All rise.

Sonu and I went to watch Alice In Wonderland in 3D today. It was good. I didn't think it was BRILLIANT but then that might have something to do with the fact that the theatre that we went to (Movietime Hub, Goregaon. Be warned!) was really bad! The sound was terrible and the picture was dark so in revenge, Sonu and I messed up the theatre really nicely by dropping our caramel popcorn all over the floor!!! No, I'm kidding that was totally an accident but that's also the theatre's fault. Dude, make proper holder-thingies for the drinks and popcorn otherwise everything is just a tricky balancing act and things will go wrong!

Anyway, so funny thing happened. In India (okay, not sure if this is in every city??) at the movies, we stand up for the national anthem before the film begins. It's a bizarro-cool custom and every theatre has a different video playing with the national anthem. So today, there was something wrong with the theatre and before the film started, the national anthem started playing and we promptly stood up and there was nothing but static on the screen. And then it stopped. So we all waited. And then it started again. And stopped... and then... everybody actually started singing!! Like they continued singing the national anthem because there was something wrong with the theatre's video. And it was so... strange! I mean, we're all there about to watch Alice In Wonderland with our 3D glasses and everybody randomly breaks into Jana Gana Mana...

Anyway, so that ended and some lady actually said, "Bharath Mata ki... Jai!" at the end! And we all sat down and then... it started again!! Like the theatre finally found the right tape or whatever and they played it and so we all stood... again. Such good patriotic people?

So you know... I don't know if we're good at ever bothering to stand up for anything else worthwhile in India, but we sure do know how to stand up for the National Anthem!

Bijli

Bijli

A snapshot from one of my favourite scenes from Swades.

Isn't it beautiful? I love it.

p.s. Read THIS review of the film. I pretty much agree with everything but would never be able to say it quite as eloquently as she has :)

One of those...

So it's that time of year again - OSCARS! Okay... I was never really that into it but then I met Sharan and her enthusiasm kind of rubs off on you! :P Anyway, the awesome thing about the Oscars is that you have a long list of movies to watch that are pretty much guaranteed to be good. Not always... sometimes you really wonder "what were they thinking?!" But anyway, so I hadn't watched a movie in a while and the mock exams ended yesterday - oh and have I mentioned that Mumbai University POSTPONED our final exams?! Yeah, way to go, MU. Way to go. So now my exams start on the 13th of April as opposed to the 8th and end on the 18th of May. How many exams do I have? SIX. Six exams for more than a month :/ Trust me if you saw my timetable, you'd be whining too.

Anyhoo, I guess it's a reminder that when you think you are in control of the universe - uh, think again.

Back to the Oscars! So yesterday Sharan gave me a couple of the Oscar films (I told her to give me the less depressing ones!) and I watched Up In The Air. Good movie! But then I watched The Blind Side. Awesome movie! It's not 'Best Movie of the Year' kind of good but it's just a leave you with a fuzzy-happy-feeling kind of movie. It's one of those movies like Amazing Grace that I know I will go back to again and again to watch my favourite bits when I feel down and out with the world.

It's based on the true story of Michael Oher - an American Football player. Don't know anything about "Football" (:P) but after watching this film... interested! :P Okay, not really. I'll admit there were parts of the film where they showed the games and I was going, "what on earth!?! what kind of a strange sport is this??" But then I imagine a lot of people think that about Cricket. Or Hockey. It's all relative, really. But it is interesting, and I'd be really happy to let someone explain the game to me!

But yeah, haven't recommended a film on the blog in a while because I haven't watched a movie in ages so I'm recommending The Blind Side. And do you know what's ridiculous? I haven't watched a hindi movie in like four months or something. The last one I watched was Rocket Singh before Christmas. That's just... ridiculous. I mean, I live in Bollywood pretty much :P

Anyway, that's all for now! Tonight we have our farewell dinner at college which means dressing up (!!) and eating... and fun! So pictures to come soon! :)

Learn from the Na'vi!

The first movie I watched in 2010. Freaking a-w-e-s-o-m-e!!! I cannot put into words how much I loved it. It was beautiful and beautiful is such a pansy word to describe it! Words are just useless sometimes.

Watch this movie! And realize with me what morons human beings can be sometimes... We could really learn a thing or two from the Na'vi! :P

Bon Appetit!

Julie and Julia.

Finally! I first read about this movie in a magazine at the American Library in Bombay like months ago and I didn't even notice when it whizzed through the cinemas in Bombay but thank God for friends! (Shout out to Antu!) I just watched the movie on my laptop right now and wow, I LOVED it! Here are some reasons:

• Meryl Streep. She's not human, I'm telling you! Gosh, what an inspiring performance.

• It's about cooking...

• And blogging...(!!!) about cooking! :D

• It's about happily married couples. People don't run off and have affairs. Sure, they have fights but the only couples that don't fight are dead ones. The point is, you don't bail! Bailing is not an option! And I absolutely love it when you see that in movies!

• Oh yeah, I'm also totally a fan of Amy Adams! (Enchanted, anyone?)

So yeah, for those and many other reasons that I can't really get my brain to articulate at this insane hour, please watch this film! Totally awesome!

And now, I'm off to bed. Big day tomorrow, but more about that later! :D

Toodles!

"Listen to me, please..."

A couple of months ago, a fellow-blogger and friend-that-I've-never-even-met (shout out to Kari! :D) recommended this documentary called Home made by a man called Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film had recently been produced and was on offer for free viewing for a couple of days online. But I didn't watch it. Not because I'm a cynic who doesn't believe in the importance of protecting God's creation. Not because I think those people who preach about the big, scary 'G' phrase (Global Warming) are just a bunch of smart-asses who want to freak us out and are really taking it too far. But because I was in Bombay and my internet connection there is appalling so it would possibly have taken me two weeks to stream the 1hr 33min film. (Not to mention the hefty cost of using said appalling internet connection)

Thankfully though, my brother had a copy so I finally watched it this evening.


I really don't know what to say.Shall I talk about the beauty of this planet that we live in? Shall I talk about the horrible horrible things that we have done to it? Shall I talk about man's incredible selfishness that will lead him to any extent just so he can live in "comfort", no matter what consequence that may have? Shall I talk about our 'blindness' or 'stubbornness', call it what you will.

If I had to describe the film in one word, it would be - *Shudderific*

I know, that's not really a word, but it works quite well for me, thankyouverymuch :P


I don't know what it is. I mean, I don't think that people don't know about Climate Change or understand what Global Warming IS... but somehow, it seems like we've all been numbed into inaction. Why don't we believe that we have the power to make a difference? Why don't we believe that this is important? It's not just about saving those beautiful corals, or the fact that "species are dying out at a rhythm 1,000 times faster than the natural rate" or how hot our summers are getting. We are human beings, we invented the computer, the internet and so many more fantastic technologies. We can get around hotter summers - we'll just convince ourselves that ACs are necessities. Like a child we'll moan and groan till we get what we want at our convenience and at our timing.

But at what cost? There is so MUCH at stake, it's staggering! It's about world hunger. Poverty. Losing the Antartic. Drinking water. Agriculture. The spread of diseases. Drought. Flood. New diseases. War. Health. LIVES. Maybe not yours directly right now but can you, for a moment please, just put yourself in the shoes (not shoes, he probably doesn't have those) walk around in the skin of a farmer in rural India? He goes to sleep hungry along with his family - also hungry. He sows his seeds in anticipation of the monsoon that never comes. And when it comes, it does more harm than good. Another year gone by, no money, no food, no apparent light at the end of the tunnel...


This situation is OUR doing. WE are directly responsible for his plight. WE have shortened the monsoon. WE have created record-breakingly HOT summers. WE have created unusually early and cold winters. WE are systematically and consistently ruining our own planet. Our own habitat. It's like sitting on the very branch that you're sawing off.

That's dumb, isn't it? Surely, we're smarter than that?

I think so. We just need to wake up. Open our eyes. Stop shirking off responsibility.

Like the film says, "It's too late to be a pessimist".

There is still hope. It seems pretty dismal sometimes but it's there. I believe that.
"Our ecosystem doesn't have borders. Wherever we are, our actions have repercussions on the whole earth. The atmosphere of our planet is an invisible whole. It is an asset we share."
- HOME

p.s. The documentary is still available for FREE viewing here: Home - A Film By Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Mollycoddle.

Tina:

• Watched Away We Go last night. So honest. So funny. So brilliant. Sam Mendes does it again (remember Revolutionary Road?), ladies and gentlemen!
• Joined Twitter recently and hasn't yet figured out what the hype is all about.
  
• Installed Ubuntu on her laptop last night (I lie, I mean yesterday morning...) and is wondering why is there not more hype about the brilliance of it! It's simple, it's FREE, it's so much less fussy and buggy than Windows... Try it!
• Has been cycling for the last three days and re-realising how much she loves it! The wind in your face, the control... awesome!
  
• Does not know what she's going to do after college next year. Surprise surprise!
  
• Made flash cards to make studying more fun today. It works!
• Loves reading the dictionary! It's so enlightening. She learnt some new words such as mollycoddle and many other funny words which she really should have written down because she can't remember or find them now :/
• Is enjoying Bangalore weather but hating the dryness which is doing horrible things to her skin! Hello moisturizer!
  
• Has run out of things to say... :)
  

Singin' in the rain...

This song... Never fails to make me smile :D

6th of October

-- Today is my mom's birthday. And I forgot. I know, shame on me right?! Now, I'm not making excuses here but in trying to figure out how I did this I came up with the following reasons:

1. I'm actually generally really bad with remembering birthdays and also names. Names of anything - places, movies, songs, bands, people. Just don't ask me.
2. All the associations are wrong this year. Everything is wrong this year in terms of schedule. I went home in August for two weeks. K'scope should've been over. I'm supposed to be having exams now but I'm not... Etc, etc.
3. Facebook didn't remind me. Neither did my phone. Or any other technical double-edged sword for that matter. If you think about it, thanks to phones and the internet - if you use them a lot (and I do) - you don't actually have to remember anything for yourself nowadays. I remember before the world of cellphones, I knew all my friends' phonenumbers off by heart. Ask me today and I'll be frantically looking for my phone and searching through my contacts! Heck, ask me for my own number and I'll probably stumble and give you a missed call instead so it gets directly saved on your phone :P And the same goes for birthdays, I usually rely on Facebook to tell me when somebody's birthday is which doesn't work when that person doesn't have a Facebook presence. Like my mother.

-- Anyway, thankfully my dad reminded me and my mom forgave me ;)

-- While I was out forgetting my mom's birthday, Antu, Jo and I went to watch Wake Up Sid! which is the movie that got caught up in the "controversy" mentioned in my previous post. And I figured that maybe the reason they had to pick a fight on this film (because I'm pretty sure that MOST characters in most films based in Bombay still call it Bombay) is because it's a HAPPY movie and they don't really come off as a happy bunch of people. They're more into violence and havoc. Because I mean, they didn't make a big deal out of Kaminey and in that, they're actually portrayed negatively but then again, maybe they weren't intelligent enough to figure that out. Just my twopence.

-- The movie was great. I enjoyed it to the core. It's one of the those sit-back-and-relax stories told clean and simple. Fun fun! Some really good photography in the film and Ranbir carries around this awesome camera which had me going "I WANT!!" Konkona is gorgeous and brilliant as usual. Ranbir was impressive. And the other guy - so cute! :P Also, we spotted a couple (two) girls from our college acting as extras in the film!

-- Going home again in 8 days! :D

Atticus.

Love, Love, Love this film.

At the American Centre they screen movies on Fridays and Saturdays. Today I went to return a book (The Time Traveler's Wife - Excellent book btw!) and found out that they were screening To Kill A Mockingbird. I've read the book and watched the movie once before but it was a Saturday afternoon, had nothing to do and their auditorium is really nice so I thought what the heck!

And I'm glad too. Atticus Finch, I have decided is my favourite book/movie character ever. Have you ever seen such a level-headed, patient, persevering, wise, kind man?

Please watch this film if you haven't. Better yet, read the book by the same name by Harper Lee.

Dhan Te Naaan!

Ah-ha! Finally something quality from Bollywood and a director who lived up to expectations unlike Imtiaz Ali with Love Aaj Kal. Oh dear. Okay, so it wasn't THAT bad but I'm in the mood for exaggeration today so there :P

Ahem.

Getting back to Kaminey. It's actually been a while since I watched it but here's my lowdown.

Brilliant. Just like Maqbool. Just like Omkara. Vishal Bhardwaj shows us once again that he knows his stuff.

Lots of violence and some of the shots are a little overwhelming with the crazy lighting and camera movements but that's kind of the point. You know? And honestly, my being able to appreciate this film is purely thanks to my Mass Media class last year and getting to tag along to the Literature department's film screenings for the last couple of weeks... This is a film that demands your attention or you'll totally miss the point and the technical brilliance.

I like how this reviewer for BollywoodHungama.com puts it:

Sure, it's a well-made film, but there's no spoon feeding here. One has to be attentive, very attentive to grasp the goings-on and also the twists in the tale. It's not one of those lock-your-brains-at-home types, for sure. And that might not be too appealing a thought for those who swear by candyfloss or meaningless ha-ha-thons. -- Taran Adarsh, August 12th, 2009

Add to all that Shahid Kapoor's best performance ever and of course, the music (!!) and you have one Dhan Te Naaan film that you should not miss!

Movies Aaj Kal...

This is my new favourite photo. Marine Drive a.k.a. "The Queen's Necklace" as viewed from a horse carriage! Thursday night, we went to watch perform at the NCPA and then went for dinner at a Chinese restaurant. None of the taxis would take us because the distance was too short so we finally managed to convince this man to take us on his horse carriage! So sweet and it was so exciting! And gosh, Marine Drive is gorgeous by night!

L: Jo, all dressed up and ready to dance.
R: Meg, Sonu and Vini waiting in the audience for the program at the NCPA to start.

Yesterday Orvi, Meg and I went to watch Love Aaj Kal with some of my college buddies. After Jab We Met which was Imtiaz Ali’s last film, expectations were high but it was quite disappointing. We went with the “fun-mindset” but even that sort of began fizzling out for me by the interval. Deepika Padukone cannot act and neither can the Brazilian girl who plays the Punjabi-kuddi. You can’t really blame her though, she’s not supposed to be an actress and she looked so out of place in the film! Anyway, we ate lots of popcorn and the songs were enjoyable…

It was also fun watching the trailers of some of the other Bolly films in pipeline. Most of them look like utter rubbish – as usual. Sigh.

Some of the places we ate at while Meg was here...

The teacher’s strike is still going on. Still no idea when it will end and nobody’s even talking about it now. The news is full of H1N1 statistics, advice, etc, etc… Gosh, I hope that blows over soon.

Last night, after dropping Meg off at VT for her train back to Hyderabad, Orvi and I headed to Churchgate to catch a local train back home. We got second class tickets cause it was late on a Saturday night so the trains weren’t overtly crowded albeit STILL pretty crowded. It was actually so much better traveling in the general compartment rather than in the women’s compartment. We got on at the first station so we got seats and generally four people squeeze onto a three-seater but the advantages of being a girl on the general compartment is that the men are very careful to give you space so even though the train was pretty crowded nobody squeezed in next to us! Also the general compartment is so quiet compared to the ladies’! The ladies don’t just talk a lot, they talk LOUDLY and constantly. Bombay is pretty awesome that way; the number of creepy men is significantly less than in other cities (this was Meg’s observation too!). I love how I can feel pretty safe out on the streets whether its 5am or 11pm here. There are always people on the streets and everyone is too busy doing their own thing to bother you.

L: Orvi and Meg munching on McDonald's fries at VT station before Meg caught her train to Hyderabad.
R: Meg on a local train.

Meg loved Bombay and I’m getting pretty good at this “tourist-guide” thing so who’s coming to visit me next?! :D

Two of the must-see places in Bombay: The Taj Hotel and The Gateway of India.

"Whoever saves one life..."

I'm still mulling over it and my eyes are stinging from all the crying although my nose is not blocked anymore. Yes, this is possibly the best films I have ever watched and apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Made in 1993, this film by Steven Spielberg is the Winner of 7 Academy Awards, nominated for many more, and is apparently rated number 8 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 best American films ever made. That's gotta say something, don't you think? It's right up there with other brilliant films like The Godfather, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, etc... Films like Slumdog Millionaire (as much as I enjoyed it...) is a total loser in front of this film. I don't know why it took me so long to getting around to watching it. I guess you don't realize how good it is until you actually watch the film...

p.s. I also watched Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (2009) at the theatre today but it's really barely worth a mention. The only good it did for me was make me want to read the book again.
And I watched Singin' in the Rain (1952) on Thursday which I positively LOVED!! :)

Mumbai Monsoon Movies!

Last night I fell asleep while praying for rain. Well, I got my wish. It rained alright. Actually rain is an understatement. It freakin' POURED. I woke up to the sound of it and apparently it had been going non-stop while I was asleep... And I was in a HAPPY mood! So I even left a little early so I could walk a while in the rain before my friend Antu, picked me up in an auto and we went to the station. Things were pretty normal. Umbrellas all around. We skipped over the usual overflowing water right in front of the station and became a part of the hundreds of anonymous faces. Our train was jam-packed as usual - full of wet and some grumpy people. My back was beginning to protest due to standing in weird positions with my bag-full of books. And I couldn't really talk to Antu cause of the wall of people between us.

Then we reached Bandra. Still raining. No big deal and then I started overhearing conversations about the rain and how "Grant Rd. is totally submerged". Ah, big deal. Stupid rumours. Paranoid people. And then Antu's phone rings. One of our classmates reached Grant Rd. and was about turning back to Andheri. "Grant Rd. is totally submerged. Knee-deep water. I'm going back home!" Oh she hates the rain; gets really scared when it rains a little.Me and Gauri monsoon-posing in college last Saturday

We should've listened :P Especially when these girls who were on our train from the BMM dept. in our college got off at Dadar in response to a phone call which apparently told them "Classes Canceled!" At this point, alarms should've been going off in our head. Go back home!!

Lol. Anyway, we reached Mumbai Central, just one stop before our stop (Grant Rd.) and saw for ourselves. The tracks were indeed pretty much submerged in water and the trains from Churchgate were running wayyyy behind schedule. So we got off, went to the next platform and waited for a little while. Told the others in the gang not to bother heading to college. Stay home!! And then took a train back.

It was all very exciting for me actually. There's something very comically adventurous about living in Mumbai. Especially during the monsoons. It's comical because after sooooo many years of this manic rain and high-tide combination, after so many floods, so many people dying and buildings collapsing and trains stopping... etc, etc. Mumbai - govt. and municipality - STILL seem to be completely taken unawares when it comes. It's so... FUNNY! :D

Anyway, so that makes it two college-less days this week. (Monday was a holiday for other reasons). I came home and sat around with Antu for a while (we had to wait out the rain and traffic a little before she could catch an auto home) and then after lunch, I watched a movie! A fantastic movie that you need to watch - The Boy in Striped Pajamas. Miss Smith, my maths teacher from school, had told me about the book by the same name (by John Boyne) upon which this movie is based when I met her up in Ooty this summer. Still haven't found the book but the movie was just fantastic. Seriously, you need to watch it.

Movies I've watched recently: The Boy in Striped Pajamas, The Secret Life of Bees and New York

All in a day of third year!

Look who we found on the train ride to college at 7:20 in the morning almost dozing off while reading The Return of The Native? Sonu lives further from town than we do now so she has joined the masses on the local trains... I think this might be one of the first times we got to sit down on the train in the morning after travelling second class for the first couple of days before we got our first class passes down. We're "happy" commuters now. Second class is treacherous!

Sharan, darling that she is, got me some C.S. Lewis book from the British Council Library! More books for my Book List 2009!Classes started on Wednesday and it's kind of weird not having anything else but Sociology all day long! For the first time I don't have to write the name of the subject in my timetable only numbers to denote which part of Sociology I have at different times... Crazy! Sitting in the classroom after a fun lesson with a fun teacher! I had to make some posters to advertise Photography Team interviews for K'SCOPE (our college festival). I'm on the interviewer side this year and not the interviewee :DStrange as it may sound, our timetable is actually more relaxed than last year! On most days we only start at 8:50am instead of 8:00am and there are breaks in between classes too... YAY!

After college yesterday we decided to grab some lunch and watch a movie at Colaba. Lunch was at Leopold Cafe which is a really old and famous eating place in Colaba (Shantaram anyone?) It's like a melting pot of cultures actually, there are usually a lot of foreigners around and they have all kinds of food for reasonable prices (although they've increased the prices of everything a little now...)

Madhuri, Shruti and Sonu

Looks picture perfect doesn't it? Vini's order...

Outside the theatre after the movie. L-R: Vini, Sonu, Madhuri, Monisha and Shruti

The movie - Bride Wars - was okay. You know how chick flicks go... :D

In a nutshell.

*On my playlist:
Come Back To Me - David Cook ♥
Touch My Hand - David Archuleta ♥

*On my mind:
Cinnamon Rolls!

*On my desktop:

My granny, me, my brother and cousins in Kolkata, 1988!

*On my feet:
Salsa! (and a little Bachata!)

*On my tabs:
Hotmail, Facebook, Forming and Baking Cinnamon Rolls: All Recipes Tutorial!

*On my bedside table:
Embroidery threads and cross-stitch patterns

*On my currently-reading list:
Rumours of Another World by Phillip Yancey
The Breakdown Lane by Jacqueline Mitchard

*On my movie-list:
Well, I decided it's time I watched some of those "guy-movies"...
So far:
Full Metal Jacket: Can't say I loved it, but it is a good movie and led me to Google the Vietnam War. Gotta love a movie that leads me to expand my knowledge :P
Batman Begins: I declare Batman to be my favourite fictional super-hero! :D Loved it. But The Dark Knight wins thanks to Heath Ledger.
Ocean's Eleven: Loved it. Have to find the other... two(!?) {p.s. this is not really a guy-movie actually} Other movies:
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: Umm.. ok.

Movie Tag: The best kind.

I was tagged by Sharan.

1) Choose 12 films that you would want to run at a famous theatre where you live.
2) Explain why you chose them. However you want to.
3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre's post.
4) Tag 5 other people: Shaon, Vini, Ryan, Meg, Abi (and whoever else wants to do it! consider yourself tagged!)

Wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee/Lest-we-become-complacent: (also: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland...)

A-good-ending-is-not-always-"happy": (also, A Walk To Remember, The Notebook, Changeling...)
Make-believe-is-good-for-you: (also, of course, the Lord of the Rings series...)
A-good-teacher-can-change-your-life: (also: The Ron Clark Story, Monalisa Smile, Take the Lead...)

They-just-don't-make-them-like-they-used-to-anymore:

(also: Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, Ben Hur...)

Just-because-penguins-are-adorable-and-amazing-creatures:

Movie Montage!

Technically, they're not all movies but here's what i've been watching...

-- Marley and Me: After all that waiting, it was actually quite a disappointment! This movie came out in India around exam time and plus it was supposed to be a sad-ish movie, I couldn't convince anyone to go with me... So I finally got it from my brother on Saturday and I guess I was expecting a lot better. You know what they say, "Never judge a book by it's... movie!" Read the book, seriously! Even if you're not a big fan of dogs, John Grogan tells the story really fantabulously.

-- Fawlty Towers (Series 1): This is one of those British sitcoms that we actually used to watch religiously in the few hours of television transmission we used to get in Zambia. It's a laughter riot! I also learned that the series was created by the man who plays Mr. Fawlty (John Cleese) and the Polly (played by Connie Booth) and they were actually married to each other at the time! The series revolve around Mr. and Mrs. Fawlty who run a hotel in a little town 4hrs away from London where things always seem to go embarrassingly wrong thanks mainly to Mr. Fawlty's hyperactive nature and Manuel - the waiter from Barcelona - who doesn't understand much english! "I know naaathing!"

-- The Invisible: Obviously not a very well known movie with big actors or anything. But I actually liked it. It was quite interesting. The story is about some trouble teenagers mainly and how one of them gets killed and then gets stuck in a weird realm - not quite dead, but not alive either... I know you're thinking, hmm, ghost movie. But technically, he's not a ghost! Lol. Watch it if you're bored.

-- Burn After Reading: Don't watch it even if you're bored! I think the scriptwriter of this movie ran out of words and just put in the f-word wherever possible and he thought it would be funny. I didn't think it was funny at all. I thought it was pretty pointless. But you know, opinions may vary.

-- A Wednesday: "GO WATCH IT NOW!!" I believe those are the exact words that Sonu used. Well I did go watch it. It was good, although I had some technical problems with it. The movie is about terrorism and how it can send the common man to the edge... I really wish they had casted someone better for the reporter! Naseerudhin Shah - amazing as usual! And Jimmy Shergill - wow! He's really matured from his Mohabbatein days. I thought he did a really good job.

-- Welcome to Sajjanpur: I loved this movie! Finally a Bollywood comedy that actually has some meaning and even something to teach you. Mahadev is the resident "scribe", in Sajjanpur who reads and writes personal and official letters for the illiterate in the village. Mahadev eventually develops a crush on Kamla, who is his childhood friend. The problem: she's married! The story goes on to show how he tries to get around this fact by tweaking the letters she writes and receives from her husband who went off to Mumbai soon after they got married to try and make a living... Parallelly the movie also takes a satirical poke at some of the issues of the Indian village...

In other news, I started Salsa classes on Saturday and even though I've technically only had two real hours of classes, I have salsa music perpetually on my playlist and I wish I had classes everyday!

Changeling.

I haven't been doing much. Haven't even been watching movies. Gasp! You see TV has SO MANY channels nowadays, I get too lazy to plug in the DVD player and watch some good ol' DVDs. Seriously, TV is a shock even to me - member of generation-X or whatever they call us youth of today. I grew up on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation. One measly channel that back in the day only BEGAN broadcasting at 5pm or something and closed down somewhere around midnight and that was more than enough. And now? French movies, Spanish movies, German movies, Korean movies, Hindi movies, English movies, SitComs, Drama, five million news channels... pick your poison!
And then there's the internet, my true love, so you can see how I've been too busy to get ahead on my Oscar Movie Mania! :P
Anyway, today while watching E! News (no I don't really care if Ashton Kutcher just got a million -or was it a billion?- fans on Twitter but they had a little segment right at the end about the movie, My Sister's Keeper which I'm really looking forward to...) they showed a review on some other movie on a similar theme to Changeling so I thought, "Hey, I still need to watch that movie!"
So I finally did. And I am so glad I did.
Changeling. It will enrage you. It will make you cry. It will make you ask yourself questions. It will empower you. And it will inspire you. And it's based on a true story which amplifies all the above mentioned emotions. Watch this film!
(And as an aside: Angelina Jolie is skin and bones in this movie but she is still beautiful and oh my, what a performance!)