Gajini - Review

Gajini

First things first - it is not a remake of christopher Nolan's Momento. Not the story nor the narrative.

Yes, it is a story of a person with short term memory loss on a quest to kill his wifes killer, but lacks the twist. The movie not even takes twist in the climax as most audience predict or hope to happen. The story lacks the depth.

Yes, Aamir khan has gone to extreme to build up the muscles with all the supplements he can have. But actually that was not required since he was not playing a boxer or a gymnast. He is playing a buisness tycon who falls in love with a simple girls and then kills the killers of his wife.

Apposite to Momento which was a thrilling Neo-Noir movie, Ghajini is a typicall bollywood movie with a love story, some dancing, some comedy scenes and finally the revenge.

Having said that the actors have done a good job. Specially Asin looks natural in a happy-go-lucky girls role.

Ghajini, the villians charachters lacks the depth. He hardly looks frightning.

2.5 star

Momento review

Momento

A story about a man who suffers from a condition called short term memory loss is on a hunt for a man who raped and murdered his wife.

Director : Christopher Nolan

Apart from the story being brilliant, the actual brilliancy lies in the narrative and direction. You are presented with 2 stories, one shown backwards and one forward chronology. One in colour and one in black and white. Both the stories are shown as small clips switching between each other. At the end of the movie both the stories get merged.

The protagonist can only remember something for 10-15 min. Also he is incapable of creating new memories after the incident in which his wife got killed. In the quest he meets people who offer to help him. He takes pictures of things that are improtant like his Car, House, Friends etc. His body is engraved with information which is his investigation. Random Names, car registration number etc.

While watching the movies one has to keep on arranging the reverse chonologically shown movie in correct order to understand the sequence of events. I sometimes had to literally pause the movie and think what has happened and rethink the movie again.

The movie requires intense concentration, you will not understand the story if you decide to go out for 5 min and grab a packet of popcorns.
The movie is packed with suprises and twists.

Only a director like Chistopher Nolan can pull off something like this.

T3n - review

T3n - review

Based in calcutta, an elderly man (john) is on a mission to unearth the mystery of kidnapping and murder of his grand-daughter angela. While he makes regular trip to police station asking for the progress in the case, the police has long given up the case as un-resolved. Meanwhile a similar kidnapping occurs. Trying to catch the kidnapper this time, thr police realises the resemblance of events with the kidnapping of angela.
John by-luck gets a clue while shopping. He traces it to unearth more clues.
The director very intelligently like a neo-noir movie, carries both the story forward, switching between them.

Finally the police catches the kidnapper of the second child ( or a person they think is the kidnapper).
I will not give up the suspense, but there is a 'twist' here.

As the twist gets revealed, the audience feel betrayed by the gimmick played by the director in the narrative.

Indian in South Africa

Indian in South Africa


Cultural shock
If an Indian, for the first time is going abroad to a western country, some of the differences are very obvious. The number of people a scarce. Verry!
As it was not my first time outside India(I was in UK for 2 years), It was not a big surprise for me. Also since In SA most of the infrastructure like governent offices, universities and hospitals were made by europians,( or I should say British and Europians as British is no more a EU country) the infrastructure is very similar to EU. Big buildings with pointed chimneys at the top and  small windows were much similar to CST station of mumbai.

Transportation
In SA people seldomely use public transport. Everyone has a car here. So if you have to stay in SA for even a week, make sure you know how to drive.

You will not see 2 wheelers on the road. Not even a single one. The cars follow strick lane rules. Singals are called robots. In India giving indicator signal alone is not enough if you want to take a left/ right turn. You have to time honking precisly with the indicator lights as well. In SA a honk means you are making the car in front aware that it has done something wrong(it actually means swearing the car in front) since cars here do not break rules that often, you will hardly hear honking.

So driving in SA is much much easier as compare to India if you can control the urge to overtake every car, stop honking insenisbly or to a bappi libari song tune, maintain lanes and offcource stop whe the signal is red.

People:

One thing you will notice is the diversity of people here. There are black, brown/coloured, asians and white. SA has a interesting history of freedom from EU rule and Uprising by Mandella and everything. After freedom both white and black decided to stay togetger with peacefullness and love.

So if you go to a mall or a grocery shop, you will atleast see people from 3 to 4 ethnic groups. People in SA are friendly as compared to british. They are aleays looking to start a conversation with a stranger. If they identify u r a indian, they will start with either IPl or bollywood. If not both they wipp definelty talk abouth the weather today. It is a great skipp we can learn from them. They are very polite and will make sure you are not slightly offended, which indians get very easily.

Indian food

Indian dont like to experiment very much when it comes to food. Even if they have had a burger from MacD, there always space for daal makhni or butter chicken. SAns love indian food. They crave for mexican and indian food since it is spicy. So there are many indian restaurant throughout cape town. They might not serve authentic indian food but it still looks indian and is spicy. Some pakistani restaurant have also named restaurants as Taj and Bombay cafe. Dont know why. May be because people would not have gone to a restaurant with name Karachi cafe.

Things to bring to SA:
1. A big smile
2. Reminder on ur cell phone to say either sorry or thankyou after every sentense. Or sometines both in a single sentense.
3.  No need to bring indian spices or lentils as everything is available here.
4. Definetly bring a pressure cooker if you like to cook rice with a whistling sound.

Dangal Review

Dangal
Actors:
Aamir Khan

The film is a 2 hrs 40 min enthusiastic and inspiring story of village girls who make big in women wrestling. More to just being a sport film it also explores a father daughter relationship, boy child desire and self- realization.

As soon as the movie starts you get completely drawn into life of Mr phogat who is a national level champion.

It is definetly not just a Aamir khan movie.
All the actors have performed exceptionally. Specially the 2 girls, both the younger actors and the adult ones.

Aamir khan gained 20 kg to look to his age. His effort is appreciated as to just shoot a 2 min scene of younger Mr phogat, he has transformed himself to a younger athlete.


The music of the movie is also good and upbeat. The songs carry forward Sent the movie and do not look out of place.

The movie gets the wrestling right, the haryanvi right, the casting right and the intention right.

Though it drags and slows down somewhere in the mid of the movie.

An extra twist is added to the climax, to make a rather predective end a bit interesting.

Overall 4