Snipper: Gulaal

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We watched this in May '09 and was about to be writing on this for last 5 months. Got sometime today. And thus has kept this really brief as I wont be able to detail this out :-). Anyways….

First of all it’s a very different backdrop and (per me) has got an immense influence of Omkara. It's all about college and small-town, cast oriented politics in a remote town in Rajasthan. It draws a graph of the life of a very cowardly (but Rajput!), be-spectacled, Urban guy, who comes to this small town for studying, how he gets caught under the dirty politics and how that changes his life completely in a negative sense. There are master-pieces thrown-in by Kay Kay Menon, Abhimanyu Singh, Deepak Dobriyal (Bhati, Omkara Fame). But the highlight of this movie I'd say is Piyush Mishra. He played an elder brother of kay Kay, who is mentally disturbed, but at the same is outstanding at writing and presenting the poems and songs of all genre in the movie. In fact he is the actual lyricist of those songs and has also sang a couple of them in the movie ('Arambh' and 'Duniya' are the master pieces). 'Ranaji' is already a hit. The songs actually talk about the local and global politics, culture, various other related aspects which are composed equally sensitively to retain the texture of the words.

All in all it shows how politics unless otherwise seen as glorified and value based from outside, can be vey mean, and at times cheap.

Anurag Kashyap comes out as a Burgeon director with a different vision and all the passion and an extremely great command on the medium. He is equally supported well in the cinematography, dialogues, lyrics and music sections. And one more time hats-off to him for giving a complete cinematic and creative justice while working on two absolutely different movies in Gulaal and Dev-D.

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Violence and language. Extreme abuses. There are some bold scenes by Mahie Gill and Jesse Randhava which come in as a 'need' of the plot, but could have been avoided in context of erstwhile Indian movies.

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A very apt title? while it comes out through an insane bloodshed. Must see for the acting juggernauts of Kay Kay with his expressive eyes (resembles of Sanjiv Kumar in that), Abhimanyu Singh who appears to be a Khandani Rajput, and Deepak Dobriyal. The latter two have tremendous acting talents, but not greatly utilized in Indian movies yet.

Snipper: He's Just Not That Into You!

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Watched an Hollywood flick after a long time, off course with no expectation and without referring to any pre-conceived reviews / comments. It turned out to be a nice pick. The subject is quite contemporary, close to everyone's 'heart'. This shows various angles of relationships and what the gen-x is going through because of the complications arising out of those. This is a collage nicely woven of young singles, married couples, couples in live-in relationships, where these different tracks are very nicely integrated with each other. There is a desperate single Gigi played by Ginnifer Goodwin, confused singles played by Justin Long, Kevin Connolly and Scarlet Johansson. We have seen these characters in Bollywood recently where very close friends of opposite sex do not know that they are made for each other till the last reel starts winding in :-) ('Jaane tu…' and 'Jab we met'). Then there is a matured married couple of Jennifer Connelly and Brad Cooper. Here Brad starts seeing Scarlet (a Yoga teacher) but Jennifer his wife actually starts doubting that he is becoming a smoker, which she is very paranoid of, as she has lost her father because of the lung cancer. The last and one of the key couple is of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston, well they are 'Living- in' for last 7 years! Jennifer wants to get married so as to get in to a more 'secured' relationship and Ben is always able to convince her how good their current status is:-) And yes, he actually shows how caring a 'husband ' he is without being actually married by helping Jennifer when her father comes across a cardiac arrest and where she is not getting any help from her close family members.

There is also a cute Drew Barrymore (hmmm...), but I guess not used very effectively. The plot becomes touching for many reasons, as the story is told in a very simple and direct way. There are hardly any outdoor shots, no camera gimmicks, no 'acting schools'. However Ginnifer Goodwin, has portrayed the dumbo with awesome ease. Same is the case with all other great stars in the movie. Brad Cooper, Ben Affleck, Kevin Connolly and Justin Long are way too good which have portrayed varied shades of 'manism' :-).

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Jennifer Aniston looks too old for the character. The length of the movie could have been kept a little smaller (around 100 minutes instead of 120 mins) even after giving due weightage to all the characters, it becomes a little boring in between. The movie name is difficult to remember (may we very 'Super' American - ' Youth in-phrase of 2009'), at the same time a great pick for the Dumb charades :-).

Snip-O-Meter
A 'True Blue' and 'All Star' American gen-x romantic comedy. Telephone as a medium of communication (and at times the lack of it) is very nicely used as well. Also gives you a feeling of watching 'Friends' / Sex and the City (American Soaps) because of the closely neat friend circles and interactions between them.
(Courtesy - Director Ken Kwapis is equally successful at big and small screen.)

A must see on a lazy weekend with friends and family (intimate and extended :-))