Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Year: 2010

Genre: Fantasy and Action

Direction: Mike Newell

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, and Alfred Molina

Rating: Good

The movie opens with some nice golden shots showing the deserts of Arabia and some narration. Well, the shots really made me interested in watching the movie. As I said the shots are basically in a golden yellow tint and are absolutely lovely.

The movie is the story of an adopted Persian Prince (Jake), his invasion of the city of Alamut along with his foster brothers from the royal blood, the discovery of a divine dagger, some other revelations as time passes by.

The princes are made to attack the city by their uncle (Ben Kingsley), who misleads them to believe that the city served for the making of weapons and selling it off to Persia's enemies. They attack and win over the city. The Prince gets a dagger, which is a sacred dagger, which when used properly has the ability to reverse time. This dagger is what leads the story. It further shows the adventures and journeys in the life of the Prince, along with the Princess of Alamut and how he finally saves it from falling into the wrong hands.

The movie is wonderfully shot and keeps you interested throughout. Shot in Morocco, the movie is definitely worth watching.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Year: 2005

Genre: Drama

Direction: Rob Marshall

Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, and Michelle Yeoh

Rating: Good

This is a serious, yet touching and memorable movie. Now, how I came about to watch this movie -My colleague gave me the book to read. It was not with any great interest that I started reading the book. And even after I started reading, there was nothing too exciting that kept me reading, yet there was some curiosity that made me continue. I would not say that the book is a great literary piece of work. It seems written in simple language without any great elements involved. But yes, the story is a peculiar one.

Chiyo, belongs to a very poor fisherman family, where her mother is on her death bed. She has an elder sister too. The girls are sold to a wealthy man, who inturn sells them again. Chiyo is sold to a Geisha house. For the first few years of her life, she cries, tries to run away, is harassed by another Geisha, and suffers a lot of pain. But eventually we see, how she keeps her will-power and goes on to become one of the most popular Geisha in Gion.

The journey is amazing. In the book, the journey doesn't seem that interesting as there are many incidents happening in between. But the movie has the flow and the visualization is wonderful.

The movie has quite a lot of breathtakingly wonderful shots. The shots are such that you seem to notice nothing but the beauty in it. Be it the shot where little Chiyo runs through the Orange gateways to put the coins which the Chairman gave, or the cherry blossom, or even the flowing water with the bleeding colours of the clothes.

The book was written by Arthur Golden, published in 1997, and is fictional. The movie was based on the book and directed by Rob Marshall in 2005.

Finding Nemo

Year: 2010

Genre: Comedy and Animation

Direction:

Andrew Stanton

Voice: Albert Brooks (Marlin), Ellen DeGeneres (Dory), and Alexander Gould (Nemo)

Rating: Excellent

Phew, I wonder how I could miss it all these years! Such a lovely movie. I loved it from shot 1 to the very last shot. An extremely awesome and thrilling movie. What if it didn't have any humans to take the movie forward. Nemo, Dory, and Marlin were superb. It would be mean if I miss out any of the characters. All were cute and lovely.

Finding Nemo (2003) is the story of a single parent-a clown fish, Marlin, who raises his only son with extreme care and love, only to be taken away by an underwater diver-dentist to Sydney right in front of Marlin. This is how the movie begins. The rest of the movie shows how Marlin, who as Nemo says, is afraid to come out in the ocean from the coral reefs, swims across the ocean, miles and miles, to Sydney, to rescue his son. The journey is interesting as Dory joins (Psss, Dory is a sweetie with ahem, ahem, short-term memory loss - pretty interesting?). I loved the moments when Dory keeps referring to Nemo by names like Bingo, Fabio, and the like. I am highly excited as I write each word about the movie.

The animation is excellent. The fine details, vibrant colours, and the ease with which the characters move as in real life, is amazing. The voice overs also are commendable. I loved the attention given to each sound in the movie. To point out, each time Nemo kept fluttering his 'lucky fin', I could hear the fluttering. I mean, isn't that amazing? Well yes, I am a lot excited having watched this movie.

The movie went on to receive the Academy Award for the Best Animated Feature.

I loved the theme of the movie. To me, it was such a striking plot. It is easy for us to imagine and feel empathy towards a human losing his child and going all over the places, knocking doors in search of the kid. But what about a fish? Just imagine, swimming miles and miles underwater, to find his lost kid. I think it is a brilliant plot and was really touching as well. I really loved the way how emotions were portrayed by each of the characters.

And finally, I chose the poster for this post, so that it had almost all the characters in the movie. But I could not find Nemo in it. Can you find?

Tangled

Year: 2010

Genre: Animation

Direction: Nathan Greno and Byron Howard

Voice: Mandy Moore, Donna Murphy, and Zachary Levi

Rating: Excellent

Have you watched Tangled? No, please go and watch it. A complete entertainer. Based on the fairy tale of Rapunzel, the movie is put in a rather entertaining and comical way. It is an animated movie and kids would love it completely. Not only kids, even adults would, if you have a liking for fairy tales or animated movies. I am a complete lover of fairy tales and thus went for the movie. I was very excited right from the start till the end.

The movie is directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard. I am not sure of the actual cast or anyone who worked behind the screens for making the movie a great one. Rapunzel as well as Flynn Ryder were interesting. But what interested me the most were the characters, Pascal, the pet chameleon and Maximus, the royal horse. Pascal was really adorable and sweet. Maximus stole the limelight with his mannerisms and wit.

The movie is a musical and a total entertainer. You wouldn't even realize when the movie gets over. I just wanted to see it over and over again. It was a lovely watch. I loved how the lanterns were raised into the sky, how Rapunzel managed her hair and performed stunts with it.

Go watch it! :-)

Networking Socially

Social Networking is probably a buzz word now. I was not very fond on the online Social Networking sites just because of the pain of updating and keeping track of it. But around 5 years ago, when Orkut was the platform and all my friends asked me if I had an Orkut account, I finally decided I must have one. And one fine day, I created an account for me in Orkut. For the intial few months, activities in it were normal - logging in occassionally, finding friends, uploading photos, and scrapping. But slowly with time, the frequency and activities lessened. I used to log in only when I used to receive friend requests or some scraps I had to reply to.

Meanwhile Facebook gained a LOT of popularity. Now Orkut was not to be heard only. All of them were on FB. Even I had an account, but one which was never accessed. Apart for my name, there was nothing on my FB profile. It had been so for years now. Finally, it has come to a situation that people look down on you when you say that you don't access FB. They treat me like some person who do not know about Social Networking at all. I really didn't care about it. But now, even I have an updated profile on FB. Reason - Well I just thought, why should I be the only one left out. But let me see how long I am going to keep track of my networking on FB.

Anwar

Over the weekend, we watched the Malayalam movie Anwar. Directed by Amal Neerad, the movie is a good-watch, inclusive of beautiful shots, action, and a considerably good story. The cast includes Prakash Raj, Prithviraj, Lal, and Mamtha in the lead roles.

The story revolves around terrorism - the kind people behind it and the victims. The movie opens with the shot of a bomb blast in a textile shop in Coimbatore. Following we see the investigation, arrests, and the scenes in the jail. The story proceeds to show how Prakash Raj, an ATS officer, investigates the case; Lal, a person behind the blast and several similar ones; and Prithviraj, a victim of the Coimbatore blast, do things to achieve what they believe is right.

Through the first half we see Prithviraj joining the terrorist gang, planning attacks, training new people, and making bombs. From the second half, the movie takes a twist and it is now when it is revealed that he is actually a victim and wants to take revenge. From there the movie takes a fast pace.

The best part about the movie were some of the beautiful shots like the one in which the Coimbatore blast is shown, leaves rustle against the bus when it takes a turn and the like. The songs are good and are in harmony with the mood and movie. I like the colour tones used to represent the moods and the kind of lighting used. Everything seemed real about the movie including the sets and the characterizations.

Though I liked almost everything about the movie, the moment you leave the theatre, the movie is forgotten. The movie was not successful in creating a lingering effect on the audience.

A good movie, well-shot and presented.

Saagar

Have you watched this movie? It is a movie of the 80s. I saw it probably when I was very small. But the songs and the Kamal Hassan's character immediately attracted me to the movie. Since then I have been a big fan of the songs of the movie, especially Saagar Jaise Aankhon...

Today, probably after a lot of years, I am watching it again, as it is coming on television. Even after 25 years the movie and songs seem fresh. Except for Dimple Kapadia, who looks a bit old for her role in the movie, I love everything else about Saagar.

And if you haven't watched this movie by any chance, it is a triangular love story, where Rishi Kapoor and Dimple are in love with each other and Kamal in love in Dimple without her knowledge. Rishi and Dimple have nothing in common apart for their love for each other. Both come from different classes of the society and family backgrounds. The second half of the movie deals with these problems.

Whether you like the movie or not, you will definitely love the songs.