Love Phobia

(Father & son riding along and both are singing the song , "singing in the field of reeds , you sad litte cuckoo bird , my pure , strawberry love"

Son : Father , What's Pure Love

Father : It's love that is pure

Son : What does that mean

Father : Well , ummm , It is when you love one person for rest of your life.

Son: Then , Why is that like Strawberries

Father (now confused , angry) : Just sing the damn song

This South Korean movie was highly recommended by a friend and now I cannot help but admire his taste of movies. I woke up around 9 AM and by 9.10 AM  I was watching this movie. The rule I follow while watching foreign language movies (including english) is  :

             If sober , I download the subtiltles and then watch it.

             If not , watch the movie without any subtitles. (It is not that I can understand the movie ,
             it's just that I cannot read the subtitles , then why waste time downloading subtitles)

The movie starts with a  girl in red shoes , with red school bag and yellow rain suit going to school. Suddenly you ask yourself , it is not raining then why the girl is wearing the rain suit. In the way , the boy who was
previously singing the 'my pure , strawberry love' song sitting in the bicycle sees her and though subtiltles
were silent on this , it was a start of great love story.

In her first day at school ,the girl, Ari, claims she has a curse and that bad things will happen to anyone who touches her. Hence she was wearing the rain suit to prevent the curse from spreading. The boy , Jo-Kang,
became firnd with her. One day when her pet lizard disappers in the mud water , boy keep seraching for
it in that mud. After that, they sat in cold under her yellow rain suit and next day JO-kang had measles.
Ari mysteriously disappears the next day.

Ten years later she reappears just as mysteriously in Jo-Kang's life. They start from where they had left and
a teenage love story begins. When jo-kang asked her what she wants to do in the next ten years. She says she will be married to a banker. When he asks , 'Why a banker' , she answers 'so that they can rob a bank to buy a russian spaceship to get away from this planet as she doesn't belong here.When once she tells that she would love to eat Shshi , Jo-kang hitch-hikes to city at night and by morning he brings her a sumptuous sushi. They kiss for first time and next day Jo-Kang gets flu. Ari blames herself for the same and again disapppers from his life.


Eight more years pass, and Jo-Kang is still haunted by her memory. Ari walks right back into his life in
the bank where he works. She still speaks of aliens, spaceships, and curses, just as she did before. Then
she reveals that next day she is going to USA. It devastates Jo-Kang. But next day, he accompanies her
to the airport .

Jo-Kang will soon learn that the truth is far more tragic than he might imagine. The movie moves ahead to show that Ari has AIDS which she got in childhood during blood tranfusion after a tragic accident which
killed her parents. At last Jo-kang traces Ari back to a hospital . In the desperate effort , he went and
starts designing a crop circle in field so that aliens can come and heal Ari.


Upto that point there was no doubt in my mind that this is not sci-fi movie. But in the ten minutes , when
Ari sits in a bench among the crop circle , and Jo-Kang keeps cycling around her singing out the large names
they made up in childhood and a bright light comes from no where and Ari says to Jo-Kang not to turn back
as she is going bak from where she came , it left me confused.

Anyway movie was very cute and funny and have the emotional power that makes you cry without dashing your hopes for a happy ending. It's executed extremely well with quirky bits throughout. If you like this kind of movie this is a must watch ( with or without subtiles , if you also follow my rules)

Yeh Saali Zindegi

Yesterday evening , half an hour into the movie (Yeh Saali Zindegi), one of my friend told me that  I am definitely going to write a blog on this movie. I tried hard to prove him wrong.

But anyhow I am here writing this.

To start with , this is a hindi movie which I enjoyed to watch full length ,after longtime. This is a not
movie to watch with your girlfriend (of course , if she is not a admirer of swearing words on love ,
women & sex) . This is a movie to watch with your friends.

I am not going to be a killjoy by revealing the plot. I will just limit myself to the characters and some
of the dialogues which i think i remember

Arun ( Irrafan Khan ) : I was thinking who could have donned the role of Arun better than Irrfan Khan.
I thought about top actors in present bollywood ,  five khans , one kapoor , one kumar , one roshan even
thought about bachhan (junior one) . None of them could have come close. (nothing personal here )
May be ajay devgan could have done justice to the role. But Irrfan Khan was perfect.

The most important aspect of acting is when your audience forgets that you are acting. (Did somebody
has already said this. If no , please copyright the saying on my name.). Irrfan Khan could acheive that in
the role of Arun , the person with a good heart working for a bad guy , falling for wrong girl who in the
end become the right one.

When his lady love Priti (Chitrangad Singh) says she didn't know that he is in love with her and he says
' So what did you think , I was jogging around you all this time'. This is the dialogue any guy in love will
tell when informed by the girl he loves that she didn't know it .

(A fundamental lesson into way of thinking. Most of the guys think that girls have sixth sense of knowing
who is in love with them. And most of the girls expect guys to profess their love like teary-eyed characters
that SRK used to do in 90's. And both are wrong in their way of thinking . And result being ,in real life
most of the guys do not get the girls they love and most of the girls do not get the guys they deserve)

Or the way he says to her , 'What do you know by doing nothing what you have done to me' . ( I don't remember the exact words)

Or says to his boss mehta ( Saurabh Shulka) , ' I will send the invitation card for marriage , please don't
come.

Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh) : First time I watched this guy. But one of my friend was telling Arunoday singh was there in movie Aisha. His character is also like arun , a man honest in love but not in honest job. He was lucky to have a lot of kiss scenes and he performed well , so it seems

Priti (Chitrangada Singh ) : The girl with the guitar and singing 'ye saali zindegi' . After watching her first
time in Hazarhon Khawishen Aishi , my heart soared like a kite and get cut when I learnt that she is married.
Nevertheless she was good in the role. However I expected her to be great. But may be , the role was not enough to give her the opportunity for that.

Shanti ( Aditi Rao Hydiri ) : After coming to my room from movie hall and heavy dinner , first thing
I did to download wallpaper of her and put it in my desktop background. And this blog in a sense
is a  declaration to let my friends know that I am thinking to include her in my list. So guys back off.

All night long till I slept ( I don't remember whether I saw her in dreams or not) I was thinking where
I have seen her before.  She looked so familiar that I was thinking to have seen her in real life.  But
unfortunately in the morning paper movie review it says that she was there in 'Delhi 6' . Yeah , then
I remember and my hope sanked down. But not bad Ms (is she a Ms or Mrs , I have to check. I
don't want another chitrangada episode) Aditi , from a homely girl in Delhi 6 to potraying sexy kissing
scenes in this movie , not bad. Who's complaining.

But in one scene , when kuldeep (her husband) confronts her in the house of a stranger. And she clarifies
that she had come to sell pickles only . But the way she wore that saree did not indicate that she had gone
to sell pickles. And where are those pickles which she had to sell.

May be I did miss the conversation or a scene. Or as the next scene was a steamy one , director may
have told her to wear the same saree and shoot the scenes in one go.

Apart from the above characters , Shushant Singh in a role of inspector , Saurabh Shukla in role of
Mehta (boss of arun) , Yashpal Sharama (boss of Kuldeep)  were good in their characters.

A lot of twist and turns in the movie : turns of events , twist in characters , even the director managed to
end the movie in a funny note with twisting trajectory of bullets.

Over and all a good movie to watch , music to listen . Though it had a typical bollywood movie ending
with good getting all the goodies ,  Kudos to director Sudhir Mishra for not trying hard to highlight it.
He just showed what life is it is , like the song in the movie goes 'zindagi pe tera mera, kis ka na zor hai
hum sochte hai kuch ,yeh sochti kuch aur hai Yeh zindagi, yeh saali zindagi'

Groundhog Day

What will you do , if you are trapped in single day of your life. Your every tomorrow is like today , on
and on . Every moment , each event occurs again & again.

Initially you will try to use the opportunity to your advantage . But eventually you will get bored with the
trapped life without meaning . Then you will try to end your life but cannot able to do it. And may be
then you will realise to do something good , show generosity to starngers , to let the feeling of love
catch hold of you.

This is a story of the movie Groundhog day starring Bill Murray, Andie Macdowell.

The character Phil Connors (Bill Murray)  gets trapped in same day occuring again & again , in a small
town. His memories of the "previous" day intact , he starts to manipulate life of others . Even he tries to
seduce  Rita (Andie Macdowell) , prodcuer of the tv show . However he fails miserably getting slapped everytime in the process.
Eventually he succeeds in explaining his unique situation to Rita. And on her advice , he starts to take a
positive look at life , learning new things like playing piano , helping strangers in the way. At the end Rita
falls in love with Phil and the next morning when Phil wakes up it is not same day anymore. He exclaims
'today is tomorrow'

Released back in 1993 , this is one of the cleverest movie I have seen . Showing the same day again and again , but keeping the audiences' attention is a difficult task. But the director Harlod Ramis was able to achieve the same by successfully throwing up new developments and delightful twists at every opportunity


It is a beautiful imaginative movie , worth watching anytime

American Beauty

When this movie (American Beauty) was released, I was in 11th class shuffling my time between playing cricket & chit-chatting with  friend and occassionally attending classes. 

In those times, in my native place (bhadrak) , watching a hollywood movie is something of pride and increased your status in friend circle ,  as that meant you can understand people speaking english &
had the freedom from home to watch a english movie.

One lucky friend of mine who has watched the movie , during his visit to his uncle's place in Mumbai, told the storyline of movie (though now it seems he exaggerated a lot ) and vividly described Mena Suvari lying in rose petals.

Now after so many years , when i watched this movie , this is my take

WOW

And this is not only after watching mena suvari in rose petals .
This is about how beautifully the movie was made justifying the
punchline  'your life is nothing but intersection of other
  lives and events'

The movie starts with the protagonist of the movie , lester
burnham  (Kevin spacey, seven & usual suspects fame)
jerking off in the shower and voice over ' This will be the
high point of my day; it's all downhill from here'. In the
end scene , he lies dead on his drawing room table with his
eyes open and ricky , the boy who lives next door and lover
of lester's daughter , looks into his open eyes and says wow

And in between , what happenss is everything what happens in
life. Occassional surprises when ordinary perople leave their
orbit.A middle aged man bored with life trying to find
happiness , a wife who wants to be sccessful to hide from
her insecurities ,a teenage daughter frustated in her life
finding love next door,a teenage girl (mena suvari) at last
stubmling upon her loneliness,a retired colonel facing his
fear for first time & ending up killing the protagonist,
the boy next door who seemed to find beauty everywhere ,
the boy's mother who is lost in the maze called life

That's it

Some memorable quotes from movie :

1) Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari) : I don't think that there's anything worse than being ordinary

2)Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)(LAST SCENE

... it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst ...

And then I remember ... to relax, and not try to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. Don't worry ... you will someday.

3) Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) : It's okay. I wouldn't remember me either. (After his wife introduced him to one of her competitors in real estate bsiness)

4)Lester Burnham : It's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself.

5)Lester Burnham : Remember those posters that said, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life'? Well, that's true of every day but one — the day you die.