Movie Review: Love, Sex Aur Dhoka: Straight out of (anybody's) Life...

Take life's unexpected twists and turns for the three interlinked stories, have a supermarket CC TV camera, a shaky handheld film camera and a hidden camera as the 'eyes', excellent first time actors for the realism and a daring director in Dibakar Banerjee. All together make up for a shockingly real slice of life, you would well mistake it for the amateur home videos that one sees online so often.

How Love Sex Aur Dhoka will probably influence filmmakers is another matter; for the audience it is a  ride they will never forget. Now how many films can do that to you? Sorry, no story hints - any such revelations is sure to spoil your experience. Don't miss this one on the big screen!

DVD Picks: Pulp Fiction

Irreverent, bloody, dark in its humour and non-linear in its story-telling, Pulp Fiction (1994) is a account of two days in the life of two hit men, a mysterious suitcase, their boss, an ageing boxer, two robbers, a big bad boss and his drug snorting wife. It all makes for a celebration with constant banter, parties, swearing, snorting drugs, getting killed, been threatened, disposing bodies - are all part of a day's work.

For those looking to get inspired and taking that creative plunge off the cliff, here is your dose of inspiration. Unmissable for cinema buffs.

Movie Review:Karthik Calling Karthik: Thriller let down by repeated premise

Karthik Calling Karthik works as a witty one-liner romantic comedy within its psychological thriller body in the first half. It just lets the cat a little too soon out of the bag as things turn eerie in the post-intermission part. 

The mental disorder that is the base of the movie, is both the film's strength and its give-away. Even if you manage to figure out the puzzle yourself before the film's characters, there is enough strength in the film's story, visuals, performances and music to make up for an entertaining (if not nail-biting) evening.

I probably expected a classic, but Karthik Calling Karthik does hold its ground as a decent thriller. Worth the ticket.

Credits

Vijay Lalwani is certainly a director to watch out for and Farhan Akhtar plays his most difficult role (yet) of his acting career competently. Deepika is adequate. Composers Shankar-Ehsan-Loy have a couple of winners- Hey ya and Uff teri ada that gel with the scenes, so does Kaise yeh udasi - Kailash Kher's vocals elevate the song.

Another Sunday Mumbai Trip: Passing Marine Drive

Movie Review: INVICTUS: Nelson Mandela and the courage to forgive

Clint Eastwood's latest directorial venture is an entertaining portrait of Nelson Mandela's initial days as President of South Africa - and what a time it was! Leading a nation - "balancing black aspirations with white fears" and confronted with rising crime, Mandela plays a gamble by backing the National Rugby team - still considered in 1994 especially by many blacks, to be a symbol of apartheid. The team is not doing great either, plunging to defeat after defeat. With the Rugby World Cup (South Africa been the host nation) barely a year away, Mandela calls upon the team captain and asks him, without actually saying it, of a service - to win the 1995 World Cup. His hope, it seems, is that the entire nation will be united and inspired if this occurs. 

Invictus - after a poem that inspired Mandela during his 27-year long ordeal in prison, may seem to be another underdog story, but it is more about the courage to change and forgive, about taking that big risk to bring together a nation. It is about Nelson Mandela, played so lovably by Morgan Freeman, while Matt Damon is competent as the Rugby team captain.

Watch it to know more about Nelson Mandela, and how he and a rugby team inspired a nation. A good watch - to think that it all really happened...

Other threads

Mandela's 'mixed' security personnel, his separated family, Damon's sceptical father and a little exaggerated part about the little poor boy.

Here is the poem INVICTUS written in 1875 by William Ernest Henley

Invictus 

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

#