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Reviews
Baseraa (1981)
Original story, superb performances!!
I have always ranked Basera as one of the finest stories ever filmed in Hindi cinema. The film tells the story of a happy family suddenly faced with tragedy and how they try to cope with an altered situation.
Rakhee is brilliant in her role, if this was a Hollywood film, she would have certainly won an Oscar!! The scene where she yearns for her husbands affection upon her return is particularly touching, and the final scenes between Rakhee and Poonam Dhillon are simply fantastic and guaranteed to make you cry (by virtue of Rakhee's powerful performance)
Rekha has also played the character extremely well. Overall a great movie which has been lovingly directed, super performances topped with RD's fine music. Unfortunately a highly under-rated movie!
Avatar (2009)
Old wine in a shimmering new bottle
For those of you who grew up watching Bollywood movies of the 60's, 70's and some 80's.. I bet you will have the same reaction as I did, that of seeing the same old plot in every 3rd Bollywood movie of the time.. "daughter of the head tribesman falling in love with a alien (in our case, the alien was mostly the city bred boy), in the end love triumphs and so on.."
An old plot treated with loads of CGI and tempered with the topical message of 'save the planet'
Don't expect to be able to notice individual performances, the movie is all about visual appeal (in my view- a remarkable job done!.
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Quantum of Solace- where is the Spy who we loved?
I consider myself the biggest bond fan at least in South Asia. Having closely followed anything to do with Bond for over 20 years, I walked out of the theater with a broken heart. My excitement at watching my hero 'come back' in a sequel to Casino Royale lay shattered to pieces.
There are somethings in life(and movies) which are sacrosanct like the opening gun barrel sequence in a Bond movie. I respect the need for change and evolution etc, but not featuring the opening gun barrel shot at the beginning is a blasphemy. The director Marc Foster is known for making fine 'arty' movies, but a Bond film is a Bond film.. the formula has been successful for over 40 years, why change it now?? and at what cost? - I (and I am sure at least half the world) have been emotionally scarred.
The film is peppered with a fast pace car chase, a mid air dogfight and fight sequences, in my opinion it was too fast paced, I don't think audience had time to understand the context of each scene. Peter Hunt also tried fast pace editing which worked well in the early bonds, but here it just made the format complicated and confusing. I was unable to admire the sets because of this fast edit, slash and burn concept.
Judi Dench has more scenes than any other Bond leading lady in the past, to me it meant loosing M's mysteriousness, in other words M's has been overexposed, having said this, Judi Dench's portrayal of M is flawless. Daniel Craig's hard work comes across in his depiction of Bond, Mathieu Amalric as the villain has done justice to his character. Others include Olga Kurylenko as the revenge seeking tough leading lady, no matter how hard they try not be like the previous Bond girls, they end up becoming one.
I do hope the producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli (both of whom I admire immensely) take note and reverse the new order in the next Bond film.
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Dame Agatha Christie would be very proud
I saw this film on DVD recently after nearly 20 years and I was mesmerized. As a lay person, to me every detail of this movie seems near perfect. Be it the quaint location, not so subtle costumes, production design, music and you name it. Not to mention the clever plot. The acting skills displayed by such stalwarts as James Mason, Dame Diana Rigg, Dame Maggie Smith are superb (naturally!). Every actor has played the character to the hilt. I would give full marks to director Guy Hamilton for recreating an upper society European holiday of the 1930s. This is a must have film for Agatha Christie/murder mystery enthusiasts. 'Evil under the sun' is a fine film and comes a close second only to 'Murder on the Orient express'