New Sense

This months Top 5 movie recommendations are movies featuring from 1940 classic based in Budapest to a 2009 Telugu movie sequel that simply blew my mind away… Also my movie of the month is about con-men trying to con a rich Rachel Weisz.

Three Amigos

A Steve Martin comedy again is a part of this list after Bowfinger made it to last months list. Personally I find Steve Martin’s movies very out of the box and for the same reason have some unique comedy written in them. Three Amigos is the story of three out of work actors who are invited to Mexican village to help rid the village of its bandits. Written in a spoofy version of the Seven Samurais genre western, Three Amigos has its moments of absolute hilarity. While there are moments(esp the songs) where one feels tempted to skip forward but the movie is still worth a watch.

The Shop Around the corner

This 1940 movie about pen pals was the inspiration for the Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan starrer “Yo

u’ve got Mail“. In the original the story revolves around a shop in Budapest and the lives of its employees. James Stewart & Margaret Sullavan play the roles of a manager and newly

hired employee that cant stand each other. Their constant bickering at each other happens unknown to the reality that they are corresponding via letters as anonymous pen pals. Will they realize that the person they hate the most is also the person they secretly are in love with?

The beauty of this movie is in its antiquity and type of film making. The dialog writing and delivery has been long lost and its wonderful to once again experience it. The acting is exquisite not just of the lead but also of the rest of the cast. A must watch for all romantics.

Karthik Calling Karthik

Karthik calling Karthik is one of the new age style thrillers that is clearly aimed at entertaining the audience right thru the narration. The story is of a transformation of Karthik, a (for the lack of a better word) ‘Loser’ who is treated like a door mat by everyone to a confident man for whom nothing is out of reach. The clincher is that the transformation is triggered by late night phone calls by someone with the same name as the protagonist and who knows everything about him. The caller gets him to fix his life and even attract the affections of a colleague for whom he has had feeling for what seemed like forever.

The movie takes a twist when he is instructed to not tell anyone about the late night calls but he breaks the agreement by telling his lover about the life changing calls. Fearing the worst they try to discover the identity of the caller, this infuriates the caller making him to take revenge on Karthik and attempting to ruin his life… Who is this mysterious caller? Will he destroy Karthik’s life? Can he be stopped?

In a nutshell, the movie works… Its very easy to think of a concept like this and mess up the execution but the movie does justice not only to the characters but also to the intelligence of the audience.

Arya 2

Arya 2 is the sequel to the super-hit Telugu movie Arya. The sequel starts afresh (without much relation to the original other than the lead actor’s name) and talks about the friendship between Arya and Ajay, both orphans. Their friendship begins at the orphanage despite Ajay’s disinterest in being a pal to Arya. Arya has blind faith in Ajay who can hardly stand him and after Arya steps aside to let Ajay be adopted, he believes their friendship is cemented for life. In adulthood Arya convinces Ajay to get him a job at his software company where Geetha joins as an employee. Arya and Ajay both fall in love with her but its Arya who consistently tries to get her attention. Frustrated by his attempts and knowing how much Ajay is dear to him, she tells Arya that she loves Ajay. Arya decides that he shall not let anything come in the way of the love birds and goes overboard trying to get them together.

The movie sounds very typical but what is the clincher is the amazing understanding of game-play right thru the movie. The only other time I was this impressed with the conceptual game play in a movie it was done by the Joker in the The Dark Knight. There are situations where Arya makes decisions that seem a bit crazy but they make absolute sense in a few minutes as it appears he has taken into account both moving probability and motive of others involved indirectly in the situation.

Dialogs are fast paced and the brilliance of the writer is evident as. Arya’s character is one of the best ones I have seen written for screen in South Indian cinema. The comic sequences are original and sometimes the absurdity of the choices leaves you laughing your guts out.

This was the first Telugu movie I have seen in a long time and I absolutely loved it. Its a pity that the movie did only averagely in the box office, I would have loved to see more movies written this way.

Movie of the month:

The Brothers Bloom:

Con men don’t come better than the team of the Brothers Bloom. Starting right from their childhood, Stephen(Mark Ruffalo) is the genius behind the cons and Bloom(Adrien Brody) the protagonist in his intricate stories. Stephen believes that the best con in the world is the one in which both the con men and the conned get what they wanted. As Bloom hits his mid thirties he decides to quit the business as he fears that he is losing his identity to the ones borrowed for the cons. Stephen lures Bloom with the promise of one last con. The mark is the beautiful and lonely heiress Penelope Stamp(Rachel Weisz) who spends her time learning hobbies on her own. Complications in the con arise after Diamond Dog, the nemesis of the brothers returns and it seems like Penelope may be very different than other previous marks… To add to the confusion Bloom looks like he is falling in love with Penelope and thats what Stephen had warned him about all along…

The crispiness and unpredictability of The Brothers Bloom is the best part of the movie. The acting is top notch and the writing is brilliant. All the while you are not clear as to what is the con and who all are involved. As con movies come The Brothers Bloom is easily one of the best. A must watch.

Inception has easily been one of the most entertaining and gripping movies I have had the pleasure of watching. As I sat in the the theater dumbstruck trying to navigate the mind and ideas of Christopher Nolan there was a weird sense of Déjà vu…

Thirty minutes into the movie I remembered what it was that seemed so similar… Actually what I remembered forced me into a smile and simultaneously made me extremely excited…

Five years ago, I wrote a short story – The Question. The story was little over 3 pages long and has been one of my best short stories till date. Turns out there was a lot of common ground between the concepts in Inception and The Question. While the common beliefs formulated the core of my story, in Inception they were the minor details of the story telling. Yet the similarities were clearly there…

After the movie I stood outside the theater(like many others) discussing the finer details of the movie with my friends. Among the people there I was only sure that my friend, Swetha had read that story five years ago. I told her that the movie had in parts reminded me of my short story and she immediately echoed my thoughts. Apparently she too had remembered my story while watching the movie!

The most oddest thing about the whole incident hit me only a couple of days ago. When I had first written “The Question” I was extremely vary about how it would be accepted, so I sent a proof copy of the original draft to a couple of my close friends. You wont believe that one of the proof readers’ response of the story was “This will make an awesome movie!”

Its an odd set of coincidences… You can feel free to read the story here: http://blog.chandrahasa.com/archives/333 and decide for yourself if the similarities are significant enough… I would love to hear your thoughts!

Ps: The coincidences don’t just end there; that reviewer, a very close friend of mine has gone on to become a film maker!

I love watching movies, its one of my favorite pastimes and I love talking about movies. I try my level best to write reviews in my blog about the movies I have watched; But off late I hv been getting a bit lazy and not getting around to talking about movies I loved. So as an alternative at the start of every month I will post about five movies i watched in the previous month

These movies listed below did not necessarily release anytime recently(or in this month), I happened to watch them during the last calender month and wanted to share my thoughts about them. These movies are not necessarily the best of the movies I watched but rather movies that I admired in one way or another.
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“Khalish” is the first production under the Flying Rabbit Films banner. I am proud to say that some of my very close friends are a part of Flying Rabbit Films, and am honored to be able to share this with short film with you. Hope you enjoy it
(If you are not able to see the movie on this page, you can view it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdvg9i_khalish_shortfilms)

Description:

“Khalish”, directed by Vishesh, this 15 min film is a present day cult drama about apprehension and misunderstanding on one hand and growing Islamophobia and anxiety on the other. The story revolves around 4 guys and a misunderstanding which leads to a disaster, devastating everyone’s life.

Rating:

An action filled romantic thriller starring the brilliant Hrithik Roshan and the sizzling Bárbara Mori was always expected to send the hype racing. The Chemistry between the two actors was talked about in international circles but fell flat for the Bollywood crowd. So what was it that generated so much mixed reviews for this ‘crossover’ movie?

Kites is a perfect example of a crossover movie. Everything about the movie was designed to merge cultures, the lead actors were from India and Mexico, the languages used in the movie was Hindi, English and Spanish… The music had a distinct international touch, hell even the lyrics of the songs were written in Hindi, English and Spanish! But what made this movie a truly crossover film is the writing, as an avid follower of Hollywood and Bollywood cultures, Kites hit me as the almost perfect child of the two. You have the thrill, action and pace of western cinema and you also have the emotional touch, romance and ideology that rule Indian cinema.

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