Advance Booking

KAMINEY
Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra
Directed by: Vishal Bharadwaj

Guddu and Charlie (Shahid Kapoor) are identical twins with a speech defect, but different in everything else. Guddu, who stutters, works for an NGO and plans to marry his pregnant girlfriend Sweety( Priyanka Chopra). Charlie, who lisps, fixes races for a band of Bengali brothers. Avenging his double-crossing at the hands of a jockey, Charlie stumbles upon a guitar case filled with Rs. 10 crore worth of cocaine, and tries to cheat the dealer out of it. Guddu learns that his girlfriend's brother is a gangster who puts a price on his head. Trying to run from the mafia and police on their tails, the brothers' lives collide. Guddu and Charlie, who hated the sight of each other, must now co-operate if they are to survive.

The movie was brilliant, one of the best Hindi movies I've seen in a very long time. Shahid pulled off his double-role so well, morphing from the quiet Guddu to the street-smart Charlie effortlessly. The scene where the two brothers first meet is very good with great direction and superb acting. Priyanka is also good, no hysterics, no over-acting. But the best of the lot is Vishal Bharadwaj. He directs this cast of top-notch theatre actors and A-class movie stars with panache, creating a film that will grip you from scene 1. He is the Indian Scorsese, he manages to tell the story of the underworld much like Scorsese told it in The Departed. The climax is reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs, a dark shootout that was awesome in its picturization. I had a lot of expectations from this movie ever since I fell in love with the Dhan Te Nan song, and it didn't let me down.

SARE CHUATTOR
Starring: Uttam Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Bhanu Banerjee
Directed by: Nilima Dey

In the Annapurna boarding house for men, a family come to stay for a few days while they search for a house in Kolkata. The daughter, played by Suchitra Sen, attracts the attention of the bachelor men. She is headstrong and frequently gets into arguments with Uttam Kumar. But opposites attract, and the two find themselves falling in love with each other, but not before a lot of misunderstandings and confusion ensue in the process.

This is a really cute Bengali romantic comedy made in the 1950s. It stars the golden couple of Bengali cinema, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen, and they look positively adorable. But more than the romance, it is the comedy in this movie which is par excellence. It has two great comedians, Bhanu and Tulsi Chakraborthy, who light up the screen with their performance. The comedy of errors involving Tulsi Chakraborthy and his wife, is the best part of the movie, and reaffirmed my opinion that he is one of the most under-rated actors of Bengali cinema. The songs are also very good, especially the light and frivolous Amar E Joubon (My Youth). If you are a Bengali, don't miss it (of course, if you are a Bengali, you've probably seen it already).

SPACE, THE FINAL FRONTIER

This is the novelization of the first Star Trek movie, and the only one written by the series’ creator Gene Roddenberry. I don’t think I will have the opportunity to watch the movie anytime in the near future, so I thought, why not read the book?

After the series’ five-year mission came to an end, Kirk was made an Admiral and Spock returned to Vulcan to erase his human self. But when a strange cloud with a consciousness appears to be headed towards Earth, Kirk assumes command of the spaceship and is joined by the whole team: Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura. They race against time to find how to destroy the cloud and save Earth in the process.

This book would be a little pointless to read if you don’t have any idea of the Star Trek Universe, so I suggest you either watch the series or the latest movie before reading this. I'll anyways tell you the basic background. Enterprise is a ship whose mission is "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new civilizations, to boldly go where no-one has gone before". Its crew comprises Captain James T. Kirk, his half-Vulcan half-human first officer Mr Spock, chief medical officer Leonard McCoy, chief engineer Montgomery Scott, weapons officer Pavel Chekov, helmsman Hikaru Sulu and communications officer Uhura. There is a lot of techno-babble in the book, all warp speeds and thrusters and controls and all, a little disconcerting to non-geeks. But it didn’t hinder my reading, but that could probably because I’ve been watching random episodes of Star Trek. I was a little worried that the book would read like an extended script, but it didn’t. In a movie, we see more action, but in the novel you see what the people undergo, their hopes and fears, and how they react to the hostile conditions. The book concentrates more on Kirk, while Spock is my favorite character and I wanted to know more about him. But there was something superficial about the book I couldn’t really put my finger on, something that kept me from being absorbed in the story completely. An interesting book, nevertheless.

One of my favorite thriller authors, one I've grown up with. Frederick Forsyth is the author I'm featuring this month.

Brief Bio: Forsyth was born in Ashford, Kent, educated at Tonbridge School and and later attended the University of Granada in Spain. After serving as one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force, he became a journalist, joining Reuters and then BBC. His first full-length novel, The Day of the Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller. Since then, he has written many bestselling novels, some of which have been turned into movies, notably Dogs of War, The Fourth Protocol and The Odessa File.

Selected Bibliography:




The Day of the Jackal
The Odessa File
The Dogs of War
The Devil's Alternative
The Fourth Protocol
The Fist of God
The Icon
The Afghan

My Views: I haven't reviewed a single Forsyth book on my blog, but it's not for the want of reading them, but because I read every single one of them long before I started blogging. I probably will review a couple of them soon, but as of now, there are no reviews you can read.

I was introduced to Forsyth when I filched my dad's library copy of The Day of the Jackal many years ago. Since then, I devoured his books, and I loved most of them. He is usually my benchmark when I read other thriller authors, I keep comparing them with the thrill I felt as I turned each page of The Day of the Jackal or The Devil's Alternative, my two favorite Forsyth books.

What will strike you when you read his books is the amount of research involved. From money laundering to identity theft to stealth satellites to political maneuvering, every word he writes is carefully researched. The meticulous plotting and the keen eye for detail keeps you hooked. And also, almost every book has the twist in the tale, the hidden agenda which is revealed at the end which brings things to a head. His books have a heady pace, but nowhere do you feel it is rushed. Though recently, I've felt that the magic of his writing is dimming: I had a lot of difficulty finishing The Afghan.

A lot of the stuff Forsyth describes in his books have actually come to pass. For example, the technique of identity theft he describes in The Day of the Jackal was actually possible during the time he wrote it, and the bugging of IRA leaders' coffins by British agents was also confirmed by the government. Almost all his books feature fictional events happening to or connected to real life personalities. This trueness to real life is something I find awesome, it adds a touch of reality to the grandiose plot and makes you believe that the events he describes in his stories could actually be true.

If you have not read Forsyth, you are definitely missing something. Whether or not you like thrillers, I am sure you'll be hooked by the world of assassins and spies he creates.

THE GHOSTS OF GIRLFRIENDS' PAST
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner
Directed by: Mark Waters

Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) is a womanizing fashion photographer. At his younger brother's wedding, he makes it amply clear that he doesn't believe in love or marriage. That night, he is visited by three ghosts, three women in his life who show him how he has treated women and what will happen if he continues on his present ways. They give him a chance to reform and reconnect with his childhood sweetheart Jennie (Jennifer Garner).

The movie was below average. I think romantic movies survive on the cuteness factor and quotable quotes, and this movie had neither. Jennifer Garner looked old, and McConaughey could not really bring out the roguish charm that his character was supposed to possess. If there was something good about this movie, it was Emma Stone as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Her high-school act was comic and endearing. Watch this if you have nothing else to do.

X MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston
Directed by: Gavin Hood

When James Howlett sees his father being killed by the groundskeeper Thomas Logan, bone claws shoot out of his hand to impale Logan. He then learns that Logan was his father, and flees with half-brother Victor Creed. After surviving three wars due to their regenerative abilities, Logan (Jackman) and Victor (Schreiber) are recruited by Major William Stryker (Danny Huston), along with other mutants, to form the mercenary group Team X. Disgusted by the bloodthirsty ways of his comrades, Logan leaves the team and builds a new life with girlfriend Kayla Silverfox. But he can't hide for long, so when Striker comes calling and Victor a.k.a Sabertooth comes hunting, Logan must embrace his animal side and become Wolverine.

I thought this movie was super cool. I've loved Jackman in the X-Men movies, and here he carries the story on his muscly shoulders. I especially loved the scene in Stryker's lab, when he emerges from the tank after being implanted with adamantium. Schreiber was also excellent and complements Jackman very well. Their fights are very well executed, and bring out the menacing and animal nature of Wolverine and Sabertooth. The final fight of Wolverine and Sabertooth vs Deadpool was one to die for, it was awesome. This is a classic superhero movie, it has deadly villains, the tortured hero, fabulous fights, the works. Go watch it, if you haven't already.

P.S. Here are this week's giveaways, since I missed my Sunday Salon post.
Trisha's Book Blog is giving away Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men by till August 28
Book Tumbling has Frozen Tears by Mary Ann MacAfee to give away till September 2

I find poetry hard to understand, the subtle nuances and hidden meanings often escape me. For a long time, this has been a reason why I avoided poetry like the plague. But I realized that I am avoiding a very rich, very varied source of literature. So, starting today, I am going to devote this fortnightly to poetry, especially to poets I have never heard of, though I will definitely come back to the masters from time to time. I hope you readers will join me in this poetry reading and carry on the tradition (if you can call it that) on your blogs as well.

This week, I will start off with the Salvadoran Poet Roque Dalton. He was a political activist, journalist and poet associated with the People's Revolutionary Army, shot dead in 1975. His most popular poem is Poema de Amor (Love Poem). In this poem, originally "El Descanso Del Guerrero", he writes about the fate of the modern revolutionaries, whose deaths raise more questions than their lives.

THE FALLING OF THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS

The dead are more unmanageable every day.

Before it was easy with them:
we gave flowers to the uptight ones
we gave the relatives the names on one long list:
to these we gave national borders
to those we gave remarkable peace
that one we gave a monstrous marble tomb

Then we saluted the memory of the corpses
and went to their cemetery rows
marching to the compass of old music.

But where the dead go
is different now.

Today they ask
ironic questions.

And it seems to me that they fall more and more
on account of being
more and more
the majority.