile, offers sexual favors to every boy to cross her path - including both Teddy and his best friend Fred, a life wire without filters or boundaries. As one high school party bleeds into the next - and April and Teddy struggle to admit their mutual affection - Fred's escalating recklessness starts to spiral into chaos.

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The Virgin Suicides (1999)

A man about forty years of age tells the story from when he was a teenager in upscale suburban Detroit of his and three of his friends' fascination with the mysterious and doomed Lisbon sisters. In 1974, the sisters were seventeen year old Therese, sixteen year old Mary, fifteen year old Bonnie, fourteen year old Lux, and thirteen year old Cecilia. Their fascination still remains as they try to piece together the entire story. The sisters were mysteries if only because of having a strict and overprotective upbringing by their father, who taught math at the girls' private co-ed school, and overly devout Catholic mother, who largely dictated the household rules. The story focuses primarily on two incidents and the resulting situations on the girls' lives. The first was an action by Cecilia to deal with her emotions over her life. And the second was the relationship between Lux - the sister who pushed the boundaries of the household rules most overtly in doing what most teenagers want to...

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Blue Valentine (2010)

Dean Pereira and Cindy Heller Pereira are a young, working class married couple - Dean currently working as a painter, and Cindy working as a nurse in a medical clinic - with a young daughter named Frankie. Despite their relatively tender ages, they are both ravaged by the life they've eked out together and by the experiences they've had leading into their marriage. Dean, a high school drop out, comes from a broken home, where he never really had a mother figure. He never saw himself getting married or having a family despite falling in love at first sight with Cindy. He doesn't have any professional ambition beyond his current work - which he enjoys since he feels he can knock off a beer at 8 o'clock in the morning without it affecting his work - although Cindy believes he has so much more potential in life. Cindy also comes from a dysfunctional family, with her own mother and father not setting an example of a harmonious married or family life. One of her previous serious ... 

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Unmade Beds (2009)

I went to see this film because it was described as being "young and fresh". Afterwards, I can only say it is boring and pretentious. There is no story to speak of, no dialogue apart from some vague conversations, no character development, no point.

There is, on the other hand, a lot of loud music by bands I don't know (but are undoubtedly very hip), there are a lot of images of young people uttering would-be philosophical wisecracks, and there is a lot of partying, drinking and smoking going on.

This could be a sort of nouvelle vague-ish, real life document about young people and the way they live, but I'm afraid it utterly fails. Or maybe I'm too old for this sort of film.

There is one plus: wonderful Belgian actress Déborah François.

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The Namesake (2006)

While traveling by train to visit his grandfather in Jamshedpur, Calcutta born, Bengali-speaking Ashoke Ganguli meets with fellow-traveler, Ghosh, who impresses upon him to travel, while Ashoke is deep into a book authored by Nicholai Gogol. The train meets with an accident, and after recuperating, Ashoke re-locates to America, settles down, returns home in 1977 to get married to aspiring singer, Ashima, and returns home to New York. Shortly thereafter they become parents of a boy, who they initially name Gogol, and a few years later both give birth to Sonia. The family then buy their own house in the suburbs and travel to India for the first time after their marriage. The second time they travel to India is when Gogol and Sonia are in their late teens, and after a memorable visit to Kolkata and then to the Taj Mahal, they return home. Gogol falls in love with Maxine Ratliff and moves in with her family, while Ashoke spends time traveling, and Sonia moves to California, leaving Ashima...

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Miss Lovely (2012)

A lot better than any other genre of this movie. If you can portray so much reality in a movie, then the movie maker is really outstanding. Reality in looks, in language, in expressions, in problems and their solutions. Reality can be more felt when someone is really from these regions of the world.

The kind of tension and awkwardness that is shown can be generally felt in these regions.

Most importantly I liked the posters of the film. They are like I am seeing the covers of 60s and 70s...

I was first alerted of this movie by the sheer waves it was making in the Cannes Film Festival, and for the very obvious reason that it featured the hugely talented maverick director, Ashim Ahluwalia, but after they won the award i was not surprised with the results.

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Hate Story 2 (2014)

One of the most popular facts of Hindi films market is that here other than the star system the one element which can easily bring in the crowd into the theaters is Sex or Erotica. And since 70s there is a certain section of film-makers who have always kept this basic fact in mind before making their irrelevant films just to earn some quick money from the box office and nothing else. In other words a market where a porn star can so easily be transformed into a television celebrity reaching your whole family in the evenings and also manages to generate a decent amount of fan following without doing anything significant on the screen in terms of acting. It is pretty obvious that sex based films remain a hot property for the distributors as well as for the producers, with a minimum risk factor and a high repeat value ensuring some safe returns.

So no points for guessing that HATE STORY 2 is also one of those deliberately made business products just in search of the viewers willing to see another naked body on the screen of a known face instead of cinema. Plus it's once again a sequel which has nothing to do with its first part. But does follow the same pattern of presenting a sexy girl who can bare it all, gets exploited before the intermission and then goes on to take her revenge in the second half displaying the inner power of a woman (to put it in some respectable words).

However where the formula did come up with something watchable in its prequel, the second part falls way short of that already achieved mark, basically (again) due to its pretty ordinary second half executed in a hasty & repetitive style by the director Vishal Pandya.

Though it all begins with an inspired sequence straight away reminding you of Uma Thurman, still the progression holds your interest nicely before it all becomes easily predictable heading towards the interval. The early part of the script borrows heavily from Quentin Tarantino's cult revenge thriller KILL BILL and once it tries walking on its own, the film falls completely flat and goes even beyond the level of bearable in its final moments to say the least. In short, HATE STORY begins well, becomes average in the first 40 minutes and then simply slides down towards the bottom becoming plain ordinary, boring and even funny ruining all the hard work done by its actors in its first half.

Interestingly where the sex factor did have a steaming impact in its part one (due to Paoli Dam), the sequel surprisingly remains a non- performer in that particular aspect with nothing exciting or engaging in its revenge drama too in the later part. The erotic sequences fail to impress due to an almost none chemistry between the on screen pair and further all comfortable killings of the main targets simply ruin the expectations raised earlier.

To give them their deserving due, a few sequences in the film have some well written dialogues in its initial hour and the two lead actors Surveen Chawla and Sushant Singh do leave a mark in their opening scenes emoting well. Yet Surveen questionably uses the film as her do or die attempt following the easiest path of taking her clothes off, which unfortunately is not going to yield some great results for her as it seems. The girl has been around for a while doing some regional films, music videos and few anchoring assignments too. But I really wasn't expecting her to dive down to this level of desperation quite frankly. Plus she still has to look a lot into her styling and make-up urgently as her face does appear to be entirely different in some casually chosen costumes & hairstyles in an uneven manner.

Sushant, as mentioned above plays it tough enough to make a decent impact at first, but is reduced to a repetitive clown towards the end spoiling the good build-up. Jay Bhanushali gets limited scope in his small role whereas Neha Kaul is terrific playing Sushant's suppressed wife having no voice of her own. The supporting cast performs OK and cinematography captures the essence of the movie rightly but background score tries too hard to make it sound like a great revenge thriller post intermission.

Musically other than the pathetic 'Pink Lips' featuring Sunny Leone (jumping out of nowhere into the film post interval), the soundtrack also comes up with an average new-age version of the late 80s path breaking track "Aaj Tumpe Pyar Aaya Hai" from DAYAVAN (1988). And as history repeats itself, even after the gap of 25 years the fabulously composed song once again becomes famous more for its visual content only instead of the melodious musical notes, unfortunately (which inspires me to write a focused article on the same in the next days). Apart from the above two, few other songs in the film do appear to be soothing at their first listening. But their unintelligent timing in the script (one also coming in the climax), doesn't allow them to make any kind of impact on the viewer, whatsoever.

In all, there is no Paoli Dam here to say it indicatively and the film is nothing but an exploitive attempt just interested in en-cashing the curiosity generated by its steamy promos at the earliest. And if you still wish to see this empty tin making some good noise, then the choice is all yours.

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Kamasutra 3D

Set in the backdrop of the ancient, Kamasutra 3D is the journey of a soulful love embodied with betrayal and war. It weaves the trans formative changes in body, mind and soul by the forbidden world of sexual love and sensuality. This movie is a trilogy of the same name in different versions - Kamasutra 3D, Kamasutra 4D, Kamasutra 5D. The 4D and 5D versions would be released after the launch of the 3D version.

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Clown (2014)

As far as clown slasher go, I rarely see any true effort put into them

• especially these days. "Clown" is actually a pretty refreshing entry

in the genre - being clearly of modest budget, yet still managing to come across as a professional looking flick with an unusually likable cast of characters, a reasonably memorable villain! There's also a few decent and relatively gory deaths, cleverly themed after traditional clown tricks.

The gore level in this movie is extremely high. Every kill is based upon a trick that a clown but all with the intention of making your skin crawl. It won't be to every one's taste, as limbs are literally ripped from bodies, heads kicked of.

think that most will enjoy this movie knowing ahead of time that it's a gory slasher.

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